This weekend is Alumni Weekend at Creighton University, including all of the professional schools. As part of that event the school set up numerous activities for alumni and their families. As an alum I took the opportunity yesterday to go on one of the campus tours, since other than leading myself on a couple of self guided tours on summer Sundays in past years I have spent very little time on the main campus in 40 years.
Well, after walking in the Harper Student Center about all I could say is that if my head could spin like the girl in The Exorcist it would still be spinning today! Effing night and day different than when I attended in the late 1970s into the early 1980s. There is essentially an on campus Apple Store housed in the Harper Center, across from one of two Starbucks coffee houses. I was told that the Starbucks located on the west side of campus in that student center was for a time the busiest Starbucks in all of Nebraska. Students can add use of Starbucks to their meal plan, and thus use them on an unlimited basis. That might explain the long lines even after 10 am.
Probably half of the structures on campus didn’t exist when I attended. Some that did have been enlarged or repurposed. The old Admin Building still stands proud, but one of the larger student housing halls bit the dust earlier this year and one more will probably disappear next year, I was told. Virtually all on-campus student housing is more apartment style, with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, plus kitchenettes and shared living room space. The newest student housing building, for freshmen, just opened a few weeks ago. A new housing structure for Jesuits who live on campus is rapidly taking shape along 24th Street, next to the Admin building.
The fountain that for over 40 years has adorned the front of St. John’s Church has been removed for a complete replacement of the plaza in front of the church. It will return later this autumn with a square, rather than rounded basin.
I also attended an Open House at the Ahmanson Law Center building, where I received my JD degree. The law school building was 5 years old my first year of attendance. Next year it will mark its Golden Anniversary. It was cool to see the plaques of each graduating class. There was my father in the Class of 1944, and my uncle in the Class of 1947.
The campus has really come of age over these past few decades. It’s grown in size and the facilities are so much nicer now. It truly has become a beautiful campus. The best I guess I can say, looking back, is that “we never knew we had it so bad.”
