Standing amongst musically-adept buildings that easily dwarf it and construction that does not help its aged appearance, the Schmidt Vocal Arts Centers (SVAC) stands as a rehearsal, office, and studio spot for all vocal students—major and minor alike. Looking back into the history of the building, it once stood as the Koinonia House and was changed after in honor and recognition of the William E. and Casiana Schmidt's gift to the Opera Theatre program. This could explain the exterior design of the building which does not appear as expressionistic as one would expect. The building is bland with a plain, rectangular shape, brick walls, and a detached atmosphere surrounding it. The building, however, is not actually as old as it may appear. After expressing my opinion about …show more content…
the building’s aesthetic to a fellow music student, he explained that it was “relatively new” but did agree that its design made it look antique. Non-music students could even be confused as to what the building was if it were not for the constant music production advertisements posted on the front lawn. Even the official UK College of Fine Arts website only gives a snippet of information about the building describing it only as “home to rehearsal & practice studios as well as several faculty offices for the School of Music.” However, other buildings—such as the Fine Arts Library and Niles Gallery—are given at least two paragraphs with a gallery of pictures to boot. When first entering the lobby, there are clear—even slightly aggressive—warnings to not place announcements on the glass. These warnings, surprisingly, are placed on the glass. It’s a bit jarring, humorous, and perhaps even restrictive in an environment that should seemingly advocate expression. Once one fully enters the building, the first thing one notices is the dynamic clash between the classic, even plain exterior and the modern interior. The lobby is open and brightly lit with a large flat screen TV behind the receptionist’s desk playing videos and slideshows from past performances. Two flights of stairs to the left of the lobby lead up to the second floor, and there is even an elevator in order to be accommodating to all types of students. Surprisingly, the building attempts to give an open atmosphere that has become vogue for new buildings. The lobby is decorated with tokens from past performances—whether it be photographs of performers, posters headlining previous shows, or even costumes standing tall in glass containers. This design element hopes to inspire aspiring music students. A doe-eyed freshman can come into the lobby and be surrounded by the greatness of their experienced peers without even attempting to. Wandering up and down the hallways protruding from the lobby, they are enamored with the talent stemming from the field they too are in. To the right of the room is a glass library that serves as both studio and non-studio classes. Songs from that classroom and classrooms like it fill the building and give the entire space a musical quality unseen in other campus buildings. Similar to the Academic Science Building, this ability to look inside the classroom urges for the progress of individuals, though this progress is more artistically focused than academically. Still, compared to other locations on campus, the SVAC is less technologically inclined and socially designed than the others. There is a sense of informality to the lobby, with the receptionist desk being cluttered with students’ items and the receptionists themselves acting informal with incoming guests. Rather than speaking in a monotone, traditional secretary voice, the receptionist happily engages with guests despite being closed off behind a half-circle desk. Conversations are not unusual between students and receptionist; after all, most of the receptionists at the SVAC are students themselves and the open feeling of the lobby makes it easy for these conversations to happen. Conversely, there is a drastic lack of seating in the facility that seemingly discourages conversations and enforces rigidity.
A group of mix-matched chairs is forced into a singular, tight space in the lobby. Anyone who enters and waits must wait in such close contact with those around them. Awkward silence is seemingly inevitable. People constantly remark about the little amount of sitting, making comments such as “if only we had a couch,” but they fix this problem by using the open area of the floor. While this goes against the design of the building, it works well and allows a larger group of students to interact.
Despite this closeness, I noticed this forced contact has actually engaged conversation rather than limited it. While the SVAC is not a designated social circle, it can certainly become a hub if one goes at the right time. Students come in, happily singing away at their favorite show tunes, arias, or contemporary pieces. Some join in. Mini-performances stem from even the smallest of conversations with students singing casual phrases in a joking manner. There is a performance air around the older students, as would be expected due to years of practice, preparation, and
performance. While this is not a trait of SVAC’s spacial organization, it allows an outsider to see just who uses the SVAC and why the building would be designed to accommodate them rather than another group. The older students, too, are warm to the young students. Being kept in such a tight space with so much musical ability being displayed around them, there is an exposure that allows them to bond much faster than students who are involved outside of the musical field. Even if an underclassman practices exclusively upstairs and away from the lobby, the rooms are not designed to be completely soundproof, thus letting their same-age and older peers hear them. Similarly, professors wander down the stairs from their lessons and easily intermingle with the students, sitting amongst them in the tiny group of chairs and engaging in conversations outside of the musical realm. When the topic of music comes up, they too are unafraid of singing, whether to further teach outside the classroom or to joke alongside their students. As I sat there, a professor jokingly did a high-pitched melody obviously out of his range. When a student attempted to do the same thing, he said, “That will really damage your voice.” I couldn’t help but internally laugh at the immediate switch from fellow musician to professor. Even with this impersonal connection, students still refer to professors as Dr. as to not be disrespectful, but professors call students on a first-name basis. This interaction is, once again, likely due to the closeness of individuals, both students and professors alike, on a daily basis within the building.
