Times staff reflects on the year

Staff Editorial

As the academic year comes to a close, it now comes time to take stock of the year, both good and bad or otherwise ambiguous.

The many numerous changes to school including the addition and subtraction of faculty and staff members has been wholly confusing to most of us. It seems like sometimes Mount Mercy is a revolving door as staff changes occurred frequently. Phil Adams was hired, and then left us suddenly, feeling confused about the long hiring process and then the short tenure, typified by a sudden resignation, without warning or reason.

X-Wires took over campus Internet access, and connection speeds went down, and access went down and sometimes back up again.

Along with leaving, there was also the arrival of the new. New direction for the college itself. New name for the college. New core curriculum. It’s hard to tell at this point whether any of these changes are good or bad.
For now these things remain under the category of neither good nor bad, just new.

Other changes to policy have drastically affected student life here. The new hard-nosed approach to parking policy has had many students and visitors scrambling to register their vehicles, in the face of threats of towing.

The weather policy left commuters annoyed and in danger, driving to school when all other Cedar Rapids colleges were cancelled and having to find places for their children whose classes were also cancelled.

Mount Mercy also expanded is campus in anticipation of growth, adding to its property with the Wenig road purchase. This along with the addition of graduate programs, a new focus on international studies and the change to Mount Mercy University, it seems that the place we have come to know will never be the same again.

This isn’t necessarily bad. It means that our memories will come to serve as the best recollections of what it was to be here before the changes took place. When we return, years later, or sooner, it will be these thoughts that serve to remind us that no matter how much changes, so much remains the same, for us and for the college.