The elevator problems in Lewis House are unacceptable. The Hustler first reported on complaints from students living in Lewis about one of the dorm’s two elevators constantly breaking down. The elevator outage means longer delays getting in and out of the building, making students late for class and other activities and causing general inconvenience.

The residents of Lewis, like all on-campus students, pay the university for room and board. What that money ostensibly pays for is living space, regular cleaning of bathroom areas, safety and security within the dorm and the convenience of living on campus. While an elevator outage is certainly not the most pressing issue, it goes without saying that the residents of Lewis are being deprived of a service they have already paid for.

As Vanderbilt continues to insist that more students live on campus (and pay the high price of room and board), there is an expectation that amenities are maintained and improved. The improvements in Kissam Quad are an excellent example of this, but changes like these may be too little and too late. While first-year students enjoy the new or recently renovated dorms on Peabody campus, many upperclassmen have been forced to return to their freshman year dorms. Others, like those in Lewis, are seeing the consequences of neglect for some of the older dorm buildings, and all of Highland Quad has endured the cacophony of construction all semester. Residents of some Carmichael Towers rooms have reported problems with plumbing, including poor water heating or even long periods of time without any water.

All of these inconveniences are survivable, yet there is something inherently wrong with the fact that students are not getting what they have paid for. Rather than put up with some of the more egregious living problems, students should make more noise about not receiving what is expected of the university. For all the talk about living together as a learning community, the bare bones of the matter is that students and their families are paying for a product. When the resident has paid but the university is not delivering, all students should be outraged at such a breach of contract.

If the maintenance of dorm building utilities and services, like the elevator in Lewis, is too much for Housing to care for, then the university should consider, for the sake of its students, lifting the virtual embargo on off-campus housing for a majority of students. Perhaps introducing a housing market would compel the university to actually provide higher quality housing arrangements. As it currently stands, however, the housing monopoly will guarantee problems like what students have seen in Lewis, unless the customers lobby their student government, Housing and the university administration to see that we are getting the best bang for our collective buck.