Horses and Camels

Committees take a lot of hits in our culture and on the internet. Consider the following edited search results:

For some strange reason, we seem to hate the very concept that somewhere out there, there might actually be committees that are not evil.

A committee is a cul-de-sac into which ideas are lured and then strangled.

and, of course..

A horse designed by a committee is a camel.

It is not hard to see why some committees try to disguise themselves as “task forces” or “working groups” or “task groups” of “project teams” or “commissions” or “functional groupings” or “ad-hoc planning teams.”

Sometimes, however, committees must be given credit for accomplishing the tasks they were created to perform. The UIC Campus Master Plan committees are great examples of such groups. The Executive Committee, the Steering Committee, the Advisory Committee and the Core Planning Team have met regularly over the past year and a half to keep the planning process (and the consultants) on track and on schedule. Officially, their work will come to a successful conclusion next month when the University’s Board of Trustees considers the proposed Campus Master Plan.

These (dare I use the word? Yes, I dare!) COMMITTEES and their members have helped the campus create a framework for the transformation of how the campus will look in the next forty or so years and they are deserving of our praise and adulation.

Members, you know who you are. Take a bow.

On behalf of the campus, THANK YOU.

Question of the Week: Will the Board of Trustees approve the UIC Campus Master Plan?

Until next Friday…Actually, this is the last blog. It’s been a hoot. Thanks for reading these ramblings. Take care of yourselves and your/our campus.

The Three Second Rule

Everyone knows the five-second rule (which stretches to the fifteen second rule if you are really hungry). This is the rule that any piece of food that falls to the floor can be still be safely eaten if it is picked up within five seconds of hitting said floor. This is the corollary to the wisdom my Eagle Scout father imparted to me decades ago – “A little dirt never hurt anybody.”

There are several three-second rules that have nothing to do with safe food consumption.

The first is in honor of March Madness – the three-second rule in basketball. It essentially means you can’t just park yourself under the basket either offensively or defensively. If you violate the rule, the other team gets the ball.

There is also a three-second rule in defensive driving. This rule of thumb helps prevent tailgating by keeping a safe distance between your car and the one in front of you. In Chicago expressway reality, it means giving another driver (OR TWO) more than enough room to cut in front of you. If you violate the rule, you’ll get home in a timely manner.

My daughter gave me a third three-second rule she devised. She may have invented this rule as a result of the years she spent in suburban Minneapolis and being exposed there to what is known as “Minnesota Nice.” This three-second rule involves door swings and common courtesy. I run into this at train stations all the time, but it happens here on campus on occasion, as well.

I’m walking a couple of steps behind someone who pushes a door wide open and then just keeps on walking WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING BACK. I’m just far enough behind for the door to be at the fastest part of its arc back to being fully closed when I reach it. Now it takes a needless extra effort to counteract the force of the door slamming into me and to reverse its momentum so I can pass through.

This a happy camper does not in me make.

My daughter’s three-second rule is to look back (while still holding the door) and do a quick mental calculation of whether or not the next person will reach the door in three or less seconds. If she or he is estimated to get there within that EXTREMELY SHORT length of time, she’ll hold the door open and then pass it off in hopes that person will extend a similar courtesy to the next person. If it looks to be more than three seconds, she continues on her way allowing the door to shut completely before the arrival of the next person.

By quantifying the appropriate amount of time that one should hold a door open before the next person feels compelled to quicken their pace was conceptually very useful for me. Even when I am in a great hurry, I ALWAYS have THREE SECONDS of courtesy left in me.

This is not a random act of kindness. This is an intentional act of common courtesy. The more such acts we do around campus, the friendlier the UIC campus will become.

One of the goals of the Master Plan is to make this an even more welcoming campus. Let’s all start implementing that goal right here, right now.

Just remember these four little words - The Three-Second Rule.

PS Do I have the smartest daughter, or what?

Question of the Week: What other intentional acts of common courtesy should we be performing?

Until next Friday…

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Signage. Sorta sounds like “sewage”, doesn’t it? But I digress.

Signs are valuable and that’s what makes naming rights so pricey. You don’t think the United Center has something to do with Chicagoans being “united” behind the NBA and NHL franchises which play there, do you? (As opposed to the crosstown rivalry in the two MLB teams in town.) Oh no. It’s that red and blue United Airlines logo attached to the name, prominently displayed – TWICE – over every entrance, and emblazoned in full color atop the arena in plain sight of the television cameras in any Goodyear blimp that might happen by. Similarly, the new Comiskey Park was renamed U.S. Cellular Field just before the 2003 All-Star Game was played there. Coincidence? I think not.

