Point News, 1989 September 25

              Page 4 The Point News September 25,1989 Campus News
SMC's Atew Library
A Library With An Atmosphere of Quiet Comfort
by Jennifer Garvey
No matter how much we’d
all like to avoid thinking about it,
the library is a substantial part of
life here at St. Mary’s. So it is a
little distressing to think of the
library the way it used to be—dark
and drafty, confusing and crowded.
Now, however, all of that is chang­ing.
Soon, the new library will
open and the one we’re all used to
will close its doors until next fall.
"I think there's no ques­tion
that itll be a great improve­ment,"
said Dr. John Williamson,
Director of the Library. And after
seeing it, I believe him. The new
library is beautiful. The large open
spaces with the gentle grey carpet­ing
create the perfect air of quiet
comfort. The soft lighting is bright
enough to keep you awake, but not
so bright that it's distracting.
Then there are the win­dows.
Windows everywhere. Big
picture windows with breath-tak­ing
views of the water. Round
windows in the ceiling to catch the
sun at every angle. And all around
the walls there are window seats
with comfortable cushions great
for reading (but even better for
daydreaming). "We're so proud of
this," Deloris Bolmarc, Assistant
Director of the Library, confided.
"I think it's going to be a great
place for the students."
Everyone admits that for
a while it will be inconvenient.
Even after the new buildingis open
and fully operational, students will
still have to deal with the con­struction
from the renovation of
the old library. "They're going to
take the walls down and the roof
off. They'll change the windows
so that everything matches," Dr.
nlt's going to be a great
place for the students
Williamson told me. When the
whole project is done, however,
there will be a walkway connect­ing
the old part to the new and no
one will be able to tell that the
buildings were not constructed at
the same time.
Dr. Williamson is hoping
to be able to fill all of this new
space with more books and media
equipment. The College is clearly
interested too. The St. Mary's
Foundation is starting a $2 million
endowment for the library. Right
now, the only new thing that has
been purchased is new furniture
which hasn't arrived yet. So the
old furniture will be moving along
with the old books into the new
building.
Although there won't be
any major differences in the op­eration
of the library, there will be
new group study rooms, more areas
for individual study, and, eventu­ally,
there will be an overlook area
with cushy chairs (no couches
though-Dr. Williamson says
couches are used more for sleep­ing
than studying) and light read­ing
in front of the huge picture
window at the front of the build­ing.
"The idea is to encourage
people to read for the sake of read­ing,”
Dr. Williamson explains.
Right now that overlook is blocked
off because of problems with the
floor and chances are it won't be
safe for students for some time to
come.
Now, none of these things
mean that doing research for term
papers will be a whole lot of fun.
But being able to do them in a
building that was created just for
our comfort and will make going
to the library a lot less painful.
Site of Science Building
Causes Community Uproar
by Carolyn Ross
In March 1634, the famous ships,
the Ark and the Dove, landed at St.
Mary's City. In the years afterward
a colony was developed, which
became the capital of Maryland,
the heart of which now lies under
the area surrounding Charles Hall
on the campus of St. Mary's Col­lege.
Charles Hall itself is actually
located on a site called Gallows
Green, where criminals in the 1680s
were hung. In June 1987, a public
presentation was made revealing
the intentions of a "Master Plan"
for the revamping of the college
campus. This plan, estimated at
$29 million for the next ten years,
included a new science center which
would replace the outdated facili­ties
in Kent Hall. The proposed
construction site was directly in
front of Gallows Green, the legen­dary
site of the first Protestant
Church in Maryland.
This summer, as plans for the
facility began to accelerate, a voice
was heard among the citizens of
St. Mary's County. They wanted
to stop what they felt was the de­struction
of hundreds of years of
history and the ruin of the area's
natural bueaty by the college's
expansion plans.
The controversy began when a
group of people came forward.
"They came to the college admini­stration
two years after the public
viewing and wanted the building
moved," says Chris Cihlar, Direc­tor
of Public Information. Accord­ing
to Katherine W. Barnes of the
newly formed Historic St. Mary's
City Rescue Coalition, "Citizens
were not informed of the public
presentations. Charles Hall and the
parking lot are already built on the
core of the city, we are determined
to save what is left."
The coalition, started by alum­nus
Michael Lynch, organized the
efforts of a number of local and
national preservationists. Their
focus of moving the science build­ing
was a starting point of opposi­tion
against the entire master plan
proposal.
The Board of Trustees Adhoc
Commitee on the Science Center
which was created when the de­bate
began. It announced its deci­sion
to move the science building
to a site north of Fisher Road, after
the release of results from an arche­ological
survey of the area.
"We hope to remain on sched­ule
and have it (the science center)
opened by fall of '92. It's a three
and a half year project," says Di­rector
of Capital Projects, Chip
Jackson. However, because the
center is the "key element (in the
master plan) we kind have to start
over. We have a contract with the
architects...we've just changed the
given constraints and one of those
constraints is that you can't put a
building there."
So where will it be built? "Some­where
between admissions, the gym
and the townhouses," predicts
Jackson. Preparations to survey this
area have already begun. "There
are two phases of investigation,"
explains Burton Kummferow, Di­rector
of the St. Mary's City
Commission. The Commission is
a state agency which claims to
own one-third of the 1200 acre St.
Mary's City land tract in conjunc­tion
with the Trinity Church Ves­try
and the college. It is too early
to say if this site will be suitable
for building, but as Chris Witzgall,
student member of the Adhoc Com­mittee
puts it, "anywhere you dig
on this campus you're going to
find [artifacts]."
St. Mary’s City is a registered
National Landmark and is one of
five relatively intact colonial sites
in the country. According to Bar­nes,
it is now being considered by
the Department of Interior to be
labeled an endangered landmark.
"We are aware of the college’s
need to have this [science] com­plex.
However, we were not going
to allow any more of our history be
destroyed. In all three meetings
(between the coalition and Presi­dent
Lewis and Dr. John Under­wood,
Vice-President for Planning
and Research) we emphasized this.
We are very proud of the college
and we do not want to see it hurt,
but if the college had decided to
persist they would have been on a
road of self destruction because of
all the adverse publicity."
St. Mary's College and the his­tory
it was originally established
to commemorate are conflicting
in purpose: one does not want to be
held back; the other would like to
stay as it is. As Barnes puts it," this
land does not belong to any of us,
it belongs to the past and it belongs
to the future. Our present day role
is to protect it and preserve it."
Hugh Kaufman__________
EPA Investigator To Speak
by Chuck Ridgell
After six months of plan­ning,
Hugh Kaufman, a founder
and Chief Investigator for the En­vironmental
Protection Agency,
will be a guest speaker in Lower
Charles Hall tonight, September
25 at 8:00 p.m. The event is spon­sored
by the SGA Speakers Com­mittee.
Mr. Kaufman has ap­peared
on the Phil Donahue Show,
50 Minutes, and the Today Show.
He has lectured at over fifty uni­versities.
His initiatives are the
subjects of a number of books,
including Mike Brown's Laving
Waste. Lue Regenstein's Poison­ing
of America, and Karl
Grossman's The Poison Conspir­acy.
It was Mr. Kaufman's
testimony before Congress that
exposed the horrors of Love Cana]
and over 1,000 other contamina­tion
cases. We are indeed fortu­nate
to be able to bring Mr. Kaufman
to St. Mary's College._________