CHAPTER 6Wabash College campus

 

Wabash College was one of the few campuses in Indiana that I was able to visit on more than one occasion. The first was for a crucial, late-season football game between the Little Giants and Wittenberg University the first weekend of November 2011, and the second was for the annual Monon Bell Classic game against DePauw University in 2012. 

Wabash was founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, according to the school's entry at Wikipedia. 

Today, the school has an enrollment of about 900 students, boasts 40 degree majors, "the most accessible professors on any campus" (according to its website, it has the second-best alumni network in the land and, also according to the school website, it has a highly regarded and active student government.

Perhaps most impressive is that according to the Wikipedia entry, as of 2024, Wabash had an endowment of $420 million, a number that ranks it third among small private colleges and universities in Indiana, according to College Raptor. 

Wabash credits the hefty size of its endowment to regular fund-raising campaigns, promotion of alumni estate planning giving and private donations by such prominent corporate individuals as Eli Lilly, as well as by Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical firm he founded, and Lilly Foundation, the company's philanthropic arm.

The degree programs are sprinkled among three divisions -- humanities and arts, natural sciences and social sciences.  

The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts curriculum in three divisions with 36 majors and minors, a dual-degree program in engineering, two pre-professional programs in law and medicine, and a pipeline program for accounting. 

As of 2020, Wabash was one of only three private, non-religious, all-male colleges in the United States (Hampden-Sydney and Morehouse colleges being the two others, although there also is one religious-affiliated all-male institution, Saint John's University, in Collegeville, Minn.).

My collection of Wabash College campus images were gathered from those two visits to the school. 

Leading off the post is a low-angle perspective of the college's iconic Pioneer Chapel, exploiting dramatic, very late-afternoon sunlight. This was taken after the game. 

The chapel is such a key component of the campus that I'll return to it in the pictures below. The tailgating images at the very bottom of this chapter were taken before the November 2011 game against Wittenberg University. 

All of my Wabash College campus images can be found by following the link in this sentence.

Above and below: Photos I took as I approached campus on game day Saturday, about an hour before kickoff. This is at the northeast corner of campus, at Grant and Wabash avenues. The image below is a tighter composition of the welcoming sign and garden.

Above: The view toward campus from just past the welcoming sign above.  

Above and below: Instead of following the sidewalk above toward the stadium on the south end of campus, I kept walking west along Wabash Avenue, coming across these pregame cookout scenes on the north side of the street. 

Above: Still on Wabash Avenue, this is Trippett Hall, the official welcoming center that also houses admissions and financial aid. This building opened in August 2002.

Above and below: Differing views of Detchon Center for International Studies, located at the northeast corner of the campus mall. 

 Above and below: Two views of the Lilly Library, on the west side of the campus mall. 

Above and below: A perspective and closeup shot of the campus bookstore. You descend a staircase to get to the main entrance to the building from this view along the main, brick-covered pedestrian path.

Above: The entrance to the campus bookstore.

Above: The mall immediately north of Byron P. Hollett Stadium, where the Little Giants' football teams play their home games. The stadium sits along railroad tracks at the south end of campus. 

Above: Pioneer Chapel famously situated behind the visiting school stands -- but in full view of the home crowd.

Above: The railroad tracks serving as a sort of tailgating gravitational force, aided largely by the roomy area to park vehicles. This view looks down from the top of the home team bleachers.

Above: Morris Hall (housing for students in upper classes) on the left, and the back side of Frank Hugh Sparks campus center on the right.

Above: A long-range view of the back side of Frank Hugh Sparks campus center, the student union.

Above: A look at the brick-paved walkway through campus, not far from the bookstore.

Above: At the south end of the college mall, with a little bit of the front of Pioneer Chapel on the left and a lone group of tailgaters straight ahead in the distance.

Above: Back side of the Frank Hugh Sparks campus center, which houses student recreational, cafeteria and lounge facilities.

Above: Front side of the Frank Hugh Sparks campus center. This side faces the campus mall.

Above: A front view of Pioneer Chapel.

Above and below: Captures from the arboretum on the northeast fringe of campus.

Above: Backside of the Detchon Center, formerly Yandes Library Hall. 

Above: Looking north onto Wabash Avenue at the north end of campus.

Above and below: More captures from the arboretum on the northeast fringe of campus.

Above and below: Postgame activity back at the campus mall.

Above: Yet another front view of Pioneer Chapel.

Above: Heading home, lugging portable game-day seating through the arboretum.

Above: The Fine Arts Center, east of Grant Street, with dramatic late-afternoon lighting casting extensive shadows. 

Above: The oft-mentioned railroad tracks on the south end of campus. These people were heading toward the busy area of the tailgating parties.

Next up: Chapter 7, DePauw University vs. Wabash College, Nov. 2011

Previously in Game Day Revisited:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Franklin College vs. Trine University, Sept. 2009

Chapter 2: Franklin College campus

Chapter 3: Hanover College vs. Manchester University, Oct. 2011

Chapter 4: Hanover College campus

Chapter 5: Wabash College vs. Wittenberg University, Nov. 2011

A bookstore's children's section can be a photographer's delight

Have you ever studied the layout of a children's section in a retail shop? Many of us no doubt dawdled for as long as we could in toy sections of department stores when we were kids ourselves, but we were too young to stop and consider why things were positioned the way they were. We were so much in awe and in fantasyland, it really didn't matter.

But how about as an adult? Have you studied the toy section layouts to appreciate why everything was placed and displayed the way it was? Have you stopped to take in the bright colors? Or the arrangements of "like" objects (i.e., stuffed dolls, games, books, trucks and cars, etc.)? The location of decorations (up high, down low, eye level) and considered what age child those placements were aimed at?

I was in the child's area of a bookstore on Saturday, when Lee Ann and I went to meet her son and their family, including Lee Ann's 3-year-old granddaughter Elizabeth. We spent a good amount of time in that child's area on a day that was devoted to a Harry Potter book party. I've never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies, but Elizabeth's mother is a huge fan, and back in Indianapolis, my oldest son and his son and my oldest daughter and her children are Potter fanatics.

The questions I posed above didn't occur to me until we had been hanging out in the child's area for at least 15 minutes. At that point, an adult's attention begins to stray, which happened to me. And I started noticing the toy arrangements, the extraordinary bright colors, the displays dangling from above -- well beyond even a tall adult's reach.

I couldn't help but wonder whether the store was trying to immerse children in a visual kalaidescope ... and, of course, use it to keep them wanting to stay longer and, thus, increase the odds of parents purchasing something for their child -- even if only as a means to get them out of the store more quickly!

Considering that this was a Harry Potter book event, I might have expected an inundation of Potter-related merchandise. But by the time we got there (which was well after any of the scheduled special events), the children's area seemed pretty tame ... and not Potter-heavy.

Still, I did find lots of things to photograph. Considering I did not go there planning to take pictures, all of the images in this post were taken with the camera on my iPhone X. As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on that image. To view a full gallery of images from the shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

I eyeballed the above and below as possible pickups on a future visit to get for one my grandchildren for Christmas. 

My 4-year-old grandson Maddox, who lives in the Chicago area, enjoys playing with Legos, so I checked out the above and below for more ideas on future Christmas or birthday presents.

Above and next seven below: Examples of the elevated displays, many of them featuring characters from Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh stories.

Above: A perspective shot of one slice of the bookstore's children's section.

Above and next three below: Examples of stuffed animals. 

Above: My 4-year-old grandson also is crazy about trains and railroad tracks. I was imagining how he would immersed himself in this easy-access display.