Project Proposal

 I have two ideas going forward. One will be significantly easier to execute than the other, which will likely influence my decision much more than I want it to since I'm really busy this term.

 

Idea 1: Outdoor study room

 The idea would be to gather furniture (chairs, a desk, some lighting, etc) from different eras that don't really go together, but will exist in the same space. That furniture would be arranged into a small "study hall" where participants would be invited to use the space for academic work or to relax in, similar to the spaces Lawrence has curated in the library. The thought would be that this would end up being a service to students, giving them somewhere novel or interesting to work at. 

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that I would be borrowing furniture from our Theater department, which has a lot of rules, one of them being that they would need to be in the shade if they were outside and I could only have it set up for 2 days. Obviously those things are workable, but it would be a lot of logistical work for what will end up being a relatively low-impact project. And while I'm trying to not let my business get in the way of the work I want to do, it's realistically not something I think I can devote a ton of time to. 

 

Idea 2: Leave a secret, take a secret

This is the simpler idea by far. It would be a series of those small elf doors at the bases of trees all over campus, with an instruction sheet next to them. Each door will be openable, and will come with a bunch of little slips of paper and some pencils. The instructions would tell participants to write a secret they've been keeping and leave it inside the door. If there's a secret in the door, the participant takes that secret with them and does whatever they want with it.

There's a few questions I need to answer before I go in on it. I think this idea only works if there's a ton of doors or very few, since the anonymity gets lost if you do any middle amount. If I do a small amount, how precious do I want to be with my locations? If I do a large amount, what locations can I get creative with? Logistically I think this is much easier to pull off though, since there's no real permission I would need to make that happen. I also think people will be more interested in the idea once they see it, and there's a lower barrier of entry. I could also theoretically leave these up for however long I want to (assuming they don't get mad at me) which I think will strengthen the project overall.