Tag Archives: Space

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Space

Esteemed administrators, faculty, fellow students, and members of the Baruch community, I’d like to thank you all for this opportunity to discuss our vision. Before I begin, I’d like to ask you to close your eyes: Imagine an open area, with plenty of greens, a few benches, perhaps even some walkways and flowers for reflection. On one end a small group is testing the power of the wind with a small apparatus constructed in a physical science class. Standing on a bench a young man practices a public speech. Two women gather footage for a campaign proposal for the city parks. In the center a large group pours over the great works of Shakespeare. Here is a community of scholars, coming together for the common purpose of knowledge, progress, and innovation. Their conversations and debates extend beyond the class time and into their social and their everyday routines. Now open your eyes. Welcome back to Manhattan. For years, the vision we have just taken you through has been the ideal university and perhaps the standard for the liberal arts college.

Make no mistake, we’re proud and glad to be members of Baruch College. We do not want to be Harvard. We do not want to be UC Berkeley. We do not want to be Wesleyan. We want to be Baruch. We are a superb institution with a nationally renowned business program; we are public; we are diverse; we are unique; and we are CUNY. The realities of Baruch are that it is in Manhattan, which comes with the issues of limited space and high cost of living, making it so that the ideal we saw with our eyes closed is very distinct from Baruch. With our eyes open Baruch is a commuter school, a vertical campus, with people constantly rushing to and from jobs, families, more jobs, the trains, class, internships, clubs and committees. We are aware that the college is about to undergo some major renovations, and we have come here to suggest changes that can make it so that Baruch doesn’t have to be so far from the ideal. We believe that building a better Baruch must involve keeping in mind not necessarily that exact image of the ideal, but its underlying principle of a scholarly community that integrates the academics of the classroom and the learning of everyday life and nature. There are many ways to accomplish this goal, but we stand here today in hopes of offering a few ideas. We have targeted areas that we, as students, are passionate about and we appreciate your taking these ideas into serious consideration.

 

Baruch College has a student body of over 17,000 making overcrowding in elevators a common problem. What makes this problem worse are the outdated elevators in the Lawrence and Eris Field building. In between class times, the lines in the lobby are so outrageous that the security guards have to spend time delegating and maintaining the flow of traffic. Instead of being security guards, they must become traffic officers. This issue wastes the precious time that the students have, thus impacting the efficiency of the students’ education.

 

We are grateful to hear that funds have been set aside to resolve this issue; however, we do have some suggestions on making the construction run smoothly and decreasing the flow of traffic when the new elevators are up and running. Since two of the elevators are currently broken, we should fix those first because doing so would not affect the traffic in the lobby. Once renovations on those two elevators are complete, they would be functional and another two elevators can be repaired. This pattern would continue until all the elevators are fixed without having to decrease the number of elevators available. After all the elevators are functioning, Baruch could consider implementing express elevators, which would be more efficient and regulate the flow of traffic.

 

Citations:

 

Alcock, Ian. White, Mathew P., Wheeler, Benedict W., Fleming, Lora E., Depledg, Michael H.

“Longitudinal Effects on Mental Health of Moving to Greener and Less

Green Urban Areas”. ACS Publications. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Baruch College. “Strategic Plan 2013-2018.” 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

CUNY. 2013 Annual Report. The Baruch College Fund, 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Meehan. “Greening Our Schools, A State Legislator’s Guide to Best Policy Practices.” U.S Green Building

Council. 2010. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

MillionTrees NYC – About MillionTrees NYC. MillionTrees NYC 2014. n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

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Baruch Space (Background/History)

Many colleges and universities have an open space where students can interact in. Some colleges such as Manhattan’s College use their commons to connect their north and south campus. Connecting these areas will allow students to interact with each other in between classes. In these open spaces, students can hang out or even host events. Students can socialize and share their cultural ideas with each other, which is something Manhattan college values a lot.
In addition to using commons for socializing, colleges use it to care for the environment. For example, Boston universities use their free space to care for plants, design landscape, and hold service events. These colleges spread greenery around their campuses and offices. Students can work together to help the environment through the use of available commons.
Colleges also use their yard areas for sport activities. For example, Union college uses their fields to practice playing football. The yard area is helpful in improving football skills that would help in winning games. If colleges won more games, then they would have better reputations and more respect. In addition, sports can help school spirit, which would help the school environment In general.
Baruch students lack such commons that improve student interaction and the campus environment. Baruch students should have access to traditional visions that other colleges like Manhattan college, Union College, and others have that would impact the school’s performance.

Sources:
1)
http://manhattan.edu/giving/student-commons-campaign/student-commons-location
2)
http://www.4seasonsgreenery.com/boston_plantscaping/plantcare_special_events_colleges_universities
3)
https://www.ucollege.edu/about-us/buildings-landmarks-and-maps

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Baruch Space (Sister Situations)

New York University is a private institution located in Manhattan, New York. Although it is located in the city like Baruch College is, NYU managed to incorporate some greenery into their campus. According to the NYU website, there was a NYU Green Spaces Plan that was completed in 2009 that called for small gardens planted in various locations. NYU is also planning to start another plan in 2031 to expand their area to as much as six million feet, two-thirds of which would be for academic space and student services. In addition, many of the academic buildings are located around Washington Square Park making it easy for students to travel there for a change of atmosphere. Baruch College may not be able to find that much space to expand on but it could use the NYU Green Spaces Plan as an example to plant small gardens around the school or plan more activities at parks that are located near the Baruch campus.

In Brooklyn, Long Island University recently built an athletic field. According to the information on LIU’s athletic website, LIU began to renovate the field in 2011 to update the home fields for various sports teams on campus. When comparing the statistics on the athletic pages of Baruch’s and LIU’s, we can see that LIU’s men’s soccer and baseball teams have been doing better than Baruch’s respective teams. Whether this was based on their skills, or lack of practice with an actual athletic field, one cannot be sure.

Located in Queens, St. John’s has a large campus that involve greenery in various ways. According to the St. John’s website, the Great Lawn is an area that hosts many events such as the Sixth Annual Alumni Great Lawn Party which helps connects students with the community and alumni with activities. St. John’s also partnered with Mayor Bloomberg and the NY Restoration Project to plant a thousand trees in the Queens and Staten Island campuses. Although Baruch does not have the space that St. John’s has for a grassy athletic field or a big open space for student events, Baruch could partner up with non profit organizations (especially if money is an issue) to support greenery on campus. St. John’s was a good example in showing how they obtained outside help to further their own goals on campus.