Yale University

Our new entry is the fifth from NYU professor John Jost's East Coast Collection. It depicts John's Ph.D. alma mater Yale University, one of the jewels of the Ivy League. Shown next among the gray skies and pink blossoms is Sterling Memorial Library.

Shown next is the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, with its unusual grid appearance.

Fittingly, John captures the entrance to the Yale Psychology Department.

Lastly, we see a grassy quad. My best guess, from reviewing images on Google, is that it's Grace Hopper Hall. However, I could not find a definitive match.

UCLA -- Revisited in Its Centennial Year

The very first posting I did on this site, in 2006, was of my undergraduate alma mater, UCLA. I was back in L.A. a couple weeks ago and took some time to photograph UCLA again during its centennial year.* As shown in the following montage, banners adorn the campus, celebrating many of the university's accomplishments.

A lot has happened on the UCLA campus over the past 13 years. The basketball arena, Pauley Pavilion, was renovated during 2011-12 and, with the re-opening, a statue of legendary coach John Wooden was added.

UCLA also updated some of its academic buildings.

Shown above is the Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library, which was ranked No. 20 among law-school buildings in the world. The law library, which involved a major expansion of the previous one, re-opened in 1998, so I guess I could have included it in my 2006 photo essay, had I thought to do so.

Next, we have the Herb Alpert School of Music, whose additions to the previous music department opened in 2014. According to the Alpert School's website, it is "The only school of music in the UC system." Alpert is a trumpet player in the smooth-jazz style, whose popularity peaked in the 1960s and '70s. Now in his eighties, he is still performing. He was also a major recording executive, with A&M Records (Alpert & Moss).

Drawing upon President Eisenhower's characterization of the U.S.'s military-industrial complex, I've long said that UCLA has a construction-industrial complex. This is especially so in the biomedical section of the campus, which I did not photograph. Because of all the construction, I always find it refreshing to go back to the original quad of the campus (shown below), with the four original buildings.

The building toward the back, with the two rectangular towers, is Royce Hall. On the far right-hand side of the photo is Haines Hall. The other original edifices (not shown) are Powell Library and Kaplan Hall (the Humanities Building, formerly Kinsey Hall for physics).

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*UCLA was established in 1919, at which time it was located on Vermont Avenue, between Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. In 1929, the university moved to its current Westwood location (the Vermont Avenue site became L.A. City College).

Missouri State University

Frequent contributor Rebecca Oldham visited Springfield, Missouri a while back and took some photos of Missouri State University. As shown on this school seal, the institution was once known as Southwest Missouri State College. The school achieved university (instead of college) status in 1972, and then in 2005, the "Southwest" was dropped, yielding the current name (Wikipedia entry).

Shown first is the statue of mascot Boomer the Bear, in front of the Student Union. The Lady Bears basketball program has twice made the Final Four.

Shown next is Carrington Hall, the Administration Building.

Finally, behind the Student Union, is the aforementioned seal. To the left of the seal is Siceluff Hall (English), whereas to the right is Hill Hall (Education). Siceluff and Hill are parallel and don't actually intersect; my juxtaposition of the pictures just makes it seem that way.

As Rebecca mentioned, Missouri State has a very successful theatre arts program, whose graduates include John Goodman, Kathleen Turner, and Tess Harper.

Colgate University

Jen Tomlinson, a faculty member at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, has provided several photos of her picturesque campus at different times of the year. Before getting to the pictures, a little background. Colgate is now in its 200th year of existence and has roughly 3,000 students, nearly all undergraduates. And, yes, there is a connection between Colgate University and the brand of toothpaste.

A couple of outside videos nicely lay out the topography of the campus and put Jen's photos in context. This aerial video, focusing on Memorial Chapel (the building with the golden dome in the upper-right quadrant of the above photo), shows the tiered layout of the campus. To the left of the Chapel in the photo is Lawrence Hall, whose roof features a white tower with black spire in the center. Lawrence Hall hosts classics, humanities, and various forms of cultural studies (national, ethnic, religious, etc.). As this second video describes, the Chapel and Lawrence Hall are part of the Academic Quad on the most highly elevated Upper Campus. The wide building with green triangles on either side, lower down from the Chapel and Lawrence Hall, is the Case Library. Below is the same general area of campus, but this time in winter!

Spring is when the trees blossom. So extensive is the blossoming that the university puts out a guide to the different trees and flowers blooming in the spring. Here are some photographs of the beautiful blossoms on campus.

To get through these verdant areas, walkways are available.

Colgate is not all academics and nature, however. The campus and town provide entertainment and festivities, as well, in the form of athletics...

...movie theatres...

...and special on-campus celebrations.

The addition of holiday lights to the tree trunks is part of a tradition known as "Nerd Nite."

Several years ago, I read the 2000 book The Last Amateurs (by John Feinstein), which delved into the Patriot League, a college athletic conference (including Colgate) that, at the time, did not allow athletic scholarships. I remembered there being a passage in the book about Colgate's geographic isolation. I've gone back and found the passage:

Colgate is the league's most far-flung outpost... The school itself is very pretty, built on a hillside, the prototype for a small, idyllic college campus... But there is no easy way to get to Hamilton. The last sixty miles of the trip from just about any direction is two-lane road, and when the weather gets bad (always) it makes for some seriously unpleasant driving.

Perhaps there has been extensive road construction in the nearly twenty years since publication of The Last Amateurs, I don't know. Many people on discussion boards for prospective college students still refer to Colgate as being isolated, although it seems that some current students like it that way.

Portland State University (Oregon)

Up in the northwest corner of Oregon, amidst what some call an "Urban Forest," sits the city of Portland.

Blending seamlessly into downtown is the campus of Portland State University. A week ago, I attended an academic conference in Portland and was able to walk around the campus for a while and take some pictures.

Adding to the forestry and nature motif is the Karl Miller Center (below), with its attractive wood and glass exterior.

Portland State is also known for its public service and community engagement initiatives. According to the school's Vision and Mission statement:

Engagement within the community is fundamental to student success. Supportive living, learning, and social communities come together to support the needs of students. It is through these community affiliations, on and off campus, that students can experience a sense of belonging and receive support needed for their success.

A motto capturing this philosophy adorns a bridge on campus...

...with the College of Urban & Public Affairs helping students further this mission.

Right by the College of Urban & Public Affairs are two stores. One sells textbooks, Portland State clothing, notebooks, and miscellaneous items...

The other sells ice cream...

Who wouldn't want a Ben & Jerry's on their campus?

University of Missouri -- Columbia

The flagship campus of the University of Missouri -- widely known as "Mizzou" or MU -- is located right in the middle of the state, in the town of Columbia. One of our Texas Tech graduate students, Jayla Head, did her undergraduate work at Mizzou. She recently went back for a visit and was kind enough to share some photos of the Missouri campus.

Shown first is Jesse Hall, the administration building that also holds a performing-arts auditorium.

Adjacent to Jesse are The Columns, the only surviving structures of the former Academic Hall, which burned to the ground in an 1892 fire.

Off to the side of The Columns are two buildings, seen in the next shot. They are Swallow Hall (to the right, with the conical roof component) and Pickard Hall (to the left). Swallow underwent renovation in recent years.  Pickard, the site of earlier radiation research, had hosted Mizzou's Museum of Art and Archaeology over the past few decades, but had to be evacuated due to continuing contamination from the radiation. An overview of the structures Jayla photographed is available here.

Finally, we have the statue of the Mizzou Tiger, symbol of the school's athletic teams.

The Tiger gets to wear a mortar board during graduation weekends, as long as it passes its final exams.🙂