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On a recent trip to Saint Louis, Missouri, I had the opportunity to visit a school that until a few short years ago I had never new existed. Despite my lack of knowledge about it, the Barnes-Jewish College, Goldfarb School of Nursing is an institution that has a history that goes back further than my current institution (the University of Memphis). As is the case with many colleges, Goldfarb is the current iteration of several institutions that came together to form the current school. Goldfarb traces its history back to 1902 when it began life as the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing. Although some sources indicate it was the first, the college’s website says it merely one of the earliest schools of nursing accredited by the National League of Nursing. Regardless, the institution flourished and by the early 1990’s offered degrees at the associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s levels in nursing and other allied health fields.
Another institution that now part of the college began life in 1955 when the Barnes Hospital School of Nursing was founded. Barnes formed its own school when Washington University shuttered its nursing program. Some time thereafter (I was unable to ascertain exactly when), the Barnes College of Nursing became a component of the University of Missouri St. Louis. The two institutions would finally merge into the current iteration in 2005. Shortly thereafter, the college ceased offering associate’s degrees. Today, Goldfarb enrolls more than 625 students at the bachelor’s (BSN), master’s (MSN), and doctoral (DNP and Ph.D.) levels. The Goldfarb name comes from local businessman and philanthropist Alvin Goldfarb. Mr. Goldfarb was founder of the Worth Stores, a women’s clothing business centered in St. Louis. He gave a substantial donation to the school, a good portion of which was responsible for the building you see in the loan photo below, appropriately named Goldfarb Hall. You can read more about him here. The building was designed by St. Louis-based architectural firm Christner Architects. The firm has designed many university buildings and even an entire campus plan. Opening in 2007, the building includes some 105,000 square feet of classrooms, labs, offices, and auditoriums. Costs came in at $40 million (roughly $54.7 million in 2022). The building was honored with several awards including the American School and University Architectural Portfolio 2008 Outstanding Design Award, the 2007 Construction Industry Best Practice Award, Honorable Mention, St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers, and the 2008 Project Achievement Award for New Construction under $30 Million, Construction Management Association of America.
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The weather and work have been keeping me off the blog for a time, so I am returning with a quick post on another campus of the Southwest Tennessee Community College (STCC). I had previously posted about the STCC Union Avenue Campus and today return the institution with some photos of the Macon Cove Campus. I had mentioned the campus in the earlier post. When the college was devised, a two-campus plan was basically in the works from the beginning. The Macon Cove Campus sits about sixteen miles east of the Union Avenue Campus, and at the time of the construction of both Macon Cove was likely considered very far out from the downtown campus. Today of course, metropolitan Memphis extends much further east, but photos from the era show that not too much existed that far out at the time. The campus itself is large, covering some one hundred acres and consisting of nine academic buildings and a handful of smaller support (e.g., physical plant) structures. It is a pleasant space and seemed generally well maintained. Indeed, the cleanliness of the interior of the buildings was better than some public universities in the area. As is too often the case for two-year colleges, little information is available about the history of STCC. This, coupled with the fact that I covered the Union Avenue Campus in an earlier post, will leave the historical notes on the campus relatively brief. We begin with the first two buildings you see when entering campus: William W. Farris Student Services Administration Complex and the Bert Bornblum Library. The buildings are connected via the curved wall you see in the first two photos below. The spot marks the main gateway into campus and provides a bit of dramatic detail to the space. In the first two photos below, the Bornblum Library is on the left and the Farris Building is on the right. I will start with Farris and then come back to Bornblum. William “Bill” Farris was a fixture in West Tennessee politics and in the democratic party for decades. He held many political positions including a seventeen-year stint on the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR). TBR was the sole governing board of all public colleges and universities in the state aside from units of the University of Tennessee System for decades. It still exists, but the other state universities in that system have moved on to form their own boards. The building acquired his name in 1989. The first three photos below are of the east façade of the building marking the entrance to campus. The fourth is the building’s auditorium on the west