I wish our school had stuff like this.
Students now get massages, pedicures and manicures at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, while Washington State University boasts of having the largest Jacuzzi on the West Coast. It holds 53 people.
Play one of 52 golf courses from around the world on the room-sized golf simulators at Indiana University of Pennsylvania —- which use real balls and clubs.
Only about 100 miles away, Pennsylvania State University’s student center has two ballrooms, three art galleries, a movie theater with surround sound and a 200-gallon tropical ecosystem with newts and salamanders. Oh, and a separate 550-gallon salt-water aquarium with a live coral reef.
Ohio State University is spending $140 million to build what its peers enviously refer to as the Taj Mahal, a 657,000-square-foot complex featuring kayaks and canoes, indoor batting cages and ropes courses, massages and a climbing wall big enough for 50 students to scale simultaneously. On the drawing board at the University of Southern Mississippi are plans for a full-fledged water park, complete with water slides, a meandering river and something called a wet deck —- a flat, moving sheet of water so that students can lie back and stay cool while sunbathing.
Actually, not at the cost of terribly higher fees. But these things sure are tempting. Are you listening, Mr. President of my school?
On the other hand, there was no pay raise this year for University System of Georgia employees (that includes teaching and research assistants). In fact, quite a few TAs got their stipends reduced because they are now working one-third time (13 hrs/week) instead of one-half time (20 hrs/week) because of budgetary constraints.
