Enough biking for a while. Penn State is beautiful. One of the prettiest campuses we've been to. When we arrived in August, the place was abuzz with preparations for the fall semester - and none was more visible than the grounds crew. Around every corner hummed construction equipment planting trees, laying sod, setting flower beds. Students and staff cut grass, blew leaves, and placed mulch.
Campus is very compact, and climbs up a gradual hill from College Avenue in the center of town to the Park Avenue at the crest, and spills west past Atherton Street to the golf course and east and north into the agricultural units and the countryside. The buildings are generally brick, but often eclectic, and play nicely off each other. Few are very tall, keeping a nice scale with the trees, and they are situated close together creating an intimate space. Very intimate we found when the students are between classes - they are shoulder to shoulder.
And they do right by their trees. I haven't seen mature elms like this since I was a kid. I don't know what they spend each year to preserve them against Dutch Elm Disease (Ann says the trees have their own endowment), but it can't be cheap. On my first trip around campus I'm sure I saw at least a dozen teams of arborists on ropes inspecting and trimming. There are even some elms remaining in the historic residential districts of town. Sometimes you see an intentionally girdled Elm with nice sign explaining that it was found to be infected and so killed and fumigated to create a trap tree that will attract and destroy the beetles as it dies. The tree can then be used as firewood or to create collectibles sold to help fund the endowment. They are gorgeous trees - it was an incredible blow to so many cities in the US when they lost these graceful giants. Here they remain.
One of the more interesting new buildings is the Information Sciences building. It gracefully curves from the edge of old campus across Atherton Street to a newer campus and the golf couse, not only uniting new and old, but creating a signature landmark for the school across a state route and providing a pedestrian bridge over one of the busiest streets in town. Nicely done.
North west of campus is lies another new segment with a more suburban feel. Here are the athletic facilities, a number of newer academic building, a pod of large dorms, and the agricultural lands. It's wonderful how having the ag facilities on campus pulls country into the city. A block from the Business and Law schools there are soybeans and cows, country roads and tractors, barns and silos. And of course there's the creamery. There's always a line for Peachy Paterno ice cream or some such delicacy from the university dairy. And there's the brand new botanical garden just down the way on the edge of the arboretum if gardens are more your speed than farms.
And of course there's football. I thought they had it bad in Ann Arbor. It's at least as bad here. Every field in around the ag campus seems to be striped for parking. Even the grass around the stadium is numbered for parking. And the stadium is huge - 107,282 seats. Maybe not as quite as big as Michigan's Big House (109,901 seats - largest in the US), but it is darn close - it looks bigger (and uglier). Michigan hides most of its size modestly below grade. Beaver Stadium sits on the highest hill and rises from there like some wayward flying saucer. A stadium only a fan could love, but love it they do. We try to be out of town for home games.
Campus is very compact, and climbs up a gradual hill from College Avenue in the center of town to the Park Avenue at the crest, and spills west past Atherton Street to the golf course and east and north into the agricultural units and the countryside. The buildings are generally brick, but often eclectic, and play nicely off each other. Few are very tall, keeping a nice scale with the trees, and they are situated close together creating an intimate space. Very intimate we found when the students are between classes - they are shoulder to shoulder.
And they do right by their trees. I haven't seen mature elms like this since I was a kid. I don't know what they spend each year to preserve them against Dutch Elm Disease (Ann says the trees have their own endowment), but it can't be cheap. On my first trip around campus I'm sure I saw at least a dozen teams of arborists on ropes inspecting and trimming. There are even some elms remaining in the historic residential districts of town. Sometimes you see an intentionally girdled Elm with nice sign explaining that it was found to be infected and so killed and fumigated to create a trap tree that will attract and destroy the beetles as it dies. The tree can then be used as firewood or to create collectibles sold to help fund the endowment. They are gorgeous trees - it was an incredible blow to so many cities in the US when they lost these graceful giants. Here they remain.
One of the more interesting new buildings is the Information Sciences building. It gracefully curves from the edge of old campus across Atherton Street to a newer campus and the golf couse, not only uniting new and old, but creating a signature landmark for the school across a state route and providing a pedestrian bridge over one of the busiest streets in town. Nicely done.
And of course there's football. I thought they had it bad in Ann Arbor. It's at least as bad here. Every field in around the ag campus seems to be striped for parking. Even the grass around the stadium is numbered for parking. And the stadium is huge - 107,282 seats. Maybe not as quite as big as Michigan's Big House (109,901 seats - largest in the US), but it is darn close - it looks bigger (and uglier). Michigan hides most of its size modestly below grade. Beaver Stadium sits on the highest hill and rises from there like some wayward flying saucer. A stadium only a fan could love, but love it they do. We try to be out of town for home games.
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