Arizona State University (1998)

Today's post is another historical entry. As noted in my previous posts on the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis College, and the University of St. Thomas, I had been in Minneapolis for a few days for a board meeting and the weather there was very mild. I returned to the Memphis area where the highs are in the 90's and the humidity is severe. After a day of mowing my lawn in this heat, it had me reflecting about living in the southwest. It would get hotter in Lubbock, Texas, but the humidity was almost nonexistent. In the midst of one particularly hot summer there, my friend Keri, who was from southern Arizona, remarked that although quite warm, Lubbock paled in comparison to the heat she lived with for most of her life. It was not an understatement. I have been to various parts of Arizona in the summer and at times it was like being in a frying pan. One time driving through Arizona on my way to California, the tires on the car I was driving literally began to melt and come apart. Yet, I have also been in northern Arizona in the winter and not only was it cold, but there was also snow. A conference I attended many times was for years held in Tucson in February and it was delightful. All of this had me thinking of the first time I visited Arizona.

I was in Phoenix for the Second Biennial Conference on Minority Issues in Prevention in February 1998 and had the opportunity to visit the campus of Arizona State University for the first time. The conference was co-sponsored by Arizona State and the meeting was at a hotel in Tempe not too far from campus. The weather was perfect. The great weather and several hours of free time allowed for a very nice visit. I had been delayed leaving Lubbock, TX, where I was a doctoral student, due to rain of all things (we didn't get too much rain during my years there) and arrived in Phoenix to find spring in full bloom. 
​
I had always intended to visit Arizona State, but this was my first opportunity. Being an academic nerd, I wanted to go by the Psychology Building to meet a professor there whose work I knew and who shared something in common with me – the same name. Stephen G. West was a full professor there at the time, and I had read many of his papers and I wanted to meet him or least see his office. As it happened, he was there looking at data on his computer. I introduced myself and told him I was a doctoral student at Texas Tech. As we chatted for a time he paused and remarked “Given the number of people in our field these days, I imagine it’s not statistically significant that there would be two of us who are Steve West’s”. Only an academic would say such a thing! He reminded me of Alan Reifman at Texas Tech, another individual who was a master at statistics and data of all kinds. He was right by the way; I have met a number of Steve West's in higher ed over the years. There was a Stephen P. West at UC Berkeley (I think he has retired), and another Steven G. West is the president of the University of the West of England. That Steve West, like me, has conducted research in addictions. Academe is a small world.

Since 1998, I have been to several universities and colleges in Arizona. I have probably spent more time at the University of Arizona than the rest combined. But given my reminiscing, I thought I would share some photos from my visit twenty-six years ago. As this is a recollection post, I won't dive too much into the history of the university. I will note that like many of the universities I have written about, ASU began life as a normal school, that is, a teacher training college. Of course, today it is an extremely large research-intensive university. It was at the time of my visit, and it has only grown since. If I get back that way and get to tour the campus I will write an additional post with more historical information.

I took what I considered a large number of photos with my point and shoot film camera of the era - 43! Two were duplicates, so today you have 41 scanned photos from my visit over a quarter of a century ago! I started to retouch them and correct glare, but then decided the historical look was fitting for the entry and left them as is. We start with two photos of my initial destination - the Psychology Building. The building sits at the corner of McAllister Avenue and Tyler Mall. Most sources say the building opened in 1971 however, it was not dedicated until April 26, 1973. That leads me to believe that construction began in 1971. I may be wrong about that, but it makes sense to me that it could be the case. The building was designed by local architecture firm Schwenn and Clark Associates. Donald Burnett Schwenn was a native of Iowa who came to Phoenix in 1959. He first went to work for the local architecture firm Ralph Haver & Associates. He would later start his own firm, initially called Schwenn and Associates. He would be joined by Phoenix native Gerald "Jerry" LaMont Clark. Clark would leave the firm in the 1970's. Both have notable reputations in Arizona both individually and for their work together. It comes in at 78,906 square feet. The building has been updated since my visit. 

The photo below is Old Main, the oldest structure standing on campus today. When it opened in 1898 it obviously was not called "Old". Back then it was simply called the Main Building. It was constructed about sixty feet north of the original four-room building in which classes began 1886. Unfortunately, you cannot make out too much detail in this old photo. In addition to red brick, the structure is clad in local stone quarried from the Tempe Butte nearby. The cost of construction came in at $44,071.34. That is about $1,668,206 in August 2024 value. It was the largest building in the area for quite some time and had the distinction of being the first building in Tempe that had electricity. 

