University of California, Riverside

Sothy Eng, a graduate student with us at Texas Tech and a superb photographer, was kind enough to let me post some photos he took on a visit to the University of California, Riverside on this blog. Sothy's pictures are concentrated around the "HUB" (which stands for Highlander Union Building). UCR is a relatively new institution as far as major universities go, having been established in 1954, and there's also been a lot of recent construction on campus. Here are Sothy's shots, which also feature UCR's clock tower (only a tiny amount of which consists of the clock) and verdant, flowery setting.

Florida State University

Downtown Tallahassee is home to the Florida capitol building (above), the most noteworthy feature of which is probably the display of dolphin statues at the front (also shown enlarged). I took this photo standing in front of another somewhat famous building, the Florida Supreme Court, while in town to attend an early February academic conference at Florida State University. From downtown, one can also see FSU's Westcott administration building in the distance (circled in the next photograph).


As one approaches the FSU campus, either on wheels or on foot, one finds a university that looks like it belongs in, well, Florida. The campus is very green, with a variety of trees, including palm.



As the host of the conference informed the visitors, the signature area of the campus is Landis Green and the associated Legacy Fountain (photos below).



Finally, we have the FSU bookstore complex, which is located right by -- but not actually in -- the student union area.

University of Texas (2009)

In mid-January, I attended an academic conference at the University of Texas-Austin. The last time I was in Austin, five years ago, I took pictures mainly of the downtown/capitol area, rather than the campus.

This time, I focused more on the campus, including the famous Texas Tower (shown at right).

Given the location of the conference in the Seay Building (which houses psychology and other social science disciplines) in the northwest corner of campus, my pictures are concentrated in this area. The next three photos show the Seay Building from different perspectives, including the garden in the center of the complex...




A building across the street from Seay that attracted my attention is Neural Molecular Science.


Finally, I took a picture of the UT bookstore (the Co-op) on Guadalupe, which appears to be the "main drag" of the campus area.

University of Virginia

Frequent contributor Jackie Wiersma, now doing a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State, traveled recently to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, from which she's sent some pictures.

I've been to UVa a couple times, years ago. My brother Steve went there and my family visited with him during his first year and also attended his graduation. My department chairperson at Texas Tech, Anisa Zvonkovic, also attended UVa for her undergraduate education.

Virginia is one of the nation's most storied universities, having been founded by Thomas Jefferson. So to all you Cavaliers out there, "Wahoowa!" Let's get to Jackie's photos...


Shown first is the Rotunda, a structure so prominent it has its own Wikipedia page. According to that page, "The Rotunda is the symbolic head of The Lawn and the University of Virginia. The Academical Village of which it is a part is one of only four man-made sites in the United States to be named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (along with the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, and Pueblo de Taos)." It was apparently a cold, gray day when Jackie went to UVa, as a result of which the white dome of the Rotunda is obscured.


The aforementioned Lawn is shown next. Perhaps the most prestigious honor on campus for academic success is for students to be allowed to live in the housing units forming the perimeter of the Lawn (a close-up of the residential area is inserted in the lower-left corner).

We leave you with three more buildings: the Student Union (Newcomb Hall), a free-speech-type area, and the Old Medical School.

Texas A&M University

In February, I visited Texas A&M University in College Station (see here for background on my trip). A&M, in southeast Texas, is almost diametrically apart from where I am at Texas Tech, in the northwest portion of the state.

Upon my return, Dinah Harriger, who did her undergraduate work at A&M and is now a graduate student in Texas Tech's highly regarded Marriage and Family Therapy program, assisted me in identifying the campus landmarks in the photos I took (it took a little while for us to coordinate our schedules, hence the delay). She also drew my attention to online information about these landmarks.



In addition to Aggie tradition, A&M is also rich on welcoming signs, as seen in the first two photos. Shown above is the Aggieland water tower, whereas to the right is one of the banners gracing the edge of campus. You'll see plenty of maroon and grey if you visit Texas A&M!










Immediately below this text is a wide shot of the Simpson Drill Field, with some academic buildings in the background. This document from the Brazos County Historical Commission provides a detailed history of the Drill Field and A&M's role in military training (see the next-to-last paragraph on the BCHC page). The Drill Field is somewhat reminicent of Ohio State University's Oval and the University of Virginia's Lawn.


Just off the Drill Field is the Albritton Bell Tower. For an evening shot of the Tower and some physical details about it, check here.

The Albritton Bell Tower, erected in 1984, has also been the site for a solemn tribute to the 12 people who died in the 1999 bonfire collapse.

