Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: #4563

Which is to say 37 Macalester Street. Now more commonly called Cultural House. Macalester owns many buildings around the perimeter of the campus, and several of those house folks with similar interests. A house full of Spanish speakers, for instance, or one where everyone's vegan. For my last college term the top floor at 37 Mac was French House. The folks who'd planned to live downstairs developed some issues shortly before the term started and couldn't fill the rooms. So the Office of Residential Life opened the floor to anyone. Since I was the guy in the housing office who was actually assigning rooms, I put myself in one of them.

Things change. Kagin's name was New Dining Hall in when I was a freshman in 1967; by my 1982 graduation it had its current name but was still a dining hall. These days it's apparently become an office and event space, and folks eat elsewhere on campus. Markim Hall's new since my last visit to the campus--the Winton Health Center used to occupy this spot. The Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship lives here. When I was a student we talked about Walter Mondale, an alumnus, and Hubert Humphrey, who'd taught at Mac. These days the school's most prominent alumnus is the former UN Secretary-General.

Over fifty years the Macalester campus has both changed and not-changed. I've already mentioned the rebuilt Fine Arts Center. The old Dayton Hall's gone; there's a new Dayton Hall elsewhere on the campus. Part of Old Main has gone; in its place is a library in a similar architectural style. The old Student Union's gone; in its place is a newer Campus Center. The old field house is gone, replaced by the Leonard Center. A grant from George and Wilma Leonard helped pay for my education. I'm hardly alone in that debt; many Mac grads were helped by Leonard scholarships.

'Twasn't an official activity, but the materials we'd received before arriving mentioned we might want to visit a noon recital on Thursday. So I went, as did a few others. There were more listeners than this shows. Basically everyone sat in the back. That's how it worked when I was a student; I wasn't surprised. I recognize some changes to the hall, but they're relatively minor--the control room's moved, the seats have changed. There were seven performers, each of whom did one or two pieces. This is Frederick Kerr; he's playing "Vogel als Prophet" by Robert Schumann. ========== We were also privileged to attend the first event in Mac's new theater, a production called "Letters|Home." The show--not really a play, more of an event--was based mostly on stories the students involved had heard from their families. It was very impressive, as was the facility. Didn't take any pix of the theater event....

My best pics from April's Minnesota trip were of the Macalester College campus. This one's of part of the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center. Joan Mondale's part of Macalester's culture; it's fitting to name a building after her. Her husband Walter (or Fritz), of course, is otherwise famous; they met while taking classes at Mac. And Joan's father, Max Adams, was Mac's chaplain when I first arrived on campus.