Art and College History, Written in Stone

By MICHAEL J. LEWIS

The history of higher education is written in prose and in poetry — in the prose of course catalogs and in the visual poetry of campus buildings. The prose version, however, can only speak of educational philosophy and content; when it comes to the actual life of a college, it is the buildings that tell the truth.

For the course catalog barely hints how large the admissions building and alumni-relations office now loom in the operations of a college. Or that the modern student center, that shard of suburban mall wrapped around a ski lodge, has come to replace the library as the nocturnal hub of the campus. Or that the role of the chapel, once the physical and symbolic heart of many a higher-education institution, has been usurped by the fitness center (where attendance is just as obligatory).