University of Minnesota

I was in Minnesota for a meeting of the Board of Directors of the NCCPA Health Foundation. We were to begin our several days of meetings on Saturday afternoon, and to ensure that I would be in town early enough I had grabbed a flight which landed in Minneapolis by 8am. A short ride from the airport to the hotel where we were staying to drop off my bag left me with several hours of free time. More than enough to visit a couple of campuses in the area. The first one I visited was the University of Minnesota (UMN), the subject of today’s post. I had been to Minneapolis and the campus of the state’s flagship before. When I was in the School of Medicine at the Virginia Commonwealth University, we had a large research grant with sites all over the country. One of the sites was the Minneapolis VA Medical Center and the people with whom we worked there were dually associated with the medical school at the University of Minnesota.  Although we spent more time at the VA than on the UMN campus, I had been there a couple of times. My last visit, however, was eight years earlier in the early spring of 2016. Well, it was early spring in Richmond, Virginia, but it was still very much winter in Minnesota. Thankfully, the weather on this August trip was just about perfect, if perhaps just a bit warmer than I had expected.  

The set below begins with five photos of Amundson Hall. The building is named for Neal Amundson. He began his time at UMN as a faculty member in math, but he moved to the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1947. He would chair the department for a staggering twenty-eight years from 1949 to 1977. I have been a department chair, and I cannot imagine spending that amount of time in that role. When the building opened it had a dual name as far as I can tell. It was at once called the Mines and Metallurgy Building and the Chemical Engineering Building.

What you see here was designed by the architectural firm Perkins+Will. Perkins+Will designed the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building at Wright State University I covered in an earlier post. The firm designed the renovation and addition added about 40,000 square feet of space (the number varies quite a bit from source to source, with it generally being listed as between 40,000 and 42,000 square feet). It was completed in 2014 and is called the Gore Annex. It is named for Bob Gore. You know his work even if you do not realize it. He is the inventor of Gore-Tex, the stuff that coats and outer wear is frequently made. I had no idea that the product is named in part for a person. I can’t help but wonder if George Costanza realized it. Dr. Gore is an alumnus of the university (Class of 1963) with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He gave $10 million (about $13.2 million today) for the work. Perkins+Will designed the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building at Wright State University I covered in an earlier post. It was completed in 2014 and comes in at 47,000 square feet. 

The Hennepin County Library has a cool photo of people standing outside the building in 1961 appearing to be waiting for a bus here. It shows the building in its original configuration. If you zoom into the second photo below, you can see the entryway where the people in that 1961 photo are standing. You can even see the same fire hydrant. It looks like it has been straightened in the intervening sixty-nine years, but it certainly looks like the exact same hydrant. You can see another of the Hennepin County Library’s photo of the building in 1961 here and one from 1997 here.

The triangular building you see in the rear of photos one and four is ​Keller Hall. The building opened as the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building. It takes its name in honor of UMN’s 12th president, Kenneth H. Keller. Keller came to the university in 1964 as a member of the College/School of Engineering. He became acting president in 1984 and assumed the post officially in 1985. His presidency was short; he resigned on March 13, 1988. His term was marked by controversy. The university began having serious budget issues during that time, and in 1987 the university considered closing both the School of Dentistry and the College of Veterinary Medicine. That is astounding to me. Despite good things going on around campus, including the construction of the building that would eventually carry his name, he was dogged by complaints about the cost of renovating the president’s official residence and cost overruns on a new telephone system. He spent millions on the renovation of the house and more on the renovation of the president’s office space. The money for the work came from a fund that was not widely known, including by the university board. Calls for his firing came from many quarters but were particularly loud on campus. Even members of the state legislature and the UMN board called for his removal. The fact that the men’s basketball program was put on probation during the period did not help matters. After conferring with then Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich, Keller decided it best to resign. Keller left to take a position at Princeton and then went on to spend time at the Council on Foreign Relations. He came back to UMN in 1996 as holder of the Charles M. Denny, Jr., Professorship of Science, Technology, and Public Policy. He eventually left again to take a position at Johns Hopkins. This may be the only collegiate structure named for president who resigned in the face of firing. The building is massive, coming in 336,000 square feet. 

The sixth photo shows the Church Street Pedestrian Mall at its terminus at Washington Avenue. The building on the right is Amundson and the one on the left is Ford Hall. Its current look came courtesy of an effort made in 2018 at the cost of $4.7 million. The work included new bicycle parking, seating areas, lighting, Wi-Fi.

The seventh photo is the main entrance ​and façade of Ford. Construction on Ford began in either 1949 or 1950. I have read both dates in various documents. I believe the ground work began in 1949 and perhaps the actual work on the building started in 1950. I may be wrong and if you know please leave a comment. The date on the cornerstone is 1950, but when it was put in place the building had been under construction for  some time. You can view a photo of the cornerstone laying ceremony here. It was named the Social Science Building when it opened, and you can see a photo of it about the time of its completion from October 31, 1950 here. Another a great photo of the building in 1956 can be seen here. ​It was later named in honor of the university’s sixth president Guy Stanton Ford. Ford was a historian by trade and came to the university in 1913. He was dean of the graduate school when the university’s fifth president Louts Coffman passed away suddenly. He became president in 1938 but only served in the role until 1941 when he left to take a position with the American Historical Association. Even by today’s standards when college presidents have some of the shortest tenures in history, this is a short time to hold the office. At least, it is a short time if you are not being fired. It is the first of sixteen buildings and a courtyard that is part of the Northrop Mall Historic District which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

The first two photos of the next set are of the ​Molecular and Cellular Biology building. In 1998, the state gave the university $35 million (about $67.6 million in today’s money) and another $35 million (about $64 million today) in 2000 for the construction of the building. Work began in 2000 and was completed in 2002 with a formal opening on October 9th that year. Total costs for completing the building came in at $88 million which is a staggering $155.8 million in 2024 value. The building sits on the site of three earlier buildings, Lyon Labs (built in 1952), Millard Hall (built in 1912), and Owre Hall (built in 1930). It is another work of architecture firm Perkins+Will. The first photo shows the building's front and east side where it connects to the Malcolm Moos Tower (see below). The second is the building and its west side courtyard. If you look closely in that photo, you can see some colorful orbs on the right in front of the building. Those are part of a very large sculpture which is the work of artist Amy Toscani. Toscani is a professor of sculpture at Minnesota State University Mankato. It actually carries the name Untitled, but you will find numerous places online where people refer to it as The Big Molecule. It stands thirty feet high and weighs about 10,000 pounds. It was placed here in the fall of 2008. You will also find online notes about how the bonds between the particles do not match.

The last two photos are of ​Jackson Hall. The first photo is the north façade which faces Washington Avenue. The second is the west side of the building. Jackson was constructed in 1911 and opened as the Anatomy Building. It is the oldest medical school building on campus. It was designed by architect Clarence H. Johnston, Sr. Johnston was prolific and there were dozens of his works throughout the Twin Cities and across Minnesota. In addition to Jackson Hall, he designed numerous buildings on the UMN campus including Folwell Hall, Northrop Auditorium, Lind Hall, Jackson Hall, Smith Hall, Scott Hall, the Walter Library, Morrill Hall, Williams Arena, and Pioneer Hall. All of these are covered in this post. He designed others, some of which were razed and a couple which are still standing but which I did not get to during my visit. His designs also grace the UMN’s St. Paul and Duluth campuses, Winona State University, Minnesota State University Mankato, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and St. Cloud State University. ​His son Clarence Jr. Designed the Coffman Memorial Union on campus (see below).

The first four photos of the next set are of Nils Hasselmo Hall. Hasselmo  was designed by the St. Paul, Minnesota based architecture firm BWBR Architects. The firm has designed buildings for other colleges and universities including Carroll University, Gustavus Adolphus College, North Dakota State University, St. John’s University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Formally dedicated on October 14, 1996, the building cost $62.7 million, or just over $129 million today, to construct. Previously, two buildings were located on this site, the Botany Building and the Zoology Building. It opened as the Basic Sciences and Biomedical Engineering Building or BSBE. It was renamed on May 6, 2005, in honor of its namesake. Hasselmo was the university’s thirteenth president from 1988 to 1997. Afterwards he went on to be the president of the Association of American Universities (AAU). If you are not familiar with the AAU, it is an association of the most prestigious and active research universities in the United States and Canada. It is a "by invitation only" group of which many other universities would love to be a member. The first two photos show the front façade facing Washington Avenue. The main entrances are on either side of the building and the third photo shows the west side entry. The fourth photo shows an enclosed walkway which connects the building to Jackson Hall to the west. As you can see, it comes complete with a clock tower. 

