Game Day at Rose-Hulman Institute: There's so much for visitors to behold

 

After two visits to Hanover College in southern Indiana in 2011, I didn't think I would again experience the amazement I felt during my walk-arounds there. But it did happen again two weekends ago. I was at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, developed on 120 acres of land formerly owned by the Hulman family of Terre Haute.

The school has gone by different names since its inception in the late 19th century. It started as male-students-only Terre Haute School of Industrial Science and, before it even opened in 1883, its name changed to Rose Polytechnic Institute, named for its founder, Chauncey Rose, a businessman successful in milling, real estate and the railroad industry.

In the 1920s, when the school outgrew its inner-city quarters, it moved to the current location. After the Hulman family turned over the assets of the Hulman Foundation to the school in 1971, the name changed to its current Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. It wasn't until 1991 that the Board of Managers made the decision to begin accepting female students.

Over the years, the campus steadily blossomed into the impressive visual spectacle that it is today. Visitors drive right into the heart of the academic center when they arrive on campus, the stunning and modern glass-oriented Hatfield Hall (home of the school's arts, entertainment and culture center) grabbing your attention on the right.

But it's the scenic twin-waters campus core -- Speed Lake and Scum Pond (latter name notwithstanding) -- that can make you linger and explore for as long as you have time to do it. Anchoring Speed Lake at its west end is the White Chapel, which opened in 2001 and was named for John and Elizabeth White whose lead gift of $1.5 million made the structure possible.

Even Cook Stadium, where the school's Fightin' Engineers team plays its home contests, has a stunning backdrop -- the expansive Hawthorn Park with its tall, thick forested trees in plain view of fans sitting on the home side of the stadium's Phil Brown Field. The school's Sports and Recreation Center, built in 1997 and the primary indoors varsity and intramural athletics facility (housing the parquet-floor Hulbert Arena, an indoor track and the aquatics center) is a striking architectural neighbor to the stadium's west.

It was tough picking the right lakeside scene image to lead off the post, and I knew early on I would lead off this post with a lakeside scene. I went with a selection that I was able to get only by the kindness of a Hulman Memorial Union maintenance staff employee, who saw me with my camera and appreciated my endeavor. She let me into the cafeteria -- where visitors are not normally allowed when students are dining there. That was the only place I could finagle this composition, lucking out with the individuals seated along the lake, the solitary one on the bench in the foreground, and several on the hill on the other side. So to the employee who made that shot possible, thank you, whoever you are.

I'll cease babbling about this place and let the pictures do the talking. There were so many pictures to feature in this presentation, I'm going to devote a separate post of images taken just in and around Cook Stadium, including tailgaters and images of the Sports and Recreation Center. This also is the second of three consecutive posts focusing on my visit to Rose-Hulman. The first post covered my pictures from the Fightin' Engineers' victory over Defiance; the third post returns to the area around Cook Stadium and the Sports and Recreation Center to feature the busy activity on that homecoming weekend. 
 
For a full gallery of campus images, visit my site at SmugMug.

Above and next four below: Hatfield Hall, the performance arts and culture center, including the 600-seat theater.

Above: The backside of Moench Hall.

Above: The campus water tower; in the background is Hadley Hall, home of the offices of the school president and dean of faculty and office of institutional research. 

Above: The stairway leading to lower campus. 

Above and below: A plaza (above) outside Lakeside Hall (below), a residence hall on the far northwest end of campus.

Above: The John T. Myers Center for Technological Research With Industry.

Above: A grove of trees already showing their autumn colors. 

Above: A pathway leading from the main campus drive toward the backside of Hatfield Hall (background, right) and up toward the fraternity portion of campus.

Above and below: Two pieces of sculpture seen on different parts of campus. 

Above: Olin Hall and Advanced Learning Center. I would have loved to have played more with the reflection on those windows, but the angle from the side closest to the glass was looking straight into the sun when I got there. 

Above and next several below: More views and perspectives of Scum Pond (foreground above) and Speed Lake.

Above and below: Percopo Hall overlooking Speed Lake with the White Chapel on the right above ... and close up below.

Above: I've seen several citations refer to Speed Lake as a reflection pond; here's one example why. This is a single-frame image, not a high-dynamic range melding of multiple images.

Above and next three below: Views outside of and looking out from Hulman Memorial Union. 

Above and below: The John A. Logan Library and an interestingly designed stairway leading to one of the many campus landscape undulations.  

Above: Around the corner from Olin Hall, where some people conversed near a small plaza and yet another institutional sculpture.

Above: The view toward the Sports and Recreation Center from the hill near Deming Hall.