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March 28, 2003

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Families 'loan' students to TU

With commencement just seven weeks away, our seniors are not the only ones getting prepared. While our students graduate from Trinity just once, the rest of us have to endure their departure every year.

It's not easy returning our students where they belong - with their families and aimed straight at their promising futures. It is that sobering time of year when we suddenly remember that we only have our students on loan.

Can their families know them the way we do - the daily ups and downs, the hard work, the growth, the failures, the successes and the maturity? They may be shocked if they knew the whole truth - but mostly they would be impressed - and so are we.

Over their tenure here, most of our students make connections with different faculty and staff members in countless ways. For me, it is often the RAs, the members of ASR and Student Court (and of course babysitters) that my family and I know best. There are many others whom I know of because of what they have overcome, and it makes me proud for them.

But I'm just one. Most Trinity employees who have any student contact form their own bonds, memories, and feelings. Staff members who supervise student workers often become the temporary influencing adult presence in the lives of those students. You see their pride too, on graduation day, with cameras and cards in hand as they meet parents and turn loose students who have been like children to them.

And when students speak of faculty interaction? It doesn't stop in the classroom. This week alone a faculty member contacted Residential Life, willing to front the $300 room deposit for a struggling student if it came to that. Yet another called close to tears, after learning of the serious illness of a student from her class in the fall.

Indeed, I regularly hear from faculty and staff members (advisors, counselors, coaches, instructors) interceding on behalf of students - in disciplinary situations, roommate situations, and personal crises.

Interaction between students and the administration is not all business either. ASR president and baseball player, Jake Walker, was recently called into Dr. Brazil's office for an important undisclosed matter. Earlier that week, Dr. Brazil was walking his dog past the baseball field when Jake's homerun ball landed nearby. The president had no controversy to present - just the baseball that belonged to a relieved ASR president.

Can their families know them the way we do - the daily ups and downs, the hard work, the growth, the failures, the successes and the maturity? They may be shocked if they knew the whole truth - but mostly they would be impressed - and so are we.

The conventional wisdom is that students gain from us, when the truth is we gain from them. In a recent meeting with faculty members, one professor spoke about her positive feelings for our students - this scholar, and expert in her field, confessed with enthusiasm that she often finds herself in the role of the learner. Our students offer us much more than just their intellect though, but also their youthful enthusiasm, determination, perseverance, and optimism.

And then they leave. So we look ahead to next year's new class. But shortly after they arrive, we'll forget again, that it's only a loan.

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