A Beautiful Campus In Cincinnati Follow Up

A Beautiful Campus In Cincinnati Follow Up

On February 24, 2013 I wrote an article titled, “A Beautiful campus in Cincinnati.” In this post, I discussed the uniqueness and beauty of our campus – University of Cincinnati (UC). I posted various statistics backing up the fact that UC is ranked amongst America’s most beautiful campuses. Students of UC can now look at the campus with a sense of uniqueness and diversity. Every time you look at buildings around campus, you see a different pattern or a different view. UC is not just a college campus, it is a beautiful landmark for our city – The City of Cincinnati.

I was amazed at the amount of detailed feedback I received from this article. Readers were happy with the rankings of UC as one of America’s beautiful campus. They shed light on why they believe UC is uniquely a beautiful campus. Morgan W. describes how she sometimes forgets she is living in a city. “When I am sitting on Sigma Sigma commons on a warm spring or fall day, I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of the city and that is something I absolutely love about UC. You can get out of it whatever you want,” she said. I think this is a quality that makes UC unique. At times one may feel like they aren’t even living in a big city.

Some students feel UC may be lacking certain qualities, but overall they enjoy the campus. Emily H said, “While it’s no Murray State with its rural setting, for a campus built smack dab in the middle of the city, I think it’s one hell of a place to go to school.” She goes on to describe, “Campuses like NKU are considered “concrete paradises” while we here at UC have diversity in building structure and although some say we may lack color, we’ve got a hell of a lot to look at packed in to our city school campus. Emily is not the only reader who feels UC is lacking “color”. Other students feel UC is lacking color as well. Marisa W. said, Don’t get me wrong, the architecture is astounding, but where the color, spontaneity or liveliness? Marisa describes UC as “grand,” not beautiful. She said, “To me, a “beautiful” campus would be able to transcend weather. Like mountains or a sea. If the weather is any less than perfectly sunny, the place looks like a sad steam-punk Victorian city.” I see where Marisa is coming from. At times UC does resemble a gloomy, gothic city. One reader describes UC’s ability of being versatile. Gabrielle W. said, “We have traditional buildings, which I really appreciate, and the more modern impressive buildings. Something for everyone!

UC does have something for everyone – a quality that makes it truly unique.

Free Speech Please Follow Up

Free Speech Please Follow Up

A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled “Free Speech Please.” This post addressed civil liberty issues at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Many readers were discouraged by the facts surrounding UC’s constitutional speech issues. It is interesting to note that most people weren’t even aware of these speech issues. What is known is that most readers want change to occur on campus.

We must first look at why certain readers were unaware of the civil liberty issues at UC. How many students are truly aware of these issues at UC? Does UC want students to forget about these issues? Ali S. said, “Wow! I had no idea about this. I am surprised there aren’t more awareness about this issue.” I agree Ali, there does need to be more awareness about this issue. Maybe UC’s independent student newspaper (The News Record) should write a follow up story about these issues – why have they not? Emily H said, “What is the .1% of campus that we were allowed to use? I’m blindly assuming it’s the lawn in front of McMicken because that’s where I see everyone else with something to say go.” You are correct Emily, the lawn in front of McMicken is the .1% zone that students are allowed to use. Until the speech policy is officially rewritten, this is where students are told to express themselves. It is interesting to note that you were unsure of where this .1% zone actually was (I was unsure myself). Is there a reason why UC doesn’t publicly state where this zone is? Maybe they don’t want bad press.

Other readers were hopeful for change. Katie B said, “So glad to hear it! I remember reading a while ago that UC was one of the worst campuses for free speech. Hopefully now that this is enacted our standing will improve, and other campuses with similar free speech rules can use UC as an example.” The main goal is for other campuses to learn from UC. Hopefully no other campus will restrict free speech in this manner.

Roshal Wanigasooriya, Vice president of Young Americans For Liberty (YAL) chapter at UC said, “As soon as you limit one person’s free speech (or any right), you limit everyone’s. We’ve noticed much faster and smoother event planning and more freedom to speak out on campus.”

It seems as if change is starting to occur. More “speech zones” are being opened around campus, and it seems free speech restriction is no longer enforced. Although the official UC speech code policy has still not been updated, UC has been making strong efforts to change. With students voicing their concerns and groups such as YAL, UC will have to make changes in its speech code policy.