Delta State University will get new street lights around parts of campus that are dimly lit. One of the areas that will be getting a light is in the parking lot behind the Kethley building.

Chelsea Hall, senior secretary of the Language and Literature department, is quite happy that the new lights will be going up on campus. Hall says that she feels safer now that the new lights are coming to DSU.

As part of the faculty/staff team in Kethley with a night class in fall 2017, Hall has had to walk in the parking lot behind the building on a regular basis and is now glad that it will no longer be dark.

DSU has been doing updates all around campus. New handicap and one-way signs are replacing the old. The signs are much smaller but, according to Hall, are far better looking than the old, plain signs.

However, some students are asking if the new smaller signs prompted the need for the new lights. The already hard to see one-way signs have been replaced by smaller signs that directly face the road.

Most one-way signs are turned toward oncoming traffic so that cars can read them while driving. Because they are not parallel with the street, it is difficult for drivers to know that they are going the wrong way until it is too late.

Either way, the new lights will be welcomed onto campus with open arms. They will help all of those students who walk between buildings at night and the faculty and staff who have had to make that treacherous journey in the dark one too many times.

If you don’t think so, then picture this: you are walking through the parking lot behind Kethley. It is pitch black; you can barely see the hand in front of your face. You are scared and alone, or are you? You have the light on your phone turned on so that you don’t trip on something in the road and fall flat on your uncoordinated face, when suddenly you realize that you have company. Thankfully for you, it is a skunk who has agreed to walk you safely to your car!

As someone who has had this experience before, I am quite happy that the new lights are coming to Delta State.