In this game I will describe the building in which a university service or department is housed, and you, dear reader, will attempt to guess the service or department. Ready?
This building is one of the oldest and loveliest on campus. It is a pre-WWI brick structure with a grand facade featuring an arching entrance atop two flights of limestone stairs. It escaped most of the ravages of misguided 1970s remodeling, and still retains many charming architectural details. These include lots of hardwood, including oak wainscots and heavy solid oak doors, transoms, and marble tile. The stairs are open and curling, and banisters are wrought iron. Restrooms are quaintly tucked catty-corner on stair landings between floors, reminding me of an apartment building I once stayed in in Nancy, where the flats shared WCs in a similar way.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
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18 comments:
That describes the fine arts building on our campus to a T. The comp sci department, however, which actually put our school on the map, lives in a Brutalism monstrosity.
THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT - AT MY SCHOOL THE NICEST BUILDING BELONGED TO THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE THE SMALLEST ONE ON CAMPUS.
That would perfectly describe either the admin building or the divinity school at my PhD alma mater. (The school where I'm working now was founded in the sixties, so predictably the whole thing looks like Brezhnev-era Soviet Russia.)
Disability services.
The bathrooms in the stairwells between floors are the real tip-off.
I wish I were joking.
Aaaand we have a winner!
I guess you are at my LSU. Have your people contact my people. We'll do lunch.
I was going to guess Disability services, with History running a close second: Only recently have I encountered history departments in buildings built within the last generation.....
I doubt I'm at your LSU. I definitely don't have any specific building in mind.
I've just learned a lot about various disability services programs over the years.
I'd have said admin - only in retrospect do I realize this is also true of disability services!
Anonymous, I thought you were a different anonymous.
That's not an academic department! Unless there's a nicer building on campus, that's GOT to be some kind of central admin building! 90% of our administrative facilities are nicer than 90% of our academic department areas.
I'd have said central admin (president's office) or possibly admissions.
see, I'd have said Office of Institutional Advancement, but I get the fun of the stairwells. (-:,
Before my day it housed Phys Ed.
I was going to guess athletic administration. Oh, well.
Given your class subject matter, I'll try this.
"I'm sensing a letter like 'E', or 'C', or 'D', or something like that. The building is brown or brownish-red - an earth tone. I see some well-dressed people walking into rooms on the main floor. Perhaps some older white men and women with a few minority folks. There's a date that sticks out in my head. It's a month. I sense an 'R'...."
If everything were described as shabby, sort of like the old Victorian homes near campus that have been turned into student apartments, you'd be pretty close to describing the math building where I work. Hardwood with the finish walked off from years of neglect and holes in the floor (sometimes patched with plywood). All the telephone and networking wiring runs stapled to the dark wood trim in the hallways. Fourth floor condemned by the fire marshal and now locked and inhabited by wildlife. Real terazzo floors (cracked). Lovely main staircase.
You have described the building that houses Les Grands Administrators on my campus. It is recently renovated and lovely. This, in contrast with our "Main" building, a 70's special housing multiple academic departments.
newjackprofessor says...
It sounds like a description of the Humanities building on my campus..
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