Recitals
About this publication
We read the American university as an institution: a corporation with a charter, an endowment held on terms, an estate of buildings, collections held in trust, and a city on the other side of the wall.
What we write about
Endowments and the instruments that govern them. Campus architecture, its planners and its paymasters. Research libraries and the logic of collecting. Boards, charters and delegated authority. The land a university owns and the municipal budget that land sits outside of.
Everything is written from the documented record: charters, gift instruments, building committee minutes, published financial statements, court decisions and professional standards. Where a figure moves year to year, or is reported on different bases by different institutions, we describe the mechanism instead of asserting the number.
What we do not write about
We are not an admissions adviser and we do not publish advice about applying to, paying for or attending a university. There is no ranking here, no essay guidance, no deadline calendar and no discussion of student loans. Readers who need that should go to the institutions themselves, or to a licensed adviser.
We also do not profile people. Presidents, deans, donors and faculty appear only where a documented institutional act requires them to.
Pictures
Our picture editing is buildings, interiors, collections, grounds and objects. Rooms are photographed empty, which is also how their architects drew them.