If it Sticks
Use your old walls.
I suspect that climbing walls did little for enrollment or retention. They were one of many “fads” we tried to coax students away from rival universities. Like so much else they remain as a reminder that we “tried everything.”
Universities resist throwing their mistakes away. Walls are difficult to store in closets. Hence, they’ve stayed in public view. Some wanted to convert them into a wailing wall. Let every professor make his or her pilgrimage at least once a semester. A God of something might notice.
As things would have it, neither wailing nor tearing one’s academic robes have much effect on enrollment. But the wall remained.
Repurposed in the administration building it rested for a few years. Until it was the time of panic, and the wall took on new significance. A broad target toward which to pitch ideas. And all gathered to see which stuck.
Ah, the brightness of hope. The frailty of thought. If the cost is low and the expectation high, there is little resistance to trying.