The set below has four photos of what was then called the John J. Ross-William C. Blakeley Law Library. The building was quite new when I visited, having opened in the summer of 1993 and dedicated on November 5, 1993, less than five years prior to my visit. The building was designed by the Atlanta-based architecture firm Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects. Those who are interested in campus architecture likely know the firm. They have designed buildings at Carnegie-Mellon, Clemson, Emory University, Ohio State University, Syracuse, Tulane University, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Connecticut, and Wellesley College. The building cost $7.37 million to construct, which is just over $17 million in 2024 dollars. The law school and library has since moved into downtown Phoenix and the building is now Ross-Blakley Hall, home to the English department since 2017. The law library continues to carry the same name as well. The name comes from William C. Blakley, a local attorney and law school alumnus (Class of 1971) and John J. Ross. Ross was a Harvard trained attorney who was also a member of a prominent local firm. The first three photos in this set are of the north façade looking southwest. The last photo is the west façade as seen from across some intramural fields.

The set below begins with two photos of the Hayden Library, or more formally, the Charles Trumball Hayden Library. The library opened in 1966 with a formal dedication on November 22nd of that year. The building was designed by the Phoenix-based firm Drover, Welch & Lindlan, which is now known as DWL Architects + Planners. The building cost $3,345,773 to construct, which is about $33.4 million in current value. It is difficult to see from these old photos from my point and shoot 35mm film camera of the era, but what you see here are two views of the below grade entrance to the library. Apparently, when the building opened in 1966 it had ground-level entrances. Starting in 1989, the underground entrance you see here was (I believe) the sole entryway to the building. However, the library underwent an extensive twenty-two-month renovation in the years since my visit, and when it reopened in 2020 above ground entrances were reintroduced. Interestingly, the renovation came with a $90 million price tag. That works out to be about $112.7 million today. That is considerably more than the original price tag for the building even when adjusting for the cost of inflation. Part of that difference is related to the expensive of modern safety systems that were not required or even in existence in the 1960's, and part is due to the technology infrastructure that a modern building requires. From additional outlets to Wi-Fi and other wiring, we simply have more to put in a building regardless of any architectural features or furnishings. Still, the massive difference in cost shows just how much inflation has risen in sixty years. 

In the first photo, you can just make out West Hall. The building takes its name from its location. The last of four buildings constructed to create a quad, West was completed in 1936. It opened as a women's dorm. Just to the right in the same photo is McClintock Hall, also a dormitory. It is named in honor of James H. McClintock. A native of California, he moved to Arizona at age fifteen in 1879. He graduated from ASU (Class of 1887). He was for a time Justice of the Peace for Tempe. He joined the army during the Spanish-American War, during which he would rise to the rank of Colonel and be awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medial. He would later serve as the postmaster for Phoenix.
 
Charles Hayden was born in Connecticut in 1825 and like many of his era moved west in adulthood. He settled in Arizona when it was still a territory and established himself as a businessman, first in Tubac and later in Tucson. He would also become a judge and from these activities would become politically connected and wealthy. He moved to present-day Tempe in 1873 where he established a mill, a store, and a ferry across the Salt River. Indeed, the community was first called Hayden's Ferry. He used his political connections and heft to lobby for the creation of a normal school in Tempe which of course is now ASU. He believed the territory was in need of more teachers, a philosophy likely facilitated in part by the fact that his wife Sallie Calvert Davis was a teacher herself. Thus, important to the founding of Tempe and ASU, it is natural that such an important building as the university's main library would carry his name. Mount Hayden in the Grand Canyon is also named in tribute to him.

I didn't take any photos of the inside of the building, but I wish I had. It is interesting and it was jumping with activity during my visit. Academic libraries were experiencing what I would call a golden age in the 1980's and 1990's. The number of scholarly journals had increased substantially, yet they were still very much high-quality outlets. Collections ramped up, and research universities such as Arizona State and others had collections eclipsing the one million mark; many had collections in the multi-million range. Digital card catalogs came out and made it easier to locate things in collections, and databases for journals moved from book-form to CD's. Technology had not gotten to the point where everything was online, and hence people actually went to the library to do their research. Most collegiate libraries were buzzing with activity from early morning until late at night. It didn't matter if you were at a research university or a small liberal arts college, students and faculty were always going to the library. Today, most academic journals are online, and although the online format makes it much easier to get information, there have been a great many mediocre and less than credible online journals crop up. The largest crowds in many collegiate libraries are in the coffee shop, not the stacks. Times change, and a lot of what has happened - the ease of access to information, the ability to get information 24-hours a day - are good things. I still prefer going to the library and miss those days. 

