By Alec DavisThe Daily Northwestern

I’m not one of those artsy people who claim to love fall because of the vast array of colors, the crispness of the air or the crackle of leaves under your feet. (I’m a summer man, myself.) But I do appreciate all of those things, and I understand that our campus looks better in the fall than at any other time of year. Walking down the tree-lined paths can be one of the prettiest views you take in here. This is why I’ve never been able to figure out why our school purposely allows such a view to be sullied by the hundreds of hot-pink, lime-green and canary-yellow flyers taped all over the place.

I don’t know how the tradition of taping announcements for events on the pathways of campus, “flyering” if you will, ever came to be, or why it has been allowed to continue. Not only do these things look tacky and out of place when they are first posted, but once the weather turns and you mix in a little rain, they turn into sloppy messes.

It pains me to walk down the paths of campus and see them strewn with tape scraps and ripped paper remnants that formerly advertised some event. Sure, there’s probably some rule that says you are responsible for removing the flyers after a certain time period, but anyone can see it is not very well enforced.

Advertising is a necessary part of life, but it doesn’t always have to be done in such a tasteless way. There’s a reason why they don’t put up big movie banners right next to George Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore or carve life insurance advertisements into the trees in Redwood National Park. Even the environmental group here, SEED, scatters its flyers all over the ground, an action I find ironically comical.

There must be better ways for student groups to advertise. Although most people don’t realize it, there are message boards here that can be used for such a purpose. These are often overlooked because of the current method of just putting flyers wherever the hell you feel like putting them.

The HereAndNow Web site run by the Associated Student Government is almost universally used by Northwestern students and would be another great place to advertise events. It is used for this to a small degree now but could easily become the information center for all events and activities on campus.

Eliminating flyering is probably the easiest thing NU can do to beautify its campus, and it would be much cheaper than expensive landscaping. I highly doubt that it would be the end of the world if groups were no longer allowed to post their announcements anywhere they want.

Not only are these flyers a source of litter and an eyesore for our school, they also exploit the nerdy reputation of NU by targeting those who stroll down the street while staring directly at their feet.

So for the trees, for the scenes, for the school and for the socially awkward, let’s do away with these things for good.

McCormick senior Alec Davis can be reached at [email protected].