Ugly but Safe

I thought this might be a good title for my personal ad, if I were interested in taking one out.

But I kid! Actually, it's a reference to our newly retrofitted Business building here on campus. Those of you who ever went to SBVC, or drove past it quickly to avoid having to look at it longer than necessary, would be a bit shocked to see it today. Because the campus perches precariously on the San Jacinto earthquake fault and lays adjacent to the San Andreas fault and cowers away from a third mystery fault, in the event of an earthquake our instructions are to lie down and pray for a quick death.

But because we're inside the "death triangle," we're of interest to the state who approved some massive constructions projects several years ago. They've demolished several buildings and put up some new ones (the new library now blocks the view from my office window; a new Health and Life Science building stands at the other end of the campus, and a new Administration building opened this summer). By the end they'll tear down another half-dozen buildings and raise a like number, giving us new Campus Center, Art, Nursing, and Chemistry buildings. All in all, the campus should look much newer than it did, which is good considering that it is, in fact, new.

The new buildings are of an odd style, all sandstone blocks with stark, geometrical styling. Windows of varying sizes and shapes seem dotted half-randomly across the exterior walls, and almost all of the buildings feature a set of vast glass walls that intersect at sharp angles and at least one enormous triangular metal flap that hangs down to provide shade, or covered outdoor space, or simply confusion--one instructor suggested they look like the flaps from the Flying Nun's habit.

The odd look is supposedly to support the new super-advanced anti-earthquake construction which will keep these buildings standing when the earthquake comes to claim us all. Lots of terms like "unbonded brace frames" and "performance-based seismic design" get bandied about these days by adminstrators with smug grins and vacant eyes. The upshot is that the buildings should wobble but not fall down. This was not lost on me when a sizeable earthquake struck earlier this year while I worked here in the crumbling old Liberal Arts building; I leapt into the doorway of my office (which you're not supposed to do now, as I understand, lest you be disembowled by the swinging door) and could watch the new library through the window. My only thought was, "If I'm crushed to death and the last thing I see is the sparkly new library swaying gently through the window, I'm going to be seriously put out." You engineering geeks can check it out, with some photos, here.

Of course, the buildings I work in are not those new ones. The Business building (where I teach most of my English classes, of course--that only seems logical) was shut down for a year so they could retrofit it with new supports and repaint it to match the new buildings. It does look better from the outside, admittedly, but teaching in it is very hit and miss. One of my classes is in a room with new carpet, a shiny new clock that tells something like the actual time, freshly painted walls and an overpowering chemical smell that keeps us all slightly high (as a bonus, this seems to make the students less restless). A second room I teach in is much like the old ones with cracked floor tiles, crooked lighting fixtures, and slightly dingy paint--not delightful, but not dangerous. My third room, however, has an exposed concrete floor with clear waterstains in the corners, exposed wiring, and an overall sense that we've been locked in the cellar for being naughty.

Interestingly, these rooms correspond to the various levels of class I'm teaching. The nice room is given to my Freshman Composition students who are clever and follow the rules and are properly trained and clean; the middle room goes to my "middle" class, Preparation for College Writing, the students of which have not always fully adjusted to college life; and the bad room has been foisted on my Basic Writing class, full of those who have the most tattoos and the hardest time adjusting, what with having the most work to get up to snuff. It reminds me of Matt Groening's School Is Hell panel about elementary school in which the Gold and Silver reading groups are to meet at opposite corners of the room, while the Brown group is ordered to gather in the basement...