Every day I come to class at UCA, I’m uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable in my classes and I’m especially uncomfortable in the library. 

I’m uncomfortable because I can never seem to find a chair that doesn’t cause me pain in some type of way. On the surface, uncomfortable chairs may not seem like that big of a deal, unless you’re the one forced to sit in them everyday. 

For those of us struggling with back pain, a lot of the chairs on campus are our worst enemy. Each class that I’m in seems to have a different kind of chair than the last, and they’re all uncomfortable or highly inconvenient. They either have absolutely no back support or they’re falling apart. 

What the UCA administration may not realize is that sitting in these chairs everyday not only affects us physically, but mentally as well. There are some classes I don’t even want to attend because the chair I’m forced to sit in is so uncomfortable. Not only that, but it makes it extremely difficult to focus.

The library at UCA is the absolute worst when it comes to providing comfortable chairs. I understand that they provide booths and couches, but a lot of us are not lucky enough to snag one on a busy day. Especially during finals week.

The library is the only place many students can focus and actually get their work done, so they can’t just go somewhere else. It’s easy to tell them to just grab another chair, but that’s difficult when every single chair has something wrong with it. As students, we should be able to find a chair that the wheel doesn’t pop off of or the seat adjustment isn’t broken on. 

How can we be expected to do well in our classes when we are not provided with proper seating? Shouldn’t the amount we pay in tuition and fees at least ensure that we don’t have to be uncomfortable every single day? Isn’t proper seating the bare minimum the university could provide? 

It is the university’s responsibility to provide us with proper equipment, including proper seating. It is the least that they could do. The bottom line is, if the president of the university had to sit in the chairs that we are required to sit in every day, we’d have all brand new chairs the next day.