Sitting at a functional desk in class can seem like a neverwinning battle, but after review it’s not as big a problem asstudents may think.

Christina True, a junior at Sacramento State, said that she getsextremely frustrated because the majority of desks in her classes,which are in four separate buildings, are broken.

True, a criminal justice major, is taking five classes, and saidthat it’s hard enough to find a desk, but almost impossibleto find one that works.

“In class you are trying to pay attention and the deskkeeps wobbling and squeaking,” True said. “It feelslike your disrupting the entire class. Or when you are trying towrite and the desk keeps moving, it’s just irritating becauseyou have to keep adjusting.”

Although many students complain about this, Denise Ramos, amanager at the office of Space Management said that 330 newarmchair tablets have just arrived. She also said that many of thebuildings on campus have new desks. This year, $35,000 has beenspent on new classroom furniture, and inspections are done twice ayear by facilities management to ensure proper working desks in theclassrooms.

“In the last two years, the classroom furniture has beencompletely changed out and replaced with new pieces in all theinterdisciplinary lecture rooms in Sequoia Hall, Shasta Hall,Yosemite Hall, El Dorado Hall, Capistrano Hall, the library andsome rooms in Brighton Hall, Alpine Hall and Tahoe Hall.

“Most recently we just completed replacing all the tabletarmchairs in Eureka Hall’s classrooms,” Ramos said.

Nortonia Cross, a senior and business major at Sacramento State,said that although she doesn’t feel that desks in classroomsare up to standards, she has seen an improvement, and now herclasses have more working desks.

“In some of the older buildings the desks are more of aproblem than the newer,” Cross said. “But yes, I cansee there have definitely been improvements. The older classroomsstill have the older stuff and you can just tell.”

Steve Smith, part-time geography professor, said it was not ahuge concern to him because he hadn’t noticed an overwhelmingamount of broken desks in his two classrooms in Amador hall.

“If there weren’t enough desks or if a desk was ahazard to a student it would be more of a concern, but as long asthat is not the case I am not overly worried about it,” Smithsaid.

The individual cost of a desk depends on the quantity bought,Ramos said.

“The more you purchase, the better the price,” Ramossaid. “For 330 we paid $98.42 each, plus tax for the largesttablet armchair we have been able to locate &- that meets thebest support, size, and structure requirements &- with aseven-year warranty.”

Space Management is responsible for organizing the furnitureinventory of 8,358 student seats and desks in 180 interdisciplinaryclassrooms, which includes both tablet desks and table and chairstyle classrooms. But the individual departments are accountablefor the needs of labs and department controlled instructionalspace, Ramos said.

“Space Management staff has done a special inventory ofone building each year for the past few years,” Ramos said.”(This is) to evaluate in depth the condition of allfurnishings in each classroom of that certain building and identifylikely candidates for a complete furniture upgrade when we havesufficient funds to do so.”

The funding comes from a line item in the budget, which can onlybe used for classroom furniture, and is usually for the amount of$15,000 to $30,000, Ramos said.

Ramos said reporting broken furniture is a collaborative effortby students, department staff, faculty and the custodial staff.Ramos also said that anyone could report a broken desk or table bycalling 278-6242.