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.🙂

Colorado State University

This past summer, a major academic conference was held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which my wife Sylvia and our graduate student Rebecca attended. Sylvia took some photos of the campus and Rebecca took some of the town. CSU's sports teams are known as the Rams, as vivdly captured in the following statue by the football stadium...

Nearby are some of the science disciplines. The following sculpture sits in Newton's Corner, described here as depicting "time, space, and motion," along with gravity.

Shown next is Yates Hall, part of the Chemistry Department's complex. Yates mainly hosts undergraduate labs and classrooms.

Moving off campus, Fort Collins's Old Town features the Northern Hotel, which dates back to 1873. According to this historical description:

The building, with 47 small apartments and a tumultuous past, played a profound role in Old Town's development. Once considered the "pearl" of Fort Collins, the hotel hasn't welcomed guests for decades, but its top three floors have provided shelter for some of the city's poorest residents while the ground floor has flourished with stable retail, including Starbucks.

The next two photos are of the Northern Hotel's interior. What the linked article calls the hotel's "ornate lobby" includes some special features: "The once bronze-plated central staircase is now silver, but remains a popular backdrop for prom and wedding photos."

Serving Fort Collins bibliophiles is Old Firehouse Books. According to the store's website, the book-selling business had been passed down through different ownership groups since 1980, until a major development less than a decade ago. "In 2009, the store moved into the old historic firehouse, a Fort Collins landmark. In honor of the building in which the store is now located, the name was changed to Old Firehouse Books."

Along with literature, music plays a large role in Fort Collins. The Jazz Alley mural depicts many icons of popular music from the past half-century or so, including (not necessarily in the order they're standing) Miles Davis, Roy Orbison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, B.B. King, Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. 

The Pianos About Town program invites local artists to submit their ideas to paint pianos (which come from donations to the organization). These proposals are judged competitively, with the winning entries providing visual accompaniment to downtown's street music. The one-hundredth painted piano was recently introduced.

We end this photo essay with two food-and-drink establishments. First is CooperSmith's, whose catchphrase is "One Brewery, Two Restaurants, One Location."

Finally, we have the Town Pump, a bar that's been around for more than a century...

All in all, CSU/Fort Collins looks like a fun place. It's about an hour and 20 minutes north of Denver, but some observers worry that this travel time potentially could double in the next decade due to population growth, if highway renovations to alleviate traffic are not undertaken.

Miami University (Ohio)

Mary Monin, a friend of mine from when I lived in Buffalo, New York (1991-1997), recently posted some photos on Facebook of a college reunion she attended at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.* Mary has kindly allowed me to use some of the photos, so here they are.

Miami (Ohio), near Cincinnati, was designed to be a traditional college in a traditional college town. In fact, Oxford was first known as College Township roughly 200 years ago. Miami continues to win plaudits for its campus, which is dominated by red-brick, three- and four-story buildings with black roofs. One student's ironic tribute to the school is available here, whereas an aerial-tour video can be found here.

First in Mary's collection is Alumni Hall, previously a library and now host to Architecture and Interior Design.

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Second is a building that, early in its history, was known as the Oxford Female Institute and Oxford College for Women ("Ox College"). Miami University acquired it roughly 100 years ago and, for a time, used it as a women's dormitory. Now, the building hosts the Oxford Community Arts Center.

Lastly, in the distance on the right-hand side of the following photo, we have the relatively new building (2006) of the Psychology Department.

Miami is a strong academic institution, with particular praise for undergraduate education, in an attractive and traditional setting. A big city, Cincinnati, is only about 45 minutes away (say to take in a Reds baseball game). I haven't been to Miami University, but it really seems to offer students a nice package.

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*There is great potential for confusion between Miami University (in Ohio) and the University of Miami (in Florida). Thus, you'll often see the former referred to as "Miami of Ohio" or "Miami (Ohio)."

Mississippi State University

Located roughly 25 miles west of the Mississippi University for Women (featured in the previous posting below) is Mississippi State University in Starkville (sometimes also known as "Stark Vegas"). Just as she did for MUW, guest contributor Rebecca Oldham shares with us some photos of the Mississippi State campus.

Rebecca describes the Drill Field as the "most iconic place" on the Mississippi State campus. It is shown in the following photo, with Lee Hall (English department) in the background.

Rebecca also photographed an old picture of the Drill Field, hanging at Harvey's, a popular eatery.

A major edifice on any college campus, especially in the South, is the football stadium...

...with the Bulldog statue nearby at Mississippi State.

Finally, we have the water tower.

I have not been to Mississippi State personally, but based on these photos and what I've read about the university, it seems to have a lot of similarity to a school I did visit in 2008, Texas A&M. Mississippi State (which was once known as Mississippi A&M) and Texas A&M both have maroon and white as school colors and, with A&M's conference shift in 2012, both are in the SEC. Both schools have military traditions and, of course, major programs in agriculture.

Mississippi University for Women

One of our Texas Tech graduate students, Rebecca Oldham, recently visited Mississippi for a family graduation and was able to photograph two campuses. The present entry will feature Mississippi University for Women (sometimes referred to as "The W") and a future entry will cover Mississippi State University. The two institutions are located near each other in the northern part of the state, near its eastern border, with The W in Columbus and MSU in Starkville.

If you click on the image to enlarge it, you'll notice the last line of the university sign reads, "A Tradition of Excellence for Women and Men." According to the Wikipedia page on Mississippi University for Women, the school in 1884 "became the first public women's college in the United States." The school's single-sex policy for a state institution was found unconstitutional in the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case of Mississippi University for Women vs. Hogan, in which a man was granted admission to the nursing school. The case helped pave the way for a decision 14 years later in U.S. vs. Virginia, in which the state-sponsored Virginia Military Institute was opened to women.* As regards Mississippi University for Women, men now comprise nearly 20% of the student body.

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*I have edited this part to correct a previous error.

University of Oklahoma

Texas Tech graduate student Valerie Handley visited her undergraduate alma mater, the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman, during the Fall semester and kindly agreed to share some pictures she took.

OU is, of course, well-known for football, with the recent south endzone renovation to Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium shown in this first shot.

However, as we'll see in this photo essay, the campus is also known for its distinctive architectural style. Here we have Bizzell Memorial Library...

Bizzell's architecture, like that of other buildings at OU, reminded me of the Collegiate Gothic style, exemplified by the University of Chicago and UCLA's Kerckhoff Hall. Gothic architecture includes such features as towers, pointed arches, gargoyles, and other assorted frills. However, OU's architecture has a name of its own, Cherokee Gothic, which none other than Frank Lloyd Wright coined during a visit to the campus.

A similar style is seen at Carpenter Hall, a facility for music, dance, and theatre, shown in the next two photos straight-on and from further back on the lawn...

Jacobson Hall (home of the Visitor Center) may not be as Gothic as some of the other buildings at OU, but it features something unique of its own: A replica of the famous Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture (look for the blue letters toward the left-hand side of the photo).

Next is the Price College of Business. OU recently opened up the new Rainbolt Graduate School of Business off-campus in Oklahoma City, so presumably only undergraduate programs remain at Price.

In 1990, marking the centennial of the school's 1890 founding, OU buried a time-capsule on the South Oval, with Bizzell Library in the background.

Readers interested in learning more about OU are encouraged to check out the book The American College Town, which I reviewed here. The author, Blake Gumprecht, attended graduate school at OU and he writes a lot about it.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

With its iconic large "N," displayed on flags and buildings throughout campus...

 ...and "Go Big Red" displays (shown on the elevators of a campus-area hotel and on the student-union building), there is no mistaking the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

I visited UNL in October on academic business and was able to take a bunch of pictures.

Cornhusker football, played in Memorial Stadium, is a huge deal on campus, with the school having captured five national championships.

UNL also has an extensive visual and performing arts complex, including the Lied Center...

...the Howell Theatre...

...the Ross Media Arts Center...

...and an unusual sculpture-type display known as "Torn Notebook."

Another interesting area is by the Nebraska Union, shown outside and inside...

Just north of the Nebraska Union are the Meier Commons and Plaza...

...and the Kauffman Academic Residential Center.

Whereas all of the above buildings are situated on the main "City" campus, there's a separate East Campus about two miles away, which hosts agricultural and home economics (also known at different universities as human ecology or human sciences) programs. The East Campus includes Chase Hall (hosting Biological Systems Engineering)...

... the Entomology Building (for insect studies; formerly the "Plant Industry" Building)...

... and a nice large lawn.

The East Campus also features a Tractor Test Lab, whose tractor parades never cease to fascinate observers in the area.

Adjacent to the City Campus is downtown Lincoln, which serves as the "college town." No trip here would be complete without a visit to Husker Headquarters, featuring all the UNL sports garb and paraphernalia you could want.

Other downtown attractions include a new movie-theatre complex...

... and numerous eateries, both national-chain and those local to Lincoln.

I like to end these entries with a piece of campus trivia, if I'm aware of any. In the case of UNL, it was the host institution for the 2005 NBC "reality" show "Tommy Lee Goes to College," featuring the Motley Crue drummer. If one is willing to overlook that Lee never actually enrolled at Nebraska and that the scenarios were scripted to a considerable extent, it was a pretty good show!