Thursday, April 18—Students living in the East Residence Hall at the University of Massachusetts Boston have had many run-ins with elevator troubles. From dropping three stories to the doors not opening, the list went on. This past week several students reported further troubles, prompting an inspection by the university, which yielded shocking results. Upon further investigation, the East building turned out to never even house elevators.
Throughout this academic year, residents have been climbing flights of stairs to get to their rooms since move-in day at the beginning of Fall 2018.
Freshman French minor, Jane Doerhty stated, “When I first decided to live at [UMass Boston] I was wicked excited. It’s so cool to me that I’m one of the first students living here. But the lack of elevators was extremely surprising, especially since I’m on the top floor and have to lug all my stuff up there every day.” Roommate Maggeigh Smithson mostly agreed with Doerhty on the matter but was happy in some ways. “When I got to college I was so afraid of the ‘freshman 15.’ I mean, like, I still gained 15 pounds but it’s all pure muscle from climbing those stairs with my backpack every day.”
The West Residence Hall also has no elevators but, instead, a spiral escalator that uses conveyor belts to transport the student right to their room. The East building was originally fitted to that plan but the lack of money put that on pause and the people in the East building were given plain old staircases. When UMass Boston Administration was questioned, an office spokesperson told The Mass Media, “We realize we should’ve put elevators in, but we believe in good physical health, and this is a small way to promote that.” They went on after the question of disability came up. “Oh, we understand that and why there’s a downfall to having just stairs. That’s why we have a pulley to bring students with disabilities up to their rooms.”
Though the dorms have been revealed to not contain elevators, freshman Biology major, Johnny Brava, is another student pleased with the matter. “Sure, I was surprised because who doesn’t have elevators; but, like I’ve said before, we don’t need any of that bologna.” Brava, who just came from Zumba class, is a fitness guru with 1.3k followers on Instagram. However another student, Martin Horace, is not happy with the lack of elevators and has requested to be transferred to the West building in order to utilize all the personal escalators and conveyor belts. “They don’t even need to think about walking!” stated Horace.
Even with all the mixed reviews of the Residence halls, the final deciding factor of whether or not to put elevators in will be decided eventually sometime in the next 10 years or when they get around to it.