I have to say, as a Michigander, I love those Pure Michigan commercials!
I went to Central Michigan University as because of that, I am a rather large fan of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Now, when I chose my university I did it purely on financial reasons. I couldn’t really afford to be picky. But it worked out very well in my favor. I learned a lot about myself during that time and met some amazing people.
Central is also known as a teaching school. It used to be called Central Michigan Normal School (started in 1892) AND I have women in my family who went to school there to become teachers. These ancestors aren’t in my direct line but I was very excited to see them in census records as attending either a “teaching school” or “central normal school.”
I don’t have permission to post some of the wonderful old pictures of CMU but if you go here, you’ll see some information on Central’s 120th anniversary from 2012 along with some neat old pictures. There was a fire in 1925 that destroyed some of the main buildings. Warriner Hall was built to replace it (see below) and was our main building for admission/academic items to go to. At least it was when I went there. If you’re curious about what the fire looked like, go here.
CMU has changed a lot since I went to school there. Even while I was attending school, it was changing. My freshman year I lived in the Towers (non-air conditioned freshman halls – although most dorms weren’t air conditioned then) while they were building the “New Towers” that were more like apartments (VERY NOISILY – started at 8am M-F – even during exams!). The Towers had four people in each dorm. The dorm consisted of 3 rooms – a main room, a thin, small bathroom, and a bedroom. It could get a bit cramped in those dorms. The new dorms have four separate bedrooms, a main living area, and two bathrooms. Talk about a luxury! I did get the chance to stay there during the summer when I worked summer desk. They are very nice! And the rest of the dorms are a bit better than those freshman dorms. I didn’t stay in the Towers after my first year but moved to an all girls dorm, Beddow, across the way (smelled so much better than co-ed dorms), which is no longer an all-girls dorm. These dorms still have four people but there are two bedrooms, a main room, and a bathroom. Not as cramped and really nice as far as dorms go.
Besides those new buildings, they now have a new education building! While I was getting my education degree, the education building was the old library with “classrooms” set up with semi-permanent walls that didn’t quite touch the ceiling and quite a bit of outdated equipment. In short, we were well prepared for what we would get in the teaching world (HA!). The new building is quite amazing with all this wonderful technology (that sadly won’t be found in many classrooms that these new teachers will be placed in later). I was sad that it came about after I left!
One of my favorite new buildings also came about my freshman year. The library (go figure, right?). It is a large, glass walled building with MOVING SHELVES! That was oddly my favorite feature. It was also the first time I got to work with old documents, microfilm, and research techniques. I fell in love with it all 🙂
This is on the floor of the new education building
Campus from a window of the education building
Warriner Hall
Beautiful fall scenery! My favorite time of year 🙂
Well. I just realized this was a entry entirely dedicated to my love for my university. It works, right? 🙂