The next three photos down are from the athletic part of campus. Kyle Field is one of college football's most celebrated venues, with its triple-deck configuration, 12th Man tradition of students standing the whole game (and of couples kissing after every Aggie score), and walk-on kick-off coverage team for A&M (a practice that has been modified by successive Aggie coaches).


As with other large university campuses in Texas, A&M is not always very pedestrian-friendly, with some kind of major thoroughfare bisecting Kyle Field from the adjacent part of campus. Shown below is the underground tunnel one must walk under, to go to or from Kyle Field. There are signs warning bicyclists to yield to pedestrians. Thinking that there must be a reason for these signs, as I walked under the tunnel, I kept looking around in all directions in case any would-be Lance Armstrongs might roar past me.


On the other side of the tunnel from Kyle Field is Reed Arena (below), one of the Big 12 conference's newest basketball venues. Inside, Reed is similar to Texas Tech's United Spirit Arena, in that both have two seating decks. The difference is that the USA is double-decked on all four sides, whereas Reed's upper deck only covers three sides, with the remaining side (behind one of the baskets) an open wall.


Lastly, I always make it a point to get to the "college town" area adjacent to a given campus. On the University Drive side of campus, one finds a mixture of quaint store structures and modern-day franchises such as Domino's Pizza, Potbelly Sandwiches, and Starbucks Coffee (shown below).


I hope my fellow Red Raiders at Texas Tech don't hold this against me, but I found Texas A&M a nice campus to visit!

Penn State University

Texas Tech graduate student Jackie Wiersma, a frequent contributor to this site, took a side trip to Penn State University in the central part of the state while a bunch of us from our department were at an academic conference in Pittsburgh (my shots of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon are shown in the entry below).

Every campus ought to have a stately administrative building, and Penn State has Old Main.


There's plenty of modernity on campus, too, as exemplified by the new student union.


The following shot of a campus walkway reveals some early turning of the trees to fall colors, a sight that Jackie described as "gorgeous."


Jackie also photographed Penn State's Human Development and Family Studies building (the same discipline we're in at Texas Tech). Bo Cleveland, who was on our faculty at Texas Tech from 2003-2007 and moved to Penn State this fall, has his office in this building.


Lastly, we have Beaver Stadium, home of legendary coach Joe Paterno's Nittany Lion football squad.


According to the above-linked Wikipedia page on Penn State's football home:

Beaver Stadium has a capacity of 107,282, making it the second largest stadium in the United States (smaller than Michigan Stadium by 219 seats)...

University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University

This past weekend, I attended the annual conference of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), which this year was held in Pittsburgh.

As with any metropolis, there are several colleges and universities in the Steel City, the two most nationally prominent of which are the University of Pittsburgh ("Pitt") and Carnegie Mellon University. Pitt and CMU are adjacent, just a stroll up or down Forbes Avenue from each other.

Taking advantage of the two schools' proximity to each other, I took the bus from where I was downtown to the Oakland section of Pittsburgh (here and here), which is home to the two universities plus other cultural attractions.

I have friends and colleagues at the two schools, so I was able to visit with them, as well as go sightseeing and take pictures.


Let's start with the most prominent landmark of this -- or virtually any other -- academic neighborhood, the Cathedral of Learning, on the Pitt campus. The Cathedral includes a number of interesting features, including the Nationality Rooms. According to the linked Wikipedia entry:

Standing at 535 feet (>163 m), the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere and the second tallest educational building in the world.

Close by is the Center for American Music and Stephen Foster Memorial, which given my interest in songwriting, I had to go see!

I also took a picture of a Pitt entrance sign. Given the grayness of the weather and my distance from the sign, the shot didn't come out too clearly. My attempts at cropping and playing around with the brightness may have helped a little, but not completely.



Another neat feature of the Pitt campus is that it was the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates' old baseball stadium, Forbes Field (in use from 1909-1970).

The actual home plate from Forbes Field is preserved under glass in its original location -- which happens now to be indoors, inside Wesley Posvar Hall. Also represented on the campus is a segment of the outfield fence, again in its original location. I was getting ready to take a picture of home plate, when someone standing nearby asked if I wanted her to photograph me standing by the plate. I said, "Sure," but made it clear I wanted her to get the plate in the picture, not so much me. As seen below, I had to crouch down pretty low in my pretend batter stance. After thanking my photographer, I then walked out to the outfield marker.



All in all, among the schools depicted on this website, I would say Pitt was most similar to Boston University, in terms of the urban feel and blending of campus and commercial property.

Carnegie Mellon, a smaller private institution, had a much different feel. There is a lot of green space and a more insular atmosphere, by my perception at least. The following two pictures are of CMU. In the second one, you can see Pitt's Cathedral of Learning in the background.





