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.🙂