Showcase of Teacher Writing
Rachel Seiler
Writer’s Memo
“It is impossible to get lost in Oxford,” said the director of Graduate Studies on my first day at Miami University. Little did he or the other twenty-three laughing students realize that here sat a person who once got utterly lost in the local Wal-Mart. I am usually lost (geographically, at the very least) in a new place for quite a long time; indeed, it takes months before I feel connected to a specific space. Perhaps my internal dissonance with the novelty that is Oxford, Ohio inspired me to search for dissonance within the perfectly harmonious campus of Miami University. When required to write an ethnography, therefore, I chose a place that seemed an “other” with the rest of the campus, and which also made all students and faculty at Oxford, the old and the new, feel an alienness towards: the construction site of a new building. As an observer straddling the fence between a new insider and old outsider of Oxford, I felt I was not playing the role of the “Self” or the “Other” too much to be guilty of an “omniscient gaze” as Ian Barnard puts it in his article, “Anti-Ethnography?” Unlike Haunani-Kay Trask, the author of “‘Lovely Hula Hands,’” who writes a type of ethnographic analysis of corporate tourism and Hawaii as a self-identified Hawaiian, I feel this “fence-straddling“ enables me to look at the construction site with the same sense of “foreignness” any resident at Oxford would feel when attempting to avoid the construction dust. My “gaze,” striving to be far from omniscient and imperialist, attempts, therefore, to analyze this site’s placement now as an alien space and its placement later as a potentially familiar building to Oxford residents. In short, I am arguing the construction site functions as a third space while still under construction.
Sidewalk Closed
Sitting in a spacious, well-lit classroom in Bachelor Hall, I can stare out the open window on a beautiful August morning and listen to the sounds of Oxford, Ohio. Across the street, the bells of Pulley Tower chime “Over the Rainbow” in sweet, melodic tones that dull out the sounds of light traffic below. The red brick buildings, the perfectly-manicured landscape, the flowers in bloom, the aged-trees swaying to the rhythm of the bells in a light breeze: it is no wonder Miami University’s campus is considered “one of the most beautiful in America” (“About Miami”).
Yet, suddenly comes a sound for which this lush setting does not prepare my ears: a jackhammer, forcing itself into solid concrete, beating itself against the soft cling-clang of Pulley’s bells. This cacophony of sounds surely does not coincide with a concept of the most beautiful campus…
About fifty yards away from the bells of Pulley Tower, on the corner of Patterson and Spring, stands a large, half-constructed building partially hidden by tall trees. The roof is made up only of steel rods, and the windows still bear manufacturer’s paper. Surrounding the building is a tall chain-link fence wrapped in green tarp. If this double layer of fencing does not already convey a clear message, the large black and red signs certainly do: “DANGER: CONSTRUCTION AREA KEEP OUT,” “DO NOT ENTER,” “NO TRESPASSING.” Everything about this building, from its incompleteness, the tarp-covered fence, and the bright signs to the harsh sounds of drills and jackhammers, coupled with dirt rising seven feet in the air, screams dissonance with the clear-blue sky that surrounds Pulley Tower. Whereas the familiar tower invites the inhabitants of Oxford in by its very familiarness, this foreign building does everything in its power to keep everyone out, even though it is working to expand familiar terrain on Miami’s campus.
What, then, is this building’s purpose on a campus with such similar, open building structures? Why such a closed environment along a string of buildings meant to be inviting to people from around the world? Its location directly across from the “Miami University 1809” sign is even more ironic—for a welcoming sign that signifies the age and stability of Miami University to be across from a new, unstable, strange, closed building is, indeed, paradoxical. This building, based currently on its unique stage of development and particular placement amongst the other buildings at Miami, functions as an ambiguous structure that makes all Oxford residents feel like outsiders.
However, the building does attempt, through more signs, to identify itself as a place with Oxford residents. A clean, white sign on the corner of the building boasts a beautiful artist’s rendering of what the building is supposed to be when completed: the new school of business. The fact that this building will house a discipline, which is a place” in itself, indicates its attempt to assimilate more established places into its own “newness.” By replacing the school of business into a new building, the University is demonstrating its ability to launch the ever-growing field of business into a “progressive” realm of academia. This new building, as the sign claims, will be able to house more faculty and students through more classrooms, offices, and food services. The current school of business, resting not too far away, will no longer be the well-known building to so many in the business program; instead, those who spent years trying to be connected with the business school will be forced to step into a new building as if it were their first days at Miami University all over again. The old students and faculty will join the new in acquainting themselves with a building that is, as of right now, forbidding access by anyone—except, of course, for the men in bright yellow vests and white hard hats.
These “yellow” men ignore the “NO TRESPASSING” sign, and their attire seemingly acts as a sort of pass through which they gain admittance to this otherwise “off-limits” building. They go in and out of it, working until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, when they get in their cars and drive out of Oxford. These men, alone, know the building, yet they, too, are alienated from the members of the Oxford community through their different status as insiders donning bright yellow vests, making them outsiders to the city residents.
Soon, however, this building, which the “yellow vests” have built while the jackhammer sounds and the dirt rises, will be complete and the workers will move on. The fencing and tarp around it shall be removed, and the warning signs long gone. The potential building will once more house students and faculty of the business school, and the red brick, neo-classic style will blend in harmoniously with the rest of Miami University. This beginning, though, this foreignness and foreboding warning to all Oxford residents creates a sense of otherness for the building as object, the “yellow vests” as rare insiders, and members of Oxford as outsiders. It is interesting to note, however, that with familiarity on the part of Oxford residents, the “yellow vests” will become others to the building. Though responsible for building this new space, the workers will be obligated to abandon the product of their labor to the citizens of Oxford, altering the dissonance felt before from one group to another. Soon, all of Oxford, once unfamiliar to the alien building, will be able to walk through its doors and connect with it like any other building on campus. What this altering dissonance and assimilation of the old suggests about place, not just in Oxford, but everywhere, is that it is mutable. Place, no matter how old and established (like the “old” school of business), is subject to change by both insiders and outsiders. After all, everyone remains an “other” only as long as it reads, “SIDEWALK CLOSED.”
Work Cited
“About Miami.” Miami University. 2008. 12 Aug. 2008. http://www.miami.muohio.edu/about_miami/.