The first connection that needs to be formed from a policy perspective is found within the school, at the juncture that bridges Lafayette engineers with Lafayette arts majors. This juncture should be in the form of a course, with these projects being the focal point. To create this course, a course proposal form must be filled out which is found on Lafayette’s website. This particular course, because of its integration between engineering and arts students, will be available to all junior and senior arts and engineering students; it will be cross registered as both an arts and engineering course. Only upperclassman would be able to enroll, given the fact that they have lived in the community for longest, a fact that should correlate into a better understanding and appreciation for Easton as a whole. In addition, this work is permanent, so the valuable skill set of more educated upperclassman is sought after most.
The program will be instructed by two teachers, one from the engineering department and one from the arts. The idea of project-based courses that are taught by two teachers is not uncommon within Lafayette, as seen in the Engineering Studies class EGRS 480 Sustainable Solutions. Much like other courses at Lafayette, this one will be a project-based course where students can pick between multiple options, in this case two. This will better ensure students can align themselves with projects they are most passionate about. However, other projects may be included if it falls under the curriculum’s broad category of “public art”. The Association for Public Art, which overseas Philadelphia’s public art portfolio, one of the largest in the country, said that “public art is a reflection of how we see the world – the artist’s response to our time and place combined with our own sense of who we are.” In this case, Lafayette’s curriculum will adopt this definition of public art and will interpret it through the lens of Easton’s industrial heritage. As long as an idea matches this idea, it can be completely different than one of the two generated portfolio project proposals. All the projects will be based within the greater Easton area, as this policy coverage extends to only these locations. If the school were to extend the program’s geographical grasp, it would need to do different political/ policy analysis on the new municipalities, groups and entities involved with the project.
Locations on campus are available for public art ideas generated from this course. Lafayette College Director of Facilities Planning and Construction Mary Wilford-Hunt very much liked the curriculum. Regarding art on campus, she said that “there are many opportunities to display student artwork on campus, both on a temporary and permanent basis”. From a policy end, to maximize feasibility, she said that “key components of any proposed plan would be to assure that the art can be properly maintained over time, so some sort of maintenance plan (and budget) should be proposed to help reassure the administration that the artwork is a true amenity to campus, and not a liability”. This means that before any idea is passed onto the school for approval, it should meet these requirements at a minimum in addition to being crafted to fit the industrial ideology of the course.
The Karl-Stirner Arts Trail is an Easton government project but has a completely different political structure. This structure includes both an Arts and a Lafayette College Advisory Councils, as well as board members (Board and Advisors). There are highly useful contacts for the development of this project in all of these boards which we have contacted and seem to approve of it. They are Jim Toia and Ed Kerns, both professors form the Art department, and Professor Benjamin Cohen from the Engineering Studies department. Having the support of as many council and board members as possible will be essential to approve the display of student created artwork in the trail. There is currently a program similar to what we propose in place at the Art Trail: The Young Masters Wall. It convenes several Easton residents interested in art from different groups to express themselves in a wall section of the trail. This program proves that our proposal for having Lafayette students’ artwork included into the trail is not far-fetched and has a high probability of being accepted by the Trail council and board members.
Getting permission to expose the artwork around the Simon Silk Mill will require connections with the VM Development group, which is the company currently building and administering it. We have tried several times contacting Mark Mulligan, the president of the company who is also part of the Arts Council for the Arts Trail, but to no avail. Chaz Hampton, co-owner of the Brick + Mortar Art Gallery warned us about the difficulty of making this work with the VM group. Exposing the artwork in this location would be a great accomplishment for bettering the relation between Lafayette and the Silk Mill region, although given the difficulty it presents, this might not be a great place to start the project.
Exposing the art at and on the surroundings of Easton’s downtown is a whole different challenge. It is a critical to strengthen the town-gown relation, yet it will probably be the hardest to work with given the complexity of the local-government and the lesser space available downtown for art work to be exposed. Although challenging, Easton’s 2035 development plan includes several mentions to improving the relationship between city and college, such as increasing the frequency of LCAT shuttles to downtown and researching the possibility of homing new professors in prominent development areas (Executive Summary and Priority Projects), and further delineates the importance of a sustainable relation between the two (Executive Summary and Priority Projects). Knowing that the city is committed to improving it, future students that take on this project must determine useful contacts on the city’s government and convince them that this project has the possibility of greatly improving this relationship.
To increase the feasibility of long-term success of the overall course, Lafayette must integrate their communications team and promote the town-gown collaboration. This will highlight the community engagement initiative which has taken the form of a course, bringing added value to Lafayette’s overall reputation in the Easton area, strengthening the school’s academic program and supporting the liberal arts agenda. Placing art in the greater Easton community would be ideal to achieve a maximum town-gown relationship and new ideas that diversify the portfolio of public art should always be encouraged.
Once the school program is established, with its overall theme of public art, community connections to make the art installations both authentic and installable must be forged. However, since every project has a different political and policy path to short-term and long-term success, there are two unique political contexts. Each context is individually tailored to account for differences within each project, the main reason why customized approaches are required. As stated before, if the curriculum ever expands past Easton’s borders, new contexts will be created and must be accounted for.
