At NSU, every water fountain on campus has a red cover over it that reads “locked out, do not operate” and a padlock attached to it. I personally love water and I drink as much of it as I can because I feel like the best version of me when I’m hydrated. I get headaches and feel bad when I don’t drink enough water. I commute from my house that’s about 30 minutes away, and I bring three water bottles to school a day to account for the closed fountains. I drink one on the way and put the other two in the cup holders that are attached to my backpack for the rest of my day.
As a commuter, I’ve been struggling to adapt to the water fountain situation on campus. A general rule seems to be that a person should drink at least sixteen ounces of water, equal to four water bottles a day. By that logic, there is very little possibility of me being truly hydrated without spending extra money. I know of one water bottle filler on campus and it’s in the Recplex. As far as I know, there are none that are readily accessible in any of the main buildings around campus, including the Carl DeSantis or Parker buildings. I have a very tight schedule and I don’t have the time to go to the Recplex just to fill up a bottle.
Lately, I’ve been forced to purchase at least one bottle a day from either Market on College Ave or the vending machines, which aren’t cheap. On top of that, I already have to purchase a seemingly endless amount of water bottles from the grocery store. If I buy a 24 pack of water bottles, on average, that would be enough for eight days and that isn’t including that I drink them when I’m home or however many my parents drink.
I get it from a COVID-19 perspective. I don’t really want to drink from a fountain that a lot of people are drinking from, but students need to have a path to water while on campus. Not everyone has a dorm that they can go to where they can get water. In my opinion, NSU needs to add more water bottle fillers around campus. There should be multiple in the Don Taft University Center, multiple in the DeSantis building and in the Alvin Sherman Library.
