1 percent vote for 1 percent art

"It looks like cosmic soda straws."

"Giant ketchup bottles."

These are just some of the comments students made to The Daily Pennsylvanian about "Covenant" (the bloody tampons) when it was installed in 1975. Others called it "obnoxiously spastic," "terrible and ostentatious" and "a waste of money."

But on that last issue, Penn had no choice -- for "Covenant" was purchased to comply with a city law requiring institutions that redevelop land to spend 1 percent of their construction costs on a public art project. The law was passed in 1959 and can be thanked for those bloody tampons, the "Split Button" in front of Van Pelt, and now, Penn's newest sculpture -- "Plateau."

If you haven't seen "Plateau" yet, here's a rundown: concrete slabs covered in perforated metal rise from the ground, forming a long, meandering bench that ends in a cage. I think it looks like a bench fused to a batting cage.

Of course, you might think otherwise.

You might like "Plateau" for its combination of functionality (you can sit on the bench part) and daring industrial aesthetics. You might like that it contains bulbs that light up at night, glowing against the oppressive winter sky. You might even like the way it feeds off of "Covenant" and the "Button" to form an artistically cohesive campus.

And therein lies both the reward and risk of public art: it is all in the eye of the beholder. What you call beautiful, I may call a batting cage. In fact, I asked a bunch of students what they thought about "Plateau" and received several different answers.

Ultimately, they agreed on only one sentiment: that students deserve some sort of input when Penn commissions new art.

Currently, students don't get a say in art produced as part of the 1 percent program. Only faculty members were consulted in the execution of "Plateau." Similarly, 30 years ago, a group of six faculty members chose Alexander Lieberman's 50-foot "Covenant" design.

Think about it. A mere six faculty members changed Penn's landscape forever. No recent Penn student can or will ever think of Superblock without "that big, red thing," as this paper called "Covenant" upon its introduction.

Ketchup or tampon, nuclear reactor or soda straw -- it's hard to argue with students' requests for more input, even if they will leave Penn long before the faculty members who currently make the artwork decisions.

Sure, undergraduates are here for a short time, but aside from paying the school $41,000 per year, they contribute their formative period of intellectual growth to Penn. They join clubs and hold debates and discuss life, shaping the very atmosphere of academia itself.

This may be a research university, but you won't find the heart and soul of intellectual discourse in any lab staffed by professors. It's in Huntsman, when students burn the midnight oil compiling a group presentation at the last minute. It's in Mark's Cafe, where we all grab another coffee before hitting the books one more time. It's in the Walk, as students shout at you to attend this speech or watch that show. And most deeply, it's in the students themselves. In their energy and curiosity.

Penn has started to recognize that recently, taking measures to consult students on major campus projects like eastward expansion. Penn even set up a Public Art Committee composed of students and faculty that consults on campus art projects -- except those involving the Percent for Art law.

"I was extremely disappointed with the lack of communication before the ["Plateau"] project began," said Rachel Fersh, chairwoman of the Undergraduate Assembly. "But I have been very impressed by the administration's level of concern and tangible efforts to improve communication."

The school's next move should be to require administrators to consult the UA before moving forward on Percent for Art projects on campus. Susan Davis, director of such projects for the city's Redevelopment Authority, told me she doubted students could keep up with the tiring schedule involved in setting up a "Plateau" or "Covenant."

"Students would have to attend every meeting," she said. "It's a very involved process. They couldn't just drift in and out."

That sounds like a challenge to me. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?

The school might just get another source of nuclear energy.

Gabriel Oppenheim is a College freshman from Scarsdale, N.Y. Opp-Ed appears on Fridays.

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