Beyond the Cistern

After the exhilaration of sending in my