Two weeks ago, Ohio University celebrated the unveiling of Bicentennial Park. If you haven't read about it in a news story, you probably don't even know it's there. The park, entitled Input
resembles a computer punch card. It is very hard to tell this unless you happen to be flying over the park in an airplane.
This is not to say that it is terrible art. Artist Maya Lin has even taken some popular words and phrases such as College Green and the OU marching band and put them inside the giant squares that make up the holes in the time card. This adds some aesthetic quality to what would otherwise be a giant field of concrete squares.
The problem with the new park is an economic one. These are lean times in terms of the university's budget. Students feel it in the tuition hikes that have become a yearly tradition. And faculty and staff feel it in departmental budget cuts. This is clearly not the best time to be dropping $750,000 on a giant punch card.
Granted, $300,000 of this figure comes from a state-mandated program requiring universities to set aside a certain amount of money for the arts. But it is still fiscally irresponsible to do something like this in such an uncertain economic time.
Of course our campus needs to encourage the arts - this is part of what makes university life what it is. However, there are better ways to go about doing this. The university should look within its gates for artistic talent. We have a terrific school of art, and I am sure there are students or alumni who would gladly create something for free or at least cheaper than the $400,000 of the total cost that went to Lin, who is not a graduate of OU.
In addition to being more practical financially, art made by a student or graduate would better reflect the spirit of the university. Lin's punch card, save for the smattering of Athens-inspired phrases, has little to do with OU and seems to imply that we are simply clocking in and out when we come here to fully pursue an education.
-Dan Corbett
President, OU Libertarians
daniel.corbett@ohiou.edu. 17
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