Rider’s “fishbowl” classrooms need to go

By Sarah F. Griffin

Imagine you are taking the biggest test of your college career. You know that you’re prepared, but you’re still nervous. It feels like you have so much riding on this exam. 

Since this is such a big test, you would want to have as few distractions as possible to maintain your focus. However, you’re in one of the classrooms on campus that, no matter how quiet your professor makes it, has plenty of distractions right outside the door.

These classrooms are located on the second floor of the Fine Arts building and the first floor of the Science and Technology Center. These “fishbowls,” as I like to call them, allow anyone to see what you are doing any time, making you a source of entertainment while restricting your ability to learn.

Classrooms that are visible to any passerby are not only annoying, but extremely unsafe. Every student and professor on campus remembers where they were during the lockdown in Spring 2023, when it was suspected that there was a shooter at Rider. While I was not in one of the fishbowl classrooms during this event, I cannot imagine how terrifying it must have felt to have been in a classroom with barely any protection from a potential threat.

I believe that when Rider renovates Fine Arts, a necessary action for a number of reasons, namely the confusing classroom numbering, one of the first priorities should be transforming the classrooms with glass walls into traditional ones. 

Every student and professor deserves a classroom where they can focus and feel safe. The only way for that to happen at Rider is getting rid of our fishbowls. 

Sarah F. Griffin is a senior journalism and political science major