I am a tenured professor in the humanities at a flagship public university in the Northeast. In the latest chancellor’s latest pursuit of excellence, the university has built impressive, state-of-the-art science and residential buildings all over campus. It also recently overspent about $2 million in public funds in its ongoing, misguided effort to expand the football program.

On the humanities side of campus, rats, roaches, and even spontaneous fires have become no big deal. At the start of every semester, students pass out in the un-air conditioned classrooms (which regularly get over 95 degrees), but we wear our coats in the winter because the broken windows were repaired with cardboard and duct tape.

In my office, pink liquid has been slowly oozing from the ceiling and down the wall for the last five years. I have put in several maintenance requests, but two different campus unions are in arbitration, trying to decide who is responsible for dealing with the mess. Indigent individuals live in the stairwell and sponge bathe in the restroom. An undergraduate woman was attacked in the lobby of the building last year.

This semester I’m teaching in the old gymnasium, in the classroom next to the swimming pool. It stinks of chlorine and is incredibly humid. It also has a window that looks out onto the pool. Last time I taught in this room, it was during swim team practice; fortunately, the pool hasn’t been in use (yet) this semester. The room has no technology, unless you count the old overhead projector chained to the wall. It’s a film studies class.

I put my room change request in months before the semester started, but I’m not hopeful. They already ignore my disability accommodations, why should I expect them to care about my instructional requirements?