What could one do with $2 million? People dream of winning the lottery or befriending a long-lost rich uncle who is about to bite the dust. Essentially, that’s what happened to Eastern, or at least to our seminary.
That money won’t be coming to the St. Davids campus, at least not all of it. But it allowed the Waltonian to dream a little bit about what Eastern could do with that sort of spare cash.
Here are the ten favorite options that we came up with:
1. Build a parking garage. Parking is crunched on campus, and space is limited for building more parking lots. A parking garage would provide the parking we need in less space than regular parking lots. Let’s use our newfound wealth to solve the parking problem and to save our beautiful scenery.
2. Buy Jammin’ Java-style furniture for all the lounges. Those blue or maroon chairs with the short backs and wooden sides are uncomfortable, and the big plush seats in the Java are really comfortable. Doing this, Eastern could improve dorm community, help students save on future chiropractic bills and have money left over for something else.
3. Make better food. Let’s face it; Sodexho as is doesn’t always cut it. We could give them the money they need to make more food fresh and from scratch, keep Life in the cereal dispensers and make sure the ice cream machine always works.
4. Award more scholarships. There’s lots of financial aid for needy or brilliant students. We could establish a scholarship that’s applicable to average students, too – a fund that would give every student money just for coming to Eastern.
5. Dig an Olympic-sized pool. We could have a swim team who wouldn’t have to go over to Cabrini to practice, and who might start winning swim meets.
6. Build a new dorm, now. With a growing student population, we need more space. Building a new dorm sooner than later would also allow us to stop using Pennswood.
7. Hurricane Katrina relief. Eastern raised less than half of its goal of $10,000. We could make up for that lack and put our commitment to justice into practice by putting some of the money toward the relief fund. There would still be lots of money left over for things like parking garages and new dorms.
8. Pets for the residence halls. Two million will go a long way toward buying cat litter and dog bones, not to mention giving Eastern the ability to buy some really cool pets. A baby elephant, perhaps?
9. Revive the radio station. Plenty of students don’t even know that there’s a functional radio studio in the basement of Kea Hall. Two million should be enough to convince certain FCC decisionmakers to give us a license and start the station again too.
10. A priceless artifact. With $2 million, we should be able to buy something awesome that would really put Eastern’s library on the map, like a lost 80-page musical manuscript from a genius 19th-century composer.
Inquiring Minds is the collective opinion of the editorial staff and not necessarily representative of the entire staff. It is written by the managing editor and the editor-in-chief.
Will Cunningham 
Mikaela Brown 
Sophia Hunter