Kelly Little's Madison Spaces for Dr. H

Here we have Bridgeforth Stadium and Zane Showker Field. To me, this is the epitome of public spaces on James Madison University’s campus. During football games, thousands of people come together in one remote area on campus. There is a vast variety of attendees that come to the stadium, people of different races, ages, and interests, but they all come for one reason- to cheer on their school. Now our hope is that the majority of them are cheering “Duke Dogs,” but either way it is a true phenomenon. This picture truly reminds me of the idea discussed in lecture that public space is a place to run into strangers. The stadium brings together JMU students for multiple different occasions, but they all revolve around supporting their school. Since my freshman year, I have watched the size of the stadium absolutely grow. The same is true for our school. We are a growing population with a growing fan base and the increase in size of Bridgeforth only displays to everyone passing by on 81. In class, we have often talked about how public spaces are important in a community. Bridgeforth Stadium is definitely one of the most important gathering locations on campus, which holds the JMU community. An example that I believe truly exemplifies this importance of Bridgeforth as public space is when we beat Virginia Tech in football in 2010. Upon our victory against the Hokies, the JMU students that were not in Blacksburg rushed onto the field, cheering and celebrating the great triumph. This is similar to Greenberg’s idea that the campus should be centered on what is important, which is not the physical football stadium, but instead what it does for us- brings us together.