Citizens invited to meeting on campus-city connections
GREENCASTLE -- How can the DePauw University campus better connect to the City of Greencastle in ways that enhance the community at large?
Members of the Greencastle community are invited to offer their thoughts on that question and others at a session today in DePauw's Memorial Student Union Building (408 S. Locust Street). The session will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. in the "Fishbowl" (a glass-walled room immediately to the right of the building's main entrance).
Architects from Ayers/Saint/Gross, a Baltimore, Maryland-based architectural and planning firm, will be present to hear your ideas and thoughts about the interconnections of DePauw and the city, how you use the campus, and what might need to be addressed. Today's event is part of a year-long process, now under way, to develop a campus plan.
DePauw President Brian W. Casey calls the process "An important conversation about the ways in which we use our campus, how this institution connects to the city of Greencastle, and the ways in which we might better create community in our academic and social spaces. I view these planning discussions, informed as they will be by the intellectual life conversations, to be among the most important things we do to shape the DePauw of the near and long-term future. Our campus should be a place that enlivens and enriches us; there are reasons to believe, however, that despite the beauty of much of our grounds, our environs do not now fully achieve these fundamental aims. To make sure that the campus supports our work and our community, we must consider how we can best use our current facilities and grounds while imagining how we to meet future space needs."
Ayers/Saint/Gross is unique among American architectural and planning firms in that close to 95 percent of its work is performed for colleges and universities. Recent clients have included the University of Chicago, Emory University, the University of Notre Dame, Franklin and Marshall College, Gettysburg College, Harvard University, Swarthmore College and Wesleyan University.
Members of the public are invited and encouraged to attend today's session.