So some beloved characters are sitting at a bar. Kermit sighs and says, “It’s not easy being green.” Hulk nods and says, “Hulk understand.” Across the table, a swirly energy-efficient lightbulb laughs and says “you have no idea.”

Ba-dum-tsh.

Kermit has a point; it really isn’t easy being green. Especially not on this campus. No, I’m not talking about the lack of energy efficient light bulbs, or the fact that nobody really knows where the recycling goes at the end of the day. I’m talking about grass.

It is very unsafe to be a blade of grass on this campus — especially on the east side of campus. Lately, it seems like the administration has decided that campus is never going to expand again so we better just shove a bunch of unnecessary buildings in a 50-square-foot radius of land that used to be used for pick-up games of soccer and Frisbee.

I didn’t realize that the campus had decided that a nice lawn was unnecessary until the other day, actually. My friends and I had gone to the grocery store and were dropping off someone who lives in Opus and I almost had a coronary when I saw orange tape, loads of dirt and concrete in place of green.

What is this building on campus going to be used for, anyhow? Diving into the archives of my Creighton email, I was told that it was to become an “Athletic Training and Practice Facility … referred to as the ‘Championship Center,’” which is fabulous, of course. It’s not like we just built a giant new gym about 10 feet from where the grass-killing eye sore is going up. Oh no wait, we did.

Creighton … I’m going to level with you, I know that you’re quite fond of your athletes. I have to agree; I’ve had classes with some of the baseball and soccer guys, and the Lady Jays and they’re pretty awesome. They’re not, however, the only students who attend your school. There is no way you have enough athletes at this school to fill up three full-sized gyms with all the works.

It’s great that according to your website, the $11 million for this project comes from “generous donations,” but it kind of stings when you hike up tuition and then urge students to donate to fund their educations while simultaneously building another new athletic building that I personally will likely never see the inside of. I will see the outside of it though, next to the last anemic patch of non-dorm-domain grass this side of 24th Street. What I’m saying is that I just wish the planning committee had had the foresight to add an extra level or two to the Rasmussen Center.

The university has regular events where they force the hungry section of the student body to migrate down to that section of campus for mediocre grill-out food. Where are they going to serve us that food? Where are we going to sit? I have fond memories of my first “Getting Blue BBQ,” actually. It was a nice day, I made new friends and everyone was lounging on the grass or rolling around or throwing Frisbees. Now I suppose the incoming freshmen will be relegated to the remaining patch of grass next to Cass Street, the interstate and various

parking lots.

I can’t help but feel like one of these days they’re going to replace the wasted space in front the KFC with a tennis court, or that someone high up is going to decide that the lawn in front of the science building would make a really fantastic parking garage. That patch of grass between Deglman and Swanson would probably be a rocking fountain surrounded by a concrete mosaic and why should there be a peaceful green space between the Epply Building and Hitchcock? Time to turn that sucker into another random giant concrete patio that we use once a year.

Don’t worry, they probably won’t touch the Jesuit Gardens. You don’t mess with the Jesuits.

The fact of the matter is that we live in a very specific area of Nebraska that might be called urban. We should take care of our green space because there are a lot of decrepit, long-since-it’s-been-used buildings that would probably cost less than $11 million to buy and renovate right next to campus, but there are not a lot of beautiful green spaces. The university needs to sort out its priorities and realize that grass really should be one of them.