In 1967 and 2011, UW-Platteville released campus layout plans to show a future for buildings on campus. However, in the years following the release of both plans, student enrollment tanked drastically.

The connection between the release of these layout plans and declining enrollment numbers has students, staff and administration concerned about UW-Platteville’s planning and development causing these events.

In an interview for the Antagonist, senior analytics major Emery Richards, who is conducting studies related to these declines, said, “There is no two ways about it, Platteville’s level of optimism in planning and construction accurately predicts enrollment troubles, and my research also concludes it has coincided with other major events. The Engineering Hall commemorated the 2008 Recession, the CFA for the Reagan assassination attempt in 1981 and the Art Building for Pearl Harbor in 1941. If you want my professional opinion, I think this campus is cursed.”

Antagonist advisor Chip Cordon noted, “Some days I come to campus rather cheery, but the excessive use of taupe brick agitates my depression, so it would make sense that campus itself is emanating some brand of evil aura. In retrospect, that probably explains that one ‘R8 My Profe$$or’ review.”

“The campus is presently suffering from too much architectural uniformity without really creating a campus continuity. Many of the buildings have a kind of sameness of style and siding which create an element of monotony to an otherwise interesting site,” an architectural report from 1967, supporting the theory of a malignant campus spirit, said.

The growing theory that Platteville is haunted by an evil spirit which is upset by planning or construction has sparked the question, “Should UW-Platteville plan at all?”

“Apparitions often haunt brutalist structures like those found on campus, and they likely came from the cemetery. Fortunately, I think if we don’t plan ahead and do projects quickly, they’ll be too slow to haunt us,” construction management major Kassidy Lynch said.

When asked whether Lynch thought this process of building may result in structures that are ugly or fall apart, she replied, “We keep Otts around, so I don’t see how that would be an issue around here.”

The Antagonist reached out to the Campus Regulated Architectural Panel, which issued the following statement: “We are doing everything we can to lessen the catastrophic effects of campus development,” further noting that “Practices regarding planning and construction are being changed rapidly, and with the advice of a paranormal investigator we aim to prevent situations like 1967, 2011 and others.”