By JACOB BASKES Aug. 30, 2018

Students attended their first classes of the year on Wednesday, marking the beginning of the 2018-2019 academic season and the long-awaited opening of Bowdoin’s Roux Center for the Environment. Despite setbacks in construction, the Center was opened just in time, although students are required to don hard hats and safety vests in order to protect themselves from falling pipes, scaffolding debris, and the small cranes still establishing the building’s outer shell.

“We are excited to be holding classes in the new Roux Center for the Environment,” wrote Dean Elizabeth McCormack in a recent email to the campus community. “Though we do advise that students come prepared for the whole thing to collapse at any time. Hard hats and field notebooks will be available in the Bowdoin Bookstore throughout the week.”

On top of continuing construction into the academic year, the College also had to cut back funding for building materials. “We are dangerously close to being over-budget,” said architect Manuel Rivera. “We resorted to dirt floors and popsicle stick crossbeams. It’s unfortunate, but it means we get the whole thing done on time. Actually, not even. It means we’re behind schedule and that the slightest breeze could knock it all over and crush every soul inside.”

The College has also announced that new student housing, originally scheduled to open at the start of the 2019-2020 academic year, will be opening before Homecoming weekend. “To match our peer institutions,” McCormack continued, “we have turned to underground burrow housing for upperclassmen. Bring flashlights, and make sure to report any damage to the rooms promptly upon moving in.”

“Trust me,” she wrote. “It’s still better than living off campus.”