Daily Archives: March 26, 2013

Scott Outdoor Amphitheater

Cloister at Clothier Hall

Jonathan, Karlee, and Dorothy

Our third college visit today was Swarthmore. It is possibly not so well known as Villanova, at least partly because it doesn’t have a basketball team that features in the NCAA tournament. It’s also a fairly small school with enrollment between 1,500 and 1,600. For all of that, they have a surprisingly broad variety of courses of study.

My contact with the school has been mostly through two friends and two cousins. The two friends were Carol and Erik, a sister and brother who were very good friends of mine in high school. My cousin, David, went there, as well and his son, Jonathan is a freshman there now (and is in the third picture presented here). All four of these folks were on the science end of things (engineering and physics) so I think of it as an engineering school but they have good programs in the social sciences and arts, as well. I just don’t know much about them.

Erik is now a professor of engineering at Swarthmore and he gave us a private tour, which was very nice. We started by walking through the science center and then down past the Scott Outdoor Amphitheater, where graduation is held. What a nice place for a graduation ceremony, unless it’s raining, of course. We walked through a few other buildings including going into a few art studios, which was nice. The second picture here is a cloister that’s part of Clothier Hall. Clothier Hall is built to look like a church but in fact it houses the college bookstore, a snack bar and café, the Intercultural Center, offices for various campus organizations. We also got a slightly different tour with Jonathan, who took us to see his dorm room and a few other places we hadn’t been. He seems to be doing well and obviously likes Swarthmore quite a bit.

The campus is quite pretty and in a few weeks, when everything starts to bloom, it’s going to be really something. There is a lot of space for a school with so few students, so it’s fairly quiet. Dorothy didn’t think it was the place for her, and I think she’s probably right. Still, I’m glad we visited and it was good to see Erik and get caught up a little.

St. Thomas of Villanova Parish

The second of our three college visits today was Villanova. It’s a much different place to West Chester and for a number of different reasons. First, rather than being a state school, it is a private school, founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine. Second, and it’s clear that they have a good deal of money. Considering the tuition at the two schools, there’s no question why. Villanova isn’t a cheap school, by any stretch of the imagination.

Dorothy and Karlee liked the campus and it had “good vibes.” It’s a big enough school (about 6,600 undergraduates) although not huge. It seems to take its Augustinian roots seriously, which I think is a good thing.

It was also great to visit with my old friend Pedro, whom I haven’t seen in far too many years. Thanks for having lunch with us.

Plato, Aristotle, Bacon

Because everything goes better with bacon…

I took Dorothy and her friend Karlee on three college visits today. The first was a school I knew very little about but we were going to be in the area and it turned up in a list of schools. West Chester University of Pennsylvania is in, not too surprisingly, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Our hotel was also in West Chester, so it couldn’t have been more convenient. I’m glad we gave it a visit, although Dorothy wasn’t too keen on, it in the end.

Still, any school that recognizes the empirical importance of bacon can’t be all bad. I think Francis would agree.