Chapman University

Q: Is it possible to frown while looking at a palm tree? A: No.

As some of you may already know, I've made a habit of volunteering with College Summit over the summer. This year, I decided to mix it up a little bit and I signed up for a workshop in Southern California, at University of Redlands, that will be starting tomorrow. In the days preceding the workshop, I've been catching up with a friend from graduate school who is also a college counselor and we decided to visit Chapman University yesterday.

Founded before the Civil War, Chapman is one of the oldest colleges in California.

Chapman is a medium sized private university (5,600 students) located in Orange, California about one hour from Los Angeles. To give some additional perspective, it is 15 minutes from Disneyland - the most popular off-campus job option for Chapman students. There are a variety of academic options at Chapman, including things like business and film. The campus footprint isn't huge, but for students from the Northeast that likely won't have cars, the size means it is totally manageable. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of our fellow tourmates represented a great deal of regional diversity. And I don't mean regions around LA, I mean families visiting from Maryland, Wisconsin, and Washington state.

Notable and unique attributes of Chapman include the Holocaust Education program and library, dedicated 10 years ago by Elie Wiesel.  The campus is full of sculptures (both traditional busts and more modern works) and there are multiple fountains and plazas for students to gather, study, or relax. Officially affiliated with the Christian Church (though our tour guide said that the connection is rather distant and he didn't feel that religion played a role in everyday campus life), I was very impressed with the Interfaith Center. The building and surrounding zen garden were really beautiful and clearly done with a lot of foresight and planning. Lastly, I have to point out that unlike most colleges in our neck of the woods in NY, Chapman also has two outdoor pools on campus -- one for fitness/competition and one for leisure (see below).

That is a pool. For students. Where they can study for their class called 'Reasons to Go to College In California."

In the wake of the recent college sexual assault article in the New York Times, I was particularly struck by the fact that the back of the restroom stalls at Chapman have big stickers with detailed resources for victims of sexual assault. There is obviously much to be done in addressing this on college campuses, but I greatly appreciate the fact that this is already part of the consciousness at Chapman.

P.S. I would also be overlooking a really important part of my visit if I didn't mention the waffle sandwich that I had across the street from the school. Come visit Chapman just so you can come have lunch here.

Really? More like really delicious.