So what the hell are we paying for? You go to school, pay your tuition and this and that and then some extra of this. You expect a little more than a physics professor speaking in tongues. You expect some common services, like the assurance of personal safety.

That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening at ISU lately. Two different instances of administrative proctology have pointed out to us regular peons that being safe on campus and in residence halls is not a certainty. It’s more like a bonus that you can get if you can afford it.

The first of these travesties is the whole campus lighting brouhaha. For months, the Government of the Student Body has been going round and round within itself and with the administration about the issue of campus lighting.

The problem is that walking on campus at night is like being in high school and sneaking into your house without waking your parents. The difference is, when you’re walking on campus, it’s rapists and muggers you’re trying not to wake.

Especially obnoxious are the lights that turn off only when you walk under them. Affectionately labeled “rape lights,” they seem concentrated near Larch Hall. That seems pretty convenient.

Anyway, there’s no denying lighting is bad and safety is compromised because of it.

The administration wants GSB to foot the bill for new lights. Huh? Since when are matters of student’s personal safety coming from the same organization that funds the Scuba Club? Shouldn’t maintenance be a problem the university should be throwing money at?

If the stairs in Carver started to rot and students started falling into the University Dungeons while trying to get to philosophy class, would GSB be expected to pony up the money for improvements? Of course they wouldn’t.

The administration also seems to be ignoring security in the residence halls. According to a Monday Daily article, the student security budget is being dropped from $165,000 to $60,000 per year.

Anticipating a huge drop in funding, meetings have been held with residence hall administration, student security personnel, hall directors and others to figure how student security can operate in the halls with a diminished budget.

Some plans have been to have security only on the weekends, to have them working just half nights or to have one guard on duty instead of two.

These options are not viable. Bad things happen on weekdays, there are incidents to be dealt with after 2:30 a.m., and there are times when one guard just doesn’t cut it.

For those thinking, “All right, less security means more beer,” think again. If security hours are cut, RAs will be doing more rounds, so less security means the same amount of beer.

The real issue is that student security is an unparalleled asset in the residence halls. They lock and unlock doors at night. They check dining services to keep food from spoiling and your board prices from increasing further.

They are the only people who know what’s going on when you have a computer alarm in your lab, a fire alarm in your building or an ambulance pulling up in your loading zone. RAs often come to security to ask them questions about what’s going on in dorms.

I might be able to handle all of this if it was absolutely necessary, but it isn’t.

“We are trying to handle student money in a fiscally responsible way and get the best program for the dollars we have,” said Randy Alexander, director of residence, in the Monday Daily article.

What Alexander means by “fiscally responsible” is that the Department of Residence has to cut programs to make sure its budget is sufficiently in the black when it comes grant time to fund the vast, expansive Master Plan.

It is just plain negligent to sacrifice safety to get money for buildings people will actually live in so you can start making money again. In other words, our friend the dollar is getting in the way of the students being safe.

That is not acceptable. You can’t put a price tag on safety.

The Department of Residence has got to get its head out of the budget books for a couple of minutes and actually take a look at what is important on campus.

They can’t wait for a fiasco to open their eyes to this issue. They must act now.

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David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communications from Aurora.