Recently, DePaul University announced it will be moving its O’Hare campus to several floors of a 14-story structure prominently located alongside the Kennedy Expressway and that a large “DePaul University” sign will grace the top of the building. The Sears Tower is now officially the Willis Tower thanks to a new tenant who will occupy significant rentable square footage there. And then there’s the huge red “Toyota” logo that may be erected behind the Left Field Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field starting this season. (Cub fans only wish their team’s fortunes could unexpectedly – and miraculously – accelerate one of these years like so many Toyotas of late.)

If companies will negotiate tangible assets to get their names on buildings, where should we display “UIC” and “University of Illinois at Chicago” on campus? Both are on buildings that face the Eisenhower and Dan Ryan Expressways. “UIC” is boldly shown atop the Turner Gate on Harrison, as well as a part of the “UIC Pavilion” and “UIC Forum”. Should we mimic DePaul and erect something atop University Hall to make sure that everyone is fully aware that this 28-story signature building belongs to “UIC”? Let’s hope not.

On the West Side, we have the schizophrenic sign at Wood and Polk which tries to announce that this little corner of the world is both the “University of Illinois at Chicago” AND the “University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago”. This is one of those “lovely” brown signs with the white peel-off...I mean...stick-on letters that “grace” both sides of campus.

Although not specifically part of the consultants’ scope of work, there may be nothing that would visually shout “the Campus Master Plan at work” more in the short term than a new exterior signage program of which we could all be suitably proud. Just a thought.

Question of the Week: What about some LCD digital signage?

Until next Friday…

Fortune Cookies

There’s a Chinese restaurant across the street from my office. Especially during the winter months (when trudging very far through the snow is not something I want to subject this aging body to very often), I find myself ordering something with rice to take back to my desk to eat. The last two times the fortunes hidden inside those ubiquitous cookies were more apropos than usual.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

A dream will always triumph over reality once it is given a chance.

The first one reminds us that one critical aspect of our mission as a university is Service. If we don’t do anything of value with the knowledge we gain, what have we really gained?

The second fortune speaks directly to the efforts of those involved in the development of the UIC Master Plan. The challenge throughout the process has been to pry our minds out of the day-to-day realities of budget cuts and furlough days and dream about a distant future filled with possibilities and opportunities. The Master Plan is a dream that creates a framework to use in the world of “What if?” Without such a plan, there is no reference point to start discussions that could eventually lead to campus transformation.

The reality of our position as a public university is that only a few, if any, of the new buildings shown on the Master Plan schematic drawings will be constructed in the foreseeable future. When the Master Plan is complete and approved by the Board of Trustees, the campus will know, if and when funds become available, where buildings should be built and where they shouldn’t and, maybe most importantly, why.

Don’t be surprised, however, if you see some of the “high impact, low capital” elements of the plan taking shape around campus in the relatively near future.

Question of the Week: To paraphrase Robert Kennedy, why ask “Why?” when you can ask “Why not?”

PS: The lucky numbers from the first fortune cookie were 55, 30, 41, 56, 10, and 9. Those for the second were 32, 33, 36, 5, 55, and 10. Feel free to split your winnings with me.

Until next Friday…

Architect / English Dictionary

Every profession has its own language. I guess it helps to add specificity to their work, but it certainly helps keep outsiders in the dark. Medicine is probably the worst example of this with its reliance on all those Latin root words. The reason I need a padded booth in a restaurant is coccydinia which translates to tailbone pain or a pain in my a__. I knew that going in, but now I can discuss my coccydinia in the aforementioned restaurant booth without being kicked out on my aforementioned painful tailbone.

Lawyers are no better and when you get paid by the hour, repetitious use of multi-syllabic words means you have more money in your pocket to tip your caddy at the country club, whether you actually do or not.

The hallowed halls of Academia are held together with the mortar of words and phrases that require the studious reader and listener to have a close relationship to long deceased people named Roget and Webster.

Architects, in turn, never want to be left out of the conversation, so they have their own take on this already difficult language we broadly categorize as English. Therefore, in an effort to make the upcoming final Campus Master Plan report more decipherable to us poor laypeople, I offer the following ever-so-incomplete translation guide:

When they say “Wayfinding” – we say “Getting around using maps, signs, and landmarks.”

When they say “Hardscape” – we say “Brick” or “Concrete” (as opposed to "landscape")

When they say “Something ‘wants to be’ something else” – we say “You’ve got to be kidding” (as if an inanimate object can really sense and feel and have opinions.)

When they say “Road diet” (and, yes, that is the way they talk, even in public) – we say “Narrowing the street”

When they say “Swale” – we say “That ditch that collects rainwater runoff”

When they say “Allée” – we say (after we have politely stifled our gag reflexes) “Passage or row between trees”

When they say “Streetscape” – we say “What the street and sidewalks look like” (as opposed to "hardscape" or "landscape")

When they say “Adaptive reuse” – we say “Remodel”

When they say “Vehicular conflicts” – we say “Car accidents”

When they say “Pedestrian conflicts” – we say “People getting hit by those cars”

When they (politely) say “Desire lines”, we say – “Cow paths people create in the grass when sidewalks are not the absolutely shortest path from Point A to Point B”.

and

When they (politely) say “Mid-block crossings” – we say “Jay-walking”.

