Methods: Exercises

Campus Paths, Places (Fortier)

This exercise allows students to think about the way that they, and others, give meaning to places and buildings on campus. It encourages students to think about the way that the student built and natural environment communicates university ideas and ideologies.

These are the instructions I gave students:
(1) Draw the campus path you travel most often, indicating the buildings (or parts of buildings) that you use most.
(2) Draw another map re-naming the buildings in your map with names that more accurately represent their meaning for you.
(3) Take a photo of one of these buildings (or a part of the building interior or exterior) in such a way as to show its meaning for you
(4) Observe and report on (only) 5 minutes in the life of that building (or a part of the building interior or exterior).

This exercise can be combined nicely with a reading by anthropologist Keith Basso [linked to webpage 3.1]. For examples of this sort of student work see EUI Live.

Here are other examples of student inquiry into university places and student living spaces.

see all exercises