“Take a look around on campus today as you go about your daily routine. Actually take the time to soak up your surroundings. How does this campus make you feel? Break out of the monotony of a daily ritual and realize the space you inhabit. What do you notice first? Is it a positive or negative aspect? What is the most glaringly obvious quality of this campus? If you were thinking something different from me, I challenge you to speak up and write about it.”
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Take a look around on campus today as you go about your daily routine.
Actually take the time to soak up your surroundings.
How does this campus make you feel?
Break out of the monotony of a daily ritual and realize the space you inhabit.
What do you notice first?
Is it a positive or negative aspect?
What is the most glaringly obvious quality of this campus?
If you were thinking something different from me, I challenge you to speak up and write about it.
What I noticed first and foremost is the lack of color on campus.
A vast majority of the buildings appear boxy and unexciting.
On a cool Autumn day, one can expect the predictable weather in our Midwestern city to produce grey skies scattered with a healthy dose of precipitation.
At every turn the tone is the same, muted colors dominated by shades of grey and tan.
The result of these factors is reflected in our personal lives.
Think of your bedroom and realize the character involved in it.
The way you choose to inhabit that space defines who you are as a person.
When your living space is arranged in a favorable and creative way, you will reflect your surroundings.
An exciting and personal living space will pick you up on bad days and provide you with something to show visitors.
We all like living in a space that allows us to relax and feel at home.
Why not apply these principles to our collegiate home, the university?
As the creative individuals we are, it is more than possible for us to come up with a way to enrich our surroundings.
There are signs of creative influence on campus; Greek chapters paint the rock behind the Student Union and doodles can be found on desks in boring classrooms across campus.
We paint our faces for game day and draw over the bodies of passed out friends in excruciating detail.
Why not find a more appropriate canvas to be our creative outlet?
Ask the university for a location to publicly display our collective creative wonders, now held in reserve, so that we no longer hold our whimsy just below the surface.
Replace the clinical clean look of white- walled hallways and the bare-boned engineering functionality with something that can be enjoyed by all who see it.
In short, paint the Roo.
To anyone with artistic talent, please breathe some life into this campus.
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