yet another gaga-jet
The math and science building of Kyushu University is located at Hakosaki Campus which is directly in the entry lane of Fukuoka airport. Probably this is one reason, why the faculty of math will soon move to another bigger and newer campus which is located in the west of Fukuoka. However this campus is quite far out, so nobody really wants to move there. As I understand also other campuses located elsewhere in Fukuoka should go there.
As a matter of fact -may be I am wrong as I didnt really make a statistical analysis of that- but it seems that there is a general tendency to move university campuses, which were usually located in the center of a city to the outskirts of a city. And this is only partially due to the higher needs of space regarding more and more sophisticated experimental setups, people etc – as in principle – also given the usual high real estate costs in a cities center – one could try to find more space within the center of a city (remark: For the case of a particle accelerator this could indeed be difficult, but in general new experimental set-ups are not that big). In short -given that the above observation is true – one could see this as a society’s unwillingness to fund more space for universities in the center of cities – and thus it could display certain priorities of a society.
The above jet flying over Hakosaki campus which looks like tatooed from underneath has such a wild appearance and looked so gaga or silly that I was supposing that it might have been the private jet of a pop group like lets say beastie boys?? (just joking…:))
June 15th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I totally agree to this comment. There seems to be a strategy to push universities to a “randform” (to be truthful to this blog…). But, apart from the tendency to push universities into the outskirts (both geographically and essentially) there is also the tendency to transform them into “Tesco-land” (a big supermarket chain in Britain), or “carrefour-land”, or “walmart-land”, or whatever your local supermarket chain is called. In this strategy, universities seem to shoot out anywhere and seem to multiply uncontrollably, hereby giving up any ideals and values of freedom of thought and exploration and research without the urge to define and ensure value for money beforehand. Lecturers meanwhile transform in this big business world into customer service support staff… not there to think and develop contents, but fill out forms and make reports, ensuring good performance (of report writing?). Yes, this might be slightly too stark an image, but in my view unfortunately not too far off from the sell-out of places formerly known as universities, treasured dearly by myself as an oasis for creativeness and rigor in thought and other media. Are we about to give something wonderful away? Yes, universities have to be funded, but in my view this model just creates the death of what it set out to protect.
November 30th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Haha wird Zeit dass da mal die Charlottenburger Strick—guerilla mit einem Pullover vorbeikommt!