side of the building. The signs of spring are not yet evident on a tree on the west side as seen in the fifth photo. Behind this spot is an atrium seen in photo six. The seventh photo is the north façade of the building. The remaining four photos are interior shots of the building. The next set of photos are of the Bert Bornblum Library. Bornblum is named for Bert Harry Bornblum. A native of Poland, he immigrated to the U.S. upon the Nazi’s invasion with his younger brother David. His family did not survive the Holocaust. They had family in Memphis and eventually made their way here. He was eighteen at the time. Both he and David would serve during the war. After the war, they opened Bert’s Men’s Store on Beale Street He and David would go on to found the Judaic Studies program at the University of Memphis. Bornblum was a notable philanthropist in the area. He gave significant funds to numerous organizations and causes. He founded the Bornblum Solomon Schechter School here and donated extensively to local Lemoyne-Owen College and to STCC. He donated to the nursing program at STCC and provided significant funding for the library which now carries his name. He also funded the Land of Israel Studies program at Kineret College in Israel. The library was dedicated on December 1, 2009. The building was co-designed by two Memphis-based architectural firms. If I understand it correctly, the firm Evans Taylor Foster Childress handled the interior work while Askew Nixon Ferguson did the exterior work. Both have related academic work at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, the University of Tennessee Martin, and the University of Memphis. The first floor has the reference section, offices, check out desks, an auditorium, and an art museum (which was closed during my visit). The second floor has the main stacks, offices, group and individual study rooms, and a copy center. The photos below begin with three views of the east side of the building and then the main entrance in the fourth. The plaques are located just inside the front doors. Photos seven and eight are of the ground floor; the rest are of the second and include general stack spaces and study rooms. There were no names or information about the three portraits seen in photos thirteen through fifteen but given the regalia the gentlemen are wearing I assume they are past presidents of STCC. If you know, please leave a note in the comments. The building is really cool, and the interior has design elements and features I would not expect in a community college library. Community college buildings tend to be very utilitarian, but the Bornblum Library is very nice, and the interior is quite beautiful. The library contains some 69,300 sqaure feet of space. Next, we have one of the newer structures on campus, the Academic Building. It is a large building with what appears to be the biggest single footprint of any building on campus. In sum, it comes in at 106,000 square feet. In addition to classrooms, it has many wet labs and computer labs. It is a beautiful building on the inside. The first three photos are of the south side of the building. The fourth is the main entrance as seen from the north. Next, we have one of the newer structures on campus, the Academic Building. It is a large building with what appears to be the biggest single footprint of any building on campus. In sum, it comes in at 106,000 square feet. In addition to classrooms, it has many wet labs and computer labs. A notable feature is the woodgrain wall complete with the STCC Seal seen here in the fifth photo. It is a beautiful building on the inside. The two-story atrium, seen here in photo six is in the middle of the long structure. The building was designed by Memphis architectural firm LRC and built by EMJ construction. The two-story atrium, seen here in photo seven is in the middle of the long structure. The last photo is a typical classroom in the building. The building was designed by Memphis architectural firms Looney Ricks Kiss (LRC) and Fisher & Arnold and built by EMJ construction. Construction began in 2008 and the total cost came in at about $17 million (about $22.2 million today). Next, we have the Charles O. Whitehead Center seen in the first two photos below. Whitehead was a fixture in the community-college sector in Tennessee for some time. He was president of two community colleges (in Chattanooga and Memphis). The building was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Goforth/Fleming. The firm was founded by Robert Goforth in 1960 and acquired the name Goforth/Fleming in 1970 when Robert Fleming joined him in 1970. The two would part ways in 1980. Fleming Architects continue to this day and have designed buildings for colleges and universities across the Midsouth. The building is one of the earliest structures on campus, and it shows not only in the exterior design but in the interior as well. It has a high school feel to it. The interior walls are concrete block and there are lockers (in use) in the hallways. Still, the building was clean and in terms of appearance at least, in good working order. I have to say that perhaps the best aspect of this building to me was the sign. I know it's strange, but the font/color scheme/layout is 1970's at its best. The building was designed by the Memphis architectural firm Goforth/Fleming. The firm was founded by Robert Goforth in 1960 and