The third photo in this set is of the trees of the library's courtyard area looking south. At least, that is the direction I think it is facing. I have looked at online photos and I believe this to be the case. If correct, that means the building itself is to the left and the view is overtop of some stairs leading down. Regardless, this is the Cady Mall by the library. You may not be able to tell it from these scanned images, but there were oranges all over the trees in the third photo. Being a student at Texas Tech, I had assumed we were having a warm winter in Lubbock, yet the oranges on the trees in Tempe took me by surprise. Obviously, metro Pheonix is warmer than the Llano Estacado.

The set below are the buildings of the School of Business. The first photo is the Business Administration C Wing. Groundbreaking for the building occurred on October 5, 1982 and it was formally dedicated in March 1984. It was designed by GSAS Architects. The building comes in at 105,400 square feet and cost $9 million to complete (about $27.2 million in 2024 dollars). The tennis courts you see here are no longer there. I may be wrong, but I believe that the current McCord Hall sits where they were once located (McCord was built long after my visit). If you know, please leave a comment. In some online photos the open stairwell you on the left side of the building appears to have some kind of slatted covering to it and the windows all have awnings.

The second through fifth photos show the connecting walkway between the Business Administration C Wing and the "New" Business Administration Building. The "New" part had been dropped by the time of my visit, for obvious reasons. It was completed in 1968, long before the C Wing and thus was no longer new. It was designed by Pierson, Miller, and Ware Associates of Phoenix. It comes in at 79,593 square feet and cost $1,541,721 to complete (not quite $15 million in today's value). This area now looks quite different. The waterfall and fountain are gone. I think the courtyard changed upon the construction of McCord Hall. The sign for the college has changed as well. The black lettering has been changed to silver and it now reads "W. P. Carey School of Business". The center column also has some kind of tile feature on it. I have not been there since this was changed. The new courtyard seems nice, but the old one looked nice as well. Perhaps it was in poor shape. The tile on the column does not appear to add much in terms of visual appeal to me, at least not in the online photos I have seen.

The first photo below is the Memorial Union, ASU's student center. Groundbreaking for the Union occurred on October 25, 1954, and it was officially opened in 1956. At that time, it had 106,000 square feet. It has been renovated and expanded several times since. I am not really sure just how big it was in 1998 when I visited, but today it has 254,000 square feet. As you might expect given the name its time of construction, it is meant to recognize those who died in military service, primarily in World War II and Korea. I am sure it more generally memorializes all who died in service of the nation. Two additions had been completed by the time of my visit, one in 1972 and another in 1984. The 1972 addition was the work of architect Thomas Stuart "T.S." Montgomery. A fire broke out in 2007 requiring repairs and renovation which were completed in August 2008. A significant renovation was undertaken in two phases which were completed in 2017. The second photo is a fountain which is just to the northwest of the union. Hayden library can be seen on the right of that picture.

The set below has two photos of the south façade of the Computing Commons building which sits at Palm Walk and Orange. The second photo shows the palms of Palm Walk along with some very good examples of early- and mid-1990's bicycles. It was also a relatively new building when I visited. It was dedicated on June 19, 1992. The building was designed by Anderson Debartolo Pan, Inc., a Tucson-based firm. The firm's founder was Jack Debartolo, Jr., His son, Jack Debartolo has an architecture firm in Phoenix. One of the firm's principals was Richard “Andy” Anderson who among other things was noted for his work on Olympic and Superbowl facilities. The firm grew to be one of the largest architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the nation and at its peak had five regional offices and more than 300 employees. The name of the company ended when it was bought out in 1995.  

