I just enjoyed perhaps my 20th pass down Shepherd Grade in front of the new Center for Contemporary Arts Building, and its framing stonework and walkways. I am impressed; and I am grateful! The stone walls are gracefully curved to invite you into the West Campus, or for that matter, onto Shepherd Grade Road. And they have not only stone gate posts, but lights!

The new building itself is exciting and suggestive of the creative work we need to build our “now” and our future. I cherish the past of Shepherdstown expressed in its old buildings, but I want to live in the now, and into the future. How fitting that a university nudge, push, and equip us in its common for that adventure! I look forward to the third of the Three Sisters standing on that site!

Oh, and the tunnel! I never thought it would work. I envisioned a narrow, dark, railroad underpass kind of thing. Instead it serves as a gleaming connector of the two campuses. When looking from the West Campus, the East seems just a short walk away – and one feels a visual inclusion. Congratulations, Shepherd, for foreseeing this effect and building it out so beautifully.

Stan Jones

Shepherdstown