As you walk in the direction of the clock (southward), you come to the back of the Mayo Building, part of the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Center. The fifth photo shows parts of several buildings. One the left is the back of Jackson Hall. In the middle of the frame are two buildings. The taller one is the Moos Tower (see below), and the smaller portion is the Mayo Memorial Auditorium. It is part of the complex of buildings which make up Mayo. It sits above a parking garage. It was completed in 1954. A photo of it in the final stages of construction in 1953 can be seen here. The smaller portion on the lower right in this photo and the main part of the sixth photo is part of the complex which I believe was called the Health Services Building. I just happened to capture the view of the building almost exactly as it is framed in this photo from 1930. The taller portion seen above it in the fifth and sixth photos was built later, and I will discuss it below. The low level portion brought together several units including the Elliott Memorial Hospital and the Eustis Hospital. I believe construction began on these combined buildings in 1927. Regardless, the cornerstone was laid in a ceremony in 1928. You can see photos of the event here and here. The building was dedicated in 1929 and you can see a photo of that ceremony here. The seventh and eighth photos are on the opposite side of the building from these earlier photos. I am not quite sure if this is what was once called the Eustis Hospital or if it is part of the Elliott Memorial Hospital. I do know the tower portion of the complex stands in front of the Elliott Hospital’s former main entrance and this leads me to think what in photos seven and eight is a part of Elliott. If you happen to know, please leave a comment. I will refer the interested reader to the Academic Health Center History Project blog for more information about all of these buildings. As you can see in the ninth photo, the site was once the home to Powell Hall and the cupola in the courtyard is from that building.

Photos ten through twelve are of the newest part of the Mayo complex of buildings. The tower was designed by Clarence H. Johnston, Jr. It was meant to be twenty-two stories tall, but the Korean War drove up building material prices and so the plan was revised down to fourteen stories. It was dedicated over two days on October 21st and 22nd 1954. An original architectural rendering of the tower portion from the same perspective as seen in photos ten through twelve can be seen here. You can see photos of it under construction in 1950 here, 1952 here, and in 1953 here. Taken not long after the building opened, this photo shows the building with a circular drive way. It is interesting to see that the building does not have a name on it at this point. This photo from 1969 shows the same area. Notice the name. At one point, it was called the University of Minnesota Medical Center; today it is the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Center. Photos thirteen through fifteen are of a monument to the Elliott Memorial Hospital which stands in the same courtyard area to the north of the spot where the previous three photos were taken.

The last two photos of this set are back on the other side of the Mayo complex. Continuing down the path you come to two buildings on the right (west side) behind Hasselmo. The first is the Boynton Health Service Building. Boynton opened in 1950 and was then simply called the Health Service Building. I was not able to find out when the name changed. I believe it was the student health center at the time. Today, it is clinic space for the university's health sciences operations. It was designed by Magney, Tusler, and Setter and opened in 1950. You can see photos of it nearing completion in 1950 here and here. A photo of it in 1950 after it opened can be seen here. Just think, if the two ladies in that photo were students at that time, they were likely in their early twenties. That means they would have been in their early forties when I was born, and if still living in their nineties today. The second building further away is the Children's Rehabilitation Center. I believe it opened in 1964. You can see two photos of the building under construction here and here. You will notice some differences between those older photos and mine. The name of the building has not been installed in those earlier photos and the original exterior light fixtures have been replaced. The new ones are larger and fewer in number.​

The next set is of the Coffman Memorial Union, the university's student union and a major landmark structure on campus. Work on the union began in 1939 when the Great Depression was still on going. The grandeur of the building during such austere times would bring some criticism. It opened in September 1940 and was formally dedicated on October 25th. It is the work of architect Clarence H. Johnston, Jr. As originally configured, it could accommodate 14,000 students per day, an impressive number but one which would be exceeded by the time the Baby Boomers were in college. In the 1960’s more than 20,000 students used the facility on a daily basis. An expansion and renovation were needed to keep up with the demand and refurbish the building after such heavy use. A major effort was undertaken beginning in 1974 and completed in 1976. Much of the original architecture was eliminated and what was added was not well received. Many found the work ugly and several rooms with large glass walls were too hot in summer and too cold in winter. The work added 25,000 square feet of space and increased the building’s capacity to 42,000 per day. The union soldiered on and thankfully another major renovation would occur in the early 21st century. A $71.5 million renovation (about $130 million in today’s value) saw the majority of the 1976 changes excised from the building a general return to the original style. It also saw the addition of a new 1,900 space parking deck and a glass enclosed structure called the Cube (see below). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. It is in-process with another renovation which is adding space but not disturbing the original aesthetics of the building. You can see some great photos of the building under construction here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
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It is named for UMN’s fifth president, Lotus Delta Coffman. I have to say that is a really cool name, and one that I would have expected to be for a child born in the 1960’s and not the 1870’s. Coffman was a native of Indiana. He played football at Indiana State University, then known as the Indiana Normal School, and graduated in 1896. After working in public schools in Indiana, he went back to school at Indiana University from which he would graduate with a baccalaureate degree in 1906 and a master’s degree in 1910. He completed his Ph.D. at Columbia in 1911. He was hired as dean of the school of education at the University of Illinois in 1912 and left there in 1915 to take the dean’s position of education at UMN in 1915. In 1920, he was appointed president of the university. It is hard to imagine someone moving from school teacher to president of a major university in such a short period of time. His time as president was marked by tremendous growth. The university’s budget increased by 68% in his ten years as president, and undergraduate and graduate enrollment increased by 60% and 100% respectively. Buildings went up on campus to handle this growth and included the Northrop Auditorium (see below), the Walter Library (see below), and the former football field Memorial Stadium. He was an advocate for having a student center on campus as well, but did not live to see it. He had a heart attack in 1937 which had him take a year’s leave from office (although he remained active behind the scenes as his health allowed). He came back to the role full-time in July 1938, but it was a short-lived return. He died in office on September 23, 1938. He was only sixty-three.

The first photo is the front of the building seen from across the street on the Northrup Quad. Again, the building is undergoing some work and hence the scaffolding. You can just see some of the art deco style behind the work. The second photo is the green in front of the building. I took the third photo, which on the front of the structure as well, because I thought the light fixtures were cool. I knew they were not original, but liked them just the same. You can see a photo of what the original light fixtures looked like here in 1940. I have to say that although the new ones are okay, the original ones looked much better. The fourth and fifth photos were taken just inside the main entryway. After passing through this area, you come to the lounge seen in the next six photos. It is a nice area with some of the original look restored. There is a great photo of this lounge area taken in 1940 on the university library page here. The young people in this photo were no older than the students I see daily on campus today, but they certainly appear more mature. The eleventh photo is the union's ballroom. You can see a photo of the ballroom when the building was under construction in 1940 here and it looks pretty much the same.

After I worked my way through Coffman, I exited via a lower-level door on the west side of the building. When I did, I walked headlong into something I did not expect. There was a group of wild turkeys milling about just outside the door. I have seen some interesting wildlife on college campuses, and I don’t just mean at parties and faculty meetings. I have seen all manner squirrels, racoons, armadillos, rabbits, and a number of insects and rodents I would rather forget. But I have never seen wild turkeys and I would not have expected it on the Minnesota campus. Yes, the campus sits by the Mississippi River and there is a stretch of natural landscape between the river and the campus. And yes, it is across the river from downtown. But it is still very much an urban campus. The local light rail system literally bisects the campus. You can see the Minneapolis skyline from campus because it is literally just a few stops away on the light rail. And tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff are on campus every day. Not to mention the thousands of university health system employees, patients, and families who are there daily as well. I would have never thought there would be turkeys. Mind you, I am not complaining. Although surprised by their appearance immediately outside the door to the union, it was really neat to know they roam around the place. In fact, as you will see, I saw loads of those birds all over campus. I won’t add photos of every group I saw, but when I say they were everywhere on campus I mean it. Photos thirteen through sixteen are of just some of the gobblers I saw near the union. There is a large courtyard behind the building that you see in photos seventeen through nineteen. In the front of the building on the west side is something called The Cube seen in the last photo of this set. I am not actually sure what is in it.

