Form follows function.

Taxpayers approved Measure E because it was necessary for the health, safety, and advancement of the EC community. While EC has improved functionality in the issues of healthy and safety, the school seems not to have sufficiently addressed the advancement of the community.

When an architect blueprints a building, he designs the form in correspondence with the functions of the building. Every flourish and embellishment is detailed according to the purpose.

The idea behind this concept is twofold: one, the appearance of the structure should reflect its utility and two, the form of the structure is inconsequential if the structure is not functional.

As a campus, EC fulfills the requirements of this precept. The college looks like a college campus, and it’s not caving in on itself. However, EC’s form and function extends beyond its architectural framework.

EC is the network between the members and within the campus who seek to create a systematic form of higher education. The relationship between its members — the students, faculty, and administration — relies heavily upon this network and an open line of communication between all parties.

If this network is faulty, then the system loses its functionality. That is, if the network doesn’t work, then EC is not operating adequately as an institution of higher education.

Measure E has allotted the college a $350 million budget to improve facilities and instructional equipment, and the college has vastly improved; however, the network between its members is still dysfunctional. This is because the nature of the network has transformed but the school has not adapted well to the flux.

In the past few semesters instructors have increasingly utilized My Team Site and mail.elcamino.edu to communicate with students, but the administration has not done much to accommodate for this change.

EC’s incompetent servers crash and deny access to these tools when students need them the most, and undoubtedly student GPA has been negatively affected. The unstable platforms on which the EC networks operate disturbs student-teacher communication, which directly impacts the results of our education.

What is perturbing is that some of the funding for improvement has been allocated for aesthetic details to the school rather than be administered to obvious functional needs, especially those as simple as a stable platform for the basic methods of communication at EC.

That’s like writhing over acne when you’ve got a broken leg.

Before we plant any more palm trees, the school must address the primary instructional equipment through which students and faculty communicate.

Function must be considered before the form.