The first photo in the next set is the Student Recreation building which sets southeast of the school of business complex. It was dedicated on August 17, 1989. It was designed by Parkin Architects in conjunction with Gabor Lorant Architecture, Inc. You cannot tell it from this photo of the main entrance, but it is a massive structure. It houses gyms, fitness equipment, swimming pools, and related spaces. There is also an olympic sized swimming pool behind it. The second photo is Physical Education West, which sits on the north side of the business school complex. 

The buildings in this set have a similar vibe as some of the buildings on the campus of the University of California, Irvine. Back in the 1990's at the time of my visit, there were so many Californians attending Arizona State that people used to jokingly refer to it as the University of California, Phoenix.

The set below all center on the Arizona State University Bridge which crosses over East University Drive connecting the main campus with the dorms, athletic facilities, and parking structures on the north side to the main campus on the south side of the street. Pedestrian bridges are quite common on college campuses these days, and although they were not rare then they were not something you saw as much as you do today. It reminds me of the original pedestrian bridge at the University of Tennessee. The first two photos were taken looking west toward the bridge. You can see a similar but clearer photo of the bridge on Dr. Mark Butler's blog here. He did his postdoc at ASU. The bridge is still there, of course, and it is fundamentally the same. The signage has changed, however. At some point, the words were removed and were replaced by the stylized ASU logo which appears to be backlit at night.

On the left is the George M. Bateman Physical Sciences Center. Dr. Bateman was the first Ph.D. to be hired at ASU. He came to Tempe in 1927 and developed the sciences for the university. He retired from ASU in 1968. On the right is the Palo Verde dorm complex. You can just see Palo Verde East in the first photo, with Palo Verde West on the other side of the bridge in both photos. Construction on Palo Verde East began in 1962 and was completed in 1964. Construction on Palo Verde West began in 1964, and I believe it was completed in 1966. Both were designed by the architectural firm Cartmell & Rossman. They look the same but are not identical. East comes in at 96,490 square feet whereas West is 99,000 square feet. Recent news reports have noted that East is in need of renovation. I believe West was renovated sometime after my visit, but I am not certain of that. 

The last photo was taken at the highest point of the bridge looking south toward the heart of campus. One of the things that surprised me about the bridge was just how steep it was compared to other pedestrian bridges with which I was familiar. The walkway is named Palm Walk for obvious reasons. The palm trees seen in this photo are apparently no longer there. After about a century of growth they were, as you can see, quite tall. Starting in 2016 they were replaced by date palm trees which are shorter and have a lower canopy for shade. They also produce dates, of course, and the university has an annual date harvest.

The next set of photos are of a group of buildings on the Cady Mall southwest of the Memorial Union. The first photo is what is now called Discovery Hall. I believe it was opened in 1948, although some sources say 1950. It could be that construction began in 1948 and it was finished in 1950, but I cannot say for sure. It opened with the name Sciences Building and it housed those units. I believe it was later called the Agriculture Building, although I may be mistaken about the name, and it merely housed agriculture units.

Across the mall from Discovery is the ​Interdisciplinary B building, seen in the second photo. My very quick online review provided me with virtually no information about the building aside from the fact that in recent years a solar panel array was installed on its roof (a common feature of many of the buildings at ASU these days). 
​
At the end of the Cady Mall on the west is the Student Services Building. Groundbreaking for the building took place on December 8, 1986. The building is the work of the architectural firm Lendrum Design Group. It was dedicated on March 15, 1988. 

The next set of photos are of buildings that are not actually close to one another physically. I just put them in this set readability.
 
The first photo is of ​the Irish Hall B Dorm. There are three buildings called Irish Hall A, B, and C respectively. One of them was built in 1940, and I assume that is what is now called Irish Hall A. The various sources I found online contradicted each other about the dates of each building and having found no original source information I can't say for sure. The large tree seen in beside the building is no longer there and the little ones on the left are now much larger. The trees on the right are also gone. Its sometimes strikes me as weird that I have outlived trees. The buildings are named after Fred "Cap" M. Irish. Irish was an early sciences faculty member, as well as being the first football coach (1896-1906), first athletic director (1896-1913) and first registrar (1925). He also received an honorary degree from ASU in 1940. Although his tenure as football coach covered ten years, the team only played eight seasons. Further, they only played twenty games during that time! Some years saw them play only one game. Overall, he finished his coaching career with a 12 and 8 record. Just beyond the building is another dorm which also has a shared name, Best Hall B. As was the case with Irish, I was unable to find out too much about the building. It takes its name from M.O. Best, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents in 1945. In the background on the right, you can see the Grady Grammage Memorial Auditorium. There is a set of photos on it below.​