The set below begins with two photos of Comstock Hall. Comstock was the first residence hall I came across during my visit to campus. It opened in 1940 and has space to accommodate 553 residents. When it opened, it was for women only. As such, the name is quite appropriate. Ada Comstock was the first Dean of Women at the university. She served in that capacity from 1907 to 1912. Her father was U.S. Congressman Solomon Comstock. She began her undergraduate career at Minnesota in 1892, but transferred to Smith College in Massachusetts from which she graduated in 1897. After completing her undergraduate degree she returned to Minnesota where she took graduate courses at what is now Minnesota State University, Moorhead (then the Moorhead Normal School). She later earned her master’s degree from Columbia University in 1899. She was the de facto interim president of Smith College for a period in 1917, although she was not given the title nor recognized as such. Although a women’s college, Smith had never had a female chief executive at that time and was apparently not open minded enough to recognize her in the role. She was president of the American Association of University Women from 1921 to 1923. She became the president of Radcliffe College in 1923. She stayed in the position until her retirement in 1943. In addition to this Comstock Hall, there is the Ada Louise Comstock Hall at Harvard and Comstock House at Smith named in her honor. In addition to being a dorm, this Comstock also has its own cafeteria. Currently, it is open to first year students only. I imagine the location is ideal in terms of getting to many of the academic buildings on campus and thanks to its close proximity to the Coffman Union. You might even luck out and have a view of the Mississippi River and downtown Minneapolis. The university library has a great photo of the building under construction in 1939 here. You can see a photo of the completed building from January 1, 1940 here. As you can see, bicycle parking has replaced a lot for cars in front of the building. An addition to the building came in the late 1950’s. You can see a photo of construction of the addition on October 21, 1957 here.

The next seven photos are of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum. ​The building was designed by Frank Gehry. Readers may recall that he designed the Information and Computer Science/Engineering Research Facility (ICS/ERF) at the University of California, Irvine. That facility was razed thanks in part to what UCI officials deemed a poor design. The Weisman Museum is a much larger facility, and I imagine a more robust one as well. The museum was completed in 1993. Mr. Weisman grew up in Minneapolis and apparently graduated from Minnesota, although I could not find out when that was. He became a patron of the arts and in addition to this university museum carrying his name, there is Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He also has notoriety in that he once punched singer Frank Sinatra in 1966. Sinatra, Dean Martin, and restaurateur Giuliano Rizzo were in the lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel in the small hours one weekday evening and as they were about to leave, Weisman approached them and accused them of being loudmouths. At least, that's what the newspapers reported at the time; I imagine it was a bit saltier. Weisman then either punched Sinatra or hit him with an ashtray. Sinatra said he maintained his cool and did not strike him back. Dean Martin confirmed the story and noted that a hotel security guard stepped in between the group and Weisman. No one knows for sure what happened next. But as the group left someone struck Weisman and Sinatra and his friends supposedly turned to see him unconscious on the floor. Whether the security guard hit him or Frank did remains unknown. Weisman didn't regain consciousness for several days. He required brain surgery and remained in the Mt. Sinai Hospital in LA for quite a while. Given his reputation, I would not be surprised if Sinatra flattened Weisman and Martin covered for him.

The set below begins with two photos of Robert H. ​Bruininks Hall. The first is a view from across Pleasant Street and the second is in the building's courtyard which faces Washington Avenue. The building is quite large, coming in at 115,000 square feet of space. It was designed by the HGA Architecture firm in conjunction with Kohn Pedersen Fox. Regular readers will recall that HGA designed the Joseph Carlyle and Frederick P. Brooks Computer Science Building portion of Joseph Carlyle Sitterson Hall at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. They have designed buildings for too many colleges and universities to note here. Likewise, Kohn Pedersen Fox has designed buildings for colleges around the globe. The building has a multi-purpose use. It has classrooms and offices and serves as a student support center as well. It is a LEED® Gold Certified building. It is named after Robert Bruininks, the 11th dean of the College of Education and former provost. It was during his tenure in that role that the name of the college changed to the College of Education and Human Development. He became dean in 1991 and left the role when he became the provost in 1997. He was an educational psychologist by training.

The third and fourth photos show Kolthoff Hall. The building is named for Dr. Izaak M. Kolthoff. He came to UMN for a time when he was on faculty at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. He subsequently reached out to see if they had a position for him and when they said yes, he joined the faculty in 1927. Hiring was very different back then! You can get a job in the private sector that way, but hiring an academic is a herculean undertaking. An analytic chemist, he was notable for many things but is popularly remembered for his work with E.J. Meehan on the development of synthetic rubber. You can see a photo of Dr. Kolthoff working in his lab in 1950 here. In this photo, taken in what seems to be the 1960’s judging from the style of his glasses, he is wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “I.M. Kolthoff and You’re Not”. Dr. Kolthoff passed away on March 4, 1993, aged 93.

Just north of Kolthoff is Smith Hall, seen first in the background of the fourth photo and in the remaining photos of this set. Smith was originally called the Chemistry Building. The site work for the building began in 1910. You can see some cool photos of it under construction here, here, here, and here in 1913. It opened while still being completed. The entire fourth floor was still in an unfinished state as was the west wing of the building. The west wing was added beginning, I believe, in 1920. You can see photos of that portion under construction in 1920 here, and in 1921 here and here. It was completed in 1922, shortly after this photo was taken. It was renovated in 1972 and 1987. It is named in honor of Lee Irvin Smith, an organic chemist who was on faculty at the university. He was the first to synthesize Vitamin E in 1939. I love the classical look of the building! The columns are great, and I love the ornate lampposts that adorn either side of the main entrance. I could not help but think that you would not likely see such ornate pieces being installed at a public university these days.

The first three photos of the next set are of Vincent Hall. The building is named after George E. Vincent, UMN’s 3rd president, who served in that role from 1911 until 1917. He was followed by Marion Burton. You can view a wonderful photo of Vincent along with former presidents Folwell and Northrup and then-president Burton together in their regalia here. They are gathered to celebrate the university's fiftieth anniversary on June 18, 1918. I noticed something about their regalia that harkens back to two previous posts. Only President Northrup is wearing his gown closed and judging by the manner in which it is hanging I am led to believe it is pinned. The rest wear theirs open. The photo is taken too far away to say for certain, but there does not appear to be buttons or a zipper to close them. I first commented on faculty regalia in my post on Rhodes College where the statue of Charles Diehl shows the former president of that institution with open regalia as well. I wrote at the time that I found this odd as the American way to wear regalia is closed. These days, we use zippers, but in the past, you could get them with buttons as well. 

Perhaps I was wrong about the statue of Diehl wearing the doctoral gown open in the European fashion. It may have been more common (or perhaps the norm) at the time for American academics to wear their regalia open as well. In reflecting on that, I also note that the UMN presidents in this photo, as well as Rhodes’ president Diehl, wear what I would call true faculty regalia. Doctoral regalia in the U.S. have three chevrons on the sleeve. In the past, presidents of colleges and universities would wear their doctoral regalia – those earned from the institution from which they received their Ph.D. – to graduations and other academic events. Today, many, perhaps most, presidents wear a presidential version of the regalia. It carries neither the president’s alma mater or academic field colors or other attributes associated with their doctoral degree or the university from which they graduated. Instead, they tend to be entirely reflective of the institution with which they are currently affiliated, carrying that institution’s colors and symbols without regard to the academic background of the office holder. They are also different in that they have four chevrons. In some cases, the sleeves are larger as are the chevrons. I will not mention the institution, but I have seen the presidential regalia of one institution a number of times and the size of the sleeves and chevrons are comically large. Personally, I see no need for a different set of regalia for the president of an institution. 

For one, any president worth their weight has no need for a garment to distinguish them. Their actions and character should suffice. I understand that at times that could mean that a sitting president would have a gown for something other than a doctoral degree. There are numerous presidents whose highest degree is a master’s, especially in cases where the school is an arts-oriented institution or when the president came from outside the halls of the academy. But I do not see this as an issue. After all, the person was hired as the leader of the institution based on their skills and accomplishments. The type of gown represents their academic background, not their credibility (which should have been earned).

