Why This Site Has Almost No Graphics

Several reasons:

Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB at modem speed. Keeping below these size limits rules out most graphics.
I am not a visual designer, so my graphics would look crummy anyway. Since this website is created by myself (and not by a multidisciplinary team as is recommend for large sites) and the university doesn't provide web designers to help faculty make pretty pages.
I have to maintain the site myself and a simple text-only web site can be maintained with free easy-to-learn tools such as Mozilla Composer.
In the opinion of many usability experts, most fancy animations and graphics found on the web do not increase comprehension or usability. Some of the most popular sites on the Web -- Google, Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, to name a few -- are often very heavy on the text and very light on the imagery.

For more info about the need for sub-second response times, see the short essay on the three main response time limits or the book Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond.

If you aren't offended by extremely harsh profanity, you might read this crude, crass, vituperative underscore to the above points. (Not written by Dr. Dalbey.)