The Lawrence campus has been mostly closed for a solid month; faculty has been off since Thanksgiving at least. Students were gone and the campus was like a ghost town. Since we live on the edge of campus, that was especially apparent, as we’re used to the regular parade of faculty who live nearby walking past on their way to classes.
Only today, with classes starting tomorrow, has life really returned. At dusk, a frat boy was moving back into a Greek house around the corner; the luggage he was carrying looked like it weighed twice his body weight. Instruments were being carried back into the Con (or dragged, pushed, & pleaded with, as was the case with one very large harp). The events listings are back up on the calendar page of the website, and the academic building offices will be buzzing with syllabi copying tomorrow.
I’ll be teaching Freshman Studies 101, which includes Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment, short stories by Borges, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the writings of Zhuangzi (formerly known as Chuang Tzu), and Reading the Rocks, a book about geology by LU prof Marcia Bjornerud. I’m looking forward to it; I hope they are, at least a little.
So welcome back, Lawrentians!