Second, there are many ways to denote the office without adorning the person in a unique gown. In my post on Murray State University, the statue of former President Rainey T. Wells shows an example of how this can be. Wells’ statue has him in his doctoral regalia – which is closed by the way – as indicated by it having three chevrons. Yet he wears what is referred to as a “chain of office” or a “livery collar”. See here for examples. These were developed in Europe as an indication of a person’s office or fealty. These are akin to a large necklace of sorts. Alternately, some colleges have historically had their presidents wear what is referred to as an “academic collar”.  These tend to be of shorter length and more like a choker than a princess- or matinee-length necklace. Indeed, even in cases where president’s wear the distinct regalia of their office, they tend to still wear the chain.  Of course, a president’s hands can be tied in this as I would imagine there are people who want them to be in such attire.

You can see photos from the capstone setting ceremony in 1937 here and here. The second photo shows what I believe is a time capsule that left in the building, but I could not find out for sure. The building was completed in 1938. I love this picture from 1938 of a math class. Those adding machines are awesome! The same for this photo, also from 1938 with some great typewriters!

All of my photos in this set are of the main entrance to Vincent which is on the building's west façade. The university still has numerous old school kiosks on campus on which people staple signs and notices. I love that! You can see one of several I saw on campus in the third photo of this set. In my day, these were exceptionally common and people would even tape paper signs to the sidewalks on campus. Everyone knew what was going on and these simple message systems could quickly amp up interest. Today, these are mostly gone, replaced by televisions streaming notices complete with high end graphics and logos. However, I find that at my current job at the University of Memphis, few read these notices. I have heard the same from many colleagues across the country. Students and faculty alike pay no attention to these screens and it seems as if things on campus are not as widely known as their were in days past. It's probably due to the fact that everyone's eyes are already glued to their phones.

Photos four through six are of ​John T. Tate Hall. Tate opened as the Physics Building in 1926. It looks like Vincent Hall, or rather the other way around given that Tate is the older of the two. Like Vincent, it has wonderful columns and the same light fixtures out front. It received its current name on June 21, 1966. John Torrence Tate was born in Iowa in 1889. His father was a physician who served a large rural area and who moved around a good bit. His mother passed away when he was ten, and his father sent him to New York city to be raised by family there. He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Nebraska in 1910 and 1912 respectively. He then earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Berlin in 1914. He returned to Nebraska where he served on the faculty until 1916, at which time he moved to Minnesota. Aside from service in World War I in the Army and in the National Defense Research Committee during World War II, he spent the rest of his career at UMN. He passed away in 1950. You cannot tell it from these photos, but Tate underwent a substantial renovation and expansion beginning in 2015. The building us "U" shaped in the back, with the center portion previously having a small section. That portion was razed and new larger section added. Along with renovating the rest of the structure, the project cost $92.5 million (roughly $124 million today, talk about inflation!) and was completed in 2017. The work was the design of the Minneapolis-based architectural firm Alliiance. 

This set closes with two views of Morrill Hall, the long serving administration building on campus. Unlike virtually all other Morrill Halls on campuses across the country, this Morrill has nothing to do with Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862. It takes its name from the university’s 8th president, James L. Morrill. Morrill was previously president of the University of Wyoming from 1942 to 1945. He left Wyoming to take over the presidency at UMN, a role he held until 1960. He had been a vice president at Ohio State prior to his stint at Wyoming where he was part of the team that oversaw the construction of Ohio Stadium. By the time he reached Minnesota, he thought college football had taken on too great of a focus on money. He was against UMN’s joining the Big Ten conference. That was in the late 1940’s! If he could see the state of college football today, I imagine he would have never worked to help get Ohio Stadium built. It was renamed Morrill in 1962. Morrill’s inauguration in 1946 was a grand affair. The band played, the faculty marched in their full regalia, and crowds stood and watched the proceedings. You can see photos of the event here and here. Morrill Hall opened with the name Administration Building. You can see the original name of the structure, the Administration Building, etched into the building above the main entrance. Morrill opened in 1925. You can see photos of the building in various stages of construction here, here, here, and here.

The set below begins with the Northrop Mall and the Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium. The first photo shows the expanse of the Mall looking north toward the auditorium. The general layout of the Mall was developed by Morell & Nichols, Inc. in March 1936. You can see one of their original renderings here. I had noted in my previous post on Wright State that tunnels connected many of the buildings on the central core of that campus. Tunnels exist everywhere, of course, but for many institutions they are not accessible to the public. In places where the weather gets cold, they are actively used as walkways to keep people out of the inclement weather. Being that metro Minneapolis is considerably further north than metro Dayton, it should not be surprising that the UMN campus has a tunnel system open to regular foot traffic. All of the buildings on the Northrup Mall are connected to a tunnel system. Interestingly, however, there are no public tunnels beneath the mall. To traverse the tunnels from Ford to Kolthoff, which sit directly across from one another, you would need to walk the distance in a u-shape via Murphy (not shown here but behind Vincent Hall), Tate, Morrill, the Northrup Auditorium, Johnston, Walter Library, Smith, and finally Kolthoff. I imagine the average Minnesotan might just don a coat and cross outside. I have lived in warmer climates for decades now, and I would likely take the hike around the long tunnel route. Still, you can continue in this system north all the way to Folwell Hall (see below). Many of the buildings to the east of the Mall are connected by above ground enclosed walkways, although there are tunnels in that area as well. Interestingly, the two areas do not directly connect to one another despite being adjacent. I imagine that so few people cross between them thanks to variations in the academic domains they represent that it was not worth the time, money, and effort to make the connection. The health sciences buildings south of Washington Street also have a number of connections via both tunnels and above ground walkways, but they too are disconnected from the other two systems. Collectively, these pedestrian paths are known as Gopher Way. Several histories of the university assert that the initial idea for the above ground walkways came from Athelstan Spillhaus, long serving dean (1949 – 1966) of the then named Institute of Technology (now subsumed in the College of Science and Engineering). Spillhaus had notoriety for his work (he invented the bathythermograph) and was internationally known. He was also reported to have "issues” some of which seem centered on his tendency to be involved in numerous activities not associated with UMN or his dean’s role. Despite a career that in most cases would have led to a university presidency, he was asked to resign due to these shortcomings. Thereafter he referred to UMN as the “great gray mediocrity”. The second and third photos show the front of Northrup, and fourth is the side of the building.

The fifth photo is Johnston Hall. It looks very much the part of a twin to Morrill which it faces. Despite the intentional similarity, the building is a quarter of a century younger. It opened in 1950 and is named after John B. Johnston, a long-serving Minnesota professor and administrator. Johnston taught comparative neurology from 1907 to 1914 at which time he became a dean. He stepped down from his deanship in 1937. The UMN Library has some of the original blueprints for the building available online which you can view here, here, and here.

This set concludes with a photo of the ​Walter Library. It was designed by architect Clarence H. Johnston of the firm C.H. Johnston Architects and Engineers. Construction on the building began in 1922 and it opened in 1924. It cost $1.4 million, or about $26.1 million today, to complete. It is named for Frank Keller Walter, the university's librarian from 1921 until 1943. He passed away in 1945. Here’s a great photo of Walter in the library which bears his name. The student with him is holding a book, The Library of the University of Minnesota. How cool is that? The university has some of the original blueprints for the building available online. You can see the original plan for the first floor here. You can see the building under construction in 1922 here and here, and again in 1923 here. ​It underwent a major restoration over a three-year period beginning in 1999. The building was updated in terms of code compliance, but a good majority of the work went to returning it to the look it had when it was originally completed. 

The first three photos of this set are of ​Scott Hall and some turkeys which were strolling around just outside it. Scott is another building designed by Clarence H. Johnston, Sr. You can see photos of the building under construction in 1921 here and here.

The fourth photo shows ​Elliott Hall which, despite it being fifty-six years old, is a relatively young building compared to its neighbors. Opened in 1968, the building is named in honor of Richard M. Elliott. You can see a photo of him speaking at the dedication of the building here. Another photo has him standing with UMN President Michael Moos (see below for more info on him) on the left and John G. Darley on the right. Darley was chair of the Department of Psychology at the time and played an important role in getting the building constructed. The sculpture you see in the fifth photo stands on the green nearby.

