Loyola University Chicago

On the far north side of Chicago, up against Lake Michigan...

...along the elevated "El" train system (with some fancy new apartments or condos being built in the background)...

...sits Loyola University Chicago (not to be confused with Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Loyola University Maryland, or Loyola University New Orleans). 

The Loyola U. Chicago campus offers extensive signage as to where you are...

Driving north on Chicago's famous Sheridan Road, one encounters a high-traffic, winding passage through LUC.

Here are two views of the campus sign at this turn.

The gray high-rise around the turn is the Mundelein Center (below). The building was part of the former Mundelein College (1929-1991) for women, which was absorbed by Loyola. I remember that when I was a kid in the early 1970s and my maternal grandparents lived on Sheridan, my Uncle David would take me to run around the track at Mundelein when I visited Chicago.

The interior of the campus contains some new construction, such as the Quinlan Life Sciences Building...

...along with some older structures featuring a distinctive architectural style...

LUC is an attractive and easy-to-reach campus, worth a visit from campus aficionados. 

University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)

The University of Illinois system includes, in addition to its flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign and a smaller campus in the state capital Springfield, a big-city campus in Chicago (UIC). Located just west of the downtown Chicago Loop, UIC has a very urban feel. Upon arriving at UIC via subway, one then follows a path to the campus along an expressway overpass (shown above). Further, the campus is almost literally in the shadows of downtown's skyscrapers, including the Willis Tower (better known by its former name, the Sears Tower).

Some of the buildings have a "concrete jungle" look, amidst the green of campus lawns, as shown in the next two photos.

UIC also has some public art, however, to improve the aesthetics of the setting.

Also, within the Student Center, there's an interesting looking student lounge (I'm not sure if it's retro or futuristic!).

To my mind, the most important structure on the UIC campus is Jane Addams's Hull House, most active from 1889-1935 from what I can gather, and now remaining only as a museum (official website, Wikipedia page). Described as providing "innovative social, educational, and artistic programs" for recently arrived immigrants in the neighborhood, Hull House also served as a launching pad for social reformers and activists to formulate policy ideas.

The Hull-House complex long predated UIC in its Near West Side location. In fact, construction of the present UIC campus in the 1960s required demolition of most of the Hull-House complex. According to this 1994 Chicago Tribune article:

In 1963, the Hull House Association sold its 13-building complex, all on the 800 block of South Halsted, to the City of Chicago as a prelude to construction of UIC. Eleven buildings fell to the wrecker's ball. Only a national protest saved the remaining two, the former mansion of real estate dealer Charles Hull and the Residents' Dining Hall.

Roosevelt University (Chicago)

I've just returned from a trip to Chicago and other parts of the Midwest, so I'll be posting a bunch of campus-based photo essays in the coming days. I photographed four Chicago campuses on this trip, which, combined with previous entries I posted from Northwestern (2002) and DePaul (2010), will give us six Chicago universities total (seven, if you count the more-distant Northern Illinois University).

Today's entry is a brief one on Roosevelt University, located in the heart of Chicago's downtown business and park (Millennium and Grant) districts at 430 S. Michigan Ave. Roosevelt is actually more of a high-rise office building (the front of which I photographed, below) than a traditional campus, but in a sense, all of downtown Chicago is its "campus."

This article shows some of the futuristic architecture on Roosevelt's higher levels as the university has grown. It also tells an interesting story of how the university was formed in a breakaway act of protest in 1945 by the president, faculty, and staff at another institution. According to the article:

Moved by their actions, Eleanor Roosevelt allowed the new school to be named after her and the late President Franklin Roosevelt who had died just two weeks after they received a charter.

Roosevelt University also has personal meaning to me, as my mother attended college there for part of her education.