Agate Hall

Starting to settle into the new environs in vintage Agate Hall (above), where the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication has moved on an interim basis while Allen Hall is expanded and remodeled. With a total of 47 students in two sections of public relations writing, I'm keeping plenty busy.

Most seem to agree: the new facility is both comfortable and spacious, a welcome respite from crowded Allen Hall. Agate Hall sits opposite Hayward Field and the new soccer fields (below), with recently retired McArthur Court in the background.

Designed in the California "mission style" using a stucco exterior on a rectangular floor plan, Agate Hall was contructed in 1924 as Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School, making it eligible for the national historic register. The facility is eerily similar to the Catholic grade school I attended for eight years in Portland, down to the antiquated urinals in the restroom.

Agate Hall became Condon Elementary School in 1950, and eventually housed the first Magnet Arts Alternative School. The Eugene School District closed the school in 1983 due to low enrollment. The UO acquired the property in 1984 and named it Agate Hall.

The chimney on Agate Hall is decommissioned but has become a local curiosity because of the large number of Vaux's Swifts roosting inside the stack during their annual summer migration. When the swifts vacate the chimney in September, it's a sight that rivals the bats abandoning the Congress Avenue Bridge at sunset in Austin, Texas.

Since I walk virtually everywhere these days, I have a new route to class. Allen Hall resides in the northwest corner -- while Agate Hall is located in the southeast corner -- of the UO campus.

So instead of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, I now skirt the music school where I enjoy the melodic strains of the woodwinds and keyboards, and the Pioneer Cemetery, a virtual arboretum in the middle of campus.

Students (above, hard at work) and staff alike seem to be acclimating quite nicely to the new j-school digs in Agate Hall. I also love how the writing labs provide for an open forum for teaching. Plus, we have our own auditorium complete with a second story balcony.

Now, if I can just get over that foreboding sense that -- at any moment -- Mother Superior will burst into the restroom, barking at us to return to our seats....