The Barometer Online

Melanie Jahnke Barometer Staff Photographer The new site for People's Park is located next to Gilkey Hall. The often contested plot of land is much smaller than the original People's Park. [Click to enlarge]

Tonight, all Oregon State students have the power to decide what to do with their own plot of land on campus.

The Associated Students of Oregon State University are having an informal gathering at 5:30 p.m. in MU East.

Awbrey Willett, ASOSU Environmental Task Force Director will help lead the discussion on the past, present and future of the People's Park, while students indulge in free American Dream pizza and soda.

The People's Park was located across the Student Health Center. Originally, the OSU Administration Building occupied the land.

In 1972, it was torn down with the idea of covering it with blacktop for new parking lots.

Students quickly rejected this idea.

The turmoil of the time cultivated new ideas. The park is in part a montage to the people's park controversy in Berkeley, California.

Students at both Oregon State and Berkeley were protesting the amount of land being black-topped for parking lots, joining together in an attempt to preserve the green space "for students, by the students."

This spot was to preserve the natural space at OSU for a quiet, peaceful and isolated place for students to rest and study.

When the People's Park was selected for the site of the new Kelley Engineering Building in 2002, students quickly began gathering signatures in the Quad to show their opposition. A petition with over 1,500 signatures was gathered within three days.

A group quickly formed, calling themselves the People's Park Coalition, with hopes to save the pocket park. They helped stall the building of Kelley Engineering Building for a year and a half.

Ultimately, the decision was made to replace the People's Park and build the Kelley Engineering Center.

This center is to be the home of the newly merged School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and is planned to be a green, or environmentally friendly, building.

It will offer underground classrooms, laboratories, graduate student and staff offices, and an atrium where students can study and purchase food.

The People's Park Coalition did not feel that they could save the original park, but received promises from others that said they would help with the relocation of the park.

Those promises come from some individuals including Vice President for Finance and Administration Mark McCambridge, Director of Facilities Services Jim Lloyd and University Planning Manager Linda Sarnoff.

The planned location for the new People's Park is by Gilkey Hall, across from Bexel Hall.

Any other plans for the park are still being decided.

Willett hopes that many students will come tonight to the meeting in MU East to help make those important decisions.

"Right now my goal is to get more people involved," Willett said. "We need friends of People's Park to get together."

The People's Park Coalition thinks possibilities for the new park are endless.

There have been ideas for organic planting, building a theatre stage to entertain and displaying sculptures and other student art.

"And these ideas are just a jump off point," Willett said. "We want to reclaim the park again, take responsibility, and be able to keep with the tradition of handing it down to the future generations."

Stacy Austin is a staff writer for The Daily Barometer. She can be reached at baro.campus@studentmedia.orst.edu.

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