ktravula – a travelogue!

At the Washington University in St. Louis

America has its treasures. One of them is a series of campus buildings of picture perfect quality. Actually, for a long while, the only images I had in my head of Universities were those of high rise walls and columns with a facade reminiscent of a prison or a palace. The closest to that I’ve seen so far would be Howard University with its beautiful structures, courtyards and decorated trees. And then, there was Principia College in Alton, overlooking the Mississippi river. The rest were Hollywood supplied: Mona Lisa Smile, Finding Forrester, The Scent of a Woman, and The Dead Poets Society, and a few other movies showing Ivy League campus environments.

And then I encountered the Washington University in St. Louis*, by chance I must say, during an idle moment of driving through the town. After an hour of walking through its walls and taking in the sights, I began to wonder how people who go there manage to concentrate on classwork in the sight of such beauty and serenity. I would never know, but I would keep wondering whether too much beauty is sometimes an unpardonable evil.

(*Initially mistakenly referred to as St. Louis University, the pictured structure is actually from Washington University in St. Louis. Thanks to Gerry Everding for the correction).

At the Washington University in St. Louis was published on October 25th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , under the Art, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Howard University

IMG_3786IMG_3782IMG_3777IMG_3783IMG_3779IMG_3778This one looks like a shrineIMG_3788IMG_3801IMG_3780IMG_3797IMG_3787IMG_3789IMG_3800IMG_3790IMG_3796I spent the beginning of Sunday on a foot and drive-through sight-seeing tour of the famous Howard University in Washington DC and its major famous spots. The trip was made possible thanks to a Nigerian friend and a student of the University, who drove all the way to pick me up and give me a tour even in the freezing rain.

The buildings in these photos include the iconic Founder’s Hall, the school gate, the school yard with all the fraternity trees and signs, the Arts and Science building, the medical sciences building, the “Founder’s Walk” area and the Howard Place, a building named after the General Oliver Otis Howard who the University itself was named after. He was an American civil war hero who also became the University’s first president.

The University was founded in the year 1866 as a theological seminary for African-American clergymen, but quickly expanded into a full-fledged University. One of its notable Alumni is Edward Brooke, the first African-American to be elected into the US Senate.

Howard University was published on December 15th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the Academic, adventures, Art, Observations, Travelling category. There are currently 7 comments on this article so far.

To Principia

Today, I went to the Principia College, Elsah Illinois with a two professors from SIUe and another international student from here. Retired Professor Wilson had been invited to give a talk on diversity to a few students in the University, and it turned out to be a nice experience. The campus of the College (called University in Nigeria) is located at a site off the river road and overlooking the great Mississippi River. No words can describe the grandeur of the river as seen from the road while driving. I’m much convinced that it would look and feel so much better while on a bicycle. According to Prof Wilson, Mark Twain the writer used to come over to the river to get inspiration. Oh well.
The journey to Principia took a little over thirty minutes from the SIUe campus, and we had to pass through a few small towns including Alton and Elsah, each with a repertoire of historical information, especially about the Native Americans that made the area their habitation for many years before their forceful dispersal. Alton has the famous Clark Bridge, and there is a famous painting of a prehistoric piasa bird on the face of the cliff also overlooking the Mississippi river. According to Wikipedia, Alton has “its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, and brick commercial buildings”, and it counts among its famous former residents Miles Davies, the legendary trumpeter/musician, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who was murdered in 1937 for his role in anti-slavery movements (and after whom the Library at SIUe is named), and James Earl Ray, the murderer of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr.

IMG_0447Today, I went to the Principia College, Elsah Illinois with two professors from SIUe and another international student from here. Retired Professor Wilson had been invited to give a talk on diversity to a few students in the University, and it turned out to be a nice experience. The campus of the College (called University in Nigeria) is located at a site off the river road and overlooking the great Mississippi River. No words can describe the grandeur of the river as seen from the road while driving. I’m much convinced that it would look and feel so much better while on a bicycle. According to Prof Wilson, Mark Twain the writer used to come over to the river to get inspiration. Oh well.

IMG_0445The journey to Principia took a little over thirty minutes from the SIUe campus, and we had to pass through a few small towns including Alton and Elsah, each with a repertoire of historical information, especially about the Native Americans that made the area their habitation for many years before their forceful dispersal. Alton has the famous Clark Bridge, and the even famous painting of a prehistoric piasa bird on the face of the cliff also overlooking the Mississippi river. According to Wikipedia, Alton has “its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, and brick commercial buildings”, and it counts among its famous former residents Miles Davies, the legendary trumpeter/musician, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist who was murdered in 1937 for his role in anti-slavery movements (and after whom the Library at SIUe is named), and James Earl Ray, the murderer of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jnr.

IMG_0435One of the notable sights on the way from Edwardsville are the many oil refineries in Illinois that litter the way. “Those refineries refine the crude oil from Nigeria”, the professor quipped “before they are sold in the United States at different rates.” The crude oil is brought from different parts of the world – and indeed from Nigeria – in large ocean vessels, are refined, and sold as “gas”. What he didn’t know until I told him was that the finished petroleum products are also sold back to Nigeria – like chocolate products – at exorbitant prices whenever the steam engines of Nigeria’s refineries go down and the continent’s petroleum giant finds it hard to refine its own products. Passing through those areas of Illinois that I’ve never been before only reminded me of Nigeria’s Niger Delta: plenty smoke in the air, and plenty smell of gas – a depleting environment under serious gas pollution.

IMG_0468The Principia College is an institution for Christian Scientists and it graduated its first products in 1934. The campus is small, yet beautiful. The student population is 490 and from the little we saw, the students are warm, and all find a way of interacting with one another much more than one would find in a large campus as SIU because of the size. An interesting discovery I made was that one in every five students there was an international student. And over seventy percent of those international students are from Kenya. All of a sudden, it felt like if I was back on the campus of Moi University in Kenya again. I still haven’t discovered the reason for this density in Kenyan students population. At SIUe, the international students population is mainly Indian, and then a few others. In 1993,according to Wikipedia, the campus was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.

The visit ended with a very delicious lunch at the University cafeteria where many of the international students worked as kitchen staff among others. The food also somehow reminded me of my stay in Kenya in 2005. Maybe it was because it was the first time I was eating rice again in a very long time. Luckily, we made it out of the campus early enough to get back to campus so that I was still able to get to class where my students, who had already waited for nine minutes, said that I was indeed lucky by a minute, or I would have met another empty class. Spoiled brats, those kids.

To Principia was published on October 15th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , under the Academic, adventures, Art, Fun, Observations, Travelling category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.