Austin, Texas

31 July 2009

I've just returned from a whirlwind 48 h in Austin, Texas. It's the closest thing you can find to a sister city for Berkeley in the state. But it's not too close!

The purpose of the visit: to participate in an advisory committee meeting for an "IGERT" program at The University of Texas at Austin. IGERT stands for "integrative graduate education and research traineeship;" it is a major program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). As one of about 200 IGERT programs nationwide, UT Austin has funding for five years to support graduate education in "Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering."

Over the course of a long day and a half, the seven members of the advisory committee engaged with the faculty leaders and about 20 graduate students from this program.

The weather in Austin was hot (!) and humid (!!) and the schedule didn't allow for much time outdoors anyway. But I did get in a nice long walk on Wednesday afternoon along the Colorado River to Barton Springs Pool. The first and last photos were from that walk.



This afternoon, before heading for the airport, we squeezed in a quick walk around the center of the UT campus, including The University of Texas Tower. This tower was designed by Paul Cret and constructed in 1937. Here's an odd fact. The tower is 307 feet tall. UC Berkeley's Campanile, built in 1914, is 307 feet tall. Coincidence? I think not. Austin must aspire to be the Berkeley of Texas! Otherwise, they would have made a 308 foot tower!

There is a big music scene in Austin. As just one example, Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in a helicopter accident in 1990, was a leading blues guitarist here. The bottom photo shows a memorial statue of him along the Colorado River bank with the downtown skyline in the background.