The last photo of this set is ​Eddy Hall. Eddy was the first of a number of buildings constructed during the presidency of Cyrus Northrup, UMN’s second president. It was completed in 1886 and was originally called the Mechanical Arts Building. You can see a photo of it from 1906 here. ​It is named in honor of Henry T. Eddy. Eddy joined the UMN faculty in 1894. A well-respected mathematician and engineer, Eddy would go on to chair the Department of Mathematics and then to be Dean of the Graduate School. It was renamed in his honor in 1911. ​The building was designed by local architect LeRoy S. Buffington, and is the first of four buildings he created for the university. The Queen Anne style building is brick with red sandstone trim. Eddy is the oldest extant building on the campus. It cost $30,000 to originally construct (about $970,000 today). An annex was added in 1903 but was later demolished. By the 2010’s the building was in desperate need of renovation. The top floor had to be closed due to decay in the structural components and other issues abounded. The university sought funding to repair the building and bring it up to code twice, but the state refused to fund the effort. The building closed in 2011 because of these issues and has never reopened.

The set below begins with four photos of Burton Hall. It is named for UMN president Marion L. Burton. You can see one of his official portraits from 1919 here. Burton opened as the university’s library in 1894. Prior to its completion, UMN’s library collection was housed in Old Main which was located adjacent to Burton’s current spot. The building was originally in two styles, but you would not know it from the outside. The building is a beautiful example of neo-classical architecture on the outside. The design was the work of architect Leroy Buffington. The original interior was Victorian courtesy of the work of architect Charles Sedgwick. It’s hard to imagine it, but it only cost $175,000, or only about $6 million to build. There is no way you could get anything in the neighborhood of a building like that today for only $6 million! It remained the university’s library until 1924 when the collection moved to the Walter Library. It received the Burton name in 1931. It has been used by the College of Education and Human Development since 1952. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The statue seen in the fifth and sixth photos is of Minnesota Governor and supporter of the university John S. Pillsbury. It was dedicated on September 12, 1900. It was created by artist Daniel Chetser French. He is the artist behind the Minute Man statue that graced all sorts of things during the nation’s bicentennial and the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Returning readers of this blog may recall that he designed the Spirit of Life stature that stands in Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

​The set concludes with four photos of Shevlin Hall. ​It opened in 1906 and was designed by architect Ernest Kennedy. It was designed to be a center for women on campus, and as such was the first building dedicated to women at UMN. Lumber baron Thomas H. Shevlin donated the $60,000 (about $2.1 million in 2024 value) necessary to complete the building and had it named in honor of his wife Alice. Shevlin had a lumber business that stretched from Minnesota to Oregon in the west and Canada to the north. The community of Shevlin, Minnesota is named for him. His son Thomas L. Shevlin would be an All-American football player at Yale and despite being a millionaire who took over the family business would help coach the Golden Gophers football team.

As you can see from the plaque in the last photo, it was built on the site of the former Old Main, the first building on the campus, which burned down in 1904. This photo from 1908 shows little has changed with regard to the building’s outward appearance over the last 116 years. A sign on the building, a window air conditioner, security bars on the lower window and the change of the handrail from one side of the walkway to the other are the only differences I can see between my snapshot and the photo from 1908. Shevlin would remain the women’s union until Coffman opened. 

The stone you see in the last photo (you can see it in the seventh photo as well), is a commemoration of the site of Old Main, the first building constructed on the campus. It stood in this location until it was razed by a fire in 1904. 

The next set opens with two photos of the front of Pattee Hall. It opened as the home for the School of Law (then the Law Department) in 1889. It was the law school’s home until 1928 by which time it had outgrown the building. Named for William S. Pattee, former Dean of the School of Law. You can see an undated photo of him here. Pattee was the first dean of the school and when he arrived it was a small unit located in the basement of Old Main Hall. Under his leadership, it grew from a small department into a large and highly regarded college. What you see here is both the original portion of the building, completed in 1889 and an addition completed in 1904. The original cost $30,000 to complete, which is an amount roughly equal to $1 million in today’s dollars. The building comes in at about 38,000 square feet of space. It was apparently first called the Law Building, and then Old Law when school outgrew the space and relocated to Fraser Hall (not covered in this post). It was officially renamed in honor of Pattee by the UMN Board on March 11, 1931. The law school would finally move to Mondale Hall (also not covered in this post) where it remains today. 

The medallions you see on either side of the entrance way once had writing reflecting the building’s use as the home of the law school. As viewed from this perspective, the medallion on the left had the phrase “Lex et Aquitas” ("Law and Justice" in Latin). The medallion on the right had the scales of justice (see here). It is the third oldest building on campus. Most sources indicate that architect J. Walter Stevens  designed Pattee, although one source I found said the principal architect was Clarence H. Johnston of the firm C.H. Johnston Architects and Engineers.

The third photo in this set is ​Peik Hall. I believe this was named for Wesley E. Peik, former dean of the college of education. He became dean in 1938 and died in 1951 while still holding the position. The building was dedicated on March 31, 1953. You can listen to a recording of the event here. You can see photos of the building at various stages of construction here, here, here, and here. There is a large green in front of Peik, part of which can be seen in the last photo of this set. It is the same green in which the statue of Governor Pillsbury stands as seen above.

The first two photos below are of the 216 Pillsbury Drive Building. When I first saw the sign noting the name of this building, I was left confused. It was the first of two buildings on campus known by their street address (see the 10 Church Street Building below for the other). It would not be terribly unusual for a collegiate building to have a street address for name during its construction or perhaps immediately after it was completed. But before I knew anything about 216 Pillsbury, I could see that it was far too old for that to be the case. The building opened in 1890, the work of architect Leroy Buffington and draftsman Harvey Ellis. It was called the Chemical Laboratory Building when it opened. It cost $81,500, or about $2.7 million in 2024 value to complete. It housed chemistry for over thirty years until the department relocated in 1913. In 1914, it became the home to the Minnesota Union, a male student club that was formed in 1908 and the analogous group to the women’s union housed in Shelvin. They would move to Coffman upon its completion as well. An auditorium was added to the back of the building in 1927. It was renamed Nicholson Hall in honor of long-serving professor and the first Dean of Student Affairs Edward E. Nicholson in 1945. So, what happened to the Nicholson name? Apparently, Dr. Nicholson was keen on keeping tabs on select students including African Americans, students who Jewish, and those suspected of being communist. He also had written things deemed anti-Semitic. Calls for removing his name came in 2017 but were initially overruled by the university. However, mere weeks before my arrival on campus, the administration caved to pressure in June of this year and decided to remove the name. I imagine the current name is a placeholder and that a different name will eventually be given to the building.

The last five photos of this set are of Jones Hall. The building takes its name from Frederick S. Jones, a man of many hats during his time at the university. Jones was a professor of physics at UMN and rose to be Dean of then-named College of Engineering and Mechanical from 1902 to 1909. He was also the second head coach of the football team for three seasons from 1886 to 1888. Despite having coached only six games and finishing with a break even record of 3-3, so influential was his time in that role that he is still referred to as the “father of Minnesota football”. He hired his replacement, Henry L. Williams who was the first full-time coach for the university. He left his deanship to be dean at Yale University, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1927. It was called the Physical Laboratory when it first opened in 1902. Some sources say the name was changed to the Physics Building sometime before 1920 and this seems to be the case because maps of that era have that name listed for the building. Since not all sources use the name, I am uncertain if that was an official name or simply the commonly used name. Physics moved out of the building in 1927 and relocated to John T. Tate Hall as noted above. From 1927 to 1931 it was called Old Physics. The UMN Board officially changed the name to Jones on March 11, 1931. 

Jones was designed by Charles R. Aldrich and cost $55,600 to build (which is worth just over $2 million today). Jones had been hired by Cyrus Northrup before the latter arrived on campus to take the helm of the university as its second president. Jones was a student of Northrup and in casual conversation Northrup asked him to take a position at UMN. He didn’t have anything in mind for him to teach, but he knew Jones and wanted someone he could trust to join him for work in the midwest. You can see a cool photo of Jones with the Armory in the distance prior to Folwell Hall’s construction here.

I just love the building! It is simply remarkable and a stand out on campus in my mind. The fountain you see in photos four through six is the Dorr Fountain, erected in 1902 and the gift of Caleb D. Dorr. The fountain is no longer in use. When active, water poured from the bronze spigots into the cups surrounding the granite column. Architect Ernest J. Kennedy, a UMN alumnus (Class of 1888) designed the fountain.

