A group of soon-to-be grads in Carnegie Mellon's master's program at Silicon Valley have gathered just outside the building where they take classes. Instead of books and laptops, they are armed with rakes, shovels, and heavy-duty work gloves. This is not a typical day in sunny California for the software engineering and management students. They're clearing a 3-by-14-foot spot in a courtyard—a popular student gathering spot that has seen plenty of meetings and BBQs.
Six days later, from that bare patch of ground, a 10-foot-long structure has sprouted that bears an uncanny resemblance to a historic fence 2,600 miles away.
The Silicon Valley version of Carnegie Mellon's Fence is the first-ever class gift from Silicon Valley. It looks suspiciously pristine, though—unlike the one in Pittsburgh where, since its origins in the early 1900s, students have painted whatever was on their minds or in their hearts.
"That is just awesome, man," says Minh Nguyen, class recipient of the Outstanding Service Award, who is admiring with his classmates the class gift adorned with a solid white coat of paint.
"It's 12:01 somewhere in the world right now!" says a student in the group. Everyone laughs. They're more than aware of the Pittsburgh tradition not to paint the Fence until after midnight. The time has come to christen the white canvas. Or has it? No one is painting.
"Just paint whatever you feel like painting," someone yells. Seila Kheang gets the message. Holding a paintbrush dripping with vivid red paint, he cautiously strokes on a big red "O," apologizing as he goes. "That's good, that's good," reassure several onlookers.
Before long, everyone gets in on the action, covering the Fence with everything from a depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge to logos of the students' various employers (Oracle, Nokia, Microsoft) to a sketch of the swollen belly of one student's pregnant wife.
Just three months before this colorful day, the class of 2008 hadn't considered contributing to a class gift—let alone creating a version of the venerated Fence. Enter Belinda Leung. "I thought, 'We're graduating in three months' time: What can we do as a class to leave our legacy?'"
She decided to meet with the student activities director and received the go-ahead to organize a class gift. Her next step was to get a team together. Nguyen and classmates Dossym Nurmukhanov, and Anantakrishnan Iyer immediately stepped up to help. As for the rest of the class that totals 45 students, the response was enthusiastic, says Leung. She estimates that more than 80 percent of the class ended up contributing—an impressive percentage by any fundraising or volunteering standard.
It was Nurmukhanov who, from his research of Carnegie Mellon traditions, helped the group find the ideal icon for the class gift. The Fence struck a cord with everyone, particularly because of its tangible connection to their Pittsburgh peers.
"For me, personally, this is very meaningful," says Leung. "It helps me reflect on how I spent the last two years. The Fence symbolizes crossing over. Every time I go to campus and look at the Fence, I have a sense of pride. My class made this happen."
The Fence isn't the only way the class of 2008 left its mark. The students also contributed $1,000 to the Randy Pausch Honorary Fund and created a new tradition for the Silicon Valley classes to come.
—Elizabeth May
