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Field Trip:

ISU's student handbook proclaims: "Behind the name of each campus building is a story told in brick and stone.”

You will be in four groups and each group will be responsible for gathering information about one building on campus.

You probably noticed the use of objects, places, etc in the essays you read for today. The writers use these devices to begin thinking about the people they describe, to help readers understand or know these people, and to provide readers with a three-dimensional character (imperfections and all).

We're going to use place to begin to describe the “character” of this university.

Here is what you want to find out...

  • describe the building outside and inside going into as much detail as you can (height of ceilings, are there a lot of windows, what are the walls, stairwells, elevators, halls, entrances, lighting fixtures, furnishings, etc like?)
  • What offices, classes, business, departments, etc housed in that building? What are individual offices like?
  • Where are the vending machines, bathrooms, lists of who is where?

Get as much information as you can and then decide how to break up the next part of the assignment...

Your group will need to provide a detailed description of the building. In the next paragraph(s) you will tell us what that building reveals about what the college values (what would I say if I were to visit only your one building and someone later asked me: "What does ISU think is important?")?

In the next paragraph(s) put your building into a larger context by telling me how it fits in with other buildings on campus and with the focus or mission of the school in general?

Group 1 Investigate the Bone Student Center (on the map this is number 5)

Sidebar: in the early seventies, this center was named simply the Student Union, but the BSA petitioned to have it re-named the Malcolm X center and the Martin Luther King auditorium...President Braden fought the move and got an auditorium named after him for his trouble.

Group 2 Investigate Fell Hall (map number 24)

Group 3 Investigate Center for the Visual Arts and University Art Galleries (map # 13)

Group 4 Investigate Stevenson Hall (this building)

Have fun!

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