The lovely new green in the middle of campus is highly aesthetic and reminds us greatly of the ancient Roman forums connecting us to our history and making us think of great knowledge and politics. While this is all well and good, I find that it lacks a certain something. While it is highly aesthetic and nice too look at leading up to the new McMurran hall, the emptiness of it is resounding. I watch everyday as hundreds of students swarm around the green and walk on the sidewalks surrounding it. It is as if the lawn is marked off limits or taboo. To watch students milling everywhere but ON the green you would think that to do so would be worth severe punishment. This is a tragedy. This is a place where students can have a place to interact on a daily basis in the open air and enjoy the day while they are not in class. Instead is has been turned into a space of aesthetic qualities to impress people visiting our campus. At first glance you might presume that students on campus just simply don't spend time outside simply enjoying the day. However that is not true. There are students on York lawn, Potomac lawn, James River lawn and even the lawn by the fountain between the library and Wingfield not twenty yard from the green in the center of our campus. Every other place on campus where there can be communion between the students and the out of doors is being used as such. Why then is this new great lawn not being utilized? Before the change on campus students would spend time basking in the sun much preferring to study there than indoors. What is the difference that causes us to avoid the great lawn now? I see no edicts demanding that this lawn much be a space of aesthetic value and beauty and no students should be seen walking across it or laying on it. In fact, I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing to see students using it and giving it a sense of place and interacting with outside world while going about their daily lives.
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