emerald
Vol. 82, No. 120
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Friday, March 13, 1981
As hectic review week ends
Budding architects’ work blooms
By JODY MURRAY
Of the Emerald
While most students slogged through dead week,
bleary-eyed souls in the architecture school placed
their term's work — literally — up against the wall.
Today ends “review week,” the week when final
models and layouts of each architecture student’s work
are displayed for all to see.
Instructors assigned to each review meander from
student to student, giving suggestions, arguments and
ulcers. Students also get responses from their peers
and members of the community, including professional
architects and representatives of the building or lands
cape they are redesigning.
The comments aren't necessarily part of the
student’s grade, but the instructor can take them into
account.
But what goes on at this “ceremonial thing,” as one
instructor puts it, is only the final broth of a boiling
turmoil of preliminary drawings and models.
In the plywood and two-by-four labyrinths of Law
rence Hall’s third and fourth floors, students have
worked incessantly on their projects, grabbing scant
hours of sleep on lumpy couches and chairs.
"At this point in time you tend to be a little bit
numb,” Pepper Solberg said at his Wednesday night
review.
Solberg’s class had redesigned — and in many
cases, relocated — the University’s Robinson Theater.
“The term is basically over after review. Everything
else is secondary,” Solberg explained. “It’s the adren
alin for the whole term, the prime recognition for your
effort."
About 60 people milled about the Robinson
Theater review — aptly named "Act One.” Reviewing
instructors assigned to certain students would take a
chair, pull out writing tablets and scribble while scan
ning the drawings.
“I wanted to create some kind of hub of activity
here,” Solberg told architecture Prof. John Reynolds as
he ran a finger along his clay model.
“So what you were doing was making a conscious
effort to restrict that as much as much as possible?”
Reynolds asks. “I guess what I’m getting at is, why is
that happening here?”
Architecture student Pepper Solberg points out a feature of one of his
Photo by Erich Boekelheide
drawings to Professor John Reynolds.
Solberg’s studio instructor Mike Shellenbarger
stands grinning in the center of the room.
"There’s a lot of personal satisfaction seeing the
fruits of the students’ energy blooming on the walls,"
Shellenbarger says.
But despite review week's merits, Shellenbarger
says the maniacal intensity preceeding and during the
week is unnecessary.
"It’s tradition. It comes mainly from peer pressure
and inertia. Lots of drugs, lots of people working all
night."
And all day, it seems. Some students still were
slaving away Wednesday night in the maze-like studios.
“I started about 2Vs> weeks ago, and I’m still
behind,” Paul Thimm said as he assembled a model of
an 11 -story office building.
Architecture students camp out in Lawrence dur
ing the review week, stepping outside just long enough
to catch some fresh air and clear their heads.
Inside, students break the drafting board routine
with music, beer and other stimulants.
"You have to work and play at the same time
because you don't have time to really play,” Thimm
said.
A sign tacked to one student’s work area summed
up the paradox of levity and insanity.
“Please! Please! Don’t critique me — give me 40
lashes instead!”
Photo by Richard Wagoner
Striking stature
Mia Hansen, a 21-year-old University student, strikes an artistic pose Thursday night during a
body builders’ performance on campus. The dance and recreation major was one of five body
builders — and the only woman — who posed in 150 Geology following the showing of Arnold
Schwarzenegger's film "Pumping Iron."
Residents seek aid
for foreign students
Students who want continued
support for foreign students in
Oregon’s colleges and universi
ties have banded together in an
effort to convince legislators,
administrators and fellow
students of the advantages of
having foreign students in
Oregon.
The group is sponsoring a
table in the EMU lobby all day
today.
“It’s time to re-evaluate our
priorities,” says Sarah Barton, a
junior in fine arts, who is part of
an informal group of University
students and citizens commit
ted to working for support of
foreign students.
During this “economic cri
sis,” Gov. Vic Atiyeh and the
State Board of Higher Educa
tion are proposing elimination
or reduction of fee remissions —
or tuition subsidies — for foreign
students, Barton says
Such a move, she says, would
injure the quality of education
and the cultural enrichment at
Oregon’s colleges and universi
ties.
Not only would such a move
“make it harder to attract bright
and gifted students,’’ it also
would be a political mistake, she
says.
“That whole act would be an
unfriendly gesture when we
need world-wide unity for
world-wide problems. Educa
tion is one way to achieve that
unity.”
Foreign students bring mil
lions of dollars into local com
munities and foster favorable
international relations, Barton
says. Foreign students take
back to their countries valuable
business, trade and commerce
connections made with
Oregonians.
And while foreign students
pay no more tuition or bring no
more money into local econ
omies than American non
Oregon residents, they bring
something to education in
Oregon that can’t be measured,
she says.