| By Ben Wilner
A secluded set of benches and picnic tables sits under a grove of trees facing the baseball fields. For most of the day the surrounding area is quiet, empty and rather lonely. The amphitheater is vacant most of the time nowadays as well, except for the occasional person seeking privacy. The outdoor basketball and tennis courts remain deserted and dirty most of the time.
Raritan Valley Community College’s campus contains numerous locations that are off the beaten path. Often these places are empty — but not always.
“I usually went to the little courtyard behind the Cyber Café,” says Lisa Barton, a former RVCC student. “There was often no one out there, and it was a nice, quiet place to read, eat, or just hang out.”
Barton saw the positive side of these areas often being empty: She used to frequent these locations because of their seclusion. She enjoyed the sense of solitude she could get from spending time there, if she wanted to get away from the masses for a while. “Not everyone likes to stick with the crowds,” she says.
Most RVCC students seem to congregate where their classes are, which generally means around the Somerset or Hunterdon buildings. The Arts Building has its share of classes and students as well, but is nowhere near as widely used as the main center of campus. As a result, fewer people seem to find places such as the picnic tables, the atrium or small amphitheater outside the Cyber Café, the basketball or tennis courts, or the sitting areas in the various courtyards around campus.
“It’s probably not hard to miss places like that,” says Jon Busaczyk, a frequent visitor to RVCC’s campus. “Especially if you don’t hear much about those places from other students or people who work at the school.”
It is easy for many people, students and faculty alike, to overlook these locations. The campus is rather large, so it is understandable that certain areas are not as often used or even mentioned much. But as the student body increases, more people may be looking to get away from the crowds to study or for private conversation. These “forgotten” areas may eventually see more human presence in the future, but can and should this be encouraged?
“I hope there are still places to go where people can be alone if they want to,” says Busaczyk.
Mary Sullivan, executive director of Student Life & Civic Engagement at RVCC, agrees that the campus lacks a specific location that could be considered a center for students. For a community college, the campus is quite spread out.
“Students need a place to go, and the administration knows this,” Sullivan says. “There’s more than just going to classes.”
Her main question, however, is “whether or not there are enough spaces for students.”
Newer activities are being considered and developed in order to encourage students to frequent the campus for reasons other than classes. It’s likely that more people will discover the areas that seem a little starved for activity. With more people on campus, more people could potentially branch out and “re-discover” its often deserted locations.
Until then, however, places such as the picnic tables by the baseball fields will likely remain the way they have been for years: disappearing slowly
underneath the growing plants around them.
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