Vassar Yesterday

Vassar Yesterday

By Micah Buis '02
Circle of Class
Circle of Class

Vassar professors have a habit of encouraging their students to think outside the classroom. Maria Mitchell helped to start this tradition, when, on August 7, 1869, she took seven of her astronomy students westward to Burlington, Iowa, to see a rare, total eclipse of the sun. And Brian McAdoo, assistant professor of geology, continues this tradition today. In his course “Digital Underground,” McAdoo and his students visit sites around the Hudson Valley to locate and study abandoned African-American graveyards, using advanced geophysics. The outside classroom pictured above, erected in 1939 and situated within a pine cluster between Noyes House and Ely Hall, literally provides a space for students to think outside the classroom.

Photo courtesy of Special Collections, Vassar College Libraries.