Ball State University has improved immensely in the past few years.
Aesthetically, it's obvious. Shafer Tower, Scheumann Stadium's renovation and the David Letterman Communication and Media Building are all recent efforts to beautify the campus.
Multiple colleges and departments have also made reputations for themselves across the nation. Architecture, telecommunications and others have carried Ball State to prominence.
Despite the university's relatively minor achievements, it has failed to undertake an initiative that would do wonders to ensure the safety of its students and faculty: protect them from massive zombie invasion.
It seems like an obvious project to tackle, yet the administration refuses to acknowledge the dismal, albeit unlikely, possibility that each of its students' flesh will be indiscriminately ripped from the bone by mindless, blood-thirsty killing machines.
Of course campus has dozens of buildings in which to hide when the undead rise and walk among us, but most buildings have so many huge, glass windows around doors and on the ground floor that would be easily bypassed by an army of the skulking fiends.
Students and faculty will likely seek refuge in the Atrium, which has windows almost all the way around its base. It will no doubt be the first place hundreds will run to for geographic reasons. These people will be effortlessly overwhelmed and collectively suffer a slow, agonizing demise.
Most construction has been within campus borders.
Some projects are pushing the boundaries further into Muncie, but it is not happening quick enough to alleviate the population density on campus. With so many residence halls in such a small area, it wouldn't be long before everyone you know is trying to inexplicably devour your face. If the attack came on a week night or early morning, most of the peaceful sleepers would have bite-sized chunks missing from their bodies before they woke up.
Most who escape the zombie death traps will do so by plummeting multiple stories out of a window. They would have quite a trek ahead of them if they wished to make it to their cars in a desperate attempt. If they made it to their respective parking lots without suffering the horrible fate that so many of their friends will have suffered, the situation there wouldn't be much more encouraging. With each slab of living, human meat feeding the unsatisfiable hunger of these remorseless zombies, more of the resistance becomes the nightmares that are tirelessly chasing you to your doom.
University Police are severely under equipped to handle a situation in which they would have to throw down some justice against the forces of the undead. The staff of about 30 would be spread out and underarmed. If they managed to organize a search and rescue mission on campus, they would be overpowered by the thousands of students turned to rabid beasts. Their arsenal would need to grow exponentially.
The administration certainly doesn't care about this, and, unless students speak out about the issue, it won't be addressed. Student leaders need to take charge and make the administration realize this is a serious matter.
Tommy Conroy is a senior majoring in journalism and writes 'State of Balls' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Tommy at teconroy@bsu.edu
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