Being in a state of perpetual construction is a feeling all Umass Boston students share. Having all attended UMB for several years, we have come to an inevitable conclusion: our campus is probably crumbling into the ocean. The underground garages look like creepy abandoned tunnels long ago forsaken by human beings, the Morrissey Boulevard entrance was supposed to be done last year and who knows what is going on with the McCormack stairs. The latest area effected by the UMB construction curse is the Healey Library stairs, which have been sealed off since the start of semester. According to an email sent out by Dorothy F. Renaghan, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management on August 2nd, the repairs were supposed to be finished on September 3rd. Since the deadline passed there has been no indication of when the work might be completed. Closing the staircase, which played a key part controlling the pedestrian flow around campus, has cause the already congested catwalks to become gridlocked before and after classes. The problem is that these on-going projects do not appear to be focused on accomidating the growing student body at UMB, but instead they are focused on propping-up the decaying infastructure that already exists. We have more students then ever this year (over 15,000), but the campus is shrinking because of these encroaching construction sites. If we can’t get the steps at UMB refinished within a month, one can only imagine what this means for the supposed 25 year “master plan,” which is meant to be an entire overhaul of campus and includes the much talked about new science building. If we were to apply the current construction trends to the master plan, that means it will be completed in closer to 50 years, and at that point it won’t matter because Dorchester will probably we underwater due to rising sea levels.