A Slideshow Scavenger Hunt

I’m going to take a break from Vassar’s YouTube channel this week to talk about an online source you might not have considered checking out: the website for our Alumnae/Alumni Quarterly publication. I know the point at which you’ll be an alum seems a long way away—you’re not even on campus yet!—but trust me as a soon-to-graduate senior that is will come quicker than you expect.

What I want to highlight in this post is something very cool that the Quarterly did in their Spring/Summer 2010 issue. They invited 9 Vassar alums, one as recent as the class of ’09 and the oldest from the class of ’56, to come to campus and spend a day back at their alma mater, taking photos of our beautiful 1000 acre campus and the students who inhabit it.

You can find the nine slideshows here, and I’ve prepared a scavenger hunt to lead you through the photos and help you get to know Vassar better, even through the lenses of our alumni photographers. Come along with them on their visit to campus, and see if you can spot:

1. An art studio in the Aula. Vassar guarantees all of its junior and senior Studio Arts majors their own private studio space.
2. The seminar room in the converted Maria Mitchell observatory, one of the National Historic Landmarks on campus, which now houses our Education Department. (Of course, we have a new observatory on campus for our Astronomy students: find a picture of that as well for bonus points.)
3. The morning mist over Sunset Lake, one of our two man-made lakes on campus.
4. A lecture taking place in the Francis Lehman Loeb art center, which houses over 18,000 works of art students at Vassar can use as sources for their own studies or as inspirations for their own artwork.
5. Editors hard at work in the Miscellany News office, putting together the next issue of Vassar’s student-run weekly newspaper.
6. Vassar president Catharine Hill, or “Cappy,” walking her dog Nelly across campus, with a view of Main Building in the background.
7. A dance class in Kenyon Hall. This weekend, the Vassar Reparatory Dance Theatre is performing their annual year-end show at the Bardavon Opera House.
8. A view of the Shakespeare Garden, which contains every plant mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.
9. A mysterious-looking piece of equipment in a physics laboratory. As a testament to the fascinating lab work we do here, every Vassar physics professor is currently being supported by a National Science Foundation Grant.
10. Any of the many, many photos of Vassar’s spectacular Thompson Memorial Library.

Happy hunting!