Before the Undergraduate Student Government right now is an issue that is perhaps the most divisive issue in history between the right and left – handers that is.
In many of the older buildings on campus there is a distinct lack of left-handed desks in classrooms. Although no definitive statistics have measured the disparity between right- and left-handed desks, the numbers are inconsequential. If it is a problem that exists for left-handed students, then it is a problem that needs to be fixed.
The need for left-handed desks is an issue of accessibility – the same as handicapped-accessible buildings or other problems that might cause people from having an equal-opportunity to learn. Left-handed people need to have the same opportunity to learn as right-handed people.
It might seem like a nonissue to most people, but that’s because most people use their right hand to write. They sit down in class and write comfortably at their right-handed desks.
Imagine the uncomfortablity of sitting at a desk, with a perfectly-good writing surface nearby that is just far enough away to be unusable. Imagine sitting in class, clumsily taking notes on top of a folder and falling behind on the notes because of the impossibility of the situation. The writing becomes sloppier and even incoherent because there aren’t enough left-handed desks in class to provide you with a comfortable classroom experience.
Simply, this is a perfect issue for USG. If USG was not so busy trying to arm students with guns on OSU’s campus, it would see that it has tremendous power to influence and fix smaller issues that affect students in their everyday OSU lives. Smaller, but vastly more important, issues are overlooked by USG because of its grandiose ideas of changing and implementing policy over other issues which it has little, or no jurisdiction or power.
Left-handed undergraduate students are the most affected by the inaccessibility of left-handed desks, and USG should research and investigate what can be done, and how many desks are needed to alleviate the problem.
Wheelchair ramps are built if students need them, and providing students, who know this school to be one of plentiful resources, with left-handed desks should also be a priority. It is a simple problem with a simple solution – and USG undoubtedly has the money and connections to lobby the university for a change.
