Rethinking North Charles Street
What should North Charles Street be: urban drag strip or peaceful parkway? Put the question that way, and you're not likely to get much argument against option B.
   And, in fact, university staff and consultants putting together the new Homewood campus master plan are finding that most people think of the issue in just those terms. Almost everyone they've asked--Charles Village residents, students, faculty and staff, the university administration--agrees that it's time to rethink and redesign the stretch of Baltimore's main street that passes by Homewood.
   "We want to think of calming traffic," said Adam Gross, principal of Ayers/Saint/Gross, the Baltimore architecture and planning firm working with the university on the campus plan. "We want to make this much more of a residential-scale street and much less of a speedway." Full story...

Campuses ready to greet Y2K
Don't panic! The famous two words from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are good advice now that what some call "technological judgment day" is upon us.
   The rollover from 1999 to 2000 might be just around the corner, but university staff have been working since early 1996 to suppress the millennium bug and guarantee students, staff and faculty the least amount of headaches come the new year.
   Computer systems have been checked, updated and then checked again to make sure that all electronic data is safe. Y2K planning committees have developed contingency plans that take into account everything from the possible malfunction of card key- controlled doors to the threat of a power outage, large or small--even stocking up on dry ice to ensure that laboratory refrigerators and freezers are kept cool. And dedicated Y2K Web sites and phone numbers have been set up to provide everyone with the latest information on the university's compliancy and systems status. Full story...

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