Throughout life, many hardships will be encountered, however, despite the several obstacles life may present, the best way to overcome these hardships is with determination, perseverance, and optimism. In The House on Mango Street, this theme is represented on various occasions in many of the vignettes. For this reason, this theme is one of the major themes in The House on Mango Street. In many of the vignettes, the women of Mango Street do not make any attempts to overcome the hardships oppressive men have placed upon them. In opposition, Alicia (“Alicia Who Sees Mice”) and Esperanza are made aware that the hardships presented as a result of living on Mango Street can be overcome by working hard and endless dedication to reach personal hopes
Sandra Cisneros born on December 20, 1954 grew up in Chicago settling with a neighborhood known with Hispanic immigrants. Until then her migrating with her six brothers, from different communities in Chicago, and visiting her grandmother in Mexico, she has never really make ones home in. Being the only girl with no sisters, Cisneros only way that would deprive her from loneliness, is by reading books where she found her talents in writing. Fast forwarding to college Sandra Cisneros worked on her master’s degree at University of Iowa Writers Workshop where found her interest as Mexican-American woman with a self-reliant passion and how being a Hispanic were different in the American culture.
our professor gave us an assignment that is really easy, but also difficult to do because we have to break a norm in from of people. Not following the social norms of society, individuals might think you deviant. Clarice and I decided that we were going to do our assignment on Hialeah campus on a Friday morning. The building on the Hialeah campus has four floors and it gets really busy when students get out of class to go to their next class. First, when we went to the elevator and practiced when it was not busy, we analyzed where we were going to stand when people came to the elevator, one of us was going to be in the corner and the other one in front of the door facing the people.
The first way that the University nonverbally communicates it’s pro individualism and simultaneous lack of regard for the handicapped is through the dauntingly steep staircase of the Rauch Business Center. Upon arrival at the bottom of the Rauch Business Center staircase, we are forced to take a deep breath before climbing the very steep stairs. Since the steps are carved into a steep hill typical of Lehigh’s campus, the precipitous stairs show no mercy as they are unnaturally very close together (See Exhibit A). Additionally, the slope of the staircase makes it difficult for students to walk at a normal rate as either students walk extremely fast or extremely slow down the stairs. It also encourages small conversation in groups as there is only enough space for three or four students to walk side by side and discourages large groups like an elevator would encourage. Through the functional nonverbal communication of the steep staircase and the symbolical non-verbal communication of promoting individualistic qualities since we are repelled from traveling in large groups like paths and elevators might otherwise inspire, Lehigh is trying to dissuade students from following a herd-mentality through the physical design and layout of
Marching for days without water, soldiers lost morale and the energy to reach their destination. To solve this situation, their general told them that a forest of plum trees was steps away. His words not only caused his soldiers to salivate and quench the thirst to some degree, but also motivated some to keep marching to a place that had water. The plums and the water abundant region associated with them were the soldiers’ hope—a belief that something good would happen in the near future. This hope facilitated the materialization of positive things by incentivizing the soldiers to proceed. However, this folktale also entails a negative influence of hope. The hope made the soldiers less thirsty at first, and some soldiers thought this mechanism would continue to work; they took no actions to turn the hope into the reality and were doomed to death.
Creating such an environment entails arranging a practical physical layout that allows me to move about the classroom and interact with students, as well respond quickly and unobtrusively to student behavior that interrupts a classroom. A practical arrangement ensures that students move comfortably to the areas in the classroom where they can obtain materials and work respecting personal space. (Rule 3, 4) Also, arrangement should support the type of academic
"University Policy on: Overcrowding in Venues and Teaching Spaces." The University of Western Australia. Web. 3 Feb. 2014. .
