Today, I have an Impromptus column, heavy on the presidential contest. At the end, there is a little photo album from Halloween, which may ease the pain (if pain there is). Anyway, that column is here. See what you think.

Last week, I published a journal from Bloomington, Ind. From Indiana U, in particular. Beautiful campus. In a related blogpost, I asked, “What’s the most beautiful campus of all?”

That is an unfair question, really — overly broad. Here is a reader who puts it well:

Dear Jay,

Your challenge to readers to identify the most beautiful college campus is an intriguing one, but one that I think is impossible. I don’t know how one could compare, for example, the Stanford campus to that of my alma mater, Amherst College. Both are beautiful, but the only thing they have in common is that they are located in the United States.

Our reader adds,

I believe that the most beautiful place to watch a college football game is the California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. I think someone expressed the same opinion in Sports Illustrated many years ago. I have no association with Cal, so I’m not saying this out of school loyalty. It just seems that the combination of San Francisco Bay and good weather is irresistible.

Another reader — referring to Indiana University and the University of Colorado at Boulder — says,

I started out at IU, then graduated from CU twice. When I worked at CU, I supervised a bunch of “kids” who had been student employees and then got hired full time. I mentioned to them once that IU was the most beautiful campus. They mutinied and never let me forget it. I’ve been in Golden, Colo., for 55 years but have not changed my opinion.

Boulder is pretty but not “IU pretty.” Truth.

A reader says,

One of my triplet daughters is a graduate of IU. Bloomington is without question one of the prettier campuses in the country. Another triplet daughter is a Ph.D. student at Penn State, which is also beautiful.

However, there is one campus that stands above all others: “Far above Cayuga’s waters / With its waves of blue / Stands our noble Alma Mater / Glorious to view.”

My wife and I, my sister and her husband, and two of my daughters are Cornell graduates. There is no contest. Everyone else is fighting for second place.

A reader writes,

I am biased, but Saint Mary’s College of California has one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. Located just outside Moraga in the East Bay Hills, the mission-style campus sits in a beautiful valley. When my dad, a Northwestern grad, drove onto campus for the first time, he dubbed SMC “the country club” — which was especially funny in that I played tennis there. We also have a really solid men’s-basketball program.

Go Gaels!

From another:

I nominate William & Mary, the nation’s second-oldest college. Aerial views of the campus found online show its extensive beauty, mixing old and newer buildings with an ample green forest, plus a lake. I’ve not seen anything quite like it elsewhere.

A reader says,

Give Iowa State’s central campus a look! Green spaces, blooming trees in the spring, stately old buildings.

How about this?

I have seen Yale and Harvard, both distinctive, and many others on either coast. I have also interviewed law students at Indiana University in Bloomington. Yes, it is a pretty campus, but my vote is that the prettiest campus I have ever seen, as unlikely it may seem, is that of the University of Kansas at Lawrence.

“Rock chalk, Jayhawk, KU!”

A man writes,

Dear Jay,

I am definitely biased, but nothing beats the U.S. Naval Academy!

That is a damn fine nomination.

Another reader says,

Dartmouth, Ole Miss, Villanova. Heavy bias on all selections. Hard not to.

Another says,

My oldest went to the University of Richmond, a decidedly beautiful campus.

There are two votes for Brigham Young University. One for Baylor. One for Wake Forest. And, staying with North Carolina, one for Elon University.

Thank you for playing, one and all.