Editorial | No place on campus

This city is showered with murals, more than any other city in the United States.

But at the moment, you won't find any of these murals on campus. That hasn't stopped City Planning professor Amy Hillier from "begging" for a mural to cover one side of Kappa Sigma's fraternity house on Locust Walk.

But University architect David Hollenberg was hesitant to accept the idea. And rightly so, because this campus isn't the best place for a mural.

Murals have a close relationship with Philadelphia. Beginning in 1984 as a youth project to fight graffiti, the Philadelphia Mural Program has decorated the city with more than 2,000 murals.

What was originally a means to revitalize urban decay now adorns Philadelphia's townhouses, brick walls and vacant lots.

But this is a university, an academic setting, with some of its buildings designed by renowned architects such as Louis Kahn (the Richard's Medical Center) and Eero Saarinen (Hill College House). A mural, unlike these buildings, has a very short lifespan and will likely not blend in with a campus filled with such strong and diverse architecture.

If we want to honor local, campus or national leaders, there are certainly more appropriate - and meaningful - ways to do so. Hillier would like to see Kappa Sigma's mural celebrate black scholar W.E.B. DuBois. However, as University Chaplain William Gipson suggested, strengthening the programs that DuBois championed would be a much more fitting tribute. An endowed chair or a new class about the noted black civil rights figure both seem like more long-lasting ways to honor such a figure.

Murals, of course, aren't inherently bad. There is a place for them in University City, just not in the historic heart of campus.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.