N EW CABELL Hall is the largest classroom building on the Lawn and without a doubt one of the most heavily used on Grounds. It contains more classrooms, more faculty offices, more bathrooms, and five stairwells. Every semester hundreds of students circulate through the narrow, dimly lit hallways in search of a class or appointment, yet not a single sign, information placard or colorful map exists to help them seek out their destination. Facilities Management and the College should be applauded for their decision to renumber classrooms and offices in New Cabell Hall by the summer of 2002, starting with the low numbers on the Bryan Hall side and ending with the high numbers on the Wilson Hall side.This change is very much welcomed, as the present lack of clear and logical signs makes it difficult for students to navigate the enormous edifice.
Undoubtedly this situation would not have existed at all had the building been organized in a logical manner, but instead, rooms are numbered nearly arbitrarily. Any student who enters the building from the Lawn and turns into a stairwell is also faced with a cryptic sign announcing "Floor 4 of 6." However, the bottom floor, the first of six, is not labeled "1" as intuition would demand, but "basement" instead. This leads to uncertainty as to which floor really is the first of six, when the top floor is in fact the fifth.
At present, the bathrooms lack any sort of pattern in their location throughout the edifice. Lost first years and disoriented upperclassmen alike spend their first few days of class semester after semester roaming from end to end of the structure in hope of deciphering the odd organization of the building and deducing the location of a desired classroom.
Students are left to question why the College has not long ago fastened signs at the exits directing students toward the restroom of the appropriate sex. It likely has a great deal to do with a familiar excuse for preserving a dysfunctional status quo: tradition.
Students at the University are sometimes labeled as elitist in our habits, of which one is an aversion to all forms of posted directions and maps and building labels. At many universities a lost visitor might find a colorful map characterized by large arrows and a bright red "you are here." However, Wayne Cozart, director for alumni affairs, remembers a time in the University's history when the admissions building was the sole bearer of a self-identifying sign. He explains that some advocates of identification minimalism might argue that a true University student should not need visible directions, but instead be intimately familiar with every nook and cranny of his or her institution.
As the school has exploded in size over the decades, few students have continued to hold onto this mind-set. Few students can find a water fountain on the Lawn or a computer lab in Bryan Hall. Fewer can give directions to Kerchoff, Levering or Brooks Halls. Students and visitors obviously would use maps and directions frequently and depend on signs identifying buildings.
This principle should be applied to New Cabell Hall as well. There should be a map posted near every exit and each floor should have arrows to the men or women's room. In addition, the bathroom signs need to indicate which bathrooms are open in the evening. Students have no desire to walk all the way from one end of the building to the other only to discover that they have to walk back to the opposite side and up two flights of stairs to find an open facility.
Such an accommodation would hardly lead to a slippery slope of tacky signs and information boards around Grounds. Then again, maybe the school could use the change. Prospective students and their parents might find their way from the parking deck to the admissions office. Students might actually get to class on time on the first day. It would no doubt familiarize more students with Grounds, thereby achieving what the old standard intended with the lack of building identification.
The plans to renumber rooms in Cabell Hall by next summer will go a long way to reduce the confusion of finding classes in the building. But it is not enough. The University should consider adding floor plans and signs throughout the building. It is time to get students and faculty the information they need on a daily basis. Maps and signs need to be posted in Old Cabell Hall before the beginning of next semester. Let's take care of a problem that we know can be fixed easily.
(Preston Lloyd's column usually appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at plloyd@cavalierdaily.com.)
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