The second photo is the Barry M. Goldwater Center for Science and Engineering. It sits near the Psychology Building (see above). Groundbreaking for the 188,000 square foot structure took place on Saturday April 9, 1988. The building was designed by the large Anshen & Allen Architects firm (subsequently acquired by Stantec in 2010). Anshen and Allen was a prolific firm in all respects, and they designed buildings for many colleges and universities around the world. Construction costs for the building came in at $25 million, or some $81.4 million today. Mr. Goldwater, a Phoenix native, was a United States Senator and presidential candidate. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, he retired from the Air Force Reserve as a Major General.
 
​This set concludes with a photo of the Music Building. As you can see, the large circular portion of the building is reminiscent of the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium (see below). The building was designed by William Peters of Taliesin Associated Architects. Construction on the 84,039 square foot building began in 1970. 

The set below begins with a view of the Life Science Tower E Wing. Like the Computing Commons Building, it was designed by the Anderson Debartolo Pan architecture firm. It was opened in the same year as Computing Commons, having been dedicated on September 30, 1992. It is connected by the bridge seen in the last two photos to the Life Science Tower C Wing. The C Wing is the part you see in the last photo. It opened considerably earlier in 1972. It was designed by the architecture firm Varney, Sexton, and Sydnor.

In this set, we have a few photos of the Grady Grammage Memorial Auditorium. The iconic building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. What I am about to write will sound heretical to many. But I will admit, I am not terribly fond of many of Wright's designs. A few of his houses speak to me, but most of his larger scale work seems cartoonish to my eyes. I know this is sacrilege to most architecture buffs, but they are just not my cup of tea. My older brother is a big Wright fan, and we have had some disagreements about him over the years. Like many (perhaps most) architecture buffs, he can't seem to fathom how anyone (let alone his younger brother) could not fawn over everything Wright designed. I had, of course, seen many photos of Grammage prior to my visit and I was excited to actually see the building in person. It is interesting and generally fits with the rest of campus (at least the way campus looked back then). I was disappointed that I was not able to go inside. I have to say that it is one of only a couple of his commercial designs that I like. I don't love it, but it has a 1950's element to it that I appreciate. Despite what I would call a 1950's vibe, the building is a product of the 1960's. Groundbreaking occurred on the morning of May 23, 1962 and construction began in earnest a short time later on June 5. The 134,705 square foot structure was completed on September 16, 1964 at a total cost of $2,720,000 (just over $28.3 million in 2024). That was quite a bargain. 

Grady Gammage was born in Arkansas in 1895. He had tuberculosis and, in a move that was common at the time, moved west in 1912. He began working as a groundskeeper at the University of Arizona, from which he would graduate with both a bachelor's and master's degree. After graduation, he moved to take on the position of superintendent of the Winslow, Arizona Public Schools in 1922. In the summer, he taught courses at Northern Arizona State Teachers College, now Northern Arizona University. He moved there full time in 1925 when he became vice president. Amazingly, he was named the 7th president just a year later. He would stay at NAU until 1933 when he moved to Tempe to take the presidency of ASU. He would stay at ASU as president until his death in December 1959. He had been wanting to build a new auditorium on campus since 1956, when the roof on the existing auditorium had collapsed. He was friends with Wright and asked him to design a new one. Wright had previously proposed an opera house for King Faisal II of Iraq to be built in Baghdad. When Faisal was assassinated in a coup in 1958, the project was obviously scrapped. Wright used the opera house as the basis for ASU's auditorium, hence the 1950's vibe I get from it. He even picked the site on campus for the project. But like Gammage, Wright would die in 1959. Architect William Wesley Peters would finish the details. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The last photo of this set was taken at Gammage looking back toward campus. You will have to really look to see why I took this photo. The curved lights along both sides of the walkway really impressed me. 

