Knox College (Illinois) - Campus

Campus

Knox College has 45 academic and residential buildings on its 82-acre (330,000 m2) campus. Knox boasts electron microscopes, a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, a Celestron telescope, access to the Inter University Consortium for Political & Social Research, the Strong Collection of 18th and 19th century maps and photographs, the Hughes Collection of manuscripts and first editions from Hemingway and his “Lost Generation” contemporaries, and a 700-acre (2.8 km2) natural prairie reserve, the Green Oaks Field Station. In 2006, the new E. & L. Andrew Fitness Center was dedicated. The 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m2), $2.4-million facility features state-of-the-art equipment, and is significantly larger than the former fitness center, Memorial Gymnasium.

The centerpiece of the Knox campus is Old Main. Old Main is "the oldest building on its campus, and is the best preserved site of one of the 1858 senatorial debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas." A National Historic Landmark and part of the National Register of Historic Places.

Built in 1928, the Seymour Library is was ranked 3rd "Best Library" in the nation by the Princeton Review in 2001. Inside its leaded glass windows and oak paneled reading rooms, the library houses 350,000 books and subscribes to more than 14,000 periodicals. Its special collections include the Finley Collection of Midwest History, the Strong Collection of 18th- and 19th-century maps and photographs, the Hughes Collection of manuscripts and first editions from Faulkner, Hemingway and his “Lost Generation” contemporaries, and an original Diderot Encyclopédie.

Famous professor and newspaperman Christopher Morley delivered a three-week-long series of lectures on "Literature as Companionship" at Knox in March and April 1938. In one of these lectures, entitled "Lonely Fun", he describes the Standish Alcove in the library as modeled after a "gentleman's library," and praised the opportunities the library offered for solitary leisure. In addition, Knox offers the Kresge Science & Math Library, which houses the scientific and technical collections of the college, and the Center for the Fine Arts Music Library (CFA), which has collections of compact discs, vinyl record albums, printed music scores, and a core reference collection.

Four public computer laboratories are accessible to students, with several more departmental labs available and a dedicated language laboratory. The largest, Founders Laboratory, is located in Seymour Hall (the student union), and is open 24 hours a day throughout the school year. Scanning (including film-scanning and optical character recognition) is available freely to student users, and printing and copy services are available for a fee. In a move to become more environmentally friendly beginning fall of 2005 recycled-content paper was phased in for use in all college printers, addressing the issues of paper waste.

In 2002, a major curriculum revision entitled "Renewed Knox" was launched. With this revision came the creation of six new academic centers: The Center for Research and Advanced Studies, The Center for Global Studies, The Center for Career and Pre-Professional Development, The Center for Community Service, The Center for Teaching and Learning, and The Center for Intercultural Life.

Students established the Knox College Community Garden in 2007 as an independent study project. It continues to be tended by student volunteers, and produces a variety of annual and perennial vegetables and flowers.