If you go to Cleveland State at all, then you already know what the Inner Link is. If you don't, let me explain. The Inner Link is the single greatest structural design choice that has ever existed on any university campus. It basically connects almost all the buildings on Cleveland State's campus.
Amazing, right? No unnecessary walking outside during the harsh Cleveland winters that are exacerbated by the worst Great Lake of them all, Lake Erie.
The only downside? It's locked down on the weekends — or at least it was last year.
This year, however, I noticed that for once the Inner Link wasn't being locked down on the weekends, which is a life-saver for on-campus students. We no longer have to brave the harsh winds, bitter cold, and lake effect snow that Cleveland winters bring just to go to the Viking Marketplace for our meals.
From the physical education building to the business building, the Inner Link was easily accessible for on-campus students, with only one minor stair detour between the science building and the Science and Research Center.
That is, at least, until Veteran's Day weekend.
Sunday, on my way back to Fenn Tower from the Hanna Starbucks, I decided to get on the Inner Link through the business building because it was bitterly cold.
As always, the business building itself was unlocked. There was even someone inside it! So, I hiked up the three flights of stairs to the Inner Link, approached the doors heading to the law building, and opened them... only, they were locked. This was literally the first time they've been locked all semester.
Okay, no big deal. I went back down the stairs, exited the building, and went across the street to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. This building was also unlocked, so I scaled the three flights of stairs to the Inner Link and headed towards the comm building, only to find those locked too.
So, the Inner Link on both sides of the law building and the business building was locked but the law and business buildings themselves were unlocked? Why would you lock down the Inner Link if you're not going to at least lock the whole building down?
No big deal, though. I'll just try the comm building, which was unlocked on Sunday as well (and completely locked down on Monday because of the university holiday). Luckily, on Sunday, the doors to the Student Center were unlocked, putting an end to the saga of trying to access the Inner Link.
The main issue here is the fact that the Inner Link was completely locked down but the buildings themselves were unlocked. I understand that Cleveland State doesn't want random people camping out in the empty buildings on the weekend, but it literally does not make any sense at all to lock down the Inner Link if the buildings themselves are not locked from the outside.
It also doesn't make any sense that the university does not give on-campus students access to the Inner Link over the weekends, particularly to the section between the science building and the student center.
I mean, winters in Cleveland are absolutely brutal. Downtown is a complete wind tunnel, the temperatures are way below freezing, and there's a ton of lake effect snow (which I, being from Wyandot County, did not actually think was that big of a deal until I moved to Cleveland).
Meanwhile, the Viking Marketplace and Chili's, the only places to get food on-campus over the weekend, are located in the student center — which involves us leaving the warmth of the dorms to hike through the bad weather just to get the food we are forced to pay for in our meal plan.
Frankly, neither place is worth the risk of pneumonia, frost bite, and hypothermia, but as I stated, they're the only places to get food on the weekend without having to shell out extra cash. Yet, there's a perfectly good Inner Link that we're now unable to use because it's now completely locked down over the weekend.
My question is why? Why are you now deciding to lock down the Inner Link over the weekends when you know that the weather is starting to turn bad?
You had no problem leaving it unlocked from the beginning of the semester until now. And don't say that you don't want people in the buildings over the weekend because if you actually meant that, then the buildings wouldn't be unlocked.
No on-campus resident should have to trek through the snow just to use the meal plan that you make them pay for when there is a perfectly good Inner Link available. If you’re going to start locking down the Inner Link, you need to at least give the students in the dorms access to it with our Viking I.D.
