The Ohio State University -- May 2005

The weekend of May 19-22, 2005, I visited The Ohio State University to attend the U.S. Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS). While there, I also gave a talk to the Group for Attitudes and Persuasion on the Election '04 Study I organized, visited the Ohio Statehouse (state capitol), attended a Buckeyes' baseball game, and went into the Jack Nicklaus Museum (adjacent to the baseball stadium on campus). You might say I like to get the most out of my trips!

I took a lot of pictures at Ohio State. In order to have this website load relatively quickly, however, I try to hold it down to three or four pictures per entry. What I did here, therefore, is edit sets of pictures into collages in PowerPoint, then save each collage as a singular photo. You can click directly on the photos below to make them bigger.

One lovely area of the campus includes Lazenby Hall, home of the social psychology program, and Mirror Lake. There's also a campus historical marker, which can be seen in the lake photos on the left-hand side.



The OSU campus was just teeming with what appeared to be new buildings, a sign of the university's vitality. The building on the left, below, is the new Physics Research Building, which I took note of because of my layperson interest in physics.



No trip to Ohio State would be complete without the famous "Horseshoe," also known as Ohio Stadium (and I say this as someone who's grown critical of the violence and injuries in football over the years). Also, back in the spring of 1984, when I visited OSU to look at it for graduate school (I ultimately chose Michigan instead), the OSU social psychology program was located under the stands in an office component of the football stadium.



I had posted a set of OSU photos in a different location previously, which was discovered by someone named David Burns. He e-mailed me some web links with historical information on Ohio Stadium and its design (well worth a look).

I also like to show a little bit of the area surrounding a given campus, which ideally will mean plenty of pizza places and bookstores! As some of my Texas Tech colleagues who previously spent time at Ohio State had told me before my trip, the campus is ringed by a number of local establishments and very few national franchises. Among those I visited are captured in another collage I made...



Flying Pizza and Long's Bookstore (as of the time I photographed it) are both on High Street, on the eastern border of the campus. The Varsity Club is on Lane Avenue, on the northern border, by the athletic facilities. As of my visit, Long's was slated to be moving south a few blocks, part of being blended into a huge new Barnes and Noble's.

Finally, here's a shot of the state capitol building in downtown Columbus; it can be reached easily by a bus that goes down High Street.

Indiana University Bloomington -- May 2006

Two months ago, I attended a conference on networks at IU Bloomington. I had visited previously in the spring of 1984 to consider Indiana for graduate school, but after 22 years, I really didn't remember much about the campus or town, other than that I had had a favorable impression of both.

On my return visit in 2006, the campus and town didn't disappoint (by "town," I refer to the restaurants, shops, etc., catering to the college community and not the residential parts). In fact, the campus and town were contiguous, which is not always the case around the country.


Coming up Kirkwood St., which seemed to be the "main drag," one enters campus at the Sample Gates (at some point IUB will presumably put in real gates, just kidding).


Just about anywhere, the student union plays a major role, although on some campuses more than others. Here in Hoosier land, the Indiana Memorial Union plays a huge role, as it is said to be one of the largest student unions in the world.

Another thing about the IUB campus that is lovely, but which initially made it hard for me to find my bearings, is that large amounts of space are devoted to natural beauty (e.g., trees, grass fields, streams), befitting of a national or state park. One example is shown below...



The campus seems to alternate between clusters of academic buildings and these open spaces; thus, when as a newcomer you find yourself in the middle of the nature areas, it can be hard to get oriented again as to where the buildings are. Also, other than on one side (by the hotel component), the huge Indiana Memorial Union complex has no signage. I spent a half hour trying to find the IMU on the first day of the conference, only to learn that I had walked by it several times unknowingly.

On the whole, though, Bloomington is a neat town, and IUB, a great campus.

University of Southern California -- Guest Photographer

After I posted a notice about my Texas Tech photo display on the RaiderPower.com chat site (the school's sports teams are known as the Red Raiders), someone who goes by the moniker "Raider Aficionado" commented about being at the University of Southern California recently and posted some pictures he or she had taken of the USC campus (the University of South Carolina also, of course, goes by USC). Raider Aficionado also kindly stated that I could use the photos for this blog, and so I'm posting some of them (as can be seen in all of my earlier postings, I'm generally limiting the number of photos per campus to three or four, so that the page will come up relatively quickly on most computers).



The central icon of the Southern Cal campus, of course, is the statue of Tommy Trojan, the school's athletic mascot. As documented here, Tommy needs to be protected from possible mischief by supporters of cross-town rival UCLA in the days leading up to the schools' annual football showdown.



Next is a shot of the Student Activities Center, which I believe Raider Aficionado took to illustrate the abundant trees on campus as much as the center.



Finally, we have the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, located within walking distance of USC. In addition to being the home of the Trojan football team, the Coliseum has hosted two Olympics (1932 and 1984) and used to host L.A. Rams (now in St. Louis), L.A. Raiders (now back in Oakland), and UCLA Bruins (now at the Rose Bowl) football games. Also in the athletic realm, after many years of playing at the decaying L.A. Sports Arena near campus, the Trojan basketball teams will inaugurate a new on-campus facility, the Galen Center, this season.

Texas Tech University -- Assorted Photos

I've now displayed photos of UCLA and the University of Michigan, my undergraduate and graduate alma maters, respectively, in earlier postings. Now it's time for me to post some photos I took of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where I've been a faculty member for nine years.

Texas Tech is very big on traditions, which comes across in some of these photos.