The next set begins with ten photos of ​Folwell Hall. It is another magnificent structure that I really like. Work on Folwell began in 1905 and was completed in 1907. It was the official replacement for Old Main which had been destroyed by fire. It was designed by Clarence H. Johnston. It is a large, ornate structure that came with a hefty price in its day. The building cost $415,000 to construct, which is just over $14.8 million in 2024 value. This made it the most expensive buildings to have appeared on the UMN campus at that time. The building is named in honor of the university’s first president, William Watts Folwell who served in that role from 1869 until 1884. You can see a photo of the building under construction in 1906 here. I didn’t get a photo of the building’s dedicatory plaque, but you can see it from in picture taken in 1929 here. It underwent an extensive renovation from 2008 to 2011. The sculpture you see in front of Folwell is called David. Completed in 2013 by artist Sir Anthony “Tony” Cragg. Sir Anthony was born in Liverpool in 1949 and currently resides in Germany. The piece is cast bronze and stands nine feet tall.

Next door to Folwell is Williamson Hall, seen in photos ten through thirteen. As you can see, a good deal of the building is below grade. I am not a huge fan of the building. Its location beside Jones and Folwell does not help. Folwell is an incredibly beautiful building. It has withstood the test of time. Jones, which looks nothing like Folwell is also an incredible structure and it too has aged with grace. Williamson might do the same, but it looks so out of place beside Folwell and Jones. The rough-hewn concrete looks like the frame of a building without its cladding. It would look better on a different site. It opened in either 1977 or 1978 (numerous documents cite one or the other date so I am not sure which is accurate). I believe the flowers seen in photos eleven and twelve are are black-eyed Susans. Despite their glory, they do little to brighten the appearance of Williamson. The bricked-in area you see here with the flowers was added sometime after the building opened, but I was not able to determine when that occurred. As you can see in this photo from 1978, the area where the planter now sits was the location of bike racks. You can see a photo of how the interior looked in 1979 here. It was designed by architect David J. Bennett who has designed several underground structures including the Civil Engineering Building on campus (see below).

The piece of art you see in the fourteenth photo is the ​Rokker 5 Sculpture with Jones Hall in the background. The piece was completed by Stewart “Stu” Luckman. A native of Massachusetts, Luckman lived abroad as a child thanks to his parents being missionaries. He graduated high school in New York and came to Minnesota to get his undergraduate degree from Bethel University in St. Paul. He would also graduate with a baccalaureate degree from St. Paul’s Macalester College. He then moved to Seattle and taught school for a time. He would return to Minnesota where he completed a master’s degree in fine arts in sculpture at UMN and a Master of Arts degree. I was unable to find when he graduated from UMN nor what his major was in his MA program. He returned to Bethel to join the faculty. He retired from Bethel in 1998 and passed away in 2020 aged eighty-two. The piece was commissioned as part of the UMN Alumni Association’s 75th Anniversary celebration in 1981. You can see him at work on the piece in a short article here. The piece is made of stainless steel. Another of his works stands on the campus of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and two of his pieces are at Bethel in St. Paul.

The next set begins with five photos of the Nolte Center. Originally called the Adult Education Building, Nolte opened in either 1937 or 1938 (I have read both dates for its opening). You can view some cool photos of Nolte under construction in 1936 here, here, and here. The name comes in honor of Julius Nolte who was Dean of the General Extension Division beginning in 1944. Nolte was an attorney by training but was adept at developing and implementing all manner of outreach and continuing education activities. During his time in the role, the number and types of training and community outreach services grew tremendously. It was officially renamed in Nolte on November 14, 1965. The campus public radio station, KUOM, broadcast the event and you can listen to the entire thing here.

The last three photos of this set are of the ​10 Church Street Building. When I first saw the building, I was not sure if it was part of the university or not, but I loved the look of the place and was going to take a photo either way. It opened in 1940 as the Minnesota Museum of Natural History. I thought the relief above the doorway was a buffalo, but because the ivy was dense it was difficult to make out much. In this photo, from 1945, you can clearly see the buffalo and the inscription. You can watch a video on the history of the museum here. Although interesting, it is a bit long, coming in at over an hour and twenty minutes. The building is the former home of the UMN James Ford Bell Museum, which moved to its own new structure in 2018. You can see Mr. Bell in a photo from 1953 here.

The next set of photos are all of Pillsbury Hall. The building was completed in 1889 and has had many occupants over the years. It was initially called Science Hall, and as you can guess it was home to those units. Currently, it is the home to the Department of English and the Creative Writing program. Pillsbury is the work of Leroy Buffington and Harvey Ellis, the Minneapolis-based architect and draftsman team. The construction of the building did not go as planned to say the least. The state provided the university with $100,000 for the creation of a new structure to be called Science Hall. Sometime during construction, the building caught fire. It would seem it was rather far along, because the university indicated the need for an additional $150,000 to clear the debris and rebuild. The state balked at the price. But then Minnesota Governor John S. Pillsbury came to the rescue. He personally gave $131,000 (about $4.3 million in today’s value) to complete the building. Some sources say he gave $150,000. Either way, he paid for the building out of his own pocket and the university named the building in his honor. The building has some 62,000 square feet of space.  

The building underwent a massive renovation project taking two years to complete and was a thoroughly modern structure on the inside when it reopened in 2021. The Minnesota-based firm Architecture Advantage did the design work, and I am thoroughly disappointed that I was not able to go inside to have a look. You can see some wonderful photos of the gorgeous interior on their website here. You can also read an article on the building by architect Thomas Fisher on the “enter” website here. If you have a keen eye, you will note that the handrails on the stairs in my photo are not the same color as those in Fisher’s article. His piece appeared not quite three years ago, so either they have been painted, which I assume is the case, or the photo is older than the date of his article. They appear to be the same gold as in the university’s logo in his piece.

I just love the detail on this building. The stonework is great, and the adornments really add to its presence. The archway and the lion motif beside it are just incredible. It is another building that would likely never be completed on a public campus today. Private universities may have that kind of money, but most public schools simply could not afford such a grand building these days.

The set below is of the UMN Armory building. The home to military training on campus, the Armory replaced the former Coliseum building on campus which burned down in 1894. The Armory was completed in 1896 and has been in use since. It was designed by architect Charles R. Aldrich who was on the UMN faculty. In addition to being the home of military instruction and drill, the Armory was a long serving gym and events venue for the university. The football team played in a stadium near the Armory, long since razed Northrop Field, and the Armory was used for the locker rooms for both the Golden Gophers and visiting teams. It was there where one of the longest and most notable traditions in college football began. In 1903, the Gophers were having quite the season. They would eventually go 14-0-1, with the tie being against the rival Michigan Wolverines. The Gophers had been blowing out teams all season. Indeed, they shut out most opponents that year and obliterated the Macalester College squad 112 to nothing! But the Michigan game was different. Both teams played well, and it was a defensive battle resulting in a 6 to 6 tie in what was Minnesota’s eleventh game of the season on October 31st. After the game, it was realized that the Michigan team left their water bottle in their locker room. To get it back, Michigan would have to win the next game, a tradition that began six years later in 1909. Hence, the Little Brown Jug competition was born. At the conclusion of the last season, Michigan has dominated the series, winning 73 of 98 games (with two ties) in the Little Brown Jug era and 78 of 106 six games (with three ties) overall. Interestingly, the jug was never brown. Michigan student manager Thomas B. Roberts bought an earthen ware (clay) gray or putty colored gallon jug from a store in the Dinkytown neighborhood by campus for the game. The name apparently comes from a song from that era. 

The sign was apparently knocked down sometime recently since as you can see, I took the seventh photo of it laying in the grass. The next three photos are of the Students Soldiers Memorial Monument. It was erected in 1906 in honor of the UMN students who served in the Spanish-American War. It once stood across the street in a green space which had previously served as a drill field. I am not sure when it was relocated to its present location. You can see it in its former location here. Professor Arthur Edwin Haynes came up with the idea of creating the  monument. It is the work of artist Theodora “Theo” A.R. Kitson. The statue is also known as The Hiker, the name soldiers of that war gave themselves. It is the first of multiple castings of the work. There are at least 52 additional castings which stand around the country. There are some slight variations in their appearance. Notably, in some cases the rifle has a sling. There is a casting here in Memphis about three miles from my office on the UofM campus.

