Call it ego. Call it vanity. Call it a desire to be recognized for an accomplishment. Call it a wish to be remembered beyond our fleeting days on this planet.
Whatever it is, there's something in the human psyche that finds pleasure in seeing one's name given a level of permanence.
What’s the point?
The University of Arkansas is trying to treat repair or replacement of its earliest Senior Walk entries with respect, but the extraordinary solution it proposes is beyond necessary.
How many institutions have raised thousands, if not millions, of dollars by giving people a chance to "buy" a brick into which they can have their names or the names of loved ones etched? Actors, producers, directors and others in the entertainment industry find great honor in having their "stars" installed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. When advocates for a memorial to those who died fighting the Vietnam War set about designing one, they insisted it involve the etched names of all service men and women -- more than 58,200 now -- who gave up their lives in service to their nation.
Virtually ever public building has a bronze plaque honoring the men and women whose leadership resulted in the structure's construction.
Then there's the ugly side of this human urge. Two American women early this year split off from a tour group to carve their names into the wall at the ancient Colosseum in Rome and take a "selfie" photo with their vandalism. They were arrested.
Maybe it's just a way of leaving our mark for posterity, to communicate -- not entirely unlike those two women in Rome -- to people of the future that, once upon a time, we were here. And if we can gain such recognition beyond a headstone on our graves, that's all the better.
The Senior Walk has long been one of the more quaint features of the University of Arkansas campus. Even for visitors who did not attend the state's flagship educational institution, a sidewalk stroll across more than 150,000 names etched in concrete creates an immediate sense of tradition and connection to the institution's 144-year history. People who graduated, in most cases, can return with kids and grandkids to find a permanent commemoration of their time on the Fayetteville campus.
There's just one problem: Concrete isn't permanent.
One of the shortcomings of having a commemorative sidewalk tradition such as the Senior Walk is its vulnerability to wear and tear. People walk on these sidewalks. Rain and snow fall on these sidewalks. Eventually, these man-made tributes give way to Mother Nature.
University of Arkansas officials are working on the details of a plan for how to deal with a deteriorating section of the Senior Walk that contains the names of seniors in the classes from 1876 through 1924. To make the discussion even more challenging, some of these names aren't just etched mechanically into the concrete; they were inscribed by hand.
Understandably, this isn't just about concrete. It's about remembrance and connection.
"Graduates come up for a football game and they see their grandfather's name is falling apart and they want to know what our plan is," said Jay Huneycutt, UA director of planning and design.
UA officials have developed a plan filled with respect for those named on about 300 feet of the Senior Walk that goes from the front door of Old Main, the UA's oldest building, toward Arkansas Avenue. One might be tempted to suggest there can never be too much respect shown for such a monument to generations past, but the UA's play might just prove that suggestion wrong.
Under the plan, the deteriorating section would be replaced with granite and names would be sand-blasted anew into the new surface. The cost would be about $500,000.
That might be the most expensive football field-length stretch of sidewalk ever laid in the state of Arkansas.
Other options would include only repairing the damaged areas; removing the 1876-1924 section and replicating its appearance in concrete; or putting in new concrete and etching the names just as today's graduates' names are added.
A descendent of former U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, a president of the UA whose name is part of the walk, says those "frugal Arkansans" represented on the section of walk would be appalled at the idea of spending a half-million dollars to preserve a sidewalk. Spend that money on scholarships or other amenities that help improve and maintain the campus, he suggests.
By all means, rehabilitation of this old section should stay true to the Senior Walk's long history. But it's overkill to devote a half-million dollars -- even donated dollars -- to an overly grandiose treatment of what started as a simple sidewalk, with simple handwritten etchings as a simple testament to those who graduated in those earlier days. If segments of this early commemoration to UA students can be preserved in a museum setting, perhaps that's a worthwhile approach.
The Senior Walk is an extraordinary college tradition the UA should be proud of. But remembrance doesn't need to equal exorbitance.
Commentary on 08/28/2015