In defense of aesthetics

Chances are, your first response when you hear that someone goes to University of Virginia or Notre Dame is — “Oh, I hear the campus is beautiful.”

You might also know that Virginia has a great law program, and Notre Dame is a top medieval studies institute, but that won’t color your perception of the entire university the same way aesthetics will. A number on the Princeton Review rankings is just a number, but green lawns and airy colonial architecture provide an image that stays in the minds of prospective students, donors, and teachers at a whole different level. Which is why Hillsdale should focus its current capital campaign on beautifying the campus.

If Hillsdale wants to be an elite institution, it needs to look like one. The college’s current capital campaign  has two goals — extending campus, and making the existing structures better to look at. The challenge is uniting those goals. Hillsdale needs more spaces that are purely aesthetic. The last building campaign made some strides in that direction. Lane and Kendall are elegant, and the front half of Central Hall looks great  But the other half of campus, built mostly in the ’70s, is all function over style. Compare the high ceilings and decorative empty spaces of the Howard music building or the Grewcock Union with the cramped, dingy feel of the library and Dow science. Simpson, Mac, and Olds have the decor and feel of a bunker, or a prison. Hillsdale should change that.

The college does have practical needs as well — so far in the current campaign, they seem to be winning. The latest project, the huge Biermann track building, is functional. With its industrial aluminum frame, it also looks like a massive pole barn. Hopefully the college doesn’t take the same approach with the new chapel, which is supposed to seat 1,100 people.  

Many of the new projects are necessary. The college does have a housing shortage, so the new dorms are a good idea. It’s also hard to begrudge the planned addition to the Dow Center to give the graduate students a home. But does the sports complex really need a climbing wall? Doesn’t it make more sense to give the ugly visual arts building a facelift before adding a second gymnasium?

The need for aesthetics, however, is not just superficial, or even primarily about the rankings. Hillsdale College is devoted to the pursuit of the “good, true, and beautiful.” Goodness and truth are easier to grasp — professors teach the precepts of them in philosophy, ethics, theology, history, science, and the like. Beauty is more elusive, something understandable but not quite definable and needing concrete examples to really mean anything. It’s difficult to be good in bad company, or to be wise when surrounded by ignorance. In the same way, being surrounded by beauty is necessary to truly understand what beauty is. So yes, the new building campaign, if done right, should help the perception and prestige of the college. Even more importantly, it should help the college fulfill its mission by adding a little more beauty to the lives of the professors and students already here.

Fixing the teeth on the Reagan statue wouldn’t be a bad start either.