Valparaiso University’s Chapel of the Resurrection is more than the most famous building on campus. It’s also a crown jewel of midcentury modern architecture.

Gretchen Buggeln, Duesenberg professor of Christianity and the arts, created a walking tour and led a symposium on midcentury buildings on campus Friday.

The mid-1900s is when VU expanded east and built a lot of structures on what is now the main campus area, she said.

That was a boom time for higher education enrollment nationwide, surging from 1.5 million in 1940 to 8 million in the 1960s, said Lindsay Shannon, associate professor of art history at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.

The GI Bill after World War II, the Cold War emphasis on STEM and diversified programs, compared to the 19th-century emphasis on the cl

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