The Ideal Throne — The Crescent

By: Benny Schorie

Illustrated by: Carla Cieza Espinoza

Each bathroom at George Fox University (GFU) is distinct depending on the age of the building, the number of students that utilize it, and how those two factors combine to create its specific vibe. So, for the sake of the student body, I embarked on a journey to discover the best (and worst) bathroom on campus.

After taking a survey of student opinions, I was able to select a few top contenders for students’ ideal throne. It was limited to buildings that all students have access to (Hoover, EHS, Stevens, Klages, Canyon Commons, Hadlock, Lemmons, etc) and excluded specific floors for the sake of simplicity. I ranked the two most selected bathrooms based on the student responses to the two categories: best and worst.

My factors of consideration were cleanliness, privacy/remoteness, facility maintenance (functioning sinks, lighting, good stall doors, etc), and proper height of the facility’s features.

The top two contenders for best bathroom on campus were Canyon Commons (24%) and Hadlock (22%). Both of these bathrooms are in two of the newest and most commonly used buildings on campus. Canyon Commons is a tough competitor as it has a wide selection of stalls and excellent lighting; however, it visibly receives frequent use and, depending on the time of day, lacks privacy if you require it. On the other hand, Hadlock has much smaller bathrooms and the quality of the facilities is about the same as Canyon Commons. There is a factor that makes this one distinct: Dyson Airblade hand-dryers. These high-quality hand-dryers minimize paper towel waste, increase efficiency, and create a pleasant experience for the mundane task of drying one’s hands.

The unanimously decided worst bathroom on campus was Lemmons, which swept the competition with a whopping 46.7%. My visit to this bathroom made me want to rent construction equipment and destroy the entire building as an act of civic servitude. It is claustrophobic, bizarrely geometrical, and harshly colored. Even if it is regularly cleaned, it feels dirty and frequently used. The toilet and sink are at a weird height, making them awkward to use. However, one student did select this bathroom as their favorite because of the small space.

Klages landed in second place for worst bathroom by a wide margin at 11.1%. This bathroom does not suffer from funky-shape syndrome as Lemmons does, but its other ailments are in common with its aged feel, weird coloring, and grossness factor. Klages serves as a widely enjoyed building across the student body, which contributes to how frequently the restroom is used and its overall privacy. Its age does not help when it comes to how well everything functions. This is not an abysmal bathroom, but it is not the best on campus.

Summarizing the above points, here are my rankings of the bathrooms on a scale of 1 to 10:

Canyon Commons: 7/10; novelty and decent vibes.

Hadlock: 9/10; presence of hand-dryers.

Lemmons: 2/10; has all the necessary things, but at a high mental cost

Klages 4/10: generally below average