Tangents & Tirades

by The Cowl Editor on September 23, 2021


Opinion


PC’s New Commitment to Health

by Emily Ball ’22

With October being a month focused on mental health awareness, Providence College will be hosting events and initiating many efforts to decrease the stigma around talking about mental health issues and seeking help.  

One of these steps is the distinction between the Health Center and the Personal Counseling Center. The Health Center is now located in Davis Hall, while the Personal Counseling Center is located in Bedford Hall. 

This separation provides more appointment bookings for students seeking help with both mental and physical health. It is also a step towards providing more privacy for students seeking mental health guidance from a professional counselor. 

“I think it is important to work on privacy because some students just don’t feel comfortable with other people knowing about what they are going through,” Maddie Guth ’22 said. “I hope that the extra space will allow students to be seen faster, especially those who may not feel completely comfortable walking into the Personal Counseling Center.” 

Separating the two centers also shows students that both mental and physical health are equally important. This is a major step in breaking down the stigma against mental health and encouraging students to seek help when they need it. 

PC’s decision to separate the Health Center and the Personal Counseling Center is one that will be beneficial to mental health awareness efforts across campus. 

 

Break the Stigma: Walk Across the Lawns

Zach Rossi ’23

It is apparent to anyone who has stepped on Providence College’s campus how much the College invests in its landscaping. Nearly every day as students walk to class, there is some sort of work being done to maintain this investment.The lawns being mowed on a consistent basis is a prime example. Whether it is the amount of effort put into the lawns or the admiration for the pathways around campus, PC students have created an unwritten stigma around walking across the grass that needs to be broken. 

Even though most students understand it would be a lot faster to cut across Slavin Lawn to get Dunkin’, everyone adheres to the pathways, most of which are spread out and take more time to walk. Put aside general convenience—it’s basic logic to cut these corners. Why do students who live in Davis walk all the way along the surrounding pathway to go to Accinno when they can cut across the grass to the parking lot? It would not only benefit students in saving some time, but professors would not have their lectures interrupted within the first few minutes by the path-adhering stragglers at 8:35 am.  

The stigma needs to end by normalizing walking across the grass on campus. In today’s PC culture, the student that walks across the lawn is the odd one out. But really, it is the people who refuse to use the lawns to save time that are the weird ones.

 

Study Spots Fight for Power

Joe Kulesza ’22

While the number of hours may vary, the amount of time students spend studying at school constitutes a considerable amount of the college experience.

Even for students who are more concerned with their ability to play beer-die than with  understanding the concept of quantitative easing in finance class, there comes a time for all students when opening a book is necessary.

And for the majority of students, the question of where they study is just as important as how.

Tradition at Providence College has allowed the library to enjoy a long interval as the premier study spot for many classes of students. In years past, one was lucky to even find an empty chair on the upper level, much less an entire table on any given weeknight.

But COVID-19 dethroned the library from its long-enjoyed incumbency, and on the post-coronavirus campus, as the power struggle between study spots has left no clear winner, the issue of where to study has become an important topic of discussion.

Among the top study spot contenders is the business school, which, compared to the library, has much more comfortable chairs.

The docket also features the Slavin Center as a top contender, which boasts many more food options than the library.

Despite these advantages, the library needs to once again reinstate its position as the best study spot on campus.

PC’s library has lived to bear witness to the sweat, tears, and last-minute papers of many generations of students, and this legacy is more important than comfortable chairs or readily available snacks will ever be.