Paradise Found: U Miami Virtues

Beyond the palm trees, a picture-perfect lake, and the rare crocodile, we discovered an impressive academic experience.

Well past the massive luxury condo groves, the sky-high cranes dangling over a stupendous new convention center, and the relentless buzz of bridge-and-tunnel construction, we motored down a final stretch of bleached pavement through twin columns of stately palm trees into what surely was paradise.

Wait – what? Did we have the correct address? It was supposed to be the University of Miami, but this looked like a five-star resort, and the sign said we were in Coral Gables. If Google Maps said this was it, this had to be it. And it was. Wow. University of Miami. Who wouldn’t want to go to school here?

The weather wasn’t exactly perfect. It was slightly drizzly, and the temperature seemed locked in at a stubborn 68 degrees, but hey, it was a tropical wonderland, so no real complaints.

We hung a left into a huge parking garage as the admissions office instructed, only to find absolutely no parking. After circling eight floors to the roof, we located a spot, only to have the machine claim that parking wasn’t available.

Oh, well. Paradise lost. At least for the moment.

As it turned out, nobody had trouble finding the information session in the Schwartz Welcome Center. It was packed. Jenny, a psychology and criminology major and Miami native, gave us an energetic welcome to the “U,” as the locals call it, and was herself surprised by the turnout. “We usually only have about two people,” she marveled.

Maybe that explained the parking rigamarole.

Beyond the usual facts and figures (12,000 undergraduates from 102 countries and 49 states: get with it, Wyoming!), Jenny highlighted the small classroom size (11:1 student-teacher ratio), nine undergraduate schools and direct admission to whatever program you apply to.

U Miami currently sports an 18% admit rate based on some 58,000 applicants, 1360-1480 SAT or 30-34 ACT and a 3.89 GPA.

The centerpiece of UMiami’s academic experience is what it calls the “Cognates” program, which offers an imaginative approach to satisfying each student’s core curriculum organized along the humanities, STEM, and sociology.

Faculty-designed clusters of courses are organized around more than 100 interdisciplinary themes, such as “Sports & Society,” “Artificial Intelligence,” and “Ethics,” that are not confined to any one department but rather explore connections between them.

We were also pitched on the charms of living in one of UMiami’s Residential Colleges, where students of a certain major might share a floor, and the greater Coral Gables community, featuring shops, restaurants, Kennedy Park, Winwood Art District and Little Havana. Coconut Grove is also nearby.

After following Lily, our tour guide outside, we stopped near a large Banyan tree as she began her spiel about the university’s stellar academic advising. She was no more than a few sentences in when a young lady strutted by, pointed excitedly at Lily, and yelled, “That’s my best friend, right there!” It was a good laugh and instantly elevated the comfort level.

Over the next hour or so, Lily, a biochemistry major, walked us past the Science and Engineering buildings, the Herbert Business School, the Frost Music School, and the traditional liberal arts campus core. She regaled us with far more information than we can accommodate here, and the campus itself, given its arboretum-level landscape, is hard to capture in words. It’s just beautiful, and like none other.

The most memorable part of Lily’s presentation came when she dropped that she had access to five (5!) academic advisors and had been involved in research projects every year, beginning as a freshman. She said that wasn’t unusual at U Miami. Worth noting: It is unusual almost everywhere else.

Our tour concluded at UMiami’s piece de resistance, the 10-acre Lake Osceola, the campus’ visual epicenter, and home to the Donna Shalala Student Center, its social hub. The lake looks like it has always been there, even though it hasn’t, and is home to all kinds of birds and other wildlife.

One posted sign read: “No swimming,” and in case anyone was thinking about breaking the rules, another just below it warned: “Caution: Crocodiles and Snakes in the area.”

Well, now.

So, we just had to ask Lily if she had ever seen any such critters slithering around campus. Her tally: zero crocs, one snake. Such sightings are exceedingly rare. Mostly it’s just iguanas, turtles, ducks, egrets, herons, and, of course, the Ibis, the mighty white-winged, orange-beaked bird that is U Miami’s mascot, Sebastian. 

Why an Ibis? It’s both the last bird to seek shelter before a hurricane, and the first to reappear afterwards.

As metaphors for wisdom and courage go, that’s a pretty good one.

