McNeill Hall is home to a number of scents including mildew, must, rotten eggs, methane and sewage, just to name a few.

The combination of all of these can at times be overpowering to the point of needing to move class to an alternative location.

The Simpsonian lab isn’t as easily transported to a different venue on campus. Because of this, we are forced to suffer through it and put our health at risk.

The administration claims that these smells are not a danger, but we disagree.

Members of the Simpson College community that are housed in the lower level of the building have been to countless physicians.

Some have even undergone more strenuous testing, such as CT scans and MRIs.

However, maybe we’re all overreacting a bit. In fact, maybe they are right. Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that numerous college staff and faculty members, as well as editors of the Simpsonian, became ill at the same time.

That is usually how an illness works right? One becomes sick and infects the rest.

It must only be a coincidence that all affected found relief to their symptoms once out of range of the McNeill stench for a stretch of days.

However, returning to the building also brought back the initial headaches, nausea and vomiting that caused faculty, staff and students to avoid McNeill in the first place.

But don’t worry, because air quality tests have been done and according to an email sent out by Steve Griffith “we still believe that there are not any harmful or combustible gasses associated with this odor.”

Still sticking with the fact that this is all a coincidence?

Is it still a coincidence that only the faculty were alerted to the work being done in McNeill Hall on Dec. 12 and that a student had to essentially demand that students be kept in the loop, too?

For a school committed to transparency, there sure are a lot of secrets around here.

If you only have classes on the upper level of the building, or none in McNeill at all, consider yourself lucky. Your successful avoidance of the odor has saved you from frequent bouts of nausea and extreme headaches.

If you were one of the unlucky ones, you have our condolences.

Some faculty members relocated their office hours and classes to other parts of the campus in order to escape the rotten egg scented halls.

While Dirlam Lounge and Dunn Library allowed for a change of scenery, they also caused much confusion among the student body.

With the busy schedules students have at Simpson, they cannot afford to waste time searching for professors across campus; however, we are not faulting the faculty for moving to another location.

We would if we could too.

Another thing to consider is recruitment.

We sure hope the office of admissions makes it a point to avoid this area of campus when the scent is present.

As much as we love showing off our office to prospective journalism students, we do not wish to make them as sick as our staff has become since this odor first surfaced almost three months ago.

On top of all of this, the students still continue to receive a minimal number of updates from the administration, and all said exactly the same things.

Repeating yourself does not provide us with answers.

If you don’t have them, admit it.

However, we understand that Campus Services has been working hard (specifically John Harris, campus service general manager) so we want to thank them for dealing with the odor-they’re breathing it in just as much as we are.

We all want a solution. We’re all sick of being sick.

So, what’s it going to take to get an answer and what is the administration willing to pay to make their students, faculty and staff healthy again?