Harrison Keely What we don't know about campus can't hurt us Dont you agree that as good and wholesome as every admissions department wants us to believe a college campus is, the truth is that no college is perfect? Every single one has secrets. Lee is no exception. Rest assured, Lee is no bad place. As you can imagine, it is difficult to get away from campus without having a car and when you attend church only a hundred meters from the music building and eat every meal in the dining hall, you get to know Lee's campus pretty well- better than anyone on staff at least. And so, as a result, I've put together a collection of observations I've made and secrets I've learned about Lee's campus. Charging right ahead, one of the best-kept secrets at Lee (other than the fact that Dr. Carolyn Dirksen was asked by former President Jimmy Carter to consider the vice-presidency) is that the three-story tall mural in the Center for the Humanities hides the faces of two boys superimposed over the image of the trolley. The boys are the sons of Dr. Jeromme Hammond, the designer of the mural. Always serving new and exciting drinks, Jazzman's Caf (which, by the way, used to be a computer lab right after the student union was built) is a favorite locale on campus. I suggest the caf add a new concoction honoring one of the college's most celebrated Greek clubs. The drink, which I would call Alpha Gamma Chai Tea would combine the secrecy and the strength of the club by having secret ingredients and a taste that stays in your mouth for 101 hours. But, thankfully, students would no longer need to pass physical endurance tests to take a sip. Ready for another thought? If you ever believed you had reached the bottom of the student union when you visit the post office or caf, the fact is you really haven't. A closer look at the elevator buttons on the "first" floor reveal that the elevator actually goes down one more floor, to the true basement of the campus. What's down there? My guess is Dr. Conn's real office. All of the grandeur in the Vest building is a bluff to distract any students gone awry. Obviously, many new students wouldn't know that just before the turn of the century the land underneath the Humanities Center served as a softball field and where the PCSU now resides was once a parking lot. Also, before the elevator was constructed on the backside of the Vest building there was a concrete ramp that traveled along the side for access to the second story. Like islands, the only public buildings that remain on campus without complete handicap access are the Walker building, the Beach building, and the education building. But, surprise, the cafeteria kitchen has an elevator. Year after year it grows older. The rear end of the administration building (which used to serve as a female dorm) is the most ancient structure on campus. The outside wall facing the Vest building includes a set

of two fake windows on the second floor. In fact, the Centenary room on the first floor was the student center before the grand opening of the PCSU. Not all of the exciting secrets take place in non-residential buildings. Two dormitories, Bowdle and O'Bannon, are featured in the newest residence hall on campus (or should I say off campus?) The secret of that building is that it was actually constructed with the idea of a future third dorm connected in the back. Deliberately enough, the center rear of the structure contains easily accessible passageways (next to the laundry rooms) for connection to a future hall where the parking lot now is. However, plans for expansion are not in the immediate future. Instead of dwelling on the future, why not inspect forgotten remnants of Lees past? Before being lodged underneath the PCSU, the office of Lee's Vindagua yearbook was located in several different houses on ground that now serves as the bottom floor of Tharp hall, the tennis courts, the SharpDavis parking lot, the DeVos Recreation Center and finally, Atkins-Ellis Hall. Radically, the 1994 Vindagua reports that the origin of the Ellis Hall fire was inside the prayer room and the arsonist, 19 year-old Keith Sherlin, had previously been involved in a drive-by shooting at Lee in October of 1993. Knowing a lot about the campus means knowing the not-so-wonderful side as well. You see, everyone seems to believe the renovations of Walker Arena are complete, but the truth is that there is still one wall of the gym that must be torn down and rebuilt in my opinion. The back wall facing the dining hall still features at least one unstylish window from when the arena was originally built in 1980. Several buildings, in my opinion, don't fit in with the style of the campus. Other than a few obvious (and soon-to-be-removed) houses, Cross Hall, Squires Library and the Conn Center all feature slightly wacky designs that stand out from the beauty of ubiquity. Whoever suggested that "orange will always be in" is probably far away laughing maniacally and spending the college's money right now. Enough never really is enough. There are plenty of other mysteries on campus, and thoughts to be had about them. But, on the other hand, doesn't it feel good to continue to wonder why painted nuclear-waste-green ovals litter campus sidewalks and why the science building features a men's lounge but no women's lounge? Not surprisingly, the world continues even if we don't know the answer to every question and the contents of every secret. By the way, I have to ask, who believed Dr. Dirksen was asked to become vice president of the United States? Maybe if you bought that I could tell you I hid her name in the first letter of every paragraph...