Column:

Soak up campus beauty while it lasts

By Spencer Engel

Published Nov. 13, 2008

A good way to keep your brain sharp is to take different routes to class, work or any other routine destination. This supposedly increases blood flow to the brain and helps curtail depression and dementia. I hadn't done it in a while, but the other day I took a different route back to East Campus from the Reynolds Journalism Institute and I noticed something funny.

I didn't recognize half the buildings I saw! It sounds naive, but I realized the MU campus is massive. Also, last Saturday I walked back from the football game previously unaware of the residence hall complexes and other facilities I was passing, and I've been here for five semesters now. Obviously, I know all the standard buildings with large lecture halls such as the Arts and Science Building, Geological Sciences, Middlebush, Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building and Strickland Hall, but I never noticed smaller, out of the way buildings like Mumford Hall, Schweitzer Hall, McKee Gym, Loeb Hall, McDavid Hall and many others.

It was hard to believe I had spent nearly 19 months going to different classes here at MU and I had barely scratched the surface of what this campus has to offer. Lately I've been taking just a few seconds during my walks to class and soaking in the atmosphere. The difference between this method and my former method of walking like a robot listening to an iPod is staggering and eye-opening.

For example, I realized if you look at the Columns from either the Jesse Hall viewpoint or the Lee Hills Hall viewpoint, you will want to take a picture, turn it into a postcard and send it to all your friends who go to less beautiful colleges. I realized that red campus (engineering, psychology, journalism, etc.) is much nicer, much more scenic and has way more of a "college feel" than white campus (biology, physics, business). I realized there are exceptions to the previous sentence. Cornell is far more glamorous than most red brick buildings and some of the red brick buildings, such as Switzler Hall, are horrendous with their steep stairs and lack of air-conditioning.

Taking an extended look at campus has made me wonder a few things too. I wonder why MU allocates so much money toward cosmetic things like re-sodding the Francis Quadrangle when buildings such as Arts and Science have worse bathroom facilities than a small-town gas station. I wonder why MU is spending $32 million on a seemingly unnecessary Brady Commons expansion when countless aforementioned small classroom buildings and some big ones could use an upgrade. I wonder why the "closed campus" doesn't protect me at all since it doesn't extend to Ninth and University, there are no cross walks on College Avenue and cars can drive between the Physics Building and Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources building.

Other than that, I love MU and I love the campus. There are more cafes and snack shops than I'll ever be able to find. I doubt I'll ever visit even 75 percent of the buildings on campus. And I doubt I'll ever figure out why Stankowski Field still hasn't been torn apart and replaced with field turf.

Next time you make your drudgingly boring and excruciating walk to your 9 a.m. class on a Monday morning, don't mope. Instead, soak everything in. Look around and revel in all the renovations, insanely expensive new facilities (the Student Recreation Complex comes to mind), luxurious new residence halls, and yes, even the old, rotting buildings and dorms. Although us students will filter in and out of MU, the campus is here to stay, the good, the bad and the ugly parts of it.