The top of the building you see in the background of the first photo below is the Shepherd Laboratories Building. It opened in 1966 and was called the Space Science Center. It carried that name until 1980 when it received its current moniker. You might think a building which had been named Space Science and is now known as Shepherd is named for astronaut Alan Shepherd, the first American in space. At least that is what I thought. The building is actually named for William G. “Gerry” Shepherd, an UMN alumnus (Class of 1933, and Class of 1937) and former Minnesota faculty and administrator. Shepherd was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada in 1911 and moved to the U.S. as a child. He received his undergraduate degree in engineering and his Ph.D. in Physics. Upon graduating with his doctorate, Shepherd went to work for Bell Labs where he worked on the capability of radar systems. While there, he and John Pierce invented the Pierce-Shepherd vacuum tube, which had among other properties an enhanced resistance to shock. He returned to UMN to join the faculty in 1947. He would chair the Department of Electrical Engineering from 1956 to 1963, and later as Vice President of Academic Affairs. He would also be Director of the Space Science Center until his retirement.  You can just see a building on the right in this photo, and that is Ralph Rapson Hall. It is home to Minnesota's architecture program. Oddly enough, schools of architecture are often in some of the ugliest and most disliked buildings on campus. Apparently, as this article from the Minnesota Daily reports, this opinion is held by many with regard to Rapson. The building's namesake was Dean of the School of Architecture from 1954 to 1984. 

​The structure in the second and third photos of this set is the Civil Engineering Building. The building is largely underground. Indeed, it goes some 110 feet below grade. The floors are numbered in reverse; the top floor is the first, the bottom is the 7th. It was completed in 1983 and was dedicated on October 12th that year. When it opened it was called the Civil and Mineral Engineering Building. It was also designed by architect David J. Bennett.

The last two photos are of the ​Physics and Nano-technology Building. Construction on the building began in November 2011 and it was completed in the fall of 2013. Construction of the 143,951 square foot facility cost $70.7 million, or about $98.6 million today. It was designed by the Alliiance architecture firm in conjunction with ZGF it is a LEED© Certified Silver building.

The set below begins with five photos of Cooke Hall. Work on Cooke began in 1934 and I believe it was completed in either 1935 or 1936. It is named in honor of Louis J. "Doc" Cooke who began his career at Minnesota in 1897. A physician by training, Cooke was hired as the Director of the Department of Physical Culture for Men. He was the men's head basketball coach from 1897 to 1924 and the men's gymnastics coach from 1903 to 1907. He was the first head basketball coach at the university. His teams won the 1902 , 1903, and 1919 national titles. The team was undefeated during the 1902 and 1919 seasons. Over his more than a quarter of a century at the helm of the team, the Gophers had amassed a record of 250 wins, 135 losses, and two ties. They also accumulated five Big Ten Conference Championships. It was the athletics building when it opened. The first photo shows the west side of the building. The university's football field once stood in this area. You can see a photo from the 1930's from the Hennepin County Library here which shows the field as well as the scoreboard that once stood atop the building. The Golden Gopher statue, carved out of a single piece of wood by chainsaw, stands on the south side of the building. It faces the flagpole seen in the fourth and fifth photos which commemorates the former football stadium. 

Just to the east of Cooke is the ​University Recreation and Wellness Center, seen here in the sixth photo. The portion you see here opened in 1993. Not shown is the south side of the building which is an addition completed in 2013. 

The last photo of this set is the Jean K. Freeman Aquatics Center. The center opened in 1990 and has 73,000 square feet of space. The swimming and diving facility can accommodate 1,350 spectators. It cost $11 million, or about $28.2 million in 2024, to construct. Freeman was a member of the university’s swim team and graduated as part of the Class of 1973. She stayed at the university becoming head coach of the women’s swim team that fall and kept the position for thirty-one years until her retirement in 2004. During her time as head coach, Minnesota won the Big-10 Championship in 1999 and 2000, and also placed in the NCAA Championship for twenty straight years starting in 1983. She passed away in 2010. The university renamed the aquatics center in her honor on December 6, 2014.

The next set is of Scholars Walk, which stretches from the Physics and Nanotechnology Building east to the McNamara Alumni Center (see below). I was surprised and very impressed by Scholars Walk for what it represents. It is an homage to the faculty at the university and their scientific, artistic, and scholarly achievements. ​All too often on college campuses the names of streets, buildings, and other things on campus have nothing to do with the academic mission – the primary mission – of the college or university. This is not always the case, of course, and readers of this blog will recall how I was greatly surprised and pleased with just how many buildings on the campus of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill were named for faculty. Understandably, buildings will be named for college presidents and alumni (particularly alumni who donate funds). Frequently, buildings are named for politicians. As I noted in my post on the University of Memphis, our library is named for a governor who was not at all supportive of higher education in the state. State funding for buildings often comes with the unspoken requirement for the building to carry the name of someone in government. In the 1990’s, my alma Tennessee took to naming as many streets as they could for coaches and football and women’s basketball players. Such is life. As an academic, it is always refreshing to see things named for students who excelled, or in this case, faculty who have achieved notable success.

The next set gives various views of the ​McNamara Alumni Center which opened in February 2000. The building has 231,000 square feet of space and is named for alumnus Richard "Pinky" McNamara (Class of 1956) who donated $2 million to aid in the construction of the building. It cost $45 million, or about $86.6 million in today's money, to construct. It was designed by Albuquerque, New Mexico-based architect Antoine Predock. He has also designed buildings at Cal Poly Pomona, Eastern Illinois University, Ohio State University, Skidmore College, Stanford, the University of Arizona, the University of California Davis, the University of California San Diego, the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Wyoming. It is an interesting building to say the least. I do like the use of the fountains and pools.

The set below shows two views of the Williams Arena and Maturi Pavilion. Work on Williams began in 1927 and it was completed the following year. It was designed by architect Clarence H. Johnston, Sr., of the firm C.H. Johnston Architects and Engineers and tt opened as the University of Minnesota Field House. At the time, it had seating for 14,100 spectators. It cost $650,000 to construct which is only about $11.7 million today. It underwent a significant remodeling in 1950 at which time it was divided into a basketball arena on one end and an ice hockey arena on the other. After the work was completed, the basketball side of the building was renamed in honor of Henry L. Williams, who was the university’s football coach from 1900 to 1928. During his time at Minnesota, the team won the Big Ten title eight times and the national title once. His record as coach was 136-33-11, an impressive .786 winning percentage. The other side received its name in honor of Maturi Pavilion in August 2017 in honor of former athletics director Joel Maturi. After the renovation, the arena could seat 18,025, making it the largest on campus basketball facility from 1950 until 1971. Recent renovations have reduced the capacity to 14,625. The pavilion side would be renamed in 2017 for former UMN Athletics Director Joel Maturi. It is currently the home to the volleyball program and is also used by the gymnastics program. You can see an architectural rendering of the building here, as well as the original seating layout here.

In the background of the second photo is the 3M Arena at Mariucci. When I was looking into visiting the university, I first thought that the 3M Arena was the latest home to the basketball program, but that is not the case. The arena is the purpose-built home to the university's ice hockey team. It opened in 1993 and currently has the capacity to accommodate 10,257 fans. Hockey is a big thing for schools in parts of the country. So much so that the program has something I would have never thought of as a guy who's entire collegiate experiences were in the southeast and southwest - cheerleaders on skates! Minnesota has quite the reputation in collegiate hockey. They have won the national title five times, most recently in back to back championships in 2002 and 2003. It is named after former Minnesota player and coach John Mariucci. Mariucci played both hockey and football, and played professionally before returning to the university to be the head coach. His teams won the Big Ten title four times. Overall, his squads went 197-140-18, for an overall winning percentage of .580.

