My beloved alma mater and totally financially stable college, Wittenberg University, has recently announced plans to build a $30 million athletic facility, which sounds amazing—except for the fact that the university doesn't quite have all the funds to pay the bill.

The university has currently raised about $16 million dollars in private donations and is eligible for almost $9 million in tax credits. But thankfully, instead of designing and building a $25 million athletic facility with the funds we currently have, the university has decided to go ahead and attempt to receive an additional $5 million to complete the project.

Since the university is so dedicated to raising this money, I figured I would go ahead and and submit my pitches for the next time we just happen to come across $30 million, which I assume will be very soon if we decide to raise this kind of funds to replace a relatively new, "state of the art" facility.

1. 30 Million McChickens

Valued at a measly $1, the money currently being raised to fund the new Athletic facility could instead purchase 30 million McChickens, assuming we got the sandwiches to go in order to avoid dine-in tax. A McChicken has 357 calories per sandwich. Based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet, 30 million of them could provide a single person with 5,355,000 days worth of food.

2. More "Out of Order" Signs for the Gym Equipment

Wittenberg's Bob Rosencrans Fitness Center is at the ripe old age of 9 years old, which at this point means it's practically useless to students and should be replaced. However, despite the fact that it's already almost half the age of its average 18- to 22-year-old patron, the center has a shocking amount of working equipment—which just goes to the state-of-the-art nature of the center and equipment. I long for the day when each and every piece of equipment can have its own, beautiful "Out of Order" sign so we can throw it all away and replace it with a brand new center, because this is clearly a less expensive alternative to fixing the equipment.

3. A Position for "Out-of-Order Sign" Maker

With $30 million we could create a paid position tasked with designing, creating, and hanging up our ever-growing number of "Out of Order" signs. The person tasked with this position would be an official university employee and would even get their very own overly official title, such as Machine-Status Reporting Liason (MSRL).

With $30 million we could even pay our MSRLs, or really, any faculty or staff member (say, custodial staff, I don't know, I'm just spit-balling here) $100,000 per year for 300 years.

4. Lessons For Re-Racking Weights, Taking Care of Equipment, and Basic Gym Etiquette

In case the idea of MSRLs sounds silly to you, we could always go the other route and teach students how to properly take care of the costly gym equipment that the university provides. I go to the current gym, the HPER center, four to five times per week to work out, and anyone there can tell you, no one cares less about the condition of the equipment than the students who use it. Weights are left wherever they were last used, barbell weights will remain on the bars and will never be re-racked, and forget about working in—if someone happens to get to the weights you need before you do, they will hoard them like they're starring on a show on TLC.

Perhaps we could raise $30 million to create classes to properly educate student-athletes to properly care for the equipment provided—so we can make sure to throw out nothing but perfectly good equipment when we build a new facility.

These classes could even serve as gen-ed credit as well as a 100-level course in a new department such as:

5. A Football Major

Wittenberg has a great football team (I've been told), but despite our alleged superior stats, we seem to have a bit of trouble with retention. According to our most recent roster, of our 137 players, 72 are freshman, with numbers steadily dropping per class to only 13 seniors. And—although I appreciate the irony that is building a $30 million dollar stadium for a team with dwindling interest and diminishing returns—it is because of these troubling statistics that I propose the B.A. in "Sportsball."

The next time Wittenberg finds itself with a $30 million surplus (well... maybe just $30 million we're willing to spend) we should establish a football major; that way we can have a larger team and retain not only players, but full-time students—as many ex-players are like to transfer. And we could make sure all those "academic scholarships" are, well, academic. This would also give many players a field that they are truly interested in, freeing up resources in other areas of study.

Speaking of the business department:

6. Fix Carnegie

Carnegie Hall, the most recent home to the business department, is a beautiful historic building donated over 100 years ago from the Andrew Carnegie. The building is described by Wittenberg's own website as a:

"historic building [which] was the first science hall on campus and is the former home to the departments of geography, sociology, urban studies and management."

Reading further, however, one will discover that the building was

"Closed in the fall of 2014, Carnegie Hall is currently awaiting renovations to take this turn-of-the-century building into the future."

I just hope that our next $30 million dollar project—after replacing a perfectly functioning athletic center—could be renovating this building which, you know, actually needs it.

Renovating Carnegie, alongside the addition of a football major, would not only free up resources, but would leave the Business department's current home in Hollenbeck Hall open—which, incidentally, would be the perfect spot for:

7. A Geography Department

Boo-Yah.

'Nuff said.

8. We Could Paint This Sign

Two-fundraising scenarios exist with regards to painting this sign, the first being that we only raise the estimated (by me) $17 required for the paint and labor or we raise $30 million dollars anyway, because we can clearly do that, and save the additional $29,999,983 to put towards something else. However, strategy number two is a bit of a double-edged sword, as the university would clearlyhave to raise 17 more dollars before we could even begin to build a new athletic facility.

9. We Could Build a Theatre that Isn't a Cafeteria

Chakeres Memorial Theatre, home to Wittenberg's Theatre and Dance Department, is my home away from home. I visit the building at least once a day, which is a feeling not many other students have, as people outside the department rarely step inside the building unless it's opening night of a production. There once was a time, however, when almost every Witt student entered this building daily; I'm speaking, of course, about when the building was a cafeteria. When the Central Dining Room opened inside the Benham-Pence Student Center, the old cafeteria was painted black, outfitted with curtains and a lighting grid and is now the building known as Chakeres Memorial Theatre.

10. Literally Any Space Designated For The Music Department

Wittenberg's Music Department educates students in a variety of musical fields, from education to performance in almost every musical pursuit, and many people who have seen the Wittenberg Choir will tell you that they are an incredibly talented group of musicians (assuming they got seats in the first seven rows of the chapel).

Due to a lack of performance venues, the Choir performs in the chapel while the acapella groups perform in the main academic building, the visual arts building, or sometimes even lecture halls in the science center.

If we've gotten this far down the list and haven't found a project that suits the burning desire to spend $30 million, I assume we have not given the football major the green-light and are looking for something that will benefit an actual academic department—a silly thought for a liberal-arts school.

But if academic interest is the route we choose for our next $30 million project, I suppose a performance space for the music and/or theatre department could do the trick, although I hope not. What do music students think they do? Pay tuition to learn their craft? Pfft....

11. Air-Conditioner Units For Every Building on Campus

Between Myers Hall and Ferncliff, not to mention all of the off-campus housing and the old portion of Woodlawn hall, much of Wittenberg University in stuck in a backwards, barbaric era that existed before the modern air conditioner. With $30 million, however, we could buy 300,000 of these A/C units for the campus. According to Google's shopping listings, these units are among the highest rated in their price category and come from the #1 rated A/C unit supplier Frigidaire, and with a campus at around 2,000 students, we could purchase 150 A/C units per capita, ushering in a contained Ice Age for our campus.

12. A Starbucks

See: #7