OPINION: This past Tuesday, I was walking to class when I passed a large air conditioning unit with the words “Billy Keifer is still here!” scrawled on its side. I have no idea who Billy Keifer is, but he seems like an okay dude.
Being away for a month can give you some newfound appreciation for an otherwise standard campus. For me, a big part of that involves campus decoration. Rather than the faculty-facilitated decor that makes the University of Maine feel like every other college, perspective has drawn me to what the students themselves are doing to make our campus unique.
A lot of student decorations can be categorized as graffiti. Graffiti is a divisive art form, with its definition and warrant being a topic of constant debate. Graffiti can be a drawing, sticker, flyer, painting, carving or really anything that makes a personal mark on public property. Lucky for us, Maine happens to be a state that often supports graffiti as an art form. Portland is home to a beautiful wall mural in testament to that fact. Regardless, the presence of graffiti in public places remains controversial.
“Graffiti is beneficial if it remains unhurtful,” said Quinn Hackett, a first-year construction engineering technology student. “Unfortunately, the idea of legal graffiti is often frowned upon because of its territorial nature. It has to be tasteful and can’t be too obvious to a random passer-by.”
Whether sprayed, pasted, taped, drawn or etched, these marks are how the students of UMaine have given the campus more character.
Look at any lamp post or brick wall on campus and you see years of UMaine culture on its surface. You can see concert flyers for bands that you’ve never heard of and wonder if they had a flop performance or a sell-out show. Pride flag stickers sit next to Trump 2028 stickers in a testament to the political diversity of our student body. Anyone can visit the chalk mural that sits on the side of Neville Hall, which features a vibrant blend of affirmations, messages, signatures and penis drawings. If you look hard enough, you can find tags of all shapes and colors in the corners of campus. Despite flying under the radar, these marks are a fundamental aspect of campus character.
Such wonderful pieces of art are not limited to the exterior of campus. I would estimate that around one in three desks in any given classroom have some sort of sketch or message stuck to the bottom of it, being anything from hearts with initials to that letter S that we all drew in fifth grade.
“Stuff like drawings and flyers are great ways for students to express themselves,” said Ryan Cain, a second-year wildlife ecology major. “Graffiti is often a way for people to express their political opinions, especially if something is a particularly important issue to them,” said Cain. “If anything, it makes campus more interesting. Everything is just brick.”
So when you’re walking to class amidst frigid temperatures and unshovelled sidewalks, take a second to look for the hidden side of campus: you can always find something.
