Paul Quinn College Campus Tour

Founded by African Methodist Episcopal ministers in Austin in 1872, Paul Quinn College spent more than a century in Waco before moving in 1990 to southeast Dallas, taking over the campus Bishop College had built in the 1960s and left empty when it closed in 1988. Under President Michael Sorrell the college reinvented itself as an urban work college, famously plowing up its football field to grow food for a neighborhood with few grocery stores. This walk pairs the Bishop-era buildings, including the library and chapel, with the farm and the first new building raised on campus in four decades.

Few colleges have reinvented themselves as boldly as Paul Quinn. African Methodist Episcopal ministers founded it in Austin in 1872; it spent more than a century in Waco, and in 1990 it moved to southeast Dallas, taking over the campus Bishop College had built in the 1960s and left empty after closing in 1988.

The WE Over Me Farm is the stop everyone remembers. After the college dropped football, President Michael Sorrell and students converted the unused field into an urban farm, dedicated in 2010, growing spinach, herbs, potatoes and watermelon in a part of Dallas with little access to fresh food. Part of the harvest goes to neighbors, and some produce has even been sold to AT&T Stadium.

The Bishop-era buildings carry their own history. The 1963 Zale Library, still the college's library, displays a large 1968 mural by artist Louis Freund, and the Richard Allen Chapel, named for the Philadelphia preacher who led the founding of the AME Church, has reopened after years of closure. The Trammell S. Crow Living and Learning Center, a LEED-designed hall combining student housing, classrooms and a competition gym, was the first new construction on campus in about four decades and supports the college's urban work-college model.

It's a short visit with a big story about faith, resilience and reinvention.