The set below give you three views of Sun Devil Stadium, the home of the ASU football team and at the time the Fiesta Bowl. My good friend Keri completed her master's degree at ASU and she was there in 1992 when my alma mater Tennessee played (and lost to) Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. She had seen a number of teams come to town but remarked that the largest and most openly supportive group were the Tennessee fans. She may have said obnoxious, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt and leave it as "openly supportive". I was not surprised either way. Vol fans are true believers in their team and their open enthusiasm can be seen by some as supportive and by others as obnoxious. Just eleven months after my visit, Tennessee would return to the Fiesta Bowl to beat Florida State and win the National Championship 23 to 16 on January 4, 1999. Back then, the stadium had seating for 73,379 but it has shrunk by nearly 20,000 today. Reducing seating is not uncommon today. Universities are adding luxury suites and other amenities and the need for the space to make those changes often comes at the expense of overall capacity. 

Everyone knows that the athletics teams at ASU are named the Sun Devils. As is often the case, this was not actually their first name. As noted above, the university began its life as a Normal School, and it was this orientation that led to their first name: the Normals. I kid you not. I didn’t look it up, but I don’t know of any other university that used that moniker. I can’t imagine they were the only Normals out there though. It's a weird enough name that I imagine at least one other Normal School used it. None the less, it isn’t a particularly great nickname to have. But the name had staying power. They were called the Normals from 1885 until 1922. They subsequently changed their name to the Bulldogs and had a matching mascot. You can read reports online that at in between being called the Normals and the Bulldogs, they were the Owls. There is no official record of that being the case, and at one point the university's historian said the university never used the name or any kind of owl mascot. Regardless, the Bulldog name hung around until 1946, when the current Sun Devils name was chosen. The story goes that then football coach Donn Kinzle was on a run along the Salt River when a dust devil formed near him. From that, he immediately came up with the idea for the Sun Devil. The idea was put to a vote and the students overwhelmingly chose it as the mascot. Regardless of name, the university’s colors have seemingly always been maroon and gold. The sign in the second photo has Sparky the Sundevil on it. Sparky was the creation of ASU alumnus and Disney animator Berk Anthony, although the design was modified over time.

Next, we have what was known as the Wells Fargo Arena at the time of my visit and which is now called the Desert Financial Arena. The home to basketball, commencements, concerts, and other activities, the arena opened in 1974 as the ASU Activity Center. The name had changed to Wells Fargo in 1997, only about a year prior to my visit. The name would change to Desert Financial in 2019. Groundbreaking for the arena occurred in 1972 and when it was completed the price tag came in at about $8 million or about $56.6 million in 2024 value. That is pretty inexpensive. The arena seats 14,198. For such a large university and one that was previously part of the Pac-12 and now part of the Big 12, the arena seems both old and a bit small. The arena was designed by Phoenix-based architecture firm Drover, Welch & Lindlan, the same firm that designed the Hayden Library.

A friend of mine in high school had grandparents who lived in the Phoenix area, and he had visited the campus prior to our senior year and brought back some brochures and such. I had always found the idea of living in the desert southwest to be intriguing and looked earnestly at the catalog he had picked up at ASU. It seemed too far away to consider seriously at the time, and by that point I had narrowed the list of schools to which I would apply to a small group and felt I was too far along the path to change directions. Walking around campus did not make me regret my choices, but I liked the campus a lot none the less.

I thought about something as I finished this post. These days, campuses have their logos plastered everywhere on campus. I generally include a photo or two of the various lamppost signs in every post because they are so common. Logos crop up on doormats, soap dispensers, and even water towers these days. That was not always the case, and indeed it was not the case when I visited ASU in 1998. The only things I remember are visible here: the building signs all had the stylized ASU on them, and the stadium had the Sparky the Sun Devil mascot. Universities have spent a lot of effort (and money) creating style guides and brand standards in the last twenty years, and the plastering of symbols on campus is just one part of it. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I don't think anyone at Arizona State (or anywhere else) in 1998 felt it was particularly necessary. As an undergraduate, I was a Tennessee Volunteer, and I did not need everything on campus to be painted orange and white and have logos on it to make me feel like I was part of the campus culture. To be sure, I wore Tennessee t-shirts (as seen in various posts in this blog), but aside from building signs and things up around campus at Homecoming and commencement, there was not much on campus that carried the Tennessee brand. In terms of brand standards, universities these days feel it's necessary to have a brand like a commercial product or company. The put the school colors and logos on everything to facilitate a campus culture. I think that is all good and well, but a lot of research indicates that students feel less connected to their schools today than in just about any other period. It seems that despite the tremendous effort to help create a campus culture, students are generally less likely to think of themselves as part of their college community. Times change.