Mark Hoebee, Speech ’82, recalls a mass of students congregating at the Lagoon to welcome the first day of each spring.

“It was a reward for making it through the winter,” said Hoebee, who now lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan. “The Lagoon is a landmark. It’s one of the most special parts of Northwestern’s grounds. It would be a crime to make it into a parking lot.”

Alumni across the country last week clued each other into administrators’ plan to fill in one-fifth of the Lagoon north of Norris University Center. Expressing shock and outrage, many respondents to an online petition said they will stop donating to the university if the construction occurs.

Although Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said he has not heard of any donations being withdrawn, alumni said they have been contacting University President Henry Bienen with their disapproval.

Cubbage said alumni will learn of the project’s details this week in their monthly e-mail newsletter.

But Kathy Lewton, Medill ’77 and past president of the Public Relations Society of America, said administrators erred in not informing alumni sooner.

“The university should have communicated directly with their stakeholder audience,” she said. “Now they will be backpedaling forever. My guess is they knew it would create a firestorm so they kept it a secret. But they could have gotten any Medill undergraduate to write a better public relations campaign than this.”

Lewton said she remembers taking classes in Fisk Hall and looking out the window at the Lakefill.

“The lakefront is such an integral part of the package that is Northwestern,” she said. “When you hear they are going to fill part of it in for parking space it’s like, ‘Great. Now we can look like Illinois State.’ How unattractive.”

Connie Breuer, Weinberg ’00, said she sent Bienen an e-mail to show her opposition to the project.

“I might to have to reconsider any future donations because I need to make sure my money is going in the right direction,” said Breuer, who now lives in Massachusetts and heard about the plan from a friend who works at NU. “Most shocking is the way they sprung the decision on the university community. When it comes to this great of decision, something should have been discussed ahead of time.”

Breuer told Bienen in her e-mail that she considered the Lagoon area her favorite part of campus.

“As a former campus tour guide, the best part of each of my tours was to bring prospective students and their parents out onto Norris’ balcony and to hear the gasps of astonishment as they looked out over such an amazing landscape,” she wrote. “I cannot imagine that I would have gotten the same reactions had several buildings spoiled the view.”

As soon as Michelle Mikolajczak heard about the proposal, she sent an e-mail to other members of the Class of 1997, urging them to call Bienen and voice their opinions.

“I’ve got a positive response from other alum(ni) also upset this is going on,” said Mikolajczak, Speech ’97, who lives in Los Angeles. “We are upset that a decision of this magnitude would be made without consulting us. You would think (administrators) would be reaching out to their donor pool.”

Other recent graduates said so many construction projects have impacted the face of the university already that the campus has become fundamentally different from what they remember. Samir Mehta, Weinberg ’96, said a new residential college in the Fraternity Quads has especially changed North Campus.

“There is so much construction all over the place,” said Mehta, who now works as a surgical resident in Philadelphia. “I understand there are constraints on the university to expand, but at some point they have to decide if this is really what they want to do.”

Mehta said he holds administrators accountable for failing to involve alumni in the decision.

“If the administration plans on making these decisions without input from the students and alumni, they can’t expect us to ante up when they ask for money,” he said. “If they want to put down asphalt, then so be it, but that’s not the Northwestern they should be trying to sell. And that’s not the campus I remember.”