“It is only April and the days are hot and humid with the temperatures already averaging between 65 and 70 degrees. As final exams draw closer, more students flock to the library and gather indoors to study. There is still a good month left of the spring semester and the University of Akron is without air conditioning.”
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It is only April and the days are hot and humid with the temperatures already averaging between 65 and 70 degrees.

As final exams draw closer, more students flock to the library and gather indoors to study. There is still a good month left of the spring semester and the University of Akron is without air conditioning.

Often air conditioning is not turned on until the beginning of May, when most students have left campus for the summer. Because it is expensive for the university to use the air conditioning, its utilization is put off until summer.

The minds of students are blurred and fuzzy as the temperature increases. The lectures of the most engaging instructors seem to drone on like the buzzing of incessant mosquitoes as our streams of consciousness fade to nothing. The warm, humid air blows in through the windows bringing on imminent sweat and sleepiness. To regain our normal attention spans, all we want is a little cool air. The way the temperatures get inside the buildings and classrooms at the university, it is almost barbaric to rely on fans and open windows.

It is a sad day when the best seat in class is the one closest to the front of the fan. Somehow, this place makes it possible for the outdoors to be cooler than indoors.

At this point in the semester, the information our instructors are giving us is vital to achieve success with finals, but how are we supposed to retain knowledge when our brains are melting?

The cost of turning on the air a month early is a necessary sacrifice. UA needs to allow its students and faculty some relief from the hot, sticky atmosphere and turn on the air. The heat is not conducive to the productivity of anyone, and it makes the academic environment miserable. One can barely keep their eyes open when it feels like it is 100 degrees in the back of an enormous, dark lecture hall. Giving a classroom that kind of environment makes learning near impossible when it feels like you’re suffocating beneath the sweltering air and the noise of the fan practically becomes a lullaby.

Turn on the AC, UA. We’re dying here.

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