The College of Public Programs’ “In My Life I Will” wall will remain in the University Center building until the end of the 2015 spring semester.
Students on the College of Public Programs Council and ASU faculty met with representatives from the Office of the University Architect to discuss the fate of the wall Friday and ultimately decided to compromise and allow it to stay up.
All parties involved will also work to put together a proposal for a more permanent and polished wall that can be displayed in the future.
After months of planning, the wall was put up at the beginning of the semester, only to remain up for a few weeks before the COPPC was told it would need to remove the wall because of its unprofessional appearance. During the Friday meeting, Ericka Davis, chair of the COPPC, explained the wall’s homey, handmade appearance was their intention.
“We wanted students to feel comfortable and come up and write on it,” Davis said. “A lot of the artwork that you see all around UCENT is beautiful and it’s handmade and this is something that is very urban. It is student-made. It’s from students for students, and it gives that feel.”
The wall is an adaptation of the “Before I Die” art movement and it was pointed out that the “In My Life I Will” wall in UCENT matches the unpolished urban qualities that the other walls exhibit, including a similar wall on the Polytechnic campus.
Patrick Daly and Dan Horton, who represented the Office of the University Architect, admitted that they did not realize the unpolished nature of the boards was intentional. After hearing from multiple COPPC members, they decided they could compromise and allow the wall to stay up.
COPP Sen. Ryan Boyd said the COPPC collected over 850 signatures on a petition to save the wall this week, which helped demonstrate the immense amount of student support for this project.
“This is the easiest petition I have ever had to do on (Taylor Mall) because people actually like this wall,” Boyd said. “They understand when we are talking about it and they happily sign.”
Many COPP representatives vouched for the wall, leading to the compromise.
“I think (the wall) really speaks to the spirit of the Downtown campus,” said Amanda Andrew, the COPPC adviser and a coordinator for Academic Affairs. “Almost everybody here is in a major that is a ‘doing major’ and a ‘helping major.’ I think everybody on this campus considers themselves a changemaker and I think that is part of why the wall has become what it is and what people like about it.”
Daly said the Office of the University Architect’s focus is to build an environment for the entire campus and that he respects the wall’s intentions.
“(The intention of the wall) is everything the university is meant to be about,” Daly said. “It is everything President (Michael) Crow talks about. I am not going to sit here and try and undermine that intention.”
It was decided that the Office of the University Architect, the COPP and the COPPC will work together throughout the next few months to create a proposal and plan for a more permanent wall.
Daly said that although he can only make recommendations to Ed Soltero, the university architect, he personally would love to see the UCENT lobby updated.
“One of our biggest roles is to sketch and design projects and we have helped define projects for the lobby. I would love to see the lobby upgraded,” he said. “I would love to kind of integrate the desire for public arts and community arts to be part of that.”
To help the COPP and the COPPC make their future wall adhere to the University Architect’s standards, Daly and Horton will work to provide them with helpful resources and connections.
“I would love it if we could work together to come up with a solution that works for everyone and I think we could find a way to do it,” Daly said. “We are not trying to trample people’s intentions or projects. The goal is to find something we can all do together that works for everyone.”
Contact the reporter at Taylor.Brightwell@asu.edu