The photos in the next set are all of Huntington Bank Stadium, home to the UMN Golden Gophers football team. As college football stadiums go, Huntington Bank Stadium is very young. Groundbreaking for the stadium was held on September 30, 2006, and it was completed a little less than three years later. It officially opened on September 12, 2009. Construction costs came in at a whopping $303,386,606. That is almost $474 million in 2024 value. To put that into perspective, my last post was on Western Kentucky University. In 2006, their entire operating budget was $293,754,000. That is $9,632,606 less than the price of Huntington Bank Stadium. Obviously, the stadium would be paid off over the course of decades and the Minnesota football program makes loads of money, but that is still a staggering figure and the fact that is more than the entire operating budget of a university the size of WKU is sobering. The stadium officially seats 50,805, but several games have exceeded this number. The largest crowd to date was on September 13, 2015, when the Golden Gophers hosted the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs. TCU came into that game ranked #2 in the nation, and 54,147 spectators watched them defeat the Gophers 23 to 17. 

It has a classic look but comes with many features more along the lines of an NFL stadium than a college playing field. Nearly half of the general seating is equipped with permanent chairbacks, there are 1,250 outdoor club seats and 250 indoor club seats, and there are 37 private suites and 57 loge boxes in the stadium. The stadium also has a 20,000 square foot club room. The locker rooms are incredible, and the stadium has a system of 38 miles of pipes beneath the turf through which heated glycol flows to keep the field from freezing.  

I was standing by the street when I took the second photo. A police officer was stopped at the light and after I snapped the photo he said “pretty nice, huh?”. I agreed and he remarked that I should come back on a game day. I imagine he’s right and I would love to be able to 

The next set is of a collection of dorms on the east side of campus. First up is Territorial Hall. The building opened in 1958, just before the Baby Boomers started arriving on campus. Expanded in 1999, the four-story building can accommodate up to 695 residents. Currently, only first year students live there. Across from Territorial to the south is Frontier Hall, seen in the second photo. It opened in 1959 and has space for up to 735 residents. You can see photos of it under construction in 1958 here and here. It was designed by the architecture firm Setter, Leach, and Lindstrom.

The third photo shows two parts of Pioneer Hall. It is a large complex of a building which can accommodate 756 residents. It is both a residence hall and a cafeteria. It was built in stages beginning in in 1928. You can see it in various stages of construction here, here, and here. After soldiering on for more than half a century, the building was showing significant signs of wear and tear. On top of that, it was no longer in code compliance. It did not have a modern fire protection system, it was not accessible, and needed significant upgrades throughout. The university had debated renovating it or demolishing it for several years. In the end, a decision was made to completely renovate it beginning in October, 2017. The work also added additional space to the building including a new lobby and study areas. The building now has some 257,000 square feet of space. The work cost $82.5 million to complete. You can see it in its pre-renovation state in 1988 on the Hennepin County Library website here. My photos are on the north side of the Pioneer complex, and the one from 1988 is on the south side at the intersection of Fulton Street and East River Parkway. That side of the building looks very different today. The tall brick building in the background of that photo is the University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview.​

The final photo of this set shows some university bikes in front of ​Centennial Hall. Centennial is the oldest of the dorms in this area, having opened in 1950. It is a six-story structure that can accommodate 700 residents. 

The set below begins with a photo of the Health Sciences Education Center which opened in 2020. The 202,000 square foot building was designed by Perkins+Will in collaboration with the architectural firm SLAM Collaborative. Like Perkins+Will, SLAM has designed academic buildings at dozens of colleges and universities including the University of Houston, the University of California, Irvine, Rutgers, Duke, and Emory University. Among its many collegiate designs, SLAM was the firm behind Roper Hall which recently opened at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The building has classrooms, simulation rooms, labs, offices, and other spaces. The sculpture of the two human heads you see in front of the building is a piece called Dialog by artist Barbara Grygutis, a Tucson, Arizona based artist. The piece is made of aluminum and has lighting on the interior of the faces. Each head is twenty feet high and two feet thick and was installed in 2020. The sculpture is mean to represent the need for caregivers and patients to communicate with one another. She has another piece with two human heads called Conversation which looks similar and has a very similar theme and shape. It is installed on the All Abilities Imagine Playground in Dublin, California. She has other pieces on display on the campuses of Ohio State University, the St. Paul Technical College Campus, the University of Arizona, the University of Northern Colorado, and near Jones Stadium at Texas Tech. Dialog reminds me of part of the sculpture El Intercambio by artist Larry Kirkland which is installed in the courtyard of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine Building at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center El Paso (see here for more information; you will have to scroll through the images to get the silhouettes in that piece).

The second and third photos of this set shows Diehl Hall. Diehl opened in 1959 and is the work of the architecture firm Ellerbe Associates. The building was named in honor of Harold S. Diehl, Dean of the College of Medical Sciences. He took the position in 1935. The medical school maintained a library in Diehl which was relocated to the Health Sciences Education Center upon its opening. You can see a photo of Dr. Diehl and the UMN President Morrill at the building’s dedication in 1959 here. The building behind Diehl in the third photo is the Health Sciences Education Center and the bit you see on the left is the Phillips Wangensteen Building. 

The fourth photo is the main entrance to the Phillips Wangensteen Building. It is part of several connected buildings all of the Brutalist style and which look like one giant structure. Each tower, or separate building, had a working title of Health Science Unit A, B, C, etc. Phillips Wangensteen was Health Science Unit B. The building, along with the others in the series, were the design of the Architects Collaborative in conjunction with Cerny and Associates, HGA, and Setter Leach and Lindstrom. Funding for the building came first from a donation from Jay Phillips, a member of the UMN Foundation Board of Trustees. He donated funds in 1967 which got the ball rolling on the structure. It would be a good while before sufficient funds were acquired to make the building a reality, however, as it was not completed until 1976. Obviously, part of the building's name is for Mr. Phillips. The Wangensteen portion of the name is honor of Dr. Owen Wangensteen, a long serving member of the School of Medicine faculty and  chief of surgery at the university hospital. The fifth photo shows the building again where it connects to the Malcolm Moos Health Sciences Tower. 

The sixth photo is of the entrance to Moos. Malcolm Moos was the 10th president of the university. He was both the first Minnesotan and first alumnus to hold the presidential office. Born in St. Paul in 1916, Moos completed his baccalaureate in Political Science at the university in 1936. Construction of the building began in 1971 and was completed in 1974. The building is massive. The scale of the building so overshadows the area as to make it stick out like a bad tooth. It is nineteen stories in height, and thus hard to avoid. From 2006 to 2008, Todd Melby, author, reporter, radio host and producer, podcaster, and architecture enthusiast ran a blog called “Building Minnesota” in which he wrote a post on Moos on July 16, 2007. You can read the post here. I take it that he is not a fan of this concrete Brutalist edifice as he described it as “the kind of place the East German Stasis would have loved to call home”. I was thinking it looked like a Soviet-Bloc building but when I read that I nearly spit Dr. Pepper on my monitor in a fit of laughter. Moos could indeed serve as a stand-in for any Cold War era communist building, although it might be too big to be fully accurate in such a depiction. I have mentioned in this blog on several occasions that architecture from the period has grown on me. As a young man I hated most of it. Moos is interesting to me as a great example of big, bland, boring Brutalism but I can’t say I find it attractive. I know many people who not only appreciate Brutalism but who also love it, and I know I will catch some flak for putting my sentiments in writing but that’s my take it on. It was designed with the working name Health Sciences Unit A. You can see a photo of the original architectural model here and a photo of it under construction here.

​The set concludes with two views of ​Weaver-Densford Hall. The building is directly connected to Moos and sits on the southwest corner of Washington Avenue and Harvard Street. Construction on the building began in 1977 and was completed in 1981. It opened with the name Health Sciences Unit F. In 1997, it was named in honor of Larry Weaver, Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Katherine Densford, Director of Nursing. It was originally Health Sciences Unit F. You can see a photo of the preparations for the groundbreaking in 1977 here and a photo of it under construction here. 

As is frequently the case, I will close this entry with photos of the university's versions of the ever-present lamppost sign. I came across two types of lamppost signs on campus, both of which can be seen in the photos in this set. The one in the first photo is by far the most common. I came across these in many places on and around campus. The interesting thing about Minnesota's lamppost signs is their shape. Although the signs I have seen and posted about in this blog vary in terms of width and length, they are overwhelmingly rectangular. UMN's shape with its diagonal bottom is rather unique.

Given that it was early on a Saturday morning and in the summer, it was not too surprising that few people were on campus during my visit. But it was much quieter than I expected for such a large institution. I saw only a handful of people, and most of those were around the university’s Boynton Hospital. I would like to come back during the school year and get the feel of the place with students around.