For example, at U of Idaho, the College of Natural resources offers majors ranging from Forestry and Forest & Sustainable Products (things made from wood) to Conservation Biology and Environmental Science. Within the Forestry major, students can concentrate in Forest Operations (harvesting trees), Rangeland Ecology, Fire Ecology and Management, and Wildlife Resources. Based on our discussion with the professor, Forestry Operations focuses on sustainable harvesting of trees with minimal disruption to the ecosystem.
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Often referred to as directional colleges (for inclusion of the words North, South, East, or West in their name), it also includes non-(or minimal) PhD granting state schools, some well regarded like Truman State, The College of New Jersey, Salisbury University, or UNC-Asheville, others more obscure, but all (as @dfbdfb mentioned) ferociously focused on undergraduate education, often on taking students that come to college without the same level of preparation and working hard to mentor them.
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Which means that they often have really, really good support systems for both ill- and well-prepared students, too.
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Bachelors degree?
This seems to refer to an impression you formed of Vassar’s campus overall, in thar Vassar’s main quad appears to be among the most architecturally consistent anywhere:
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Yes, BS. My son is starting to look at undergraduate programs for my HS son.
I have to disagree. IIRC, @NiceUnparticularMan has a pretty good grip on architectural history and Vassar’s campus can be divided into at least three sections (depending on how you categorize the modern era): The Second Empire Style of its dominant building which housed the entire college at the time of its founding (similar to Swarthmore’s Parrish Hall); The Gothic Revival style of its library which is Vassar’s second biggest building. And then there are the dormitories pictured above which as Nice Man states, are sort of reached after meandering a bit. Frankly, I prefer it to the more manufactured Gothic of WUSTL which probably consists of steel beams that weren’t available in medeival times, but hey - to each their own!
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Yes, that one quad is very cohesive, but I would not refer to that as Vassar’s “main” quad.
Here is a nice 3D map of their campus:
That is a shot of the Residential Quad, where many (not all) of their residential houses are located, I believe likely taken from the tower of Jewett House.
Just south of the Residential Quad is what I would think is closer to their main quad. It is also still pretty rectilinear but the architecture is more eclectic (although mostly pretty historic feeling).
Outside of those two quads, you can see how Vassar gets very meandering, and parts of the campus are in their own pockets on the other sides of streams and lakes and such.
For contrast, here is a similarish map of WUSTL (Danforth campus and South 40):
You can see how the whole main campus is organized on the same rectilinear pattern. The South 40 is then separated out, but there is one walking path/tunnel between the two.
I think it is tough to actually capture the feel of the campus in a picture, so here is a link to what I would call a representative Google streetview location:
If you spin around you can see some older buildings and some modern ones, but you can see how they all sort of fit together. And the campus sorta feels like an endless series of a courtyards like that running along the sides, with some bigger quads down the middle, like these:
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For a total amateur!
Yes, those are around what I called their main quad, along with the Gothic Chapel I mentioned in my original posts, which dates to 1904. It is actually a very impressive building albeit not as famous. It is done in a really lovely Norman-revival style . . .
. . . with a great wood ceiling . . .
. . . and lovely stained glass in a rather appropriate theme:
Yeah, the “Academic Gothic” even of WUSTL’s oldest buildings is really not that old, and it was not trying to be particularly faithful, more just whatever mix of elements the architects liked:
I think my S24 does not mind that at all, indeed responds well to that approach. But personally I respond more to a variety of architectural styles where each building feels more like its own thing. But I am also not at all against Revival styles, and particularly like Gothic. So for a campus of the cohesive style, I do like WUSTL’s.
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By the way, just to be a little opinionated for a moment, somewhat to my surprise the Residential Quad ended up one of the more “meh” spaces for me on the Vassar campus. It isn’t easy to see in that lovely shot, but most of the buildings are pretty plain by high-end-college standards, and some were showing some wear in the not-good-way. Vassar calls them Elizabethan in style, which I guess is fair, but I don’t really love Elizabethan to begin with, and this again is a pretty basic version. Here are some representative shots pulled from Wikipedia (no rainbows for us):
I promise to stop geeking out about all this, but as some know I was also looking forward to seeing the Saarinen-designed Noyes House, and that did not at all disappoint me. I was fascinated to learn it was also planned originally to have two matching buildings creating a semi-circle (that would have been cool! and it is not too late, there is still room!), and there is a fun story about a student thesis leading to the recovery of a model of that plan:
http://vassarcampushistory.vassarspaces.net/emma-hartman-noyes-house/
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Congratulations on your D being a Boilermaker. My D was a Chem E graduate of Purdue and loved her experience there. Boilerup indeed!
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In one sense, I concur, in that it lies to the north of many of Vassar’s key buildings, such as its academic buildings, library and chapel. Nonetheless, I’d regard it Vassar’s main quadrangle, in that it is the most geometrically defined of Vassar’s large spaces.
Maybe Vassar doesn’t have a “main quad” at all? If that is the only space that counts, I’d accordingly suggest that is more like an “only quad”.
But in any event, I agree the Residential Quad specifically is relatively matchy in terms of look.
Fascinating discussion about the Vassar campus. I’ll hold off adding to this discussion further other than to say one of you is right and one is wrong. The”right one” is in agreement with me. 
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I was just thinking there are a lot of strange angles here (pun totally intended!).
Like the bigger picture for me (still intended!) is I really liked the Vassar campus overall, but DIDN’T particularly like the Residential Quad specifically, so I feel like I am actually defending my overall positive impression of the Vassar campus by arguing the Residential Quad specifically is not really a dominant feature of the campus.
So I think of myself as taking a pro-Vassar’s-campus position, and yet someone who loved the Residential Quad AND thought it was the epitome of Vassar’s campus could think the opposite!
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This suggests an important distinction. Personally, I’d say that the residential quad represents a historically essential aspect of Vassar’s campus, and, as such, partly defines Vassar’s architecture generally. This differs from a comment on the quad’s aesthetics, on which opinions are free to vary. Along these lines, when posting on Vassar, I’ve typically focused on other architectural characteristics (e.g., Vassar vs Middlebury vs Wesleyan [international politics, philosophy, Spanish, French, Arabic] - #9 by merc81, in which the library, chapel and science building are mentioned).
My D loved the residential quad and is somewhat disappointed she’ll never get to live there as she was not assigned to one of those dorms as a freshman (Vassar makes it very hard to change dorms even as an upperclassman; you usually stay in the same dorm until/unless you move into a campus apartment or off-campus). That said I agree that they’re not the nicest buildings on campus (though I also like the look of the quad and like that most dorms are in close proximity). The condition of the dorms, however, would definitely not be a reason to attend Vassar! (Though they are renovating.).
So on the table, we’ve got the Perpendicular Gothic library, Norman Revival chapel, and Contemporary Bridge for Laboratory Sciences building, plus the Modernist Noyes House and Second Empire Main Building, none of which are in the same style as each other OR the Elizabethan Residential Quad . . . so, eclectic, yes?
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I’m passing out demerits to all involved in this Vassar discussion for not mentioning Marcel Breuer’s Ferry House (1951)!
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I mean, if you can’t say anything nice . . . .
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