University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Last week, I spoke at a sports analytics conference at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The town of Stevens Point (or simply "Point" as some locals call it) is part of the region served by Central Wisconsin Airport (CWA), along with other towns such as Wausau and Marshfield.

UWSP opened in 1894 and, according to my taxi driver, is probably best known academically for the study of natural resources. Here is the front of the College of Natural Resources, which along with the nearby buildings, features abundant trees and flowers.

This lovely picnic area...

...and some of the on-campus residence halls reinforce the "green" motif. Note also the solar panels for energy conservation, atop the building on the right.

Shown next is the Lee S. Dreyfus University Center (the student union). Dreyfus served stints both as Chancellor of UW-Stevens Point and as Governor of Wisconsin.

Coming soon to the roster of campus buildings is the new Chemistry-Biology building.

The last of the on-campus facilities I photographed is Berg Gym, home of women's basketball and other sports. UW-Stevens Point plays at the NCAA Division III level. The men's basketball program (which uses a different building) has a couple of claims to fame. One is coach Dick Bennett, who coached not only at Stevens Point, but also achieved great success at UW-Green Bay and UW-Madison. The other is Terry Porter, who played for the Pointers in the early 1980s and became one of the few college players below NCAA D-I to make the NBA. Porter also coached in the NBA and now coaches at Portland University.

Many universities are seeing a growth in the number of off-campus apartments for students, and Stevens Point appears to be no exception.

College of Charleston (2017)

My wife recently was in Charleston, South Carolina, for a professional conference, and she took some photos of the College of Charleston. The "C of C," as it is sometimes known, is unique in a few ways. First is its location within the city. I'm not aware of too many campuses that are right in the downtown area, where hotels for convention-goers and tourists are within a block of a college. Also, the C of C was founded in 1770, making it "the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States," according to the Wikipedia.

Next is a shot right outside the college bookstore, across the street from which is shown the Cato Center for the Arts.

It certainly rained hard during my wife's visit. Thanks for being such a trooper!

University of Texas El Paso (UTEP)

Shown immediately below are three scenes from the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP): The Health Sciences and Nursing Building, a recent (2011) addition to the campus...

...the Undergraduate Learning Center...

...and a collection of buildings...

Photographed earlier this spring by my Texas Tech colleague Dana Weiser* , the UTEP campus is rich visually, with its vivid colors, mountain backdrop, and unique inspiration for its buildings. The latter, as Dana enthusiastically explained to me, is the influence of the small Asian nation of Bhutan on how the campus was originally built. According to the article, "Bhutan on the Border," from the UTEP website:

...the university’s architecture has been shaped by... Bhutan, the last of the three Forbidden Kingdoms hidden deep in the Himalayas, between the great Tibetan plateau and the plains of India.

UTEP was founded in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy, and the inspiration for its architecture is credited to Kathleen Worrell, wife of the School's first dean, who was fascinated with an 88-page photo-essay on Bhutan that appeared in the April 1914 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Bhutan has also provided structures as gifts to UTEP. According to this 2014 article, a Buddhist Temple "... was given to UTEP by the people of Bhutan after it was built for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that took place in Washington D.C. in 2008. It was later shipped to El Paso and kept in a warehouse until money was raised to place it on campus." Here is a photo Dana took of the Temple...

UTEP was also known previously as Texas Western and, under that name, made sports history in 1966, winning the NCAA basketball championship with an all-African-American starting lineup, beating the University of Kentucky, which did not have its first Black basketball player until 1971. How Texas Western coach Don Haskins built that team was the subject of the major motion picture Glory Road. In fact, the current basketball arena, built in 1977 and named after Haskins in 1998, sits on a street called Glory Road.

So let's look at a bunch more UTEP buildings, characterized for the most part by low-pitch gable roofs, sometimes stacked in multiple tiers. In addition, numerous bright-color brick mosaics are embedded into buildings, brightening the campus tremendously. The first example occurs below with the UTEP library, with such mosaics featured near the top of the tower portion.

