SFA is planning on demolishing Hall 16 and constructing a new dining hall on its site to replace Eatery on East. With SFA celebrating its 100th year soon, the University looks to update and modernize buildings on campus. This has been seen recently with the new Loddie Naymola Basketball Performance Center and the expansion to the Griffith Fine Arts building. Once the new dining hall is open, the University plans to demolish Eatery on East and replace it with green space, removing an important piece of campus culture that thousands of students have passed through since 1966.
Part of SFA’s charm is that it resides in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas. The streets and buildings on campus feel alive with history, and The University takes pride in this and promotes it on their website, stating, “History is part of the fabric of the place we call SFA.” However, this statement is contradictory to the demolition of Eatery on East.
The dining hall has been open since 1966, and has served almost 60 years of food, friendships, and memories to all SFA students. Demolishing the building will erase those memories from campus unnecessarily. Both the Loddie Naymola Basketball Performance Center and the Griffith Fine Arts expansion found ways to incorporate and celebrate older buildings on campus while modernizing them. The Loddie Naymola Basketball Performance Center is connected to the William R. Johnson Coliseum, and the Griffith Fine Arts building is only expanding and renovating the original building. This way, the memories of the older buildings will remain while updating it into the modern era. SFA should do the same for Eatery on East.
One reason SFA has decided to build a new building instead of renovating, is so they can offer new dining services that will attract incoming students. However, Eatery on East is already sufficient for students’ needs, and SFA has other buildings that have desperate need for renovations, such as the Ferguson Liberal Arts building and the Miller Science building, which both need renovations to better serve students’ educational needs. SFA should focus on modernizing classrooms to offer exciting elements of education to draw incoming students, instead of relying on their amenities.
So, while the University needs to continue to renovate and modernize buildings across campus to remain a competitive university, they should be careful to persevere the history, memories and charm of the older buildings that make SFA special.