Question of the Week: Any architect-speak that you want to add to our little lexicon?

Until next Friday…

Gateway to ...

The most visible part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is the 630-foot tall stainless steel Gateway Arch, completed in 1965. As stated on the memorial’s website, the Arch “reflects St. Louis’s role in the Westward Expansion of the United States during the nineteenth century” – a Gateway to the West. Just as Cape Canaveral was the launch site for our exploration of space, St. Louis was where many pioneers in the 1800’s launched their trips to explore and settle the wide-open West; among those early explorers were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

There are other gateways, of course. Gateway to the Arts in Pittsburgh is a center for lifelong learning. Gateway to Care is a collaborative of organizations working together on behalf of the indigent in and around Houston, Texas. On the other hand, the reputed “Gateway to Hell” is located in a cemetery in Shull, Kansas.

Speaking of gateways, where is the Gateway to UIC? (Hopefully, it’s not in a cemetery in Kansas.) History buffs might say it’s Turner Gate, the tall, concrete pillar on Harrison Street on the East Side with “UIC” in white letters emblazoned on a blue square background. (Turner Gate was named after Jonathon Baldwin Turner who back in 1850 called for a “state university for the industrial classes.” This led to the Land Grant Act of 1862, which laid the basis for the University of Illinois, which eventually included a campus in Chicago.) A more eye-level Turner Gate welcomed students who arrived by the “L” and then used a ramp to cross Harrison to reach the second level walkways that criss-crossed the East Side of campus for decades.

The Master Plan types would tell us there are several gateway locations that dot the edges of each side of campus and that effort, creativity and dollars should be expended to make them more coherent, visually appealing, and welcoming entrances to our campus. Some locations are obvious, others not so much…yet.

East Side
UIC Halsted CTA Station
Harrison / Halsted Intersection
Halsted / Roosevelt Intersection
Roosevelt / Morgan Intersection
Morgan / Taylor Intersection
Vernon Park Cul-de-Sac

West Side
Damen / Taylor Intersection
Taylor / Ashland Intersection
Ashland / Roosevelt Intersection
Roosevelt / Wood Intersection
Proposed Roosevelt Pink Line “L” Station

The UIC campus has many points of entry and no single concrete pillar should try to stand alone and welcome the world to our doorstep…I mean, doorsteps, so the Master Plan proposes nearly a dozen Gateways.

(I wonder if they are also Cheaper by the Dozen? – 1950 movie starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy).

Question of the Week: Too many proposed gateways? Too few? Are they the logical choices? Where do you enter campus? Where is your Gateway to UIC?

Until next Friday…

...or Forever Hold Your Peace

With the notable exceptions of soap operas and romantic comedies and with the days of dowries dwindling rapidly (I never did get those 40 goats I was promised), the use of the phrase, “Speak now or forever hold your peace” is becoming increasingly rare in the enlightened arena of 21st century wedding ceremonies. It is even rarer for a person to actually stand up and boldly object to the marriage, thus throwing a massive wet blanket on the hugely expensive reception about to happen and ruining the day forever for the (up to that very minute) happy couple.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is one of the maxims attributed to Pubilius Syrus in the 1st century BC – “Let the fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” Bob Cox used this phrase as the preface to an on-line article in which he reminded his readers to “never… speak until the time is right. And the time is right when the other person is ready to listen.”

As regular readers of this blog know for certain, this fool is not known for holding his tongue and hence the mantle of "sage" has never been bestowed upon his (read “my”) shoulders. I never need to be extended an invitation to add my two cents. Others are far more reticent.

However, be ye fool or sage, faculty or student, staffer or neighbor, or all of the above, PLEASE do not miss out on your FINAL chance to come out and participate in the LAST pair of Master Plan Town Hall Meetings. This is it. The consultants and committees are finalizing the Plan and their presentation to the University Board of Trustees and they want to know what you have to think about their ideas for the UIC campus of the future.

The time is right. And boy, are they ready to listen.

West Side
Thursday, March 4, 2010
1:30 – 3:30 PM
MBRB – First Floor Auditorium

East Side
Friday, March 5, 2010
10:00 AM – Noon
Student Center East – Room 605

“Speak now or forever hold your peace.” (No goats are required; goatees are optional.)

Question of the Week: What possible excuse could you have for passing up this opportunity to help create the Plan for the future of this campus?

Until next Friday…