June 2, 2011

Page 1

Top 10 Arkansas Razorback Athletes 1C PAGE 1A

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2011

Vol. 105, NO. 31 UATRAV.COM

ORIENTATION

Hipsters on Campus Page 1B

5 Favorite Old-School Hangouts Page 2B Dalai Lama’s Message Page 7A

Access Road to Cut Across Old Main Lawn Nearby Construction Expected Until 2013

by CHAD WOODARD and BOBBIE FOSTER Editorial Staff

The UA will build a service road to act as an entrance onto Old Main lawn for trucks carrying supplies to renovate Ozark and Vol Walker halls, said Mike Johnson, assistant vice chancellor of facilities management. The entrance will be at Arkansas Avenue where a three-way stoplight will be placed. Facilities Management staff aims to start construction on the road in two or three weeks. A protest was held May 22 at 5:00 p.m. in front of Old Main. The protesters were voicing anger about the service road. The goal was to get the word out to UA alumni and students, said Paula Marinoni, protest organizer and historic preservationist. “Thursday morning I found out, because I was asked if I could meet at Carnall Hall; I didn’t know what it would be about,” Marinoni said. “I came out here this morning to see if they did it during the night, they have no one to stop them.” The site was considered sacred ground by the UA administration after someone tried to place a building on the south side of the lawn some years back, Marinoni said. “[The] front lawn of Old Main should not be degraded,” Marinoni said. “[It] makes me sick.” The UA administration

plans to remove the road when the construction on Ozark Hall and Vol Walker Hall are complete. “[The road] is a temporary, unfortunate event,” Chancellor G. David Gearhart said. “Our objective is to preserve and enhance our two most historic and valuable buildings,” said Laura Jacobs, director of strategic communications. “This proposal provides the least disruption to our grounds and our traditions of all feasible options.” The cost of the project is unknown. “It is not fully designed yet,” Johnson said. “We will not know how much it will cost to construct until the design is finished.” Part of the rock wall will be removed in the construction as well as part of senior walk and some facility tunnel-top accesses will be covered by the road, Johnson said. “We will carefully restore the wall and grounds to their pre-construction conditions, as we did when we undertook the restoration of Old Main in the late 1980s and Carnall Hall in the early 2000s,” Jacobs said. The protesters were not just concerned with the historic rock wall, but also the trees. “They will take apart the wall, number the bricks and put them back two years later, and it will take out at least two trees,”

Marinoni said. “Moving these big trees will kill them, but that doesn’t matter to them,” said Fran Alexander, environmental activist and UA donor and alumnus at the protest.” “The roots of the trees must have oxygen [and] if soil is put over the roots it is a slow and suffocating death,” she said. “Many of these trees’ roots are at the wall so the whole lawn is like a map of roots.” A big concern was keeping the trees safe, Gearhart said, as some of those trees are hundreds of years old. However, the route through Old Main lawn has the best access to those sizable construction projects without harming any trees. As for senior walk, it is being carefully documented, Johnson said. “We are currently documenting it so people can access it online. We want to protect it to the best of our abilities,” Johnson said. “We will return everything to its original and, in my opinion, an even better state.” The construction on Ozark and Vol Walker Halls is slated to begin around Nov. 1, Johnson said, but the construction will finish on Memorial Hall and the ROTC building in time for classes to begin in the fall. “In 1871, we got the UA here because of the special spirit in Fayetteville. This was such a big deal that an architect was

hired to design Old Main in a Parisian style, with the road of Lafayette ending at Old Main,” Marinoni said, “It was meant to endure time and these people want to destroy it.” “They are going to put a metal cloth down, put red dirt on top of it and then put chat on that,” Marinoni said, “It will be 20 feet wide, so students will not be able to cross this for two years.” This is not the first road to be built through the center of campus, Johnson said. “There was a road and turnaround in the late 1920s or 1930s and we are doing more research on that,” he said. “We are as much, if not more so, concerned about the history,” Johnson said. The UA is planning several actions that will celebrate the history and traditions of this part of campus during the construction, Jacobs said. “The campus administration is committed to historic preservation and restoration to our campus and our actions under Chancellor Gearhart attest to that,” Jacobs said. Old Main does not only belong to the UA, but to Arkansas, Marinoni said. “This belongs to the citizens of Arkansas, not to the people who are making those decisions,” Marinoni said. “The Old Main lawn is the entrance to the UA, it is the face of the UA.”


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