Just a month and a half after it was installed in the lobby of ASU’s University Center, the “In My Life I Will …” wall may be taken down, prompting students from the College of Public Programs to petition to stop the removal.
The possibility of the wall being taken down comes after eight months of work negotiating to get the wall up.
The College of Public Programs was notified by email on Sept. 11 that the wall needed to be removed by Oct. 10, according to Patrick Daly, associate director in the Office of the University Architect.
“The boards that were installed are not of sufficient quality to be installed again in the lobby or any other public space of the campus They are a bit too ‘homemade’ and don’t express the quality of materials required in public spaces,” Daly said he stated in his original email.
Related: ASU College of Public Programs ‘In My Life I Will …’ wall receives positive response
Students in the COPP council learned of the university’s plan to remove the walls Monday and they quickly began a ‘Save the Wall’ campaign. In two days, the students have created a petition that has garnered about 500 student signatures.
“Pretty much immediately after we found out the administration wanted to take it down, we just felt like we had worked so hard to put it up and that it had impacted the community,” said Robin Hudson, COPP council assistant chair. “We knew we had to do something immediately about it.”
Their overall goal is to keep the wall until the end of the spring 2015 semester even if they have to modify it to fit university standards.
The wall is being viewed as signage as opposed to an art project, according to Hudson, and does not qualify as art because it does not have a frame.
“The ‘In My Life I Will’ wall is part of the ‘Before I Die’ wall art movement,” she said. “There are walls around the world and the fact that ours is being taken down because it’s signage and the fluid nature of it makes the administration uneasy is why they are taking it down, but that, for us, is the entire point of it.”
Hudson said she feels the wall has become a major piece of the downtown Phoenix community and is bringing the campus closer together. She said it allows people to share their goals without criticism.
“It is a place for students to come and publicly advertise their aspirations in life,” she said. “By taking that away from them, we’re telling the students that ‘you have these great ideas but we’re not going to publicly recognize it,’ and that, to the council, is just completely immoral.”
COPP Senator Ryan Boyd agreed with Hudson’s opinion on the wall’s effect on the downtown community.
“It is one of the few things that is interactive and unifying on this campus,” Boyd said. “It is one of the few things that everyone agrees on, that almost everyone likes. It is a cultural centerpiece to our campus.”
Due to the support of the student body and the petition on the COPP Council, Daly asked Facilities Management to hold off on removing the boards until the matter can be sorted out. COPP will meet with Daly this Friday to discuss the students’ campaign.
“My hope would be that the students involved understand that we have expectations for the materials that are used in our public spaces,” Daly said. “We just have standards of quality that need to be maintained and the materials of the boards themselves aren’t of sufficient quality in a lobby of a prominent university.”
Daly is unsure if there will be a compromise made during Friday’s meeting, but he commended the students on their dedication.
“I think it’s great that students are very invested and involved,” he said. “That’s terrific.”
After printing petitions Monday night, Hudson and Boyd were able to draw hundreds of students’ support in person and via social media.
“The support of the students has been phenomenal,” Hudson said. “There was a great outpouring of help and this sense of community. Everyone loves the wall and no one really understands why they want to take it down.”
Along with the signed petition, the COPP council has also created a letter template on Facebook that students can send to President Michael Crow to alert him of the downtown student body’s needs.
Boyd said Undergraduate Student Government Downtown will be passing a resolution against the removal of the wall this Friday, but the best thing students can do to save the wall is simply to spread the word.
“I think students should support the effort to save the wall simply because it’s something that we like,” Boyd said. “The wall is one of the few remaining art forms made by students on this campus. If you love it, support it, because if you don’t, it is just going to go away.”
Contact the reporter at Taylor.Brightwell@asu.edu
