Mason Hall had a wayfinding
problem.
“At best, it was confusing,” the
University of Michigan’s Lynne
Friman,
LSA’s
Capital
Project
Manager and Designer, admits.
Her recent credits at the University
include redesigns at the Science
Learning Center and the Modern
Languages
Building.
She
also
has been involved in creating the
interior of the Museum of Natural
History.
Now, Friman is one of the people
tasked with the ongoing wayfinding
project within the corridors Angell,
Haven, Mason and Tisch halls.
Though she is often the point-person
within LSA for all aspects of a space’s
interior — advising on furniture, art,
paint and other cosmetic treatments
at the SLC — she was recruited for
this particular project due to her
graphic communications expertise,
having solved similar problems at
nearby cultural institutions, such
as the Henry Ford Museum and the
Detroit Institute of Arts.
“Ginny was putting papers up
around (Mason Hall), trying to get
people to find their way (around the
building), and then she came to me,”
Friman said.
‘Ginny’ is Virginia Schlaff, the
University’s Facilities Manager for
the
Mason-Angell-Tisch-Haven
(MATH) complex, as well as nearby
Tappan Hall. The papers, posted
to the sides of the hallways using
blue painters tape, were an ad-hoc
solution designed to temporarily
take the guesswork out of the
complex’s enigmatic hallways. The
common misconception of the
building being composed of only
one hall is falsely supported by the
blurred boundaries and shared roofs
between each.
“When
the
students
didn’t
come for two years in a row into
the classrooms, you had two years
worth of students out of four that
were unfamiliar (with the building’s
layout),” Schlaff said of the online-
only period at the University. The
complex’s small, maroon interior
navigation signs blended in with
everything else on the walls of
Mason Hall, positioned in hard-to-
see places and overshadowed by
the saturation of flyers for student
organizations and.
“A lot more students needed help
finding their way,” Schlaff affirmed.
Like many aspects of college life,
the pandemic altered and invited
change to many different systems
on
campus,
signage
included.
When students finally returned to
campus, the if-you-know-you-know
mentality of navigating the MATH
complex was no longer adequate in
supporting the needs of the student
community.
Schlaff and Friman are among
those in the University’s Facilities
offices — plus those in Architecture,
Engineering and Construction —
working on Phase 2 of this particular
wayfinding project, which includes
directional and landmark signs for
the rest of the ground and first floors,
with an anticipated completion date
of Fall 2023. Future phases of the
project will assist in navigation on
the complex’s upper floors, where
finding the right building and
corridor for a particular room is
about as easy as solving a “Where’s
Waldo.”
The ongoing wayfinding work
at the MATH complex is only a
small window into the bureaucratic
world of signage at the University
of
Michigan,
where
branding,
accessibility and graphic design
coalesce into a service we take for
granted every day. From “you are
here” maps to window lettering,
these textual and visual indicators
can change whether or not someone
gets lost on their way to class, to
being able to find the emergency
room at the University Hospital. Of
course, signage is not always life or
death, but it does quietly influence
our everyday lives, making it easy
or difficult to get where we want
to go. Multiply individual decisions
by over 50,000 students, plus
employees, it’s important that each
person knows where to go.
Through the power of suggestion
and
direction,
this
overlooked
medium can communicate — or fail
to communicate — what is deemed
important about a place. But who
decides on these signs of the times?
***
Even before entering any U-M
building, you are guided by a series
of signs noting that you’re on
campus. Perhaps you followed one
of the City of Ann Arbor’s charming
visuals after exiting the highway,
pointing you toward Downtown.
Upon reaching State and East Huron
Streets, you’re greeted by a large,
blue sign embedded in a landscaped
wall, indicating that you’re on
Central Campus. While looking for
parking, you might avoid University
signs that indicate different permit
colors and hours of enforcement,
instead opting for metered spaces
open to the public. To find the
location of your intended building,
a freestanding identification sign
on a concrete base will help confirm
you’re almost there. Finally, at
its front doors, lettering on the
windows and doors inform you that
you’ve finally made it.
Were the above scenario to not
go as planned, however, you might
arrive in a distant part of campus,
wander around before choosing to
enter the wrong building, where
you might bang on locked doors,
frustrated by how historic and
convoluted the University is. Once
you’ve exhausted many entrances,
you’ll ask a random passerby to show
you the way, and embarrassingly,
you find out you’re a far walk from
where you intended to go. Signs
could have saved you the confusion,
anger and embarrassment of just
walking to your desired room.
Layers of communication are
essential to navigate a sprawling
institution like the University of
Michigan, where many jurisdictions
govern piecemeal areas of campus.
This
multifaceted
approach
to
wayfinding is no accident, however,
and it’s all codified in the Campus
Signage and Wayfinding Guidelines,
published
by
the
University
Planner’s
Office.
