Nov 10, 2003
West of London,
south of Cambridge, through Eaton, over the hill
to Oxford and you are in, wait for it, Miami (not England).
Oxford University was founded in the 14th century in England
then founded again in 1809 at the Miami Valley, Ohio. This Oxford v2.0
grew slowly till the Civil War when it was deserted ("all the lights
went out" was one poetic description).
After the war, things picked up.
In 1888, an old alumni (Andrew Harrison) became
US Republican
President Harrison.
I have no clue what this did to the campus. Maybe a couch burning or two?
Now its home
to some 16,000 students and about 160,000 squirrels.
I was there visiting Jim Kiper.
Here he stands before the
standard Oxford, USA campus building:
Georgian-style with
some big-ass marble columns out the front.
The campus architect was very
imaginative (not).
He designed one building,
added a few white towers with green caps, then took
the whole lot to the photocopier. Hey presto, instant campus.
I have to say, I was jealous about the look and feel of the place.
Lots
of open spaces and well-kept grounds and buildings. Makes
WVU look like, er, somewhere else that is not Oxford.
On a sunny autumn day, this is a real pretty place.
Comes complete with
ambiguous incongruous artwork.
I was there to give a talk and discuss with Jim and Pedrito how
we might tackle certain pending NASA grants, if we got them.
(Now there's a name for you:
Pedrito Uriah Maynard-Zhang).
Together, we filled up a few
whiteboard with nonsense
squiggles. Drank coffee. Invented a sub-field
of requirements engineering. Made conceptual mistakes that
we won't
realize for years to come. The stuff of (academic) life.
In between planning research that will
confuse a whole generation of
graduate students,
I
eavesdropped around the campus. Its a good time to be a spy.
Everyone think they can have private
conversations when walking around with the cell phone. Silly people.
I can report that students are just as earnest and contrary
and ill-informed and nervous and
misguided and
strident
as undergraduates everywhere. Either confused
about being in love or confused why they aren't in love,
In any case, they
confess all to everyone listening, pretending
to listen, or trying to listen to something else.