Then it was back to the parking lot, five floors up and no ticket, fortunately. Just a real appreciation for the many amazing opportunities at the “U.”

GW, By George!

“The George Washington University was established by an act of Congress in 1821. It was the last time Congress did anything at all.” 

It was one of the funniest opening lines of any college information session ever, and also among the most refreshing. We’ve often wondered why more colleges don’t start by sharing their origin stories, because they so often say something about what makes them different. Such is most definitely the case with GW.

Our first president believed the United States needed a university located in the nation’s capital. He saw value in bringing young people together from across the country because he thought it would help create a shared national identity. He also envisioned a training ground for virtuous individuals capable of governing the new republic, as an academy of civic leadership. 

This never quite happened. Washington earmarked some stock in his will to help realize his vision, but the paper turned out to be worthless. While Congress eventually established the school anyway, it was privately funded by Baptist ministers and originally called Columbian College. It was renamed in George Washington’s honor in 1914 when it became a university. 

If he could walk the 20 city blocks of the school’s main campus today, Gen’l Washington would no doubt feel his dream was realized beyond his wildest imagination. Not only is this institution uniquely situated in the political epicenter of the United States, but it is also a global research university that is home to 11,000 undergraduates from all 50 states and 140 countries.

He might also be tickled that the additional 25-acre green GW campus that sits about three miles away is known as Mount Vernon, or just “the Vern.” About 90 percent of freshmen live there and take shuttle vans that run about every 10 minutes. 

So, is GW a city or a green campus?  It is both – and neither. True, the main campus is mostly concrete, but the school does have an amazing quad, also known as the National Mall, where you can find a small chain of well-regarded museums known collectively as the Smithsonian, just a few blocks away. GW is the only university that holds its graduation ceremony on the Mall, near the foot of the Washington Monument.

Unlike other “city” schools, this one feels more like an exclusive neighborhood. So blended is GW into its neighborhood that the only way to know you’re off-campus is that the garbage cans no longer have the school’s logo on them. If you’re wondering about campus security, it might help to know that on patrol are not only DC and campus police, but also the Secret Service. 

The “Foggy Bottom” residential townhouses blend into the dormitories, classrooms, libraries, student union, and the largest event space in DC after the Kennedy Center (which is only about a ten-minute walk away). The State Department is literally on campus, as is the Interior Department, the IMF, and the World Bank. The White House is just four blocks away. The Capitol building is maybe a 15-minute Metro ride. 

Senators, Representatives, Cabinet officers, Supreme Court Justices, and news anchors are on campus so often that it barely causes a ripple when they arrive. It all adds up to what the admissions office likes to call the “Only at GW” experience. 

You probably know where we’re going with this. Given its proximity to so many incredible resources, the internship opportunities (which can lead directly to jobs) are off the charts here. About three-quarters of GW students complete at least one internship; our tour guide was on track to finish five. 

Some might dismiss GW because they’re not interested in politics, history, or government. A brief stop at the newly built, state-of-the-art Science and Engineering Hall is grounds for a recalculation. 

We stood mesmerized in the building’s atrium, looking through a plate-glass window, watching students clustered around small tables as their professor flashed problems on a jumbo screen. The ultra-modern, glass-fronted GW School of Business emitted a different but similarly cutting-edge vibe.

Then our tour guide told us about ACE, which is GW’s international business degree. ACE stands for America, China, Europe, and it’s a four-year bachelor’s degree in business designed to give students a truly global educational experience. Students earn three separate bachelor’s degrees, one from each partner institution: Luiss University in Rome, Renmin University of China in Beijing, and, of course, GW. Students finish with a degree from all three schools. This definitely wasn’t Gen’l Washington’s idea, but he’d certainly love it. 

At the end of our tour, a student asked what made GW different from other universities. We thought the answer was clear by then, but our tour guide’s answer is worth repeating. 

She said: “Some schools, cough Georgetown cough, focus on knowledge. Other schools, cough American cough, emphasize the experience. What makes GW different is that it centers on both knowledge and the experience.”

Is that true “only” at GW? We cannot tell a lie. Probably not. But somewhere, George Washington is smiling.

There's No Place Like Tufts

Through the gates and up the hill to Ballou Hall at Tufts University

The saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” came to mind as we toured the Tufts University campus. We had an above-average reason for feeling that way, as we had both graduated as Jumbos more years ago than we will confirm or deny. 