The library, whose exterior is shown here sequentially to capture the long length of the building...

...has some of the biggest and smallest books in the world...

... as well as some very old ones, including this one, printed in 1495...

... and some very intricate artwork, including this cabinetry with the banner above it (captured in two images, to keep the photos a little larger and preserve detail)...

Public art appears outside the library, as well, as shown here in the form of the "Texas Wedge." This work consists of poles of aluminum, not wood, as it might appear to some.

Dana was also able to take some photos from the library roof (I don't know if she was singing "Up on the Roof" while doing so). If it seems that Dana has inside connections to the UTEP library, she does, as her sister is a librarian there!

Next is Old Main, the oldest building on campus, shown first from somewhat of a distance and then closer up...

Next is perhaps the tallest edifice on campus, the Education Building, with its central tower...

The Education Building looms large in the distance, including from the Psychology Building, shown next...

As implied by the dates listed above, UTEP celebrated its centennial in 2014. The following picture shows part of Centennial Plaza, which actually has two circular lawns.

This page on the university website displays design plans for refurbishing the campus in connection with the centennial; this plan presumably has been implemented, in part or in whole, in the three years since 2014.

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*When Dana agrees to photograph a campus, she'll really immerses herself in the task. See the extensive UC Berkeley photo essay she contributed last year.

New England Conservatory (Music)

My Texas Tech colleague Mike McCarty provided me with the following photo of the New England Conservatory, from a family college-exploration visit. This music education blog discusses the distinction between studying music in a conservatory vs. doing so at a liberal arts institution. Located near Symphony Hall in Boston, NEC offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in music (the bachelor's also including liberal arts coursework). NEC also offers joint degree programs with Tufts and Harvard.

The specific building shown in the photo is Jordan Hall, which according to the Wikipedia page on the NEC, is the conservatory's primary concert hall, hosting roughly 1,000 performances a year.

University of Maryland, College Park

Here's the third entry from John Jost's East Coast collection, this time from the University of Maryland's main campus in College Park (near Washington, DC). According to the Wikipedia, the Maryland campus features "red brick Georgian" architecture, which is elaborated here.

The first photo looks to be at ground level of McKeldin Mall (shown from a bird's eye view in this video).

Pictured next is the Frederick Douglass Statue, with the Biology-Psychology Building in the background.

Finally, we have the Microbiology Building.

Duke University

Today, we have another school from John Jost's East Coast collection, namely Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Duke is known for both great academics -- some refer informally to it as a "Magnolia League" or southern Ivy League school -- and great basketball. Officially members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Duke has won five NCAA men's basketball titles under Mike Krzyzewski ("Coack K"), with the women's team making several Final Four appearances.

John's Duke photos focused on hoops, with fans pouring in to see a Blue Devils game in classic old Cameron Indoor Stadium (see here and here for background on the facility). Cameron is located on the West Campus, which features neo-Gothic architecture.

Even the inside of the building has a very academic look. If I hadn't known what this was, I'd have thought I was looking at a graduation.

University of California, Santa Barbara

I made a brief visit to California in October for a cousin's wedding in the Solvang-Buellton area north of Santa Barbara. The UCSB campus was not exactly on the route from Los Angeles for our Saturday afternoon drive, but I managed to prevail upon my family to detour through UCSB for a drive-by photographing.

UCSB appears to have a great deal of modern architecture, including the Engineering Science Building near the entrance we drove through.

Among the funky architecture is the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics complex, home to several Nobel Prize winners.

Cal Poly -- San Luis Obispo

Described as "halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco," near the California coast, is California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (also known as Cal Poly-SLO, Cal Poly, etc.).* The host city also goes by a variety of names, including "SLO Town," and offers a wide array of outdoor activities. One final piece of trivia is that "Weird Al" Yankovic, the master of parody song lyrics, went to Cal Poly-SLO.

