Annual starlight walking tour of Mount Oread marks autumnal equinox Monday


Beginning at 5 a.m. at the intersection of Jayhawk Boulevard and 14th Street, retired professor Theodore Johnson will lead the annual autumnal equinox walking tour Monday, Sept. 22. The tour will continue until 11 a.m. Johnson conducted the first equinox tour, for the vernal equinox, in March 1991.

“A university examines the universe, often through experiences and experiments," Johnson said. "Our campus allows individuals both the time and the space to remove themselves from a certain material busyness to think and grow. Because of the fine oriented buildings on the eastern brow of Mount Oread above the grid of Lawrence, our university is a great place to experience equinoxes.” 

On autumnal equinox morning, attendees will first study Spooner Hall, the former University Library, oriented and constructed in the manner of a 12th century Romanesque church. They then will view the main north door of Watson Library, a collegiate Gothic structure, and then head to the eastern façade of Stauffer-Flint, the prototype for the Natural History Museum.

Participants will return to experience the brightening of the sky and the rising of the sun directly above 14th Street just after 7 a.m., when they will be able to see light illuminate two manhole covers on the top of 14th Street and — for moment — see a line of three golden disks. From 10-11 a.m. they will explore the implications of the iconography dealing with astronomy and other subjects sculpted on the eastern façade of the Natural History Museum.

Johnson specializes in 19th and 20th century poetry, Proust, and interrelations of literature and the visual arts. He has received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Mortar Board's recognition as an Outstanding Educator at the University of Kansas, and in 1992, the Senior Class H.O.P.E. award to Honor an Outstanding Progressive Educator. Johnson is available to conduct conversational tours of the campus and examine works in the Spencer Museum of Art, with particular emphasis on the interrelations of the traditional Seven Liberal Arts. 

Fri, 09/19/2014

author

Julia Johnston

Media Contacts

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson

KU News Service

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