Living off-campus has really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I've learned that I would have never chosen Tufts had I known that I'd be shoveling snow, wiring my own Internet and paying monstrous heating bills by junior year. I've learned how to successfully share a single bathroom with two other guys in the aftermath of spicy Korean barbecue. I've learned that parents instruct neighborhood children to avoid college houses on Halloween.
I've also learned that Tufts is a tremendously difficult campus to walk around. Let me take you through my morning walk from Mason Street to Barnum Hall, about which I am currently particularly bitter because of the rainy spell we've been having. I cross Powderhouse Boulevard to be welcomed onto campus by a small hole in a chain link fence. Other schools have gates or wrought iron fences or brick arches to welcome students and visitors to campus, but my school makes me feel like I'm sneaking into a junkyard.
Next, I pass by South Hall, which was built in the historically relevant Legoland Gothic style. I usually expect to see bright yellow men with painted smiles, no noses, and snap-on pants posed nearby, and I watch out for perfectly spaced little round bumps in the grass.
My favorite aspect of Tufts' "design on a budget" is next: the single handrail. I can just hear the conversation that led to stairs straight out of The Fugitive: "Well, Larry, if we only install ONE handrail in the MIDDLE of every stairwell, we can save approximately $270 per set of steps!" Of course, that savings will be offset by the cost of medical bills for students who fall flat on their asses in the middle of winter when those stairs aren't plowed.
It's after those stairs that the real confusion begins. There's no clear uphill-downhill path across Tufts. One is faced with the choice of either hiking through the rubble around Richardson and then contending with a curiously absent sidewalk in front of Tisch, or walking all the way around the Forbidden City Campus Center.
That's why I like Douglas Johnston, a principal at the architecture firm of William Rawn Associates. Johnston is perhaps the coolest guy ever to unveil a scale model. Not only does he successfully pull off the turtleneck-and-sportcoat look, but it is he who designed the Master Plan that will save us all a few steps and bring a disjointed Tufts together. Tufts hired Johnston to make recommendations about future development on campus, and Johnston realized that there's no sense of arrival on campus and no clear uphill-downhill path.
One of my personal favorite paths on campus is the blacktop from Ballou to Dearborn Gate. It's part of the original Olmsted-designed President's Lawn, and it really gives a sense of being on a college campus in the traditional sense. You pass through a wrought iron gate under a brick arch and, in front of you on the hill is Ballou Hall rising in the distance. Though I wouldn't call the feeling overwhelming, it certainly beats having to turn sideways to sneak through a foot-wide opening in chain link. It's a great entrance to the oldest part of the campus, but how should Tufts deal with letting visitors know they're about to see the newest buildings on campus?
Last semester I asked Johnston what he would do to improve the sense of arrival where formal entrances are not present. He said that gates might work for some schools, but that Tufts did not close itself off from the community and its entrances should reflect that. I knew I liked this guy.
As far as paths are concerned, any of you who helped push pins in the scale model of Tufts to show where you walked every day helped solve that problem. With Sophia Gordon Hall nearing completion, and with the eventual construction of Phase Three of the Campus Center in the works, Johnston hopes that Tufts would utilize that space to provide an uphill-downhill path.
If Tufts listens to Johnston's recommendations, the campus will be more welcoming and effective for all. I just hope that after paying Johnston, Tufts can still afford a handrail or two.
Keith Barry is a senior majoring in Community Health and Psychology. He can be reached via e-mail at keith.barry@tufts.edu.
