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I few years ago, I penned a post noting the locations of colleges and universities I had written about in this blog to that time. I noted that the going was slower than expected thanks to the pandemic. Indeed, I started the blog in December 2020 when travel was still limited thanks to the global shut down. At first, I relied heavily on photos from campus visits from years past. I was not travelling all that much thanks to Covid and would not have much in the way of current content to post. That along with the natural fact that life is frequently busy meant slow going for campus visits. Although I have continued to post with photos from years ago, 2024 was the first year since the pandemic that I was able to both visit and photograph campuses at a rate equivalent to what I had been doing pre-pandemic. In sum, I was able to visit and post about twenty-two colleges and universities this year. What’s more, I had never been to fifteen of them before. In terms of the blog, these additions means that schools from five states never reported on were added (Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Ohio). Not bad considering this is a hobby that has me largely visiting, researching, and writing posts solely on the weekends. It was good to get back into the swing of things again. The map below shows the states we’ve all been to as part of this blog to date.  I was not able to get any colleges outside of the U.S. this year, and that is something I hope to rectify in 2025. But this has not stopped international readers from visiting the blog. I am pleased to say that people from around the world have visited. Traffic to the blog hit an all time high this year. The statistics pale in comparison to any commercial site and to many teenager’s Instagram accounts, but for a niche blog it has a good readership. Some universities see more traffic than others, and some see readers stay longer and explore longer than others. But every single institution I have written about over the last four years saw people drawn directly to their page via search engines like Bing and Google. I am thankful for the interest and the insights of those who have written responses.
The significance of the blog being four years old is also notable to me. Four years is the time it takes to acquire a baccalaureate degree. As you might imagine, as a long time academic I think of time in terms of semesters and the time to complete degrees. It is also sufficient time for things to change on a campus, albeit subtly. Even in the case of institutions I have visited recently, new things are afoot. Blue Mountain College is now Blue Mountain Christian University. New buildings have been constructed on the campuses of a number of schools I have visited, and others have been significantly renovated. I have only been to 196 campuses in my life, so there are many more to see. Despite the fact that dozens of colleges have closed in recent years, the number of colleges in the U.S. still approaches 4,000. Although I am pleased with the increased pace in visiting schools this year, by the time I circle back to some of the ones covered in this blog they will likely look quite different. Some might even have closed. This makes me want to see more and hopefully 2025 will once again see me on the road and visiting a couple dozen new places. Thanks for reading, and I hope we all have a great new year!
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January 2025
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