Appearances

Melissa Garzon, a sophomore majoring in criminology, said she was upset when she heard of the changes. [...] “I wish this was something we had a vote on,” she said. “All you see are plants all around campus so it will look pretty and parents will want to send their kids to USF. But we don’t need more plants and more flowers — we actually use the Library. ... I feel like our tuition should be paying for the Library, not the pretty flowers around campus.” The Oracle 27 August 2013

Campus beautification projects have abounded left, right and center, and while those funds couldn’t directly be used toward other areas, perhaps unused funds could have been carried forward. The Oracle 27 August 2013

Mr. Johnson’s wife, Nancy, was a trim, exercising, vegetable- and fiber-chomping nonsmoker in her early 40s when she felt a lump in her groin. It proved to be a metastasis from a malevolent form of uterine cancer, one whose cells are atypically aggressive and prone to spreading. Her situation and her terrible prognosis reminded Mr. Johnson of nothing more than his New Mexico backyard, with headstrong wildflowers blooming where they choose and intractable weeds exploding by night. A man may plan a garden, but nature has different patterns in mind, patterns so intricate and orderly in their chaotic way that scientists now understand cancers to be collections of cells as complex and ambitious as any healthy organ. The extraordinary determination of those cells wins Mr. Johnson’s grudging admiration: “Cancer cells are those that rebel against their fate — they hope for so much more.” The New York Times 27 August 2013