In high school, many assemblies and all-school events took place in the main gym because it was the most convenient space. Over the past few years at Marquette, however, students have been forced to take several classes in the Marquette Gymnasium.
Students said the classes are uncomfortable and isolated, but others see why the university might need to make such accommodations.
“Taking a class in the gymnasium feels out of place,” Rachel Harmon, a junior in the College of Communication, said in an email. “Taking a theology or English class in the same building as collegiate athletes and members of ROTC is quite odd. I feel like classrooms don’t belong in the gymnasium.”
Emily Petersen, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said it is a difficult and confusing process just trying to find the class.
“The building is split in two sides that do not connect so it’s easy to get lost, enter in the wrong door and not be able to find your room,” Petersen said in an email. “Furthermore, the building is dark, dreary, smells like a gym and the most convenient bathroom is in the basement.”
Petersen has taken three classes in the gymnasium and views it differently than a normal classroom at Marquette.
“It feels isolated from the rest of campus,” Petersen said in an email. “The rooms and technology are not as advanced as other buildings.”
Harmon also said she sees the location and the classrooms as just plain odd.
“It’s out of the way,” Harmon said in an email. “It’s just odd. I feel much more comfortable and feel as if I belong more in the classrooms of Lalumiere, Cudahy or Johnston.”
Harmon, who is currently taking her second class in the gymnasium, said she believes the university is just running out of room to accommodate every class and resorts to using the gymnasium. Petersen said she sees space constraints in other buildings as the reason.
“I’ve also only ever had upper-division English classes in the gymnasium,” Petersen said in an email. “So my assumption is that those classes are relegated to there because the department does not have a designated building and are in less demand.”
