I want to start a new series on where should our money go - $310,000 for a new logo and look for the web site or... and then we fill in the "or". Since all site members have the ability to post blogs or comments to blogs, you can participate in either way. All you have to do is tag your blog with "or..." (without the quotes) as the Topic for your blog.

Note: You don't have to do the logo/redesign as the first choice.

Today's installment:

  or 

Logos or ceilings

All throughout campus are examples of ceilings that are leaking, cracked, riddled with holes, etc. I was in a class last term in a room in the 1500s that had significant cracking in the ceiling and part of the wall in the front of the room. I wish at the time I would have thought to have taken a picture. If you happen to have a class in that room (1509, maybe? It is one that has an "outside" door and has an A and a B), please shoot a pic and post it.

As you walk through the Academic Center, you can't help but miss all the places where the ceiling has leaked on numerous occasions. In some areas, chunks of the ceiling have fallen off. In others so many pieces have fallen off that you can see the wire mesh inside.

You definitely don't want to walk under any of these areas when it is raining (most of the year!) unless you want the water to run down on you. And unlike the rain outside, this liquid has picked up all kinds of particles from the roof and ceiling of the building before it lands on you. With as many warning signs as we have around campus about asbestos and other such harmful materials, I don't know that I want to be anywhere near liquids that filter down through the building like that.

How can we find money to change the look of our web site, but can't fix these blatant problems with our buildings? People keep defending the web site redesign, saying that it does good for the school to have an attractive presence on the web. What good does that do if people visit your school and find it falling apart?

Just a few pics I have snapped thus far (most of them today and none of them duplicated):

Minor exterior damage: This is what appears first when water is coming through the ceiling. You can see the wet spots when we've had rain lately and particles, minerals, etc. are left behind in the ceiling once it dries (evident in the white chalky residue left behind)

Moderate damage: Once water has seeped through for some time, parts of the ceiling start falling off. In the first pic, you can see where a considerable amount of water has run down the support post as well:. I've never come through when some of it fell, but I have come through afterwards when the pieces are laying there on the floor.

Finally, the damage becomes so bad that you actually have holes in the ceiling where you can see either the wire mesh and such beyhind the outer coating of material or holes that go even further into the ceiling: