Though almost 40 years old, and crisping at its edges in the annals of The Spectrum archives, the photograph from the "Amherst Campus" drawing board could plausibly mirror a tea-stained UB 2020 printout.
In the Sept. 19, 1975 publication of The Spectrum, students from the Student Association and Sub Board stood shoulder-to-shoulder to fight administrators who rendered student participation in the Amherst Campus a question, and not a certainty.
Besides photo quality, not much has changed.
Meetings for the potential UB 2020 plan still only require one student representative's participation. But student attitudes, in terms of entitlement, have certainly become more passive.
The question of why students are not active participants in the design and construction of our campus and future alma mater is seldom posed on campus in 2010.
Consider the big plans and all those pretty pictures of the new 2020 campus. Now look around you and think about whether North Campus currently resembles its projected appearance in 1975.
Maybe our school won't look exactly how planners anticipate in 2020. Or, maybe students' opinions will end up influencing the fate of our campus. Either way, understanding our past can only help predict our future.
Photo: Ms Jones | Wikimedia Commons
