In case you are one of the many students who don't have a clue as to what's going on in Muncie, the south side has a problem.
Try as it might, the city government can't seem to revive commerce on the other side of the railroad tracks. Since the south-side Kmart closed last year, some of the land's brightest minds (apparently architecture professors) have devoted a lot of time and energy to what is quickly becoming a ghost town.
Many students, however, don't care, and rightly so. People who attend Ball State have no need to go beyond the White River unless they are taking a date to the roller-skating rink.
But it has been said (by me at least) that a university reflects the town that it resides in, and Ball State holds true to that theory in this fashion: BSU's south side is going under.
Go south of Riverside Avenue and look around. You see buildings that are has-beens. North Quad, West Quad, the Burkhardt Building, the Cooper Science Complex, Lucina Hall and -- the king of them all -- the L.A. Pittenger Student Center are all but forgotten. These buildings are decaying before our eyes.
Students cross Riverside for only two reasons: going to class and paying parking tickets.
Meanwhile, the north side is flourishing. The Art and Journalism Building is the best thing to happen to Ball State since the nickname was changed from "Hoosieroons" to "Cardinals." The Whitinger Business Building just had an interior facelift; the football stadium is continually improving, and McKinley Avenue is about to be overhauled majorly.
Did I forget to mention that the university plans to connect the Bell Building to the Ball Communications Building and AJ to the Teachers College?
These things will be great for campus, but what about south siders? What about Benny the barber, Benny the statue, Games and Frames and that really cool Ball State sign on the southwest corner of campus?
I wonder if freshmen even know what I'm referring to.
There is a solution buried underneath all this development and undevelopment, though: let what will happen, happen.
If the south end of campus becomes obsolete, it will be OK. Someone will use it. Maybe the current Student Center will be converted into a residence hall for more students.
No university (or city) has been wiped off the map because part of it faced economic decline.
If decline drives Muncie's south side into disappearance, so be it. The loss will probably be cancelled out by the northwest expansion.
All I know is that a lot of time, money and research are being put into a developmental effort that will probably never produce fruit.
No one ever tries to put fallen leaves back on a tree. They'll be replaced eventually anyway.
Write to Jay at jdkenworthy@bsu.edu
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