Casey talks campus beauty, town relations and -- yes -- those disappearing gates

Thursday, March 7, 2013
DePauw University President Brian Casey speaks to Rotary about campus beautification and town relations on Wednesday, March 5.

When DePauw University President Brian Casey first came to the Greencastle five years ago, he found a beautiful campus but he knew there was room for improvement.

"The great campuses are always beautiful," Casey told the Greencastle Rotary Club Wednesday, contending that a campus should attract people and pull them toward the middle.

And so it has been that construction has been the order of the day recently at DePauw.

One can see it in the conversion of Anderson Street, the new official entrance to the college. It is again a two-way street, newly paved, lined with antique street lamps and elm trees and marked at the end with a stately entrance.

Other coming campus changes include a new dining hall, a new learning and career center and major improvements to the school's athletic fields.

While buildings are the most visible signs of progress on a campus (Casey joked that university presidents call them "edifice complexes."), the president said the physical changes to a university are only a portion of his much larger duty to improve the school.

Much like the look and layout of the campus, there is always room for improvement.

Casey was asked recently by his nephew, now a freshman at DePauw, "What is it that you do?" After a pause for laughter, Casey defined his job as university president.

"My job is to push. My job is to prod. My job is to poke," Casey said. "There are 4,000 institutions (of higher learning) trying to get better. My job is to never let up."

He called it a "moral obligation" for the president to want to make the college better, saying the day he wakes up without that passion, it's time to leave.

Casey defined four main things he has to worry about, as well as a fifth that relates to the other four. He said he concerns himself with the quality of programs, the quality of students, what happens at the university and where those things happen.

The fifth concern, essential to all others, is "How are you going to pay for this?"

Fiscal threats are not something new to American universities or indeed to higher education in general.

"None of these institutions were ever created to make money or hoard money," Casey said. Instead, early in its history almost every American college and university was supported by the church, by the government or both.

"Our business model has never worked. We've always counted on others to subsidize what we do," Casey said. He said he only worries that our society may lose the view of educating young minds as a public good, therefore jeopardizing the future of such institutions.

The constant push to improve campus is not just self-serving, though. The old hot button issue of town-gown relations came up, with Casey saying such strains go back as far as Oxford University in the 13th century.

"Colleges, by definition, are places that operate under different rhythms," Casey said. "Sometimes we're a good neighbor, sometimes we're a less good neighbor."

Even with the differences, Casey said relations have been positive, particulary with Sue Murray, who "reached out to me as much as a reached out to her."

The desire to be reach out to the community is what drove the recent decision to remove the Hoover Gates from the campus's official entrance at Anderson and Bloomington streets.

Having seen sketches of the project in planning, Casey worried about the gates. They seemed out of scale, too modern.

Most importantly, Casey did not like the message, metaphoric though it may be, that large gates sent in potentially closing the campus off to the community. Never mind that the iron barriers would be permanently set in the open position.

"I absolutely hated those gates," Casey said to a round of laughter.

The president even said he went out in the middle of the night in the pouring rain "to make peace with the gates." It didn't work.

With students and community members also expressing their displeasure, the gates were removed.

The distaste with the gates was outdone only by the stir caused when they suddenly disappeared. Students even approached Casey suggesting that Wabash students had stolen them.

Reminding the young scholars that each gate weighed several tons, the president assured them the gates were in a safe place.

At this time, it is unclear what, if anything, will adorn the brick entrance in their place.

A decision will take some time, with Casey saying a permanent solution is possibly 18 months to two years away. The plan is to wait until the elm trees leaf out and then take a lot of pictures.

From that point, some extensive PhotoShop work will help officials make a decision.

As one architect on the project said, "These gates should be up for two centuries, so let's take the time to get it right."

So goes the mystery of the disappearing gates, except for maybe where they are now.

"There really is no mystery, except that I couldn't stand them," Casey said.

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  • DePauw continues to be a strong pillar of excellence for students and one of the finest examples of high quality establishments for our entire community to follow!

    -- Posted by Valzo on Thu, Mar 7, 2013, at 3:17 PM
  • Wouldn't it be nice if the Banner would invest in proofreaders?

    -- Posted by Old White Republican on Thu, Mar 14, 2013, at 2:41 PM
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