Naropa University

At this point, I do not believe there are any people reading this weblog (certainly not regularly), so I'm going to proceed as if this were truly a personal journal.

I've decided to "learn" about more Universities. I've long claimed I'm a "University guy", but I'm not walking that particular talk. It's time to change that. So, I'm going to post here about Universities.

I've spent the last day or two building a list of Universities I would personally consider. The criteria are HIGHLY subjective. It must not be:

• in any major city, unless I would consider living there permanently. (ie: No Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc...) The point here is that I LOVE campuses. I couldn't be happy at, say, MIT.
  
• religious... errr... except one: keep reading.
• in the South. ...Except in one case that I couldn't ignore.
• in a few other select states that I wouldn't feel comfortable in (ex: Dakotas, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming, etc...)
• private, unless it's REALLY REALLY fantastic (CalTech, Stanford).
• Ivy League. Elitist snobs. (Okay, Stanford folk are snobs, but...)
  
• a school that gives me a bad vibe. Yup, totally subjective.
• "just" a college. I'm all about Universities, not just colleges... graduate studies are what fuel me most.
• small. I'm only considering enrollment of 10,000 undergrads or more. (Yes, I should have gone by grad students, but that info is harder to get.) There are a few exceptions to this.
• a program without these three majors (which I'm interested in, in this order):

1. Computer Science (specifically allowing a focus on software engineering).
2. Fine Art.
3. Biochemistry, or the combination of Biology and Chemistry.
   

That said, I came up with a list of almost 40 universities. I won't list them here, now. Rather, I will talk about them one by one to the point where I'm comfortable knowing what I know about them.

THAT said, the first one I'll examine is Naropa University. It's in Boulder, CO, and it's the only "religious" university on my list. Tuition seems to run just over $20k per year including board, so it's definitely on the expensive end of the scale, but there are almost 200 faculty and only something like 400 students. :) They claim their focus is on "contemplative education", and it appears they offer (mandate?) a set of meditative practices.

This is one of the huge exceptions to my criteria, but I just thought it was so cool, I wanted to know at least a few things about it.

There are no real science programs, and the only thing they offer that would interest me personally is Visual Arts. The website was impressive. They also have a program called "Peace Studies", which is an interesting concept.

I wouldn't actually consider going here, so I don't care to know much more than this. :) I just wanted it in my repertoire so I could mention it to other people (I know a fair number of people who would find it interesting)...