Laramie in Pictures: Campus Scenes

The campus has changed a lot since I was a naive little undergraduate here.  For one, we now have a "Cheney International Center" (no freaking kidding) and a new Anthropology building.  I was saddened to find the old Honors house razed to the ground and an OIT center plunked in its place.  (It was just as well, to be honest.)  Somebody finally got wise and also ripped down a good chunk of Coe Library and turned it into a usable library space complete with coffee shop and up-to-date computer lab.  And, most noticeably, they have put what must have been an incredible chunk of money into campus beautification, fuzzing out the hard edges of the concrete public spaces with small gardens full of boulders and birch trees, landscaped with native flowers.  I always thought this was a beautiful campus, but now it might be one of the most charming college campuses in the western US.  I'm serious. 

But the important things-- to me at least-- haven't changed much at all.  The sandstone walls of the buildings still glow like gold when the sun is at the right angle, Prexy's pasture is still the same, and the squirrels still cuss and throw things at you when you walk between Merica Hall and Old Main.  The Fine Arts building still looks like it's built out of cardboard graham crackers, sagging a little around the edges.  Although I didn't see him out there this summer, I was reassured that Dr. Shive in the Honors Program still roams the green spaces, plunking down birdies on the ad-hoc Frisbee golf course with deadly accuracy despite his advancing years. 

So, here are a few pictures of some of the places that most define the Laramie campus: Old Main, the original campus building from the territorial days, Arts and Sciences, and even some of that fancy new landscaping that blurs the distinction between public and natural space in ways that I think I rather like.  Enjoy!