The arboretum path between the Baird parking lot and Mary Ann Cofrin Hall is my favorite part of campus. Perhaps just a hundred yards or so, this brief passage boasts a wide array of wildlife from wildflowers and tall trees to stalking turkeys, hawks, goldfinches and cedar waxwings. You really get a sense of the seasons changing on this path (though those in the know will point out that I’m not supposed to be walking on the stretch in the winter). The grass rises and falls, leaves green and then wither, different birds rotate shifts over the months. When it snows you come to recognize the bootprints of the brave few still trekking through. This short jaunt from where I park to my office has become something of a daily ritual as I come and go from campus. It’s a chance to prepare myself on the way in, to unwind on the way out. When I was teaching online last year it became an everyday pilgrimage, a brief break between staring at boxes of faces on Microsoft Teams. The path also bears the allure of possibility: maybe I’ll take one of the few detours on the way, maybe I’ll go straight past my car onto the longer arboretum trails around campus. Ever since I was a college student my favorite pastime on any campus is walking, sightseeing even upon the same paths we take every day. I don’t know who I have to thank for this little route, but it remains today my favorite part of our beautiful campus.
My Favorite Space is a CAHSS and Effect regular where UW-Green Bay faculty and staff share where their favorite space is on campus and what they enjoy about it.
