At long last, Bernie Willie is finally getting air conditioning!

One of my first articles for The Comenian was a rant on dorm life, and in it, I complained extensively about the lack of AC in Bernie Willie. 

To say the least, my experience with Bernie Willie was horrible. Living there was like living in the fiery pits of hell. Every day, day in and day out, I would be drenched in sweat from the sheer unbearable heat of that building. It didn’t matter what season it was; living in that building felt like living in a sauna but with less relaxing steam and more sweat. I now know how Santa feels when entering through a burning fireplace.

It was so bad in there at times that I would legitimately not be able to do work in my room because the heat was so distracting and oppressive. I understood that there were other places on campus to work, but if I wanted to work in my room, I shouldn’t have to go somewhere else.

Even worse was that we couldn’t even get a window AC unit (which still confounds me, so if someone would like to explain to me, please do). It felt like getting kicked after already being knocked down due to the dehydration that came from all that sweating.

This may sound more like a rant because that’s exactly what it is. To truly understand how much of a good thing Bernie-Willie getting AC is, you also have to understand how abysmally awful it was living there.

It’s a common joke on campus that there are two kinds of people, Rau-Hassler kids, and Bernie-Willie kids. You know how old people always say how easy our generation has it? That’s what we Bernie-Willie kids do to Rau-Hassler kids, and now that Bernie-Willie is getting AC, we officially have become the old people complaining about how young people have it easy.

I can almost guarantee you that former residents of the infamous dorm will start saying stuff like, “Back in my day we had to have seven fans blowing on us just to survive the day.”

Regardless of my saltiness that my parents didn’t wait an extra year or two to have me, I am ecstatic that new incoming freshmen won’t have to endure the same pain that we have. I would have killed to walk into that building and feel the cold air envelop my skin after walking in the warm summer air.

To put this into perspective, putting AC in this building will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so this isn’t exactly a chump change the school can just throw around. I’m not an expert or anything, and I don’t know the exact number, but Moravian’s website says it can house 272 students which means there are around 136 rooms in the building. According to my engineer dad’s rough estimates, it would be around $2,000 per room. In total that would equal around $272,000 plus installing AC in all the bathrooms and laundry rooms which would bring it to nearly $300,000.

Now, of course, I don’t know specifics, and I could very well be completely off but regardless, Moravian is throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into renovating Bernie Willie, which shows that they are truly committed to responding to student feedback because this is a large undertaking especially so close to the upcoming HUB renovations.

So thank you, Moravian, for finally ensuring no one has to suffer as we Bernie Willie residents have ever again.