Recognizing the unrecognized

Inspired by an editorial last week that encouraged people to praise rather than complain, I want to commend a few entities on campus whose successes often go unnoticed and whose faults are often exaggerated.

GT Police:

Crime is the lowest it's been in 10 years, according to Public Safety Sergeant Carla Cook, and she mentioned that the officers should be thanked for contributing to the reduction in crime.

I appreciate how the police force puts the protection of the student body as top priority, rather than trying to catch them in unbecoming acts. This is different from other campuses I've seen, and it's because of Tech police that this campus is a safe haven in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

Maintenance Requests:

How cool is it that when something breaks in your dorm room, all you have to do is log on to Housing's website and make a maintenance request. Within a couple of days, at a max, the problem is fixed.

I had a friend tell me about a time when her air conditioner broke in her dorm. She submitted a maintenance request at 5 p.m., and by 9 p.m. that same night the problem was fixed. Amazing.

Recently, the refrigerator light in my room burned out. I started to walk out of the room to go to the store to buy a new bulb, when my roommate said he would just make a maintenance request. I thought that they wouldn't bother with such a small, do-it-yourself task. The next day the bulb was replaced.

They'll change the height of your bed, unclog your drain, replace a leaky faucet, fix a garbage disposal, replace the air filters-basically anything you ask your mom or dad to do at home-and in a timely manner. That's impressive, if you ask me.

And while we're talking about support, how 'bout those guys at OIT?

In an age when tech support for commercial products is unimpressive and often overseas, the guys at OIT individually respond to any problem you give them, like when I had a problem with my school email not forwarding to my Gmail account. Someone responded to me the next business day.

OIT is responsible for maintaining the computers on campus, and at a technology institute such as ours, this task is especially vital. OIT, perhaps more than any other group, rarely gets credit for a job well-done but is scalded when things go awry.

OIT does a great job of making sure that the myriad of software packages installed on computers is always up-to-date. It's no lie that when I visited a peer institution over the summer, the computer I used in a lab was still running Internet 5.0 and had no alternative browser choice.

The CRC and intramurals program: Few students in the nation have access to a pool used for the Olympics, but since I'm not a swimmer, I can't appreciate the speed of this pool. I find it rather empowering to swim in the same venue as some of the world's best athletes.

The intramurals program on campus is great for students from a couple of viewpoints.

Students have a wide variety of sports to choose from and can compete on multiple skill levels.

The program emphasizes the importance of sportsmanship and camaraderie with the spirit of competition. Rankings are based on wins and losses as well on a "sportsmanship" score.

Also, the structure of the school championships this year is a welcome improvement over the A, B and C leagues of years past.

Students also have the opportunity to work as officials and supervisors in the intramurals program, and this often serves as a springboard for students who want to officiate in their careers later in life.

Tech's Tuition Policy:

Students pay for full-time status to enroll at Tech, rather than paying by the credit-hour. Thus a student pays the same amount if enrolled in 12 or 21 hours.

This policy rewards those who want to push themselves academically and perhaps finish ahead of time. At colleges that charge per credit hour, a student in essence pays more to take a tough, full semester of many classes.

Also, Tech's tuition policy is conducive to students who want to take "fun" classes, like foreign language, art history or music, because it's not going to cost you any more than normal.