The
29-page
document dictates best practices
for everything from indicating
accessible entrances, using the
Block M appropriately on Athletic
Facilities, the maximum duration
banners
can
be
displayed
on
University light poles before being
taken down (one academic year)
and the suggested depth of topsoil
surrounding a sign’s concrete base
(four to six inches).
The exceptional precision that
exterior signage must conform
to seeks to bridge the identity
gap between the University’s 19
schools and colleges, plus many
other non-academic departments
like University Unions or Michigan
Housing. When simply walking
through the Diag, there is little
from the outside world to suggest
the presence of these different
governing bodies. Rather, it seems
like there is only one: the University
of Michigan.
Once inside a building, though,
the uniformity stops. On page 12
of the document, pertaining to
building
directories,
individual
University units are “encouraged
to place directories at all entrances
of a building.” And so emerges the
complex,
somewhat-disheveled
patchwork of wayfinding that seeks
to get U-M affiliates from front door
to classroom door — a task that is
easier said than done.
Robert
Ramsburgh
knows
this better than most. Before
his current role at the Biological
Sciences Building, he was Facilities
Manager for the MLB, North Quad
Residence Hall, Lane Hall and the
Undergraduate Science Building.
He has spent the past few years of
his tenure trying to bring life to the
MLB, which is often nominated as
one of the ugliest buildings on the
University’s campus.
“At one point, there was a video
circulating that a couple of students
did about the ‘Majorly Lame
Building,’” Ramsburgh said, who
has been with U-M Facilities for five
years. “I sort of took (the MLB) on as
one of my pet projects because it had
been neglected … If I were a parent of
a student, and I came into a building
like this, and it was as drab and
dreary as it was, I’d be wondering
exactly what I was paying for.”
Unkempt spaces, small signs and
doors painted in seemingly random
colors added confusion and chaos
to a building already made difficult
by its infinite oval shape and lack of
corridor windows on most floors.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
8 — Wednesday, November 30, 2022
S T A T E M E N T
Behind the University’s signs of the times: the art in navigation
OSCAR
NOLLETTE-PATULSKI
Statement Correspondent
SAM ADLER/Daily
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
All my life, I’ve wanted to be the
one who stands on the pulpit and
delivers the victory message. I’ve
dreamed of marching up the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial like Martin
Luther King Jr., telling America
that I belong, that I am meant to be
here and that I am a human being
that deserves fundamental rights.
I’ve longed to protest in the streets,
screaming until the hoarseness in
my throat overtakes my vocal cords
and I gasp for breath.
Yet, I’ve accomplished none
of those things. Perhaps because
I am scared, perhaps because I
feel insignificant but most likely
because I feel that I am a fraud, that
I’ll never correct the dissonance
between my dreams and reality.
I always thought that college
would be better. That the perils
of high school life and the
apprehension that I had once felt
would seemingly vanish away with
the Ann Arbor wind. Approaching
my first days as a Wolverine, I
planned to truly be myself, to
involve myself in activism by joining
the Black Student Unionwand try to
find a Black community that I had
previously lacked at other academic
institutions.
But during the fall of my first
year at the University of Michigan,
when the news first came out about
BSU’s “More Than Four: The 4
Point Platform” and the trashing of
their posters on the sidewalk, I felt
a pang of immediate guilt — like I
had somehow contributed to the
problem. Despite the many times
that I had written down, “Attend
BSU meeting,” in the colorfully
lined pages of my planner, despite
the many mental notes that I had
ingrained in the depths of my
amygdala, I had not attended a
single one.
I’m a fake.
Fake activist. Yes, that is what
I would classify myself as. In high
school, I assumed the position of
being the “poster child,” a Black
girl who would say just the right
number of harsh truths to get away
with still being liked by the school
administration. I dealt the cards
by selecting my words with the
utmost caution, always making
sure to counteract phrases with an
idealized version, painting them
into a silhouette, devoid of any
real meaning, saying at the end of
every sentence, “We need to love
everyone.” It was a kind of self-
censorship born out of a fear of
being rejected by peers, and by my
PWI school.
On the night the news of
the torn BSU posters hit, I was
scrolling on my phone, perusing the
Michigan Daily Instagram debrief.
Mindlessly clicking through the
stories, I began to see repost after
repost of the same photo: posters
shredded to bits, scattered across
the cold sidewalk, and dirtied by
the footsteps of students. Clicking
on the photo brought me to the
original one posted by @umich.
bsu — a numbing scene of posters
with the phrase “Care about Black
Students” torn and littered on the
edge of the sidewalk. This was just
24 hours after the BSU had a public
address in which they addressed
their Four Point Platform, arguing
for the advocacy of Black voices
at the University and for their
concerns not only to be heard but
acted upon by the administration.