Right in between the two campuses is Craig Street, a hub of restaurants and other college-town amenities. I had lunch there with my friend from CMU, at a vegetarian-friendly place called Eat Unique.

The Pitt-CMU-Oakland area would probably have to be considered one of the livelier academic complexes you'd find in the United States.

University of New Hampshire

Completing the "Jackie Wiersma trilogy" (see previous two entries below), today we have the University of New Hampshire, in Durham, NH, where she attended a conference over the summer. Shown below are the campus Bell Tower, along with two other buildings.




Looking at these UNH pictures, I don't think I've ever seen as deep a red-brick color anywhere else. This university publication talks about the campus architecture.

Arizona State University

Entry No. 2 in the "Jackie Wiersma trilogy" (described in the prior entry below) is Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona (part of metro Phoenix).

In the collage below, we have Sun Devil Stadium (football) across the top, the Palm Walk on the right, and the Cowden Family Resource Building, which hosts ASU's Family and Human Development department, lower left.

University of Northern Iowa

Today, we'll start what might be called the "Jackie Wiersma trilogy." Jackie is a doctoral student in our Human Development and Family Studies department at Texas Tech University. She has been kind enough to provide me with photos from the University of Northern Iowa, where she did her undergraduate work; Arizona State University, where she received a Master's degree; and the University of New Hampshire, where she attended a conference this past summer.

Going in chronological order, we first have the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), which is located in Cedar Falls, Iowa. As Jackie has conveyed to me, the two shots below are of "the famous campanile in the center of campus and then the UNI Dome and Rec Center." Jackie's a big sports fan!

University of Wisconsin-Madison (2007)

I was fortunate to be able to teach a four-week summer course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this year, an activity from which I've just returned. Naturally, I took a bunch of pictures of the lovely campus and surrounding town of Madison, the state capital. The pictures shown below thus augment some I took on a 2004 visit to Madison.

The Memorial Union at UW-Madison appears to serve on summer evenings not just as a hub for the university community, but perhaps for the town as a whole. The following shot is of the front of the Union at dusk.

Food and beer are sold on the back terrace of the Union, adjoining Lake Mendota, and on Wednesday-Saturday nights, free musical entertainment is offered. This next shot shows one such night on the terrace...


The course I taught was in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, the same as my affilitation at Texas Tech. At Wisconsin, the HDFS main office, several faculty offices, some lab space, and a conference room have long been located in the house shown below, which is next to the larger and more academically traditional School of Human Ecology building. From what someone told me, home economics students used to live in the house and host tea receptions for the Chancellor (see this unit from the SoHE's history).


Plans call for renovating and expanding the Human Ecology building, so that the HDFS house will have to be torn down. If there's any interest in preserving some of the materials of the house, the SoHE might follow what the University of Minnesota did in re-creating the brick arch facade of its old, demolished football stadium inside its modern Alumni Center building. I mentioned this idea to a few people; who knows if anything will become of it?

Perhaps my most interesting discovery on this trip came when I wandered into the gift shop within the Camp Randall football stadium complex. There's no shortage of shops in town for buying red and white Badger paraphernalia, so I wouldn't necessarily go into every such store that I saw. In this case, however, it was on a quiet Sunday that I walked by Camp Randall and saw a sign saying the gift shop was open, so I went in. At first, it seemed like any other gift shop. As I walked further back in the store, though, I came upon the spectacular design of a large window looking directly onto the football field (below). What's also spectacular is that children from area hospitals get to watch games from the patio between the store and the field.


At the other end of State Street from the campus is, of course, the State Capitol building. The final two photos below depict, respectively, the Capitol dome (similar in appearance to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC) as seen in the distance from State Street and the Capitol grounds during a major art fair held while I was in town (there seemed to be activities and festivals going on virtually every weekend I was there).

University of Minnesota (2006)

Upon learning that I operated a website devoted to photographically documenting America's college campuses, my Texas Tech faculty colleague Kazuko Behrens sent me a couple of shots she took in 2006 at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Campus entrances and other displays identifying the school are often very attractive, and this one at Minnesota is no exception.


The other picture is of the Institute of Child Development, which relates to Kazuko's research.


The University's presence in the Twin Cities is enormous. Just for the Minneapolis component (near downtown), there are East Bank and West Bank campuses on either side of the Mississippi River (here's a map of the division of the campus). Also, some academic units are in St. Paul.

My one trip to the Twin Cities was in 2001, for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) conference. This was before I developed my hobby of photographing campuses, so I'm grateful to Kazuko for providing these.

My main impression was that, even though Minneapolis is a big city, the area around the campus (East Bank) had a nice college-town feel to it. One of the surrounding communities has the cute name of Dinkytown.