We traveled to our alma mater from downtown Boston, which meant that the first thing we saw was the ginormous athletic complex: The Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center. Despite its newly controversial name, this is quite the upgrade from the venerable and historic Cousens Gymnasium, which thankfully still stands. Across the street is a healthy collection of football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, track, and other fields. 

Right there at the corner stands the ultra-modern, mostly glass, Joyce Cummings Center. We later learned it is an interdisciplinary center that opened in 2021, well past our Tuftonian sell-by date. It mainly houses classrooms and meeting areas for the Computer Science, Economics, and Mathematics Departments. 

It is also home to certain programs from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy as well as the Derby Entrepreneurial Center. The architecture, layout, and amenities are meant to reflect a focus on collaboration, innovation, community, and sustainability. It is one of only three Tufts buildings named for a woman (Bush and Stratton dorms are the others). Joyce Cummings is the wife of real estate developer and philanthropist Bill Cummings. 

As we hung a right to get to the brand spanking new parking garage below the equally glistening Tufts admissions welcoming center (right next to a new dorm construction site), we passed the recently inaugurated MTBA stop, part of the Green line that connects the campus to downtown Boston, including Fenway Park and other neighborhoods. That would have been really nice back in the day.

We took the elevator up seven levels of parking to the welcome center at Dowling Hall, which is at ground level. The welcoming desk was dark and empty: understandable as there were no tours scheduled that day. A sign suggested we proceed to the admissions office. After we traversed a footbridge and followed a short path, everything suddenly looked familiar. Despite the many evident changes as we first approached Tufts, the main campus was eerily almost exactly as we remembered it. 

Of course, the Admissions Office is now where the bookstore used to be, although that change happened decades ago. The interior re-design was thoroughly New England collegiate and very comfortable. We couldn’t help but notice the many NCAA trophies lining a bookcase. Tufts is a D3 school, and a very successful one, particularly in soccer and lacrosse. 

We were soon joined by not one but two very warm and friendly admissions representatives: Associate Director Jack Griffith, who joined Tufts from Rice University recently, and counselor Kaitlyn Calnan. They were very generous with their time and patiently answered our many and often geeky questions that only college counselors would care about.

Both Jack and Kaitlyn became quite animated while talking about the relatively new Entrepreneurial minor at Tufts, which historically has not offered business classes of any kind. We don’t know, but if we had to guess, we’d hazard that a business major may not be far behind. 

That would be significant for Tufts, which in recent years has placed a heavy emphasis on STEM. This was evident not only in the prominence of the Joyce Cummings Center, but also in the bustling hive that is the Tsungming Tu Complex, which combines what used to be the Anderson and Robinson Halls, along with a major modern addition out back. 

That high energy contrasted sharply with the ghost town that is Braker Hall, where History, Philosophy, and other humanities hold forth (originally, Braker was built for a Business school that never transpired). Granted, we were there during the finals reading period and classes were out of session, but Braker looked almost exactly as staid and dusty as it did back in the late 1970s.

Interestingly, Jack mentioned that he’d like to see more applications from humanities students, which may suggest a pendulum swing back to the liberal arts for which Tufts was historically revered. 

Kaitlyn also noted a somewhat new initiative called the Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education. It is designed to bring a wider array of political, cultural, and ideological perspectives into campus discourse through classes, as well as events, reading groups, curriculum development, research projects, and public conversations.

It is an outgrowth of a popular course called “American Conservatism” taught by Eitan Hersh, a center-right political science professor who has made waves with his mission to build a better understanding of conservative thought on a largely progressive campus. 

The balance of our time at Tufts was a magical nostalgia tour through the vastly expanded albeit still familiar library, one of the wildly updated dining halls (the food was terrible when we were students, but it appears totally edible now), and the dorms where we lived and first met, which look pretty much the same (just like we do!). 

We grabbed a bite to eat at Mayer Campus Center, which didn’t exist back then but looks quite well lived-in now. We wondered how many of these impossibly young students had any idea that “Mayer” was Jean Mayer, who was the president of Tufts during our time there and is widely credited with putting the university on the elite path it has travelled ever since.

Often, when we ask students why they liked a particular school, they say something like, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the vibe.” That’s exactly how we both felt when we first toured campus all those years ago; it just felt like home. It’s great to know that it still does.