Walk of Heroines may come to fruition

When the last budget season came to PSU, workers on the uncompleted Walk of the Heroines pathway thought they were going to finally get the funding from the state that they have been waiting years for. But after hitting numerous budget snags along the way, the eight-year-old project will likely have to change significantly to get built.

The building permit for the Walk of the Heroines, a proposed interactive pathway designed to honor women through the ages that will stretch from the community recreation field to the entrance of Hoffman Hall, expires on Feb. 28. Executive Director of the project and former women’s studies department chair Johanna Brenner said there has been a push by the PSU administration, led by Lindsay Desrochers, vice-president of Finance and Administration, to break ground on the project whether the fund raising is complete or not.

“(We’re) in a bit of a crunch because the administration is concerned that we are taking too long to raise money and are thinking we might have to scale it back,” Brenner said. “We’re hoping to scale back, but not lose the quality, but sometimes if you have to scale back far enough … the quality could be affected if we have to change it a lot.”

Walk of the Heroines needs to raise around $1.7 million more in order to fully fund their original concept. Since 2002, the project has raised about $1.7 million, which includes $300,000 that has gone to an education fund for the women’s studies department and administrative costs to keep the project alive. Brenner said they have $700,000 in the bank right now set aside specifically for construction.

The idea for the Walk of the Heroines was conceived in 1998 by psychology Professor Janice Haaken after she saw that Wichita State University has a plaza called “Plaza of the Heroines” while doing women’s studies research.

Publicity material for the path calls it “a special place to honor the women who have illuminated our lives.” The original design included an interactive kiosk that displays information about honored heroines, a fountain with a bridge crossing, a stage with seating and various displays on historic women. A heroine in the terms of this project can be any woman ranging from someone’s mother to Mother Joseph, who designed the first St. Vincent Hospital in Portland in the 19th century.

It is a place for students and the community to gather in peace, Brenner said. She said her and her family got together to honor her mother who passed away since the time the project started. They commissioned an art piece in honor of her as a place for her family to gather and pay respect.

“She was still alive when we first were talking about the project,” Brenner said. “She thought it was a wonderful idea. It’s wonderful to have something joyful outdoors where you can gather-a place where it has a real spirit about it. It is very living.”

Barbara Linn, former architect with PSU facilities, created the original design. Since then the project has gone up in cost from $1 million before it was designed to $2.1 million in Jan. 2003, before inflation on materials drove the cost up to $2.7 million last year.

“I think the university’s position is ‘this is a wonderful idea’. It would be great to have it on campus, but you haven’t found the levels of support among large donors that you are going to need. You’ve been at it for three years,” Brenner said.

The goal, Desrochers said, is to break ground before the time the building permit expires. She said they have not made a decision on how to begin the project and can’t say for sure what features they will construct initially, but speculates that major features such as the fountain and donors’ walls would be constructed first as an incentive for future donors to contribute.

“People want to see some progress,” Desrochers said.

Project coordinator Holly Locke said the project has received donations ranging from $200, which is the minimum in order to personally engrave a name in the granite walls along the path, to $200,000, which was contributed by the building and fee committee of the 2001-02 ASPSU administration to develop a master development plan. She said 300 $20 engraving donations have been received and there is space for close to 1,500.

“There are some eager donors who are waiting to get their donations in for their heroines,” said Locke, who was a student at PSU when she became involved in the project.

Brenner said she is disappointed that PSU did not request any money for the path from the state this year, even though they funded other constructions and repairs on campus, such as Science Building 2. In the recent governor’s recommended budget, the project was approved to fundraise up to $1.8 million, but Brenner said they might not get a chance to raise that much. She said the project staff was hopeful they would receive state funds.

“That’s what we had hoped for, but the university decided not to include us,” Brenner said. “We talked to people here, the dean and so forth, but the administration made that decision and did not say why. Everybody knows we need the money.”

Desrochers said the state doesn’t give general fund dollars to construction projects and the Walk was always envisioned as being funded by donations. She said the project is a recognition and beautification project and doesn’t fit into the more educational projects that the state usually funds, such as classrooms and laboratories. She said it would not be appropriate to use general funds to pay for the Walk, as it does not meet the core mission of PSU in the same way as other projects on campus.

Some options for budgetary modifications, according to Brenner, could be paving the path with concrete instead of more expensive granite and taking out the bridge that was supposed to cross the fountain. Most of the cost saving procedures would be swapping out more expensive, elegant features for cheaper ones, she said.

“No matter what happens this thing is going to be built and we are going to have something to show for ourselves by the end of this year for sure,” Brenner said.