Space is crucial when it comes to communicating, the space that you are surrounded by will shape all aspects of the communicating you do. Space is always communicating meaning and from the spaces I observed on campus and in the Student Center I drew meaning from them which allowed me to understand what each space is communicating and what see how each space encouraged or hindered communication. In this paper I will explain my critiques as well as my approval of the quad on campus and the Student Center, I also will give students opinions how the Student Center succeeds or fails in encouraging communication and lastly give my ideas of how space in the quad as well as the Student Center can be improved to encourage a greater level of communication.
House on Mango Street is a novel written by a Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros. It is a collection of short stories centered around the coming of age. The novel is centered around Esperanza Cordero life and each story represents an element of her life growing up in Chicago. In one of her short stories “Papa Wakes up Tired in the Dark” she is told the shocking news from her father, one morning “ Your abuelito [grandfather] is dead” (Cisneros 56). Her father begins to cry which is the first time Esperanza has seen her father in a weak state. The father then leaves for Mexico as Esperanza refers to it as “that country” (Cisneros 57) as trying to say the country of sadness. Mr. Cordero goes to Mexico to bury his father. In the meantime Esperanza, as the oldest one in her family has to take charge around the house and take care of her family while he is gone. She's the one that has to break the news to her siblings about their grandfather passing away and explain to them why they must stay quiet and not play today. Soon after, as every morning passes by her father wakes up in the dark filled with sadness in his face. All she does is hold him in her arms.
Secure and comforting or strict and oppressive, the idea of home can greatly influence the emotions, dreams, and worldviews of literary characters. Different parts of the home setting can be used symbolically to represent a character’s struggles and even an aspect of a character’s personality. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros are two stories that employ a home setting to achieve their meaning. Laura, a central character in The Glass Menagerie, is confined to her home by a fear of the outside world. Esperanza, the main character in The House on Mango Street, aspires to escape the cycle of poverty and brokenness in her home, but her family’s economic situation prevents her from doing so. While these two works of literature view the
They traveled in pairs and were very focused on completing the sheet they need for a class. They went from exhibit to exhibit answering their questions and moving on and it was clear the space was not meant to cater to their needs. They were less relaxed than the other patrons, and much less engaged, only about half of them touched animals in the touch tanks. The Seymour center’s unorganized setup, meant to cater to the short attention span of children, caused the students to navigate through the center in an inefficient way to answer their questions, or to go through their question sheets out of order but going through the seymour center in a more efficient way. They were interested in getting the information they needed in the most efficient way possible and, for the most part, ignored the activities of the
Throughout choir this school year, huge advancements have been made within many of the students, leading to tremendous growth. Coming into the first few weeks of choir class, the confidence of the students were low and it was a lengthy process to get through warm-ups, solfege, and ta-ka-di-mis correctly and on pitch. Walking into class currently, more students can be heard singing out and scales being sung in tune with ease. As voices have matured over this school year, many positive growths can be seen. For most students, this being their first year of high school choir, have more room to improve and achieve the level of talent as the members of concert choir. As the final concert of the year comes to a close, progress and direction for future years can be heard and seen through the music.
What does it take for a certain place to make a person happy? That is too broad of a question, because everyone has different wants, needs, and desires in life. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy; but I couldn’t have gotten any luckier. My childhood home was prime for a little adventurous go-getter, like me. Growing up, I lived in this beautiful wooden cabin, it looked like something from a kid’s dream. Miles of fields and woods behind our quaint little home, it was perfect! My grandfather built the house in 1982 and most of my family lived in the log house, at one time or another. Whether it be my aunts, my uncles, or cousins we all lived there. That house is such a big part of my family; everyone in my family has some unforgettable memory there. My mom broke her collar bone there, three separate times. My uncle had his second wedding there, that’s where I learned to ride a four wheeler, it was the first house I lived in! That was the most influential time and place of my life; not only because of how young I was, but because of everything I got to experience while I was living there. It was a constant world of wonder, especially though my childish eyes.
“Home is where love resides, memories are created, friends always belong, and laughter never ends (Robot check).” A place becomes a home for me when I am around all the things that I enjoy and love. For example, when I am around everyone that I love, I enjoy a peaceful environment and the beautiful landscapes around me. The interpretation of home for me is not a physical thing that I see or that I can remember or even certain thoughts that I can relate, but it is a sensation that overcomes me when I envision being in the comfort of my own home. However, I know that this is a feeling that is calming to my soul and it quietly reassures me that I genuinely belong in a place where I can be free from people constantly judging me.
As I approach the island on which my dream house awaits, I catch a quick