Campus Changes
A podcast by Alberto Ceja & Teresa Ybarra
Some people are very afraid of change but not all change is a bad thing, sometimes its even for a good cause. The last couple of weeks before winter vacation, we had seen a couple changes around the campus. If you had paid close attention to the differences in the campus, you can see at a time that there were murals put up in multiple places. The school’s mascot, the Phoenix is painted at the entrance of the school. In addition to the transformations the school had before winter break, there are also a few changes around the campus. The changes that occurred benefitted the school in a good way, but not all of them were good.
The rails were painted green instead of the boring rusty silver color, and boards were cut up and put on the bottom of the rails to cover any open spaces so garbage would not be build up under the rails.
The school received five murals that were made during our winter break by the group City Year. The mural that I think that has the most important message is the one that has three different people next to each other and in the bottom inscribed “Yes we can” and also in Spanish “Si se puede”. The three individuals in the murals are presumed to symbolize three people who have made a major change in the country. The mural features Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and our new president, Barack Obama. I assume that the point of this mural is to persuade us and make us reflect that we can also make a big impact in society. The other murals can be found in the quad and in the very back of the school. The mural in the very end of the school has all the California State Universities put on the mural. Then we have one in the right side and left side of the quad, one of those murals has Ceasar Chaves and the other is a painting is an abstract painting with a sun.
I asked Steven Ferdin, a senior, what he thought about the campus changes and he had this to say ” I like it but I would enjoy it more if they had started this a couple years ago, since now that I am about to graduate i am not really going to appreciate it but overall it is starting to look better than before.” I also asked Edgar Valencia, a Sophomore, and he said “I feel like they are trying to do some good but in the end it will all be trashed, but its a nice try though.”
So after hearing this from both the students I went directly to the source that was responsible for the “Campus beautification.”
I uncovered that the main purpose for the campus change is to make a more comfortable environment instead of it being all dull. The murals were chosen with the help of Mrs. Miranda and Mr. Poo. Mrs. Miranda believes that the whole campus change will surely help other students be more comfortable at school and make it seem more vivacious.
Unfortunately as vivacious as they would like the school to seem, there has been damages to the school that actually reverses the effect of a more vivacious school to a more gloomy environment. When someone vandalizes something you are trying to achieve it makes it a lot harder for you to try and achieve that goal. So in the end, the school would like to make the campus environment a lot more comfortable for us but they can only do so much to help, the rest is up to us to make of it what we want.
admin @ February 13, 2009