There are four main issues that
the BSU wants the University to
address.
First: Increase Black student
enrollment, specifically to reflect
the percentage of the state of
Michigan’s Black population of
14%.
Second: The University should
explicitly plan out ways to combat
anti-Blackness within the school
community and in the school
system.
Third: Rectify the weaknesses of
the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
plan that is often not effective for
Black students.
Fourth:
Increase
University
responsibility and priority to fund
kindergarten through 12th grade
education in the state of Michigan
and to address systemic racism and
inequities present in the system.
When I first learned about
these efforts from the BSU, I was
amazed to see everything that
the Union was doing for the Black
community here at the University.
Here they were, rallying and
calling out the leaders and systems
of the University, highlighting how
their silence was louder than any
opposition. And here I was, almost
halfway through my first semester
at U-M, and still not one meeting
under my belt.
I could blame my lack of
attendance on the business of
my schedule, or on the hours I
needed to spend studying organic
chemistry. But none of those
excuses seemed to make up for the
feeling of fake activism that I had.
The pursuit for Black voices
to be heard at the University has
been a consistent struggle in
recent decades. Before the advent
of the BSU at the University,
there was BAM, the Black Action
Movement. In the 1970s, Black
students called out the racism
and discrimination within the
university system through sit-in
protests, demonstrations on the
University president’s lawn and
rallies in the plaza outside the
Fleming Administration Building.
Their
efforts
were
primarily
concerned
with
increasing
minority enrollment, getting rid of
the designation of Black students as
“negro” and an aim that the student
body would be 10% Black by 1973.
Half a century later, Black
students at the University are
continuing to fight for this same
demand: the demand to be treated
as equals by the administration,
and have their demands not only
listened to — but advocated for. The
pivotal moment of BAM’s advocacy
happened early in the morning of
Friday, March 27, 1970, at around
5 a.m., when the first day of what
would be a 13-day strike began.
AMFSCE,
the
American
Federation of State, County, and
Municipal Employees, was a key
advocate
of
BAM’s
missions.
AMFSCE denied the crossing
of picket lines and was a major
contributor to the University’s
agreement to “compromise” on
BAM’s demands. When presenting
their list of 12 demands to
administration, they denied almost
all of them but upheld that they
would increase Black enrollment
to at least 7%. These protests
continued two times after, in 1975
and 1987. Now, here we are — just
over 50 years later since BAM
first protested for Black students
at the University to be prioritized
and cared for, and without much
progress to show for it.
During
all
of
the
BAM
movements, many of the priorities
listed in all of the agendas included
first increasing Black enrollment to
10%, combating the racist climate
of the University and reallocating
University funding to actively
combat racism. The University
has since failed to meet these
demands, specifically that of Black
enrollment, as the population of
Black students at the University has
substantially decreased from 7% in
2006 to a current 4.2% in 2021.
I want to be like them. I want
to be like the BAM activists, the
BSU leaders and the generators of
change for the future of minority
students at this university. I want to
stand firm and unapologetic at the
hands of authority, and yet, I think
back to how I was during middle
school and high school, afraid of
what others would think of me.
I’m scared about what I will do,
what I will say, how I will act. For
so many years, I’ve cared too much
about what others thought of me,
and a part of me truly still does.
At my predominantly white high
school, I tried to put on the role of
activist, hanging posters for Black
History Month, Native American
History Month and all the heritage
months, crafting announcements
for all of the cultural holidays,
“fun” facts and statistics that I
knew would cause relatively little
opposition from my classmates
or peers because they were not
“controversial.”
Yet, what I didn’t talk about
was how 49% of Native American
homes lack basic clean water,
stemming
from
genocide
and
colonization from white settlers
and a racist system. Because how
could people then act as if nothing
was wrong?
Appeased, abated, complacent
— whatever you want to call it: I
am guilty of it. I have tried to wash
my hands of the dark red stain that
pigments my skin, yet the color
never seems to fade.
But, what use is it to feel guilty?
What use is it to let it eat away at
me when I could be doing so much
more?w
The More Than Four Point
Platform is not just a mere list
of desires or requirements by
the BSU. More than anything, it
represents the continual struggle
of Black and minority voices to be
heard and how the hands of the
administration have silenced their
voices by inaction. Over 50 years
since the BAM’s conception, the
movement still continues.
I don’t hope to be a part of it. I will
be a part of it. And that is a promise
to myself, now in ink in every paper
dancing across this campus.
More than a fraud? The guilt of being a fake activist
CHINWE ONWERE
Statement Columnist
.
Design by Tye Kalinovic
A student strolls by in Angell Hall Monday, November 28.