College Images

Parents Forum
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<p>I'm fascinated by the way colleges try to sell themselves, both on-campus and in publications. Sometimes they try to accentuate what they are already well-known for. Other times, they try to hide what is obvious to any outsider.</p>

<p>My favorite example is Carleton. If you go to their website, there are about 80 photographs. In the first 60, and unless you dig for one, you will never find snow. In fact, you will never see anyone in a winter coat, and not a single hat. You will see lots of folks in shorts and tee-shirts lying on the ground. Outdoor classes with students in bare feet. Lots of green trees, and flowers.</p>

<p>Once you get past the first 60 images (which could have placed the college in Aruba), you find two pictures of students playing ice hockey. That's about it. I guess global warming in Northfield, Minnesota must account for it.</p>

<p>Wondering if folks have other examples? (Other favorites include as many as 50% of the students on Washington & Lee's website being people of color.)</p>

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<p>The funniest "image" moment came when my daughter received the second Vanderbilt viewbook. She thumbed through it and said, "oh look, it's the same as last year's, but they changed the Asian student photos". Sure 'nough, they had replaced each student photo with a new one, but maintained ethnic "slots". The "Asian photo" simply had a different Asian-American student, the African-American photo simply had a different black student, etc.</p>

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<p>(They may have been "stock photos", too.) At our alma mater, of course, they never show the outside of the library. LOL! (Might look like a bunker inside the Green Zone.)</p>

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<p>In The Gatekeepers, he talks about how Wesleyan photoshops their brochures to remove bleachers and make the grass less patchy. I wouldn't be surprised if nearly every college did some sort of selective choosing of the pictures or, as in the case of Wesleyan, actually doctors the image to make it more appealing.</p>

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<p>Oh, I found a picture, I found a picture!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/library/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/library/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It looks even worse "in the flesh".</p>

<p>(Actually, they were joining Amherst when they built it in competing for the nation's ugliest small college library -</p>

<p><a href="http://www.amherst.edu/library/friends/newsletter/news30/million.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.amherst.edu/library/friends/newsletter/news30/million.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>But, unlike Amherst, they are smart enough to be tearing it down and starting again.)</p>

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<p>Oh, come on, it's not Green Zone Bunker bad. More like inner-city underfunded public library bad... :)</p>

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<p>There is a dorm at Swarthmore (built in the 1950s) that has never been photographed for ANY college publication. It's as if the building doesn't exist. Even the picture in the housing section of the website is obscured by dark shadows from trees. I was surprised when I actually saw the building that it wasn't THAT ugly. Not likely to win any architectural prizes, but serviceable and clad with enough gray stone to make it fit in with the campus.</p>

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<p>"Oh, come on, it's not Green Zone Bunker bad. More like inner-city underfunded public library bad... "</p>

<p>Take away the trees, the building in the background, and the sunny sky, and....you have brick Fallujah! (and they plan the same result....)</p>

<p>ID - ever see a photo of Belvidere Brooks House?</p>

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<p>Williams Library--looked like a prison to me. (and it probably felt like a prison to some undergrads at some point in their college career)</p>

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<p>Brooks House! Oh, you mean this one:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin-depts/bg/brooks.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/admin-depts/bg/brooks.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>When I was there, they were having a naming contest. The students wanted it named after the campus dog "Yo-Yo", which would have been fitting, but the College vetoed it. So then they tried naming it after the house cook, the only good thing about Brooks House (it wasn't called "Brooks" then.) Nothing doing, so they named it after some obscure retired art professor.</p>

<p>Another view of the bunker:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin-depts/bg/sawyer.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/admin-depts/bg/sawyer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Harry Weese has done some bad academic buildings. Wisconsin can't wait to tear down the building he did for them.</p>

<p><a href="http://photos.news.wisc.edu/view.php?id=1660%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://photos.news.wisc.edu/view.php?id=1660&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Those libraries may not be the most pleasing to the eye, but at least they are above ground. We were amazed that most of the Johns Hopkins library is underground (something about not being able to make any buildings taller than one certain building, so they built down instead of up).</p>

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<p>Actually, once the current round of demolition finishes on the Williams Campus, they are going to raze the library to the ground (with hundreds of alumni singing "The Mountains" as they do it), and keep only the underground part. It will definitely be an improvement! (You don't want to know about the "monkey carrels" inside.)</p>

<p>Come on - enough on Williams. Folks must have other funny stories about college images! (I have Reed stories, but I've told them already.)</p>

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<p>Sorry, one more Williams opinion: I think they should knock down Brooks at the same time. The only part of the library that I liked was the listening room.</p>

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<p>Another NESCAC school brochure (I'll leave it unnamed) featured the student who was my son's tour guide. </p>

<p>What this school apparently did not know is how much this student dislikes the school - he badmouthed everything throughout the tour. We couldn't believe it when the viewbook/brochure arrived a month later with a big glossy photo of the tour guide.</p>

<p>(I took my son back for a remedial tour of this school - a really nice school - and the second tour guide was once of the best anywhere).</p>

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<p>"Sorry, one more Williams opinion: I think they should knock down Brooks at the same time. The only part of the library that I liked was the listening room."</p>

<p>Well, while they're at it, they could drop some napalm on Mission Park as well. (Folks - don't get me wrong - there isn't a really nice building on the campus except Griffin Hall, but taken together, it is stunningly beautiful (except when you look at the Bunker.)</p>

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<p>Mini, enough already. Give your alma mater a break. All libraries don't have to look Sterling Gothic.</p>

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<p>Sorry - just missing the snow today.</p>

<p>Got any good images?</p>

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<p>I didn't really look at the college material. It all looked the same to me and my daughter until we saw the part about the cat dorm.
The only thing that really stuck out about Reed and its materials were that they regularly update them so you could easily identify folks who are currently on campus.
I did notice that with the local prep schools ( and the school district) that they weight the photos so heavily with minority students that we might be in Detroit or Washington DC instead of Seattle.</p>