Campus Oddities: Engineering Building

I never really used the 24-hour computer lab in Engineering until recently, when my home computer was having some serious issues. As a result, I've been encountering the Handicapped Door of Doom on the ground floor. For some reason, both doors are extremely difficult to open by hand - something that gets me every time. I confidently stride toward the door and pull, expecting it to open like a normal door, only to have it budge about 1/4 of the way.

Anybody else have that experience, or other campus idiosyncrasies you'd like to share?

UMBC: Its Own Worst Enemy, Part 4

I thought I'd hold off on a few of these for a while, lest all 25 subscribers think that this space has become exclusively negative.

Everybody in student life, especially those of us in SGA, want UMBC students to take "ownership" of the campus. We'd love for everybody to have the kind of experiences that David Hoffman frequently describes. Unfortunately it seems that not all parts of the campus support that goal - in some cases even actively suppressing student demonstrations of campus ownership.

One such event happens nearly every year. A few brave artistic students decide to create chalk paintings around a residence hall - their home at UMBC. The next morning, as students are busy taking pictures and wondering about the mysterious artists, an email arrives from a Community Director. The gist of the message is always the same: "Lovely art, but remember that in your community living guide, chalking is prohibited."

Is that the message we should be sending at UMBC? "Lovely expression of campus ownership, but unfortunately we don't allow that here." How can we spend valuable resources begging students to get involved with UMBC, only to turn around and trample them when they do?

UMBC has taken a very proactive approach to campus policy, an approach that says, "we will use policy to prevent problems from occurring." I think we could stand to have a more reactive policy, one that says, "we will use policy to eliminate problems if they do occur." Chalking hateful messages around a resident hall would certainly be a problem - but isn't somebody's chalk art a positive community message? Is it really fair to students to destroy the positive just because there is the possibility of negative?

I would love to see students decorate True Grit before a game, or put a festive Santa hat on Walter Sondheim for the holidays. I also wonder how fast such a demonstration of campus ownership would be removed...

Time Waster: Pandemic 2

I've recently been hooked on another great time-wasting flash game: Pandemic 2. You play as an infectious agent (virus, bacteria, or parasite) and your goal is to infect the world, ultimately eliminating mankind from the face of the earth. At your disposal are resistances, methods of infection, and a colorful palette of symptoms.

I've worked out a decent winning strategy using a parasite in realistic mode, but I'm working on another shot so I can hit the world with parasitic necrosis.

Major points to anybody who can get "Retriever Fever" on the highscore list. If you can do it come by the SGA office and I'll get you a small prize (no cars or cash, sorry).

Digital Signage

I'm not sure exactly how long it's been there, but I recently noticed the new digital sign on the ground floor of the engineering building. I've often thought it would be neat to have an iNet-like system for all of campus, not just the Commons. This looks like a pilot implementation of that idea - exciting!

From what I can tell, the ads are coming from the myUMBC spotlights, so it would seem that if you've placed an ad on Spotlight it will appear on the digital sign as well.