Every summer, my brother Steve, an elementary-school teacher in the Los Angeles area, travels up to SLO for a conference on teaching physical education, and he took some pictures of the campus this year. Shown first is the Cal Poly-SLO student union.

The next two photos, consistent with the topic of the conference, are the kinesiology building...

...and the basketball gym.

A school with "Polytechnic" in its name should be strong in engineering and SLO definitely is. The school is ranked in a tie for fifth in the nation by U.S. News for undergraduate engineering programs (among non-doctoral-granting institutions).

Thus, if you're seeking a good workout for both your mind and body, Cal Poly SLO may be just the place.

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*There is another Cal Poly campus in Pomona. However, more observers would probably associate the term "Cal Poly" with SLO (founded in 1901) than Pomona (founded in 1938).

Columbia University

Let's go back-to-back with New York City institutions, Columbia University in the present posting following NYU in the previous one. Texas Tech student Orlando Parrales visited Columbia over the summer and provided a couple of pictures. Columbia, a member of the Ivy League, is considered one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

The first photograph is of Butler Library, famous for its list of great authors across the facade. You'll have to click on the photo to enlarge it, so you can see the authors' names.

Because all the listed authors are men, people have hung banners commemorating great women authors, as well.

The second photo shows another "library," known as Low Library. However, the building hasn't housed books for some time. "No longer a library, Low houses the Visitors Center and the Office of the President, and is used for campus events," according to a university webpage.

Barely perceptible at the top of the facade is a reference to "King's College" (close-up below). According to a page on the school's history, "Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II of England."

New York University

Today, I'd like to welcome a new guest contributor to this site, New York University professor John Jost. I learned through Facebook that John took campus photos and he agreed to make his collection -- focused on East Coast schools -- available for this site. Let's start out with John's own school, NYU.

NYU is a prestigious private university, located in Greenwich Village near the southern tip of Manhattan. The campus is inextricably linked with Washington Square Park, recognizable by its famous arch (far left side of picture).

According to the Wikipedia page on Washington Square Park, "Most of the buildings surrounding the park now belong to New York University, but many have at one time served as homes and studios for artists. Some of the buildings have been built by NYU while others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings."

NYU has some of its commencements in Washington Square Park, the graduation gowns creating a sea of violet, the main school color. (As an aside, NYU also has held graduation at Yankee Stadium, including in May 2012.)

Based on this NYU campus map, searches of NYU buildings in Google Images, and the use of Google Earth, I've developed the following legend of buildings corresponding to the above photo.

The "1 University Place" building has apartments at several different price-points, starting at around $2,500 a month for a studio, that is. For those of us who will have to get the NYU experience vicariously, here's a nice photo essay on one of the surrounding areas.

One of the buildings framing the park is the Stern School of Business. Here is the entrance of the brick-colored wing of the Stern School, which is adjoined by a more modernistic wing.

Finally, we have a rainbow shot looking out over the city.

Oxford University

I am pleased to display photos from Oxford University, one of the world's most famous institutions of higher learning, taken by my Texas Tech colleague Natalia Velikova on a visit to England. According to the Wikipedia page on Oxford, "While having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096..." Oxford is composed of 38 "self-governing" colleges. The residential-college system, which is used at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere in Great Britain, has also been in adopted in the U.S. at some Ivy League schools and at Rice University in Houston, Texas, to name a few places. On to the Oxford photos!

We start out with the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Built in the mid-1800s, the museum is very young in relation to the university's founding! Video tours inside the museum are available here.

Next is a structure known as Radcliffe Camera, a former library that now hosts undergraduate reading rooms. This building is a little older, having been constructed in the mid-1700s.

The next few pictures show some of the colleges at Oxford. First is University College...

...followed by Magdalen College.

Next is Christ Church College...

...with Christ Church's Cathedral appearing in the background of the next photo, beyond Tom Quad...

Finally, we have the Bridge of Sighs, connecting buildings within Hertford College...