Case: A Quilt of Existence
Physical Case: attractive, flashy, eyecatching
Virtual Case: informative, essential, overwhelming
Combined: CWRU the one university.
"The flyer was bright purple with cool font that caught my eye.
When the physical and virtual worlds of Case intertwine, one university emerges just as the roots of a tree combine in order to form a strong trunk, branches, and leaves. While I casually walked around campus the other day, I noticed writing everywhere I looked. Then, skimming through the thousands of links, entries, and webpages connected to the university webpage, I was overwhelmed. There was too much information to possibly entertain. Thus, the physical Case introduces the students to an array of possibilities and virtual Case allows students to further research events that catch their eyes.
One flyer that grabbed my attention was an invitation to attend Karl Kaltenthaler’s discussion on Muslim public opinion and the war on terror. The flyer was bright purple with cool font that caught my eye. I was lure in. Then I began to read the remainder of the flyer. There was not a boring list of facts, but a picture of the professor, an offering of food, and a gripping promise of a good and informative time. After being enticed, I checked out the meeting on the Case Webpage. After Case “googling” the event, I had to scroll down threw miscellaneous, unrelated links, until I finally found the event. After clicking on the link, I found myself having to again scroll for what seemed like forever, until, at the bottom of the page I discover the event. Simply it stated the speaker’s name, the date, and the location of the discussion(http://blog.case.edu). Appalled by the lack of enticement, I no longer was as excited about the event, simply informed.
Intrigued by my realization of the lack of zest in virtual Case, I decided to further investigate my findings. I had remembered seeing writing on sidewalk outside my building, inviting me to play paintball. Again, the writing was in a cool font, bold and blue, which attracted my attention. Afterwards, I noticed a poster with a guy holding a paintball gun that provided even more enthusiasm and appeal to the event. Looking up the paintball game online, I found a list of players and learned how I could join the event by registering online. In contrast to the eye-catching poster and cool sidewalk advertisement, virtual description of the event was dry and tedious to read.
The physical writing at Case drew me into the discussion with Dr. Kalenthaler and the paintball tournament. Whereas, after searching specifically for these two events online, the internet provided me with monotonous details. Thus, the physical writing at Case: the posters, flyers, sidewalk writing, etc., lured me into to finding out more information about an event by using fun graphics, awesome pictures, and creative hooks. Virtual Case gave me specific information about an event that the physical Case had attracted me to. Importantly, I had to register online in order to join the paintball tournament. Therefore, the physical university depends on the virtual and each needs the other to exist. Case University is an intricately woven quilt, some yarn coming from the physical Case, and the other coming from the virtual Case. Together they weave together one university, Case Western Reserve University.
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