taken from the letters of Lauren Moore, University of Texas, Austin, 2004

They call this place the church of reason. It is for both tradition and the laws of this country that the public schools are strictly secular, and at the University of Texas this rule is strictly followed. There are many private universities in the country where religion is integrated into the education system. I have never attended a school that wasn't secular, but I am sure that the absence of a church makes a marked difference, if on nothing else than the atmosphere. I have seen campuses where the cathedral looms over everything else, older and wiser than the classrooms and dormitories. Here, it is the clock tower. The tallest structure on campus, the clock tower dominates the campus and the passing of its multitudes of students. It is like most of the other university buildings – tall, boxy, beige, and a little boring. It smells like bureaucracy. Some of the most impressive and beautiful buildings around campus are the churches (even though they aren't part of the university, they share its space and its patrons). They have managed to retain some of the finer elements of gothic architecture even after all these years: the narrow spires, the delicate arch of the windows, and the intricate carvings of plants and beasts adorning the outer walls. In these buildings you can see stained glass windows, one of my favorite aspects of the cathedrals in Europe. There are interesting buildings of other styles, for example, the Littlefield House, which is a bizarre mixture of gothic savageness and victorian decadence. These buildings, however, are little islands of interest in an ocean of beige paint and white limestone. To appreciate the majority of the buildings on campus, you have to learn to appreciate the little things: a griffin carved above a doorway, shell imprints in a windowsill, thin stone vines tracing the border of a building. Most of the influences of the earlier architectural styles of Europe have been reduced to a few details on the otherwise utilitarian buildings...

The campus is enormous, and its size can be daunting at times. Austin gets oppressively hot during the summer, and it saps my energy to trudge along for blocks just to reach my math class, the heat reflecting off the concrete underfoot. At the beginning of every semester, I get hopelessly lost trying to find my classrooms amongst the acres and acres of building complexes. Fortunately, most students are friendly enough to help you out in finding your room. Part of the reason that the university feels so big is because there are so many students – over 50,000 – and also because every part of the campus is for every student. Even though the university is divided into colleges based on the different areas of study, the division essentially ends at the administration level. We all live in the same dorms, eat in the same cafeterias, study in the same classrooms, and lounge in the same commons. In many classes, we are all treated the same, because it is hard for the professors to give individual attention in a lecture of 200 people. The university attempts to give each student one-on-one time with their instructors: professors are available for office hours during the week, graduate students hold discussion times to augment lectures, and the honors programs offer classes with limited sizes; however, the student to teacher ratio is simply too great to allow for the personal attention that exists at small, private schools.

A great advantage to the size of the student body is the incredible diversity that accompanies it. It's as John Henry Newman said in his Idea of a University that "a University is a place of concourse, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge" (317). The campus life reflects this diversity. On the west mall, under the shadow of the clock tower, various ethnic, religious, political, athletic, culinary, and social groups congregate to win over new initiates and preach to the ever-present crowds. Even in this age of apathy, many students are passionate about their pet causes, and strive to have their voice heard over the other students pushing their own agendas. This scene hints to me of Newman's idealistic description of what a University is: "the place to which a thousand schools make contributions; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonistic activity...it is a place where inquiry is pushed forward...and error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind" (317)...

taken from the letters of William Morris, Exeter College, Oxford, 1854

Oxford, this old place that has stood for so long, is right now in quite a state of change. The dons and fellows say that there is a sort of a revolution going on right now: during the last century or so, attendance as well as intellectual prestige and enterprise declined, and Exeter and the other schools stagnated. But changes are happening, and now old Oxford is rapidly. One of the most noticeable changes is the addition of a great many buildings to accommodate the growing number of undergraduates. A new Chapel is currently under construction: it is styled after the old gothic cathedrals, but with the added opulence covering many of the buildings presently under construction. When it is finished it will tower over all other buildings along Turl Street, indeed over all of Exeter College. I have my doubts about the modern air it exudes. 'For my part, remembering well the impression that Canterbury Cathedral made on me when I first stood in it as a little boy, I must needs think that a great building which is obviously venerable and weighty with history is fitter for worship than one turned into a scientific demonstration of what the original architects intended to do' (2)...

Oxford is arranged in a much different fashion than your school. The separate colleges, such as Exeter, are basically autonomous units; each has its own chapel, commons, instructors, and students, which are all men. The university is a city unto itself, 'a vision of grey-roofed houses and a long winding street, and the sound of many bells' (1). Despite the modernization of the older buildings and the infiltration of new buildings, Oxford still has 'a great deal of its earlier loveliness' (1). The older, established buildings of Exeter have such charm that I get a pleasure from a simple walk around the quad. The buildings of the front quad are more than two centuries old, and are covered with a thick blanket of ivy. In the middle of the quad is a lawn that only the fellows are allowed to walk on – one of our numerous pompous traditions. The Fellow's Garden is a more open patch of lawn where students sometimes gather to relax outdoors. There are actually many gardens within and around Exeter and the rest of Oxford. Every space is close and defined, small groupings of old stone buildings covered in ivy and surrounded by croquet lawns and gardens. This setting supports the burgeoning social life of Exeter: the last decade has seen an increase in team sports such as crew, small student societies, and both intellectual and political discussion groups. With such a small student body and such extensive grounds, it is not difficult to find a place to have a small meeting...

One of the most fundamental of Oxford traditions is the weekly meeting with the tutor. Each undergraduate has a particular tutor assigned to them (I am afraid mine is not too fond of me – he harbors some ridiculous notion about me being rough and untalented) with whom they meet weekly to discuss their academic progress, and to present the weekly essay. I do not know what the standards are for the instructors in your university... some of the Exeter tutors, while undoubtedly intelligent men, lack what one might define as the social graces. Sometimes the weekly meeting can be quite nightmarish. All being said, however, I think it is integral to our education that our progress is tracked so closely. It certainly bolsters the sense of community that the College tends to inspire in her inhabitants...