Excerpt from the Spring 2023 issue of The Extension
For many years the Retirees Association had office space on the second floor of the Foundation Building, where no one ever expected to see a student. But as you may know from reading this newsletter, we were asked to vacate for a new client who might pay rent. Space was found for us on the third floor of Fawcett Hall, which in many ways is even nicer than what we had before. Our space is directly adjacent to the AAUP offices, and we seem to be the only residents of the floor. Fawcett was once a bustling classroom building where, during the early 1970s, I had many classes. Now, it’s rare for us to see anyone but each other, and it should be noted that we generally use the space for only a couple of hours a couple of times a month for Board and Executive Committee meetings. Fawcett seems well maintained and ready to receive students and faculty whenever they are ready to come back.
Millett Hall is another story. I spent many, many years as a resident of Millett Hall, first on the fourth floor as a graduate assistant, then on the first floor where Honors used to be before it moved up to the second floor, sometime in the 1990s maybe. I had not been on the second floor of Millett since I retired in 2011. After the June board meeting, I decided to go exploring. There were men outside of the building apparently dealing with some crumbling cement on the façade and the wheelchair ramp. No one tried to stop me when I walked inside to the atrium, where there were more workers who seemed to be concerned with something about the ceiling. I walked past the elevators and was surprised to see someone sitting at a desk in the Dean’s office.
I went up the stairs to the second floor, thinking I might peek in the windows. Much to my surprise, the door to the Honors suite was unlocked. None of the workers paid any attention to me. I might have been invisible. I walked in and had a look around. I was surprised to see all the furniture still in place in the lobby. On the wall were plaques commemorating people and events.The hall was lined with framed posters from the many Honors Institutes. When I retired, I left two framed Matisse prints hanging in my office. They were faded and had migrated to the director’s office, which looked almost as though someone had left in a hurry and didn’t have time to pack everything up. The metaphor that most immediately occurred to me was Chernobyl. It seemed like something awful had happened and people were forced to flee in a rush.
As I left, I scanned the environment. There was no one else outside. Maybe the workers had gone to lunch. The only other life form I could spot was a goose standing on the quad. The moat was drained, so that didn’t provide an explanation for his presence, although he did seem to use it as a latrine. I looked towards Allyn Hall, but it seemed in terrible disrepair. I stood there for a minute or two remembering different sights: boats in the moat, students sitting on the ledges around the quad—studying, eating lunch, chatting with friends— the preachers who showed up periodically to exhort the masses to repent, kites flying overhead.
Feeling not just nostalgic but also a little depressed, I headed for my car in the nearly empty Fawcett parking lot. It is hard to know what the future holds for Wright State. It came into being to serve the needs of baby boomers and for many years had to build continuously to keep up with the demand. Now that the largest generation ever has retired and many current students prefer online courses, so much space is no longer needed. The institution will have to continue to remake itself to survive and prosper. We must trust that the politicians, the university administration, and the community at large will remain up to the task of taking Wright State where it needs to go to best serve our various constituencies.
