The Brown campus sits on the top of College Hill, an incline worthy of San Francisco. The center portal of the Van Wickle Gate is opened only twice per year...the first day of school, when the incoming freshman class is led up the hill and through the gates by the faculty and administration; and on graduation day, when the graduates are led back out. The legend is that if you pass through the gate at any other time, you will not graduate.
There's a very interesting Patrick Dougherty installation on campus through October, 'Square Roots,' made entirely of sapling branches. You can even walk through it. Pretty cool.
But not cool enough to prevent one poor girl from fainting while we were standing here. She was from Chicago too. It was very hot and humid, and I guess it got to her. The paramedics arrived quickly, and we got a replacement tour guide and moved on.
Had some camera issues today, so we lost some pictures. The rest of these were taken with my iPhone. There are three quads on campus, this is the main one, very student-friendly:
Most of the buildings at Brown are brick like Harvard and Columbia, as opposed to the gothic of Yale and Princeton.
All in all the feeling here was very friendly, surprisingly relaxed, and more artsy than academic, although there's no question that serious academics happen here.
After the tour and the info session we were lucky to have two stellar dinner guests with us on Thayer Street: Amanda P. from town, who is at the Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] just down the hill, taking a summer session in painting; and John Caserta, an old colleague of mine from the Chicago Tribune and Quokka Sports, and a relatively recent recipient of a Master of Fine Arts from Yale, who is now a professor of graphic design at RISD. We had a very enjoyable time at an outdoor table at Andreas, a contemporary Greek American restaurant.
The trip home only took 3 hours and 15 minutes...yeah, we kind of flew, and came back over the George Washington Bridge because it wasn't rush hour.
Tomorrow's Columbia schedule is going to change a bit. We're sleeping in a little in the morning, leaving for the city at 1000. Will do some sightseeing around the Upper West Side, then take the 200 tour and 300 info session. After that we'll head right over to Yankee Stadium to see the monuments and watch batting practice before the 705 start.
