Don't Go There

Recently, as I was walking across a rather pretty campus, I noticed a more extreme example of what occurs on most campuses:

the mismatch between where the landscape designers (and landscape maintenance crews) want people to walk, and where people want to (and do) walk.

Surely most campuses have little dirt footpaths that cut off right angled or curved *official walkways*. In some cases, these footpaths are allowed to exist, and in some cases these are eventually promoted to official walkways and are paved/landscaped, in recognition that people are going to walk that way.

In other cases, however, there seems to be a never-ending battle between those who want to take short cuts and those who do not want those short cuts to be taken. Short cuts are fenced off, reseeded or re-whatevered, and pedestrians are forced to follow the approved pathways. The grass (or whatever) looks nicer that way. Perhaps if some short cuts are allowed, new ones crop up until you might as well pave the whole campus. And who wants that?

I don't think the issue of short cuts is about laziness, rebellion against authority, or even a lack of respect for turf. I think it is about getting from Point A to Point B, in some cases in a rush between classes or meetings.

In my recent across-campus walk (not on my own campus), I was amazed at how pedestrian unfriendly the campus was, despite the abundance of green space and landscaping. It looked like an appealing place to stroll, as long as you strolled only where the original campus planners wanted you to go.

There were of course walkways between buildings, but it was if the designers only allowed for people to walk easily from Building X to Building Y. If, however, for some unimaginable (to them) reason, someone wanted to walk directly from Building X to nearby Building Z.. forget it.

Clearly, many people do want to go from X to Z, and a distinct (unofficial) path has developed over time. It was also clear that this path is not in favor with those responsible for maintaining the campus landscape. The path is in the process of being erased (and not for the first time), and the X-Z people herded to an official-but-circuitous route.

I am sure it is a nightmare to maintain a campus landscape so that the non-paved parts remain in good shape despite "off-road" pedestrians, Frisbee players, jugglers, and bicyclists, not to mention extreme climate events, crazed rodents and so on. But still: It should be possible to have a pedestrian-friendly pathway system that recognizes the need to get from A to B and from A to C quickly.

Can we classify campuses in terms of the goodness of fit between where people want to walk and where they are "supposed" to walk? Do we need a ratio, preferably a dimensionless number with a cool name? Can we call it the Versailles Number?

I lack the time to develop this idea further right now, but welcome comments and suggestions.

Second Home

Not long ago, I was talking about University Stuff with a cousin-in-law who has a computer tech job at the same university at which I am employed. He was talking about how much happier he is now that he doesn't have to work in Remote Isolated Building and is instead more centrally located on the campus. In fact, he is hoping to get transferred soon to Totally Central Building, even if it means working in a basement.

Last week in this blog, I discussed the importance of location in the context of where we live relative to our campus jobs, but the location of the campus building in which we spend most (or all) of our time is also important.

I am sure that there are some academic people who like being on the edge of campus, or even at some distance from campus, but, like my cousin-in-law, I prefer to be centrally located.

When my cousin-in-law was talking about working in Remote Isolated Building, I remembered that I used to have to visit that very same building years ago, back in the Paper Era, when submitting a grant proposal required the physical handing over of paper forms and documents. Even once proposal submission was electronic, for a while the university still required signed paper forms, delivered in person.

For some reason, the university grants office (and not just at this university, but others with which I have been associated) was not easily accessible from central campus. It was Way Over There, and required an expedition to get to it.

This was annoying not only for the time required but also because, back then, it was one of the places on campus where I inevitably had to deal with the assumption that I was not a professor/PI, but instead someone sent by the real professor/PI. I attributed the high incidence of disbelief that I was a professor/PI to several things, among them the fact that the great distance of the building meant that most PI's sent students or underlings with the paperwork instead of making the trek themselves.

Now we just do all of these tasks from our computers. On the internet, everyone believes I am a professor. In person.. not so much.

But back to the issue of location: Working in a non-central campus location might decrease your chances of being hit in the head by an errant Frisbee (and parking might be easier and cheaper), but I like being in a very campusy part of campus. I like it not just for the practical (logistical) reasons of being able to walk to offices, classrooms, and labs (and even the library) when necessary, but also because I like the whole campus vibe/scene/landscape/ecosystem. Perhaps the fact that some of us like campuses so much is one reason why we are professors and have never left academia..

Back Talk

When I walk around campus during prime Campus Tour Season and encounter perky undergrad tour guides wearing OurU regalia and walking backwards in front of dazed pods of prospective students and parental types, I catch snippets of the tours, and I typically have the following thoughts:

If and when the time comes, years from now, my daughter will go on campus tours without her parents. My husband is even more tour-allergic than I am. I went on campus tours alone; she can go on campus tours alone. Or we can all skip the tours and just wander around campuses with a map.

WHO CARES WHEN THAT BUILDING WAS BUILT? I suppose the guides are supposed to fill the time by talking a lot and demonstrating cosmic knowledge of the institutions, and maybe some people do want to know when that building over there was built. I don't. This is one of many reasons why, as a parent, I plan to absent myself from this experience in the future unless my daughter insists or bribes me.

Are the tour guides instructed that it is better to MAKE UP factoids even if it means being wrong because all that matters is that the guide be a friendly, cheerful student who LOVES THIS UNIVERSITY and who can give "insider" tips about cool places to study and the best time to go to the rec center and where you can get the best pizza? When I encounter a tour pod outside a building with which I am familiar, I hear amazing things about what is supposedly going on in that building, when the building was built, and other random "facts" about buildings and departments. Does it matter? No, it does not, but I sometimes wonder whether any tour-goers ever later, as students, go by one of these campus building and think "Hey, we were told that this is the H. Morris Weeble Femtobiotechnology Education Center but it's actually the R. Doris Sneetch Kinetic Engineering Library and Cafe. Tour fail."

I am glad that there are students who want to do these campus tour jobs -- they are amazingly energetic and positive, and they do know a lot about the university. These are good things*. And yet, the thought of being in one of those tour groups fills me with existential dread, I know not why.


* There is a bizarre scene -- one of many -- in the recent Francine Prose novel, My New American Life, involving a campus tour and guide. Does anyone have an opinion on the best depiction of a campus tour in a novel?