Binghamton University’s campus is both distinctive and functional. Our labyrinth of an Engineering Building, for instance, is recognized for its uniqueness, and there is something very different about our Clock Tower made of green, metallic, cubic scaffolding.
I doubt anyone would dispute the functionality of the Mountainview College dormitory buildings. The suites are generously spacious and generously equipped. They are well lit, with well-kept public rooms. However, I would probably not use the words homey or cozy to describe a stock Mountainview dorm room unless there was a serious effort on the part of the owner to make it that way. Students have to add part of their own personality to their dorm room in order to make it their own, to show that it is occupied, to demonstrate life.
Why haven’t students been allowed to decorate the functional interior of campus?
Last year, in what I assume to be a mild, harmless, friendly action of self-expression, some students depicted emoticon-like smiley faces in chalk on a few University buildings. Seeing a smiley face on the side of the Library Tower was startling, but it was also temporary, and interesting. Disruptive in a positive way. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. I ran into a few other students whose days were brightened by the smiley faces, bananas and bunnies in chalk in the nooks and crannies of campus.
Still, though, the police wrote up a report on the incident. Vandalism. Defacing a state building. The students responsible would be charged a minimum of $100 and threatened with possible legal recourse, an equivalent punishment to destroying a toilet in one of the dorms (compare damage: the water erupting from the pipe versus children’s chalk on an outdoor surface).
To clarify, I am not advocating vandalism of public property. However, chalk isn’t spray-paint. This example demonstrates the strong deterrents students face when making autonomous attempts to beautify their campus, to express themselves. Students should want the University to be more than a center of learning, for it is also our home, and should therefore reflect the personality of the people who underlie all the academic activity. We already do this by organizing ourselves into clubs, which organize events, shows and activities. However, I think everyone would benefit from interesting visual art installations around campus — anything to indicate the young life that thrives within the institutionalized walls. Something to visually cut through the cold, on those groggy, hazy, gray days that come around all too often.
Our University, by definition, has a fair amount of activity going on at all times. But all this activity goes on behind closed doors, protected from the biting, Binghamton cold within stoic, enduring edifices. From the outside, campus certainly doesn’t seem lively. We could change this. We could choose to collectively decorate our public dorm room — with the cooperation of the administration, of course — to create a more lively image of ourselves for ourselves.
Yet, maybe the void of artistic expression adequately reflects the attitudes of our student body. Only our future actions can determine that.