Guest Lectures are the Best Lectures

Trafton B.

November 3, 2009 - 6:15 PM

Mark Gillem might have just given the most interesting lecture I've heard, and I almost didn't even go. Five hours of work, three essays worth of a midterm and a shortage of coffee almost made me take a "mental health day" instead of trudging to another lecture.

Man would that have been a mistake!

I was already late when I slipped into a dimly lit Lawrence 166 and didn't even notice that good ol' Rob Ribe wasn't teaching the class until I sat down. Instead, Mark Gillem was standing there next to his opening slide, "Urban Landscape Analysis." My eyes immediately popped open and I was hit by an adrenaline rush that thankfully got me through the next two hours. The funny thing was that I'd never seen this professor before, but his name sounded so darn familiar.

For the next two hours, he spoke about different buildings around the world that he'd worked on that were LEED Certified. He talked about his current work in trying to solidify a certification method, LEED for Neighborhood Development, which would ensure sustainable urban designing not just sustainable buildings scattered amongst a city. A true method for living a more sustainable life as a nation, he believes. And my favorite part was when he talked in depth about a studio architecture class he taught last year to graduate Architecture students.

Their project was to design a corridor of city park blocks that would make downtown Eugene actually attractive to live in. He called it the Central Park effect; when there are natural open spaces downtown filled with trees and open grass areas, there is a desire to develop a community around it. A sort of "if you build it, they will come" theory. He had these great stories of how his students fought so hard against conservative citizens and "anything but change" city council members.

You see, I knew I was interested in urban planning before this, which is the reason for adding the Planning, Public Policy & Management major to my course of studies this year. What really got me hooked was seeing a series of slides and sketches in another PPPM class last spring. They were these grand ideas of developing Franklin Boulevard in Eugene. Adding trees and low-flow traffic lanes, which would allow apartment complexes to be built on the side to accommodate for the growing Eugene population in the future. That's when I remembered Mark Gillem's name. Those were his slides I saw last spring.

Long story short not only do I know what I want to do when I graduate, I also know who I want to be: Mark Gillem. I'll start by seeing what other classes he teaches at the UO. Then we'll go from there.