An Open Letter To The Class of 2024
Returning sophomores, we owe you an enormous debt.
You guys.
I don’t even know where to begin.
I’ll start this letter to you with full disclosure.
For three years, my family has lived deep inside the belly of an elite midwestern university. We are a “faculty family,” here to provide some balance to the culture of campus life. We are encouraged to engage, but we have few actual residential life responsibilities. We treat students as neighbors who occasionally need to be reminded to take out their trash and turn down the music, but who also like my dog and fresh baked cookies and invitations to a BBQ like anyone else.
We were here before the pandemic. We were here during the evacuation of Spring, 2020. And we were here to cautiously welcome you as incoming first years (freshmen) last fall.
We sat anxiously and watched the university desperately plan and pivot to make it possible for the campus to open during those tentative, pre-vaccine days of late 2020. We were here when you quickly unpacked your parents’ cars, subjected yourselves to COVID screens, and locked yourselves in, sometimes with roommates, but often alone.
We felt the silence of a locked down campus just as you did. We joined Zoom dorm…
