On Wednesday, Professor Blalock showed a group of students around the tunnel connecting Rose and Becker. It was interesting to see a new part of campus. Students know about the tunnels connecting Olin and Uris, Life Sciences and Plant Sciences, and of course Ezra’s tunnel. But I think less are aware of the West campus tunnels (there’s also a tunnel connecting Bethe and Keeton). I wonder why it’s so interesting to explore tunnels and learn about them. In our case, it’s not really like they have much practical value for the students, and yet it still seems like something worth knowing.

Anyways, one of the things I thought about was, “if there could be a new tunnel on campus accessible to students, where should it be built?” A couple ones I’ve thought about are: tunnel system connecting north campus buildings to Appel/RPCC/Helen Newman, Olin & Willard Straight & Uris, Goldwin Smith & Rockefeller, Rockefeller & Malott, Mann & Human Ecology, Uris & Statler, Statler & ILR, Johnson & Statler… It would also be cool to have a tunnel that goes under Libe slope and has an elevator connected to Uris. You could have the entrance built into the slope across from Baker flagpole. Probably the most radical idea I’ve had is a suspension tunnel running from Helen Newman over Beebe lake to the Human Ecology building. It would make the commute from North to the Ag quad so much better.

I’m not sure it’s entirely infeasible to have new tunnels built. And it would be really cool if the school started investing in building more. After all a number of schools have tunnels for students. Just after a bit of googling I found that the schools with them include Penn State, University of Michigan, University at Albany, MIT, Wright State University, University of Chicago,  Columbia, and University of Rochester. If they can have them why not us?