The shot above is of the Administration Building, viewed from the south. In the extreme lower left of the photo, all that can be made out is some type of white structure. What this can be seen to be, if one walks away from the building and toward the structure, is a bench in the shape of the school's famous Double-T logo. In between the bench and the building (facing the building) is a statue of former Texas governor Preston Smith, during whose tenure Texas Tech was upgraded from a college to a university.





Here are two shots of the Will Rogers statue with his horse Soapsuds (Will Rogers's connection to Texas Tech is described in the "traditions" link above). The statue is located in a pretty, circular garden plaza. In the wider shot (above), one of the towers of the Administration Building is visible in the background, whereas the picture below provides more of a close-up of the statue.



Finally, here's a shot of the new wing of the Student Union (only a few years old), as viewed from the side by the library. Prior to its major renovation project, I used to tell people that the Texas Tech Student Union was state of the art... circa 1940!

On the RaiderPower.com site, which is devoted to discussion of all things Texas Tech (heavily, though not exclusively, sports-related), someone who goes by the moniker "TTU Red" periodically posts links to pictures he or she has taken of the campus, which are a lot nicer than mine (what I hang my hat on is getting to a lot of campuses and taking pretty good pictures!). You can access Red's pictures by clicking here, then scrolling down a bit and clicking on "TTU Campus."

I consider Texas Tech to be one of the nicer campuses I've seen. However, its flatness, lack of more greenery, and absence of water -- I'm referring to streams, rivers, or lakes, not a lack of drinking fountains -- keep it from rising to my personal top tier of campuses.

University of Michigan -- Assorted Photos

As noted in the sub-heading at the top of this page, I went to graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, earning a Ph.D. in social psychology in 1989. So deeply do my feelings run for the maize and blue that I operate another blog devoted entirely to reminiscences on my UM years (and updates of what people from my era are doing now).

In the 17 years I've been away from Ann Arbor, I've generally managed to come back for visits every couple of years, give or take, and on my last few trips back, I've taken pictures of the campus and town. In recent months, I've posted some of these pictures on my Michigan retrospective site. Thus, the easiest thing for me to do is just provide links to my UM pictures on the other site.

If you click here, you'll see an entry that includes photos of some assorted UM campus landmarks. And if you click here and scroll down a bit, you'll see a picture of the Graduate Library, which faces the "Diag," a central gathering spot on campus through which two major walkways cross, you guessed it, diagonally.

Unlike many college campuses around the nation that have clearly defined perimeters, where there would be no mistaking if you were on or off campus, the University of Michigan campus has few, if any, sharp demarcations. Rather, campus buildings blend in with the town's businesses and residential sections.

As some of you may know, the UM-Ann Arbor campus actually consists of three non-contiguous tracts of land, the Central Campus, North Campus (containing among other things, the Schools of Engineering, Music, and Art, and a large graduate-student housing set-up), and South Campus (containing the athletic facilities).

When I refer to blending of campus buildings with the town, I do not mean the areas between the Central, North, and South Campuses. What I'm saying is that the Central Campus, itself, mixes seamlessly with commercial and private establishments.

Welcome to the Site (Part II) -- Recent U. of Washington Photos

As part of the same West Coast trip that took me to Los Angeles and UCLA (see entry below), I also went to Seattle for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) conference. While there, I visited the University of Washington (known as "U-Dub" to locals) and took some photos.



As can be seen from the main entrance (above), the U-Dub campus is very verdant. The Husky Union Building or "HUB" (student union) is one of many buildings with a nice lawn adjacent to it (below).



Here are a couple of other buildings around the HUB...





Finally, here's a shot of the University District, just west of campus on University Way (which is sometimes called University "Avenue"). The main bookstore for U-Dub students is here, rather than in the HUB, plus there are lots of restaurants and other amenities. Being in a big city sometimes detracts from the college-town feel of a community, but I think the U-District does a nice job of preserving that feel.

Welcome to the Site (Part I) -- Recent UCLA Photos

I'm an academic, through and through. I've always enjoyed visiting college campuses and, more recently, photographing them. I've put various photo collections on the web over the years, but I've decided that I should have a central repository for my college campus photos. Hence, this blog. I recently was home visiting in Los Angeles. Therefore, to start things off, here are a few shots of my undergraduate alma mater, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).



Pictured above is Royce Hall, one of the four original buildings on UCLA's Westwood campus. Royce's front exterior often serves as a symbol for UCLA as a whole.



Next is Kerckhoff Hall, which adjoins the Ackerman Student Union and houses many offices of the type that would be found in a student union. I was a sportswriter for the Daily Bruin and our offices were in Kerckhoff. Nowadays, I would go to Kerckhoff primarily for its Coffee House, which also includes an ice cream component.



Immediately to the south of UCLA is Westwood Village. Up through, I would say, the 1970s (during my childhood and adolescence), Westwood had a bunch of quaint, traditional college-town business establishments. In more recent decades, however, things have gotten considerably more high-end (which also seems to be associated with a high turnover of businesses in some locations). In the photo above, which looks north along Westwood Blvd., you can see in the background a hint of the red-brick exterior to the UCLA Medical Center (which is slated to be replaced in about another year or so).



Finally, Westwood is one of the main movie-theater hubs in Los Angeles (along with Hollywood, of course), and while I was there, in fact, Westwood hosted the annual L.A. Film Festival. If they showed exclusively comedies, then the acronym LAFF would make sense, but they didn't. Pictured above is the Fox theater, a bit west of Westwood Blvd.