Is the U ugly?
My gratitude for being able to cover a campus as attractive as the University of Minnesota has just been crushed.
Or bolstered.
It's so hard to tell.
The Star Tribune has reported -- in read that's quite a bit of fun -- that Travel & Leisure magazine has named the U one of the ugliest campuses in America.
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It trashes Coffmann Memorial Union, and says in the main article:
Sprawling commuter campuses like the University of Minnesota may bring to mind Dunder Mifflin, the uninspired setting of the TV show "The Office."
That statement seemed off.
The U is a commuter campus -- as in one that has few or no students living on campus? Hardly. The use of the U must have been a slip.
(Note: Another campus on the ugly list? Stony Brook University - the former campus of U President Eric Kaler. Ouch -- a dubious distinction.)
Yet in the article, U spokesman Chuck Tombarge notes that the U's prettiness put it on the list of "50 Most Amazing College Campuses" at thebestcolleges.org.
Fox 9 also came to the U's defense on Twitter by passing on this collection of campus photos.
And I though academic rankings were screwy.