A new vision mural is taking shape on campus.

Students in Juan Luna-Avin’s painting and mural class have completed much of the work on the mural along Inter-Garrison Road and Fifth Avenue, across from the Visual and Public Art complex. Detail work on the mural will be completed next semester.

The original Signs and Symbols mural that graced the wall for years was removed last January to abate lead in the paint. During the spring 2014 semester, Professor Johanna Poethig’s painting and mural class, along with alumni muralists and faculty members, designed a new mural to replace it.

It “will reflect on the vision of the university and draw upon the old design,” Professor Poethig said in an interview last spring. “You don’t want to forget your history, but you also want to look toward the future.”

The students explained their new design on a tumblr page:

The centerpiece of the new mural is the compass. The compass symbolizes directions in life, and overlaps with an image of the globe, representing the world we all share, and situating CSUMB in the global arena. The currents that radiate out from the center across both sides of the mural are expansive as they illustrate the rippling effect we have on one another.

In the layering of the composition, the easily perceived and hidden elements complement each other. The lenses at each side of the compass magnify the values on which CSUMB is founded as we acknowledge the past and look toward the future.

On the left is a reflection of the original Fort Ord military symbol that was the centerpiece of the wall. On the right, the lens is a camera, a telescope or beacon and through both lenses light shines through toward the sky of unlimited possibility.