acquired the name Goforth/Fleming in 1970 when Robert Fleming joined him. The two would part ways in 1980. Fleming Architects continue to this day and have designed buildings for colleges and universities across the Midsouth. I posted about their work for Jackson State Community College’s Jim and Janet Ayers Center for Health Sciences about a year ago. The Whitehead Center opened in 1975. Directly across (to the south) of Whitehead is the Nabors Auditorium Building, seen here in the third and fourth photos. I could find no information on the source of the name. The sixth photo is the main entrance to the Robert B. Fulton Engineering Technology Building. Robert Fulton was a Rear Admiral in the Navy. During World War II, the ship on which he served, the USS Houston, was sunk and he became a prisoner of war. He would remain so through the end of the war. He remained in the Nacy after the war. He came to Memphis in 1968 to aid in the development of the college that would become STCC. He ran the engineering technology programs for many years. Finally, this set closes with a photo of the Fulton Building Auditorium and an STCC clock. Sitting behind (to the west) of Bornblum and Farris is the John L. Thornton Building. Despite having his name on the building and the mention of the John L. Thornton Memorial Scholarship on the STCC website, I was unable to find anything on the man himself. If you know anything, leave a comment. I will update the entry if I am able to find out anything about him. It is a structure representative of its time. A Brutalist building with no real ornamentation and an outward appearance of concrete. The few windows are mere slits. It does not strike me as inventive or attractive. Behind the Thorton Building (to the west) is the Richard D. Sulcer Building. It too is a rather plain concrete structure, but it at least has some good-sized windows. I was unable to find out anything about the building of the man for which it is named unfortunately. This is the east façade of the building. Finally, we close with two photos showing some STCC logos and the Saluki mascot.
Another retrospective piece today, this time prompted by a new faculty member in my department. We brought on a new assistant professor of adolescent development in my department’s Educational Psychology program this past fall. She came to us from her doctoral program at the University of California, Irvine. Her hire is a wonderful thing for my department. The program at UCI is exceptionally strong and we will benefit not merely from her expertise but the strong reputation of her doctoral alma mater as well. The UofM is the first university east of the Mississippi she has ever visited. As fate would have it, UCI was the first UC-system school I ever visited. I was in Orange County for the annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) in November 1999. There are, of course, dozens of colleges and universities in the metro Los Angeles area but the conference hotel was less than three miles from campus thus making UCI an obvious choice for a quick visit. As it happens, I would also visit UCLA for the first time during that trip. The two campuses are really nothing alike, despite being so close to one another. Since this is a retrospective and the number of buildings I was able to photograph was limited, I will not delve too much into the history of the structures or the campus. Consider this a quick review as UCI looked nearly twenty-four years ago. UCI was still very young during my visit as the campus opened in October 1965 (the campus was dedicated in a groundbreaking ceremony the year prior by President Lyndon Johnson and a large crowd that numbered about 15,000). It was one of three new UC campuses created in the 1960's with the other two being UC San Diego and UC Santa Cruz. Of course, as is often the case, UCI can trace its heritage much further back. In UCI's case, this would be to an old medical school, the Pacific School of Osteopathy which opened in 1896. An interesting fact about UCI is that it predates the city that now carries the name. Irvine California was not established until 1971. However, both get their name from James Irvine, a real estate mogul and owner of the Irvine Ranch, a 94,000-acre ranch in Orange County. The state acquired 1,000 acres in 1960 for the new university. The campus master plan started off with all of the buildings centered around a circle park. Originally named Campus Park and subsequently renamed Aldrich Park after the first Chancellor of UCI, Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr., the park continues to sit at the heart of campus. But in addition to buildings circling it, the campus expands beyond those original confines. In its ranch days, the campus was largely devoid of trees, but today there are over 11,000 of them in Aldrich Park alone. The original buildings on campus were designed by noted architect William Pereira's firm (his firm would later design the famous Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco). When the campus opened, the entire physical plant consisted of nine structures. The only road on campus was still unpaved. You would have never guessed it in 1999 when I took these photos, and it is even more unbelievable today. Today, UCI is a Carnegie Research-Very High institution which has over $1.3 billion in endowment funds, enrolls nearly 37,000 students, has over 