Photo by: Elliot Parks – Clarion Staff

While our campus has recently seen the addition of four new buildings, and the ripping up of Driscoll Lawn (to be replaced with red brick walkways, a stone enclosure and, hopefully, some grass), this is actually only the tip of a trend that is costing U.S. universities billions in bonds and loans, and turning the campus building boom into, yes, an “arms race.”

Universities maintain that they need to build “compulsory attractions in the scramble for top students and faculty,” and that to not improve their campus’ physical faCB’ade is to ignore the competition “at their own institutional peril.”

Why does DU feel it necessary to replace Driscoll Lawn (implying grass) with the enclosed “campus green,” which thus far seems to have an immense amount of red on it? Are copper towers and red bricks really “absolute necessities,” or does Chancellor Ritchie just want us resembling a collection of giant churches?

The voices of students, of both current and future classes, have no say in the physical appearance of their university.

As it was pointed out by one public university official, whose institution had just opened a new $54 million sports complex, “people don’t give to institutions that look like they need money. They give to institutions they are proud to be associated with.”

I find this ironic considering during this year’s first “spirit day,” the Clarion’s headline was “‘Spirit day’ brings no spirit,” because the majority of the campus didn’t even know that the day existed, let alone which day it was.

While I may have no control and no voice over what goes up and what comes down on this campus, if, at the end of the year, it is “suggested” to the class of 2004 that we give a student gift of yet more bricks, may I suggest this instead?

Give grass – it’s becoming an endangered species.