Today is Leap Day, the perfect day for an update on two of UC Davis' iconic Eggheads and their leap across the street from the School of Law to the traffic circle between King Hall and Mrak Hall.

A contractor is expected to remove the twin Eggheads from the law school's giant lawn within the next few weeks to make way for the building's expansion. The $24 million project, including renovation of the existing building, known as King Hall, will be implemented in two phases. The new east wing is due for completion in 2009, while the renovation is due for completion in 2010.

The late Robert Arneson's sculptures will not go directly to the traffic circle. Instead, they will be put in storage while the university readies the traffic circle's landscaping for its new occupants.

Arneson, who was a faculty member, crafted seven Eggheads for the campus, with the twin installation at the law school titled "See No Evil-Hear No Evil." Each Egghead has one eye shut, each is talking out of the corner of his or her mouth, and neither has ears.

Some people at the law school are no doubt happy to see the Eggheads go — because they are seen as poking fun at attorneys.

But, said Renny Pritikin, director of the university's Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection, official caretaker of the Eggheads, "I don't think anyone can say what the artist intended."

Nevertheless, law professor Joel Dobris said he is among those who believe the earless Eggheads are "hostile" to lawyers. He included himself among those at the law school with hurt feelings.

"I've always thought we should put eyeless Eggheads in front of the art department," said Dobris, who joined the law school faculty in 1976.

Pritikin labeled as "apocryphal" any link between the earless Eggheads and lawyers.

Whatever the case, since the Eggheads were installed at the law school in 1994, Dobris has turned from Egghead critic to admirer. "Because Arneson was a great artist, and people like the Eggheads and children play around them … and because, if his intent was to disparage lawyers by saying they don't listen, he failed.

"People don't get that message," said Dobris, suggesting the Eggheads' "loveable quality" is what draws people to them. "I don't think people are paying attention to the ears or no ears — many people don't even notice."

While Arneson's other five Eggheads on campus are "funky," the ones outside the law school are not, Dobris said. "There is a seriousness about them. You look at their faces and you think, 'These are reliable family lawyers'" — even though Dobris doubts that is what Arneson had in mind.Regardless, the twin eggheads are not going far from the law school. They will be within sight of King Hall's new front door, less than 200 feet from where they are now.

Jeff Lefkoff of the Office of Resource Management and Planning said the Eggheads' new home will be similar to their home outside the law school, with each sculpture sitting atop a grass-covered mound. On the traffic circle, however, the mounds will be 6 feet tall instead of 10, and they will be closer together.

Pritikin said the new location "will preserve the Eggheads' setting" as much as possible, while making way for the law school's expansion.

The university hopes to make the Eggheads' new home just as welcoming as their old home for picture-taking and play, and for sitting down and leaning up against with a book.

Lefkoff said two crosswalks will connect King Hall and Mrak Hall sidewalks and the traffic circle, and a path will be built along the circle's western curve. (The path should be welcome news to pedestrians who take a shortcut across the traffic circle.)

"If anything, it's going to make Mrak Circle a whole lot more interesting than it is now," said Tom Stallard, president of the School of Law Alumni Association, a member of the King Hall building committee and a former member of the UC Davis Foundation board of trustees.

Today the circle in front of the campus administration building is mostly grass with a lone tree, an oak. That tree will remain and another will be added, creating a "woodsy" look on the circle's east side, complementing the nearby arboretum.

The west side will be for the Eggheads and their mounds, with the dominant green color tying in with the smaller lawn that will remain around the law school.

As for people at the law school who do not like the Eggheads and their "message," Stallard said he had never met a student or alum who did not like the Eggheads.

"They lend the kind of humanity that I associate with Davis," Stallard said.

And, he added, they are whimsical. "In a university environment, we all have to be reminded not to take ourselves too seriously," he said.