FAYETTEVILLE -- Students at the University of Arkansas have begun a monthlong fundraising campaign to preserve the oldest sections of Senior Walk.
Connor Flocks, the student body president, said the $15,000 campaign is a gift from the students to kick off the sidewalk restoration before alumni are asked to donate.
But anyone can go to fundrazor.uark.edu to donate, Flocks said. Minimum gifts to the campaign are $5.
Senior Walk encompasses 5 miles of campus sidewalks engraved with the names of more than 170,000 seniors or graduates since 1876.
The oldest part of Senior Walk -- about 1 percent of it, or roughly 300 feet -- has been cracking into pieces. The section in need of repair or replacement contains the names of seniors in the classes from 1876 through 1924, some of which were inscribed by hand in wet cement in the early 20th century.
"While Senior Walk will never fade from our minds, it has sadly begun to dull in its appearance," according the the fundraising campaign's website. "A landmark of the legacy of countless students is literally crumbling under our feet, and we need your support to preserve it."
A final decision on the sidewalk repair work will hinge on fundraising, said Laura Jacobs, associate vice chancellor and chief of staff for Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz.
In the meantime, the students wanted to initiate their own fundraising drive, said Flocks. The student-body campaign began today and will continue through March, said Flocks.
Jacobs said the university might be able to secure grants for the repair or replacement work. A $700,000 grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council helped pay for the $900,000 restoration of the 1875 entryway to Old Main, which is the oldest building on the Fayetteville campus.
Replacing the 1876-1924 section with a granite sidewalk containing the sandblasted names would cost about $500,000, said Jay Huneycutt, UA director of planning and design. He said granite will last three or four times longer than concrete -- at least a couple hundred years.
Replacing that section of sidewalk with sandblasted concrete would cost about half as much, he said.
Other options include trying to replicate the handwritten names in new concrete or replacing only the most damaged sections within the 1876-1924 part.
But Huneycutt said replacing only sections would leave a patchwork of different types of sidewalk materials varying from one year's class to the next. Meanwhile, the old sections that are left alone would continue to decay, he said.
Metro on 03/01/2017