Policy Project 1: Acopian, Easton, and Simon Silk Mill Murals
Our first project recommendation is one that seeks to revitalize, beautify and add new meaning to places that lack significance within the community. Blank walls all around Easton’s downtown and surrounding neighbors, the Simon Silk Mill and Lafayette could be turned into murals by students to convey a message about the past history of Easton, further adding immensurable value to the respective locations. Politically, this proposal is very intricate, since it will require the participation of all parties that can be affected and influenced by it, which will be vital to ensure both the short-term and long-term success of the program. Once the initial connection is setup between Lafayette Engineering and Arts majors in the form of a course and the students are ready to pick a portfolio option, a program needs to be in place that unites Lafayette with the community.
This program will combine the Lafayette class with a community organization, in this case the Easton Mural Project. Chaz Hampton, owner of the local business Brick + Mortar Gallery, is also one of the driving forces behind this initiative, seen on the left of Figure 3. As one of the central figures in this project, Mr. Hampton has offered his guidance with this project. In this case, the professors of the course will introduce the murals group with Mr. Hampton to ensure not just a community influence, but also an expert in ways to put up a mural in the Easton area legally, artistically, and economically.
Figure 3: Chaz Hampton (left) and Tom D’Angelo (right) of Brick + Mortar Studio and Art Gallery.
Working in unison with Mr. Hampton, Lafayette College can approach the Easton Mural Project, the Easton Main Street Initiative and its parent organization the Greater Easton Development Partnership. All three community organizations are responsible for helping obtain the legal framework behind the creation and existence of the murals as well as financing. It is important to gain approval for a mural way before a group even forms, as the engineers and art students need to design and implement the visual within the course’s timeframe.
To ensure murals do not get rejected by the city, in an effort to increase approval feasibility, a board must be created, consisting of both Lafayette College faculty and administrators as well as community figures. This board will approve the designs that will be sent to the city. The student’s mural will only be rejected it if it is deemed offensive or not reflective of the overall community, and school’s values, image, and goals. In addition, the mural must meet the course’s goal of representing Easton’s industrial heritage. Once a mural gets approved, because the legal framework is done months in advance, the team of students can now get the “final okay” from the school and community entities overseeing the project. Once the final thumbs up is given, the students will install the mural within a timely and efficient manner.
The second cycle to the mural’s policy backing lies in its maintenance. The Greater Easton Development Partnership and its subsidiaries will be responsible for maintaining the original aesthetic image of the mural for as long as possible, maximizing the life of the public work. The mural itself will be protected under vandalism laws. Once enough murals originating from this program start to populate the city, the school can set up further initiatives that train students to preserve and maintain these pieces. This will make the program not only self-sustaining, but also arm Lafayette students with knowledge on how to preserve historical pieces of public art.
By having a structured program in place that fast tracks a team’s work, from inception, to its design and finally to its implementation all within a semester, the mural option has the ability for long term success. By having a concrete maintenance plan put in place, the murals will be set to represent Easton’s industrial heritage for many years to come.
Policy Project 2: Railroad Trestle
The Railroad Trestle project recommendation explores the revitalization of an important piece of industrial archeology from Easton’s past: a trestle located in the Karl-Stirner Arts Trail, as seen in Figure 5. Because of its location, this project would include dealing with both the Karl-Stirner Arts Trail board and council members (Board and Advisors) and the government of Easton, making it quite complicated in the political context, but definitely achievable.
As explained for the previous recommendation, we are in contact with some highly supporting members of Karl-Stirner Arts Trail councils, including Jim Toia, Ed Kerns and Benjamin Cohen. Art professor Jim Toia heavily advocates the idea of this project and was the one who conceptualized it in the first place. Having him as a supporter in the near future will greatly increase the odds of this being a successful project.
The bridge is not currently used for anything, as the only surviving structures are the bridges’ supports. As explained in the technical section, we have proven the bridge’s supports to be structurally sound, therefore we have proof that this structure can indeed be used for a revitalization process and convincing Easton authorities and Arts Trail council members about it should not be of much trouble.
Although, since this project is putting students in the process of rebuilding the trestle so that it becomes usable again as a pathway, extreme caution will need to take place to ensure the product created is secure enough for the common population to use. If they approve the project, the Easton government will probably want the bridge construction process to take on high amounts of bureaucracy to ensure its safety and that it is following the city’s building codes. The project heads will need to actively work with Easton’s Bureau of Codes and Inspections, as it is the institution that emits permits for new construction and renovations to existing buildings.
The Local Historic District Commission, part of the Bureau of Codes and Inspections, is another institution that might be useful in this project. Although the location of the railroad trestle falls outside of the jurisdiction of this commission, they can be consulted for best practices and advice on the trestle renewal.
Finally, it must be analyzed and decided upon who or which institution will be responsible for maintaining the renovated railroad trestle in good conditions in the future. The strongest candidate for this position is the local government, since they dispose of the necessary funding and expertise to keep the trestle functioning. Lafayette college could also partake in this responsibility by having civil engineers analyze the soundness of the structure every few years, just as they have done once in the past.
Next: Technical Context