Solving the Lincoln Hall problem

The current capital budget for the U of I includes $51 million for the renovation of Lincoln Hall. It is very unlikely the republican party will allow these funds to make it into the final budget. Meanwhile, our administration is pushing through a $250/ semester fee to get a handle on our current $800 million backlog on deferred maintenance.

Renovating old buildings is significantly more expensive than building a new, state of the art, building. Some estimates suggest we could replace Lincoln Hall for 1/4 the cost of renovation. Sadly, Lincoln Hall is historically protected, and renovation is our only option.

I'm forced to ask myself, W.W.M.D.D.. What would Mayor Daley do if he were our Chancellor? Instead of pissing away $35 million dollars, Chancellor Herman should secretly find the funds to have someone drive a bulldozer through Lincoln Hall. The next day have a press conference talking about how horrible the damage is and how tragic it is that we'll have to tear the hall down. Pull off all the awesome historical panels from the outside and remove the "lucky” President Lincoln statue (judging by the employment prospects of LAS students I'm not sure the statue is worth salvaging). Give the professors time to clean out their offices, and burn the rest of Lincoln Hall to the ground. Burn it to the ground. To the ground. Sorry, I got a little too into that.

Sadly, although some say Chancellor Herman is a "badass," he's no Mayor Daley, so we'll either never renovate Lincoln Hall or we will waste over 30 million dollars, dollars that are likely to come almost entirely from student fees.