Yazan’s Memorial Quad

Though not the lawn of choice for sunbathing, ever since the demolition of Kincaid Field opened the space between 13th avenue and Knight Library, people have found themselves passing through the memorial quad. The quad joins some of the most important through-ways and buildings on campus — connecting paths from the EMU and Johnson Hall, 13th Avenue the library, and the border of campus on the west side. Once a wide open field on a sparsely populated campus, various buildings have been constructed around the lawn and 8 massive oak trees planted in memory of a drowned student body president and various buildings have enclosed the long grassy rectangle of the quad, such as the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art; Condon Hall; Chapman Hall; Prince Lucien Campbell Hall; and finally, Anstett, Peterson, and Commonwealth Halls – now the Lillis Business Complex [1].

Standing at the center of the quad looking north to south, one finds themselves staring between two of the most emblematic buildings on campus. On one side, the Knight Library offers a liberal academic vision of the university. Inscribed above its doors are plaques that read, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Facing off with the library on the far end of the quad stands the Lillis Business Complex, which sports a huge University of Oregon logo – placed there for national football coverage in 2012, and has since become an important landmark on campus [2]. The hall exemplifies the changing values of the university as a business institution with a duty to make money and advance a  “brand” over the old university ideals as an institution with a duty to create conditions for freedom through the exchange of ideas and investigation of truth. 

Over the years, the UO community has weighed in on the responsibilities of the university. Much of this deliberation has taken place on the Quad’s grass. In May of 1970, amid rising unrest around the Vietnam war and the aftermath of the Kent State Massacre, university president Robert D Clark cancelled two days of classes and called on university constituents to gather and reflect on their role in the state of the world in that time. The English department, including mostly students and a few faculty members, met in front of Prince Lucien Campbell (PLC) and decided to spearhead the creation of an “Alternate University” (or “Alternate U”) where “classes [were] held ‘when someone has something to teach” [3]. Classes included “U.S. Involvement in Imperialism and the Radical Alternatives”; “Practical Comic Books”; and “Reading Newspapers” [4]. Alternate U convened each day on the Memorial Quad for a number of weeks, and even hosted a discussion with President Clark. Alternate U presented a possibility of a university that joined informal, popular education and global justice.  

In 2011, Occupy Eugene, a local [word] of the Occupy Wall Street movement, briefly moved to the Memorial Quad as internal questions about the purpose of the movement were reaching a critical height. Occupy aimed to bring to light wealth inequality in the wake of the 2008 recession. Some student leaders felt that the movement could powerfully oppose rising tuition and student debt — they felt education should be affordable for the 99%. However, when Occupy demonstrators moved to the Quad, university administration quickly threatened to arrest all demonstrators camping on the quad and negotiations led to the camp moving to the Riverside Research Park by the Millrace within hours. While the encampment was still on university property, the location made it peripheral to the everyday functioning of campus and in the end, it didn’t have the impact that student leaders had hoped for [5]. 

In 2024, six months after the beginning of the intensification of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank, students set up tents on the Memorial Quad early one morning as a wave of encampments swept universities across the nation. The Gaza Solidarity Encampment quickly drew hundreds of students and faculty members, holding daily mass meetings, and negotiating with UO administration on a number of demands including, first and foremost, divestment from all companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid. Some professors held their regularly scheduled classes on the lawn, and students, faculty, and community members hosted lectures, teach-ins, and trainings about the US imperialism and the genocide in Palestine, social movement history, and direct action tactics. During this time, students renamed the quad to “Yazan’s Memorial Quad” in memory of the first Palestinian child to die of starvation from the Israeli blockade of food and other necessary resources into Gaza. The encampment moved to the front of Alareer Hall (see Johnson Hall entry) before decamping after an agreement was reached on May 24, 2024 [6]. UO’s encampment was reportedly one of the longest running uninterrupted encampments in the 2024 solidarity encampments. 

The positioning of the original Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the Memorial Quad was certainly emblematic of the contradiction presented between the library and business complex — students asserted rights to free speech contradictory to the profit-motive of the institution. However, other possibilities for the university emerged through that movement. While the Lillis Business Complex and Knight Library faced off from north to south, the east to west axis presents a less obvious, but perhaps more important question. Just to the west sits the rest of Eugene — the path from the quad to the peripheries of campus served as an important supply line for non-student allies to bring food, tents, and other resources to the 2024 encampment. Following that path through the quad and to the west finds the backside of Alareer Hall — the heart of administrative power — and the Erb Memorial Union — the heart of student life on campus. While the Knight Library and Lillis Business Complex frames our imagination around restoring the mythical, old university – which valued free speech, yes, but also colonization and class hierarchy, the east-west axis offers a different framing altogether. When we look at the places students naturally congregate and where power lies, then out to the borders constructed between that power, students, and the broader community, we have to ask the question: What else becomes possible when we recreate a university where the institution acts not on a responsibility to reproduce racial capitalism and its injustices, but rather acts on its responsibility to the community beyond its borders, from Eugene, Oregon to Gaza City, Palestine?

Question as You Visit: 

REFERENCES 

  1. Welch et al., Landscape Resource Survey.
  2. University of Oregon, “Lillis Business Complex | Lundquist College of Business.”
  3.  Historic Oregon Newspapers, Oregon Daily Emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, May 25, 1970, Image 5.
  4. Historic Oregon Newspapers, Oregon Daily Emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, May 15, 1970, Image 3.
  5. Conversation with Jeremy Hedlund
  6. University of Oregon, “Agreement Reached to End Encampment | Office of the President.”