5,500 faculty, and covers 1,527 acres. Not bad for an institution of less than 70 years of age! In 1999, there were no ride sharing companies and the easiest way to get around was to rent a car. My girlfriend at the time and did just that, and when driving over to campus I parked near the Engineering Tower, which is where this post will begin. The first three photos below are of the Engineering Tower and its environs. One may ask, and reasonably so, why the first photo of the group is more or less of trees. Well, for one, they are lovely trees. Secondly, and more to the point, I was struck by the sheer size of the trees. If you look at old photos of the Engineering Building and its courtyard from just a few years prior to when this photo was taken, these trees were tiny saplings. As mentioned, when the campus was first developed, trees were virtually nonexistent. Plus, I was taken by the white color of the eucalyptus trees. The Engineering Tower and its courtyard definitely show their era, looking every bit the classic 1960's structures they are. The tower would be completed in 1970. What impressed me in 1999, and continues to do so to this day, is the size of the building. Recall that this was built during the first wave of construction of the campus, yet the building is quite large. The nation was seeing the Baby Boomers go to college and enrollment was skyrocketing everywhere, particularly in California. The state was anticipating UCI to grow and to do so quickly. The building's size and ten stories show that they accurately understood the future needs of the university. The fourth photo is the Engineering Gateway Building, which was still relatively new at that point. Designed by the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca architecture firm, the building opened in 1994. The first photo below is the walkway from Aldrich Park underneath the Ring Road viaduct. The second is taken on the other side looking back. On the left of that photo is a building that I don't think is there anymore. If it is there, it's been enlarged quite a bit. Today, the Student Center South sits at this site, and it is much larger than the building you see here (let me know in the comments if you know better than me). The same is true for another building in the photo set below. On the right of that photo and in the third and fourth photos is the Humanities Instructional Building. The pedestrian bridge seen in the fifth photo is just to the north of the Humanities Instructional Building. It leads to the Music and Media Building also seen in the photo. The last two photos of this set are buildings in the Social Sciences Hall complex. Photo six is the Social Science Tower. If you are my age or older, or if you are a sci-fi movie buff, the Social Science Tower may look familiar to you. It was used in the 1972 movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Conquest was the fourth of the original five Planet of the Apes movies and the building along with the administration building, the library and some other buildings seen in the distance are used for location shots. The relatively new Century City complex in LA was also used for filming. In both cases, the modern structures were used to give the air of the year 1991 which was when the film was supposed to take place. The UCI library has a short (soundless) video of some behind the scenes footage of filming going on which you can view here. One of the things that stands out to me in the video is that the campus is so isolated at the time. You can see hills in the distance that have nothing on them and nothing in sight. Today, the whole area is covered with development. You can see a great still photo of the filming here. Numerous scenes were filmed by the building including an ape auction in the courtyard and ape training in domestic chores. I was there eight years after the date in the movie, and no apes were to be seen much to my disappointment. The last photo is the Social Science Lab Building. The next set are photos of buildings that no longer exist (at least in the case of the first one). I am not sure about the second, but I think it has been either demolished or renovated to the point it no longer looks the way it does in this photo. The first photo below is the former Information and Computer Science/Engineering Research Facility (ICS/ERF); I believe it was also known as Building 310. The building was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and it opened in 1986. Small by academic building standards, the ICS/ERF came in at only 17,800 square feet. It was also inexpensive to build, with the total cost coming in at just under $1.9 million (or less than $5.5 million in today's value). The building had a metal and painted stucco exterior. It housed the Center for Embedded Computer Systems, among other things, and had a large lecture hall known for its uniquely shaped ceiling. Students complained that the ceiling's shape made it difficult to hear lectures in the space. Regardless, the building would not last long. The building began to have leaks, wood was rotting, and other issues were present. In the early 2000's, UCI considered repairing the building, but the cost would exceed that of the construction of the building in the first place. That, added with the small size would doom the structure. Gehry's work on another college campus came with similar issues in terms of leaks and such. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had Gehry design the Stata Center, a large 720,000 square foot building that houses classrooms, food services, and a gym among other things. The Stata Center opened in 2004 at a cost of some $300 million (over half a billion dollars in today's value). Opinions were mixed. If you have not seen photos of the building, do a search online. Some people (mainly architects and artists) loved the thing; some found it ugly and/or comical. To say that it was a polarizing structure would be a polite way to describe it. Regardless of how the Stata Center looked, the issue MIT had with it was with what they termed the quality of the design. The building suffered from leaks, drainage issues, and multitude of other problems. The problems were very similar to what UCI experienced with their Gehry design. Things were so bad in MIT's view that the university actually sued him. In the end, MIT settled out of court. UCI went a different direction. They simply added their Gehry design to the trash heap of history in the middle of the night on January 23, 2007. As for the second building, it too seems to have either been razed or so completely renovated that it no longer looks like this. It sat where the Student Center South is now located. I found two photos of it on the Calisphere website, which is an incredible online resource for things UC-system and California in general. You can see the photos here and here. Again, if you know if these structures have been renovated or razed, please let me know. We close this post with two student service type structures. I am not entirely sure what the buildings are in the first photo. They appear to be residential in nature. At first, I thought they were part of Mesa Court, but the buildings don't seem to match. They might be part of Campus Village, but again they don't seem to match. Mesa Court no longer has a sand volleyball court which is clearly seen in the picture. Campus Village has one, but it is not close to a street like the one in the picture. I now believe the photo is of the buildings of the Middle Earth housing complex. I base this on the roofs, the scale of the buildings, and the stucco. But there is no volleyball court there today, so again I am not quite positive about it. In the intervening years since my visit and today, much construction has gone on and it's hard to tell. We end the tour with a photo of the Phoenix Food Court. I imagine it had no chain restaurants in it in 1999, but there is an Einstein's Bagel's there now. Photos available online show the green trim of the building gone in favor of what appears to a reddish rust color paint. I still remember my first visit to UCI quite vividly. It was a glorious day to take a walk around campus. The temperature was perfect for a long walk that Saturday, November 13, 1999. I popped by UCLA the next day, but remember much less about that visit, likely due to the fact that I have spent a great deal more time on the UCLA campus since that first visit and the memories have flowed together.
I hope to return to California and the LA area soon, and if so, I will visit UCI and then provide a modern, thorough post. As 2021 comes to a close today a word of thanks to the visitors to the blog. I started this just over a year ago thinking it would be something fun to do and without any expectations of readership. For a blog that has no advertising or way to promote it, University Grounds has been getting a good bit of traffic. According to Google Analytics, the past year has seen readers from each continent (save for Antartica of course), and dozens of countries. Most of the engaged users have been from the U.S., but readers from Europe and Asia have spent a good deal of time on it as well. My thanks to you all! Hopefully, the pandemic will continue to abate and I can get back to travelling and add institutions on a more frequent basis. Happy New Year!
As fate would have it, my oldest son had a Christmas band concert scheduled for the 7th, and I was unable to go to the match up of my two alma mater’s in New York for the Jimmy V Classic. Thankfully, it was televised. It was a nail biter. A truly good game, particularly for a pre-season tournament match-up, and both teams showed some strong elements for the year ahead. We started watching the game, appropriately enough, while eating a Tex-Mex dinner. No tortillas were thrown, however, as my sons and I would never let a tortilla go uneaten (if you don’t know about tortilla throwing, it’s a Texas Tech thing you can read about here and here). In the end, Tech won the game 57-52 beating the 13th ranked Tennessee Volunteers in over time.
I will have the opportunity to see the Texas Tech football team in person this month, as they will play Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl here in Memphis after Christmas. Mississippi State is coached by former Tech coach Mike Leach who, owing to a very bitter break-up, will likely cherish the opportunity to stick it to the Red Raiders. Given that the Memphis metro area literally spans across the Mississippi boarder, I imagine we Tech fans will be the distinct minority in the live audience. After my initial post, a friend of emailed to ask “Exactly what in the world are the two-tone Texas Tech sneakers you are talking about?”. Now you know. |
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