• May 21, 2013

October 21, 2012, 1:28 pm

A Decision to Slaughter Oxen at a College Farm Angers Animal-Rights Activists

Students guide the oxen Bill and Lou, pulling a mower in healthier days (Green Mountain College image).

A couple of years ago, I visited Green Mountain College and toured the Vermont college’s post-petroleum farm, which instructs students in ways to conduct agriculture without fossil-fuel inputs. That means that animals do a lot of work on the farm, and the most essential of those animals were a pair of oxen, Lou and Bill. They were magnificent creatures—an embodiment of power, with long horns and formidable muscle under coats the color of creamed coffee.

My tour guides, Dayna Halprin and Laura Wolfgang, and I began talking about the fate of the animals on the farm. They are sent to slaughter or, as Ms. Wolfgang described, sometimes slaughtered by students themselves. As I recall, Ms. Halprin was a vegetarian…

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October 19, 2012, 8:11 am

Shop Talk: SCI-Arc Faculty Compete to Design 1,200-Seat Pavilion

SCIArc graduation pavilionSouthern California Institute of Architecture Shows Off Competititon Plans for Outdoor Pavilion (SCIArch image of winning entry by Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich)

Cornell U. Envisions Transforming New York’s Roosevelt Island

George Washington U. Starts Work on 35,000-Square-Foot Museum for Art and Textiles

Drexel U. Plans Center for Neighborhood Partnerships

Grove City College Christian education buildingGrove City College has opened a 16,500-square-foot building to house offices for chapel programs and student-ministry groups and to provide seminar and social space. The sandstone-sheathed building, designed by Archer & Buchanan Architecture, was designed to harmonize with the existing chapel, which with it shares a new lawn. (Tom Crane photo)

October 10, 2012, 2:11 pm

Wilson College Plans an Overhaul for Library Closed by Leaks

Wilson College library expansion west elevation

Wilson College’s 1925 library has been closed for more than a year, but the college has been working with Murray Associates Architects to plan a renovation that would keep the 1925 portion (at left) and replace a 1962 addition with a glass-walled structure. (Murray Associates image)

WIlson College library doorwayChambersburg, Pa. — For such a small institution—it has only 695 students this semester—Wilson College has a very handsome library. It’s a restrained Collegiate Gothic building from 1925 with limestone towers flanking a central doorway and arched windows overlooking the college’s central green. The windows also enliven the interior, which is otherwise plain.

Unfortunately, the library has been closed for more than a year, thanks to an assortment of leaks that are emblematic of the challenges facing the struggling women’s college, which has not been able to meet its enrollment goals. The most …

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October 9, 2012, 3:48 pm

Shop Talk: Jersey Voters Will Decide Fate of $750-Million Bond Bill

Coalition Backs Big Borrowing Measure, 1st in 24 Years, for New Jersey Colleges

Golfers Jeer U. of Montana for Plans to Build on 9-Hole Course

St. Leo U. Buys Benedictine Sisters’ Monastery for $3.9-Million

RU Hungry? Because Rutgers U. May Move Its Food Trucks

Lewis Integrative Science Building, U. of OregonThe U. of Oregon is preparing to open the $65-million, 103,000-square-foot Lewis Integrative Science Building. The building, connected to others in the university’s science complex, features open labs, offices for faculty members and graduate students, and an atrium with a three-story whiteboard to encourage “cross-pollination,” university officials say. The building is designed to earn LEED platinum certification. (U. of Oregon photo)

October 4, 2012, 1:08 pm

A Carnegie Library Enjoys a New Life at Cedarville U.

In the mid-1990s, Mary Ellen Armentrout took it upon herself to compile a catalog of Ohio’s 115 Carnegie libraries. At the time, she was the interlibrary-loan librarian at Otterbein College, whose Carnegie library now houses the admissions office, and she took The Chronicle on a memorable daylong tour of libraries large and small.

Since publishing her book, Carnegie Libraries of Ohio, she has kept up with the fates of what she calls “my libraries,” and she filed this report on the recent renovation of the Carnegie building at Cedarville University, which was one of the stops on that long-ago tour. The photos are hers too.

Cedarville U. fine-arts buildingThe little library in Cedarville, Ohio, that Andrew Carnegie financed in 1908 has been restored to its original beauty thanks to the foresight of Cedarville University administrators. Once a library open to both the college and the town, it later became the…

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October 3, 2012, 8:45 am

Shop Talk: Massachusetts Directs Millions to State-University Projects

Governor Releases $600-Million for U. of Massachusetts, $20-Million for Community Colleges

iPoly High School Opens $20-Million Facility on Cal Poly Pomona Campus

• $40-Million Project Will Bring 400-Bed Residence Hall, Dining Facility to Worcester State U.

Science Foundations Awards Johns Hopkins U. $6-Million for Wind-Farm Research

Wesley College plazaWesley College spent $2.7-million this summer creating two pedestrian plazas as part of an effort to create a more campus-like feel for the institution. The plazas offer students wireless Internet access and electrical outlets in addition to see-and-be-seen space. (Wesley College photo)

October 2, 2012, 8:31 am

Shop Talk: Few Surprises in New Ranking of College Towns

Boston, San Jose, Ann Arbor, and Ithaca Top Best-College-Town Lists

Developer Proposes Housing U. of Oregon Students in 12-Story Tower

• Coastline Community College Opens New Campus in Newport Beach, Calif.

As Corcoran Mulls Sale of Landmark Buildings, Preservation Fans Seek Protection for Interiors

U. of Houston Stadium Parking GarageThe U. of Houston has opened the 2,300-space Stadium Parking Garage to serve faculty members, students, and fans attending events at Robertson Stadium and Hofheinz Pavilion. The new facility, designed by WHR Architects, also houses a store for fans, a mini market, and the university’s parking office. (WHR Architects photo)

October 1, 2012, 2:53 pm

Shop Talk: As Unions Shrink, Labor College Puts Campus Up for Sale

September 28, 2012, 11:17 am

Bad Omen for USPS? Lehigh U. Sells Its Mailboxes

In retrospect, it was inevitable: In an era when hardly anyone sends letters on paper and many students can barely even be bothered to Old Lehigh U. mailboxescheck their e-mail, Lehigh University has put its 5,000 campus mailboxes up for sale and switched to a high-tech mail-storage system that is the postal equivalent of compact shelving for libraries.

The system was adopted as the campus post office moved to a new location in a residential and retail complex called Campus Square, which is home to the university bookstore and a fast-food outlet as well as to about 250 students. Instead of holding mail in boxes that—with their corridors—took up about 6,000 square feet, the post office has switched to a rolling-shelving system that fits in a 10-by-14-foot space and houses 5,500 expandable file folders.

As a student’s letter mail is deposited in the appropriate folder, a bar-code reader sends the…

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September 27, 2012, 1:13 pm

Shop Talk: New Vassar Science Building Will Bridge Campus Ravine

Opponents Sue to Prevent New York U. Expansion in Greenwich Village

At Long Last, Sonoma State U. Readies for Concert Hall’s Premiere

Maryland Institute College of Art Completes $18-Million Renovation of Former Clothing Factory

Robert Morris U. Opens 50,000-Square-Foot Building for Communications School

Vassar College science building rendering

Vassar College plans to start construction of an 80,000-square-foot  science building next summer. The $125-million facility, designed by Ennead Architects, will take the form of a curving bridge over a campus ravine and a brook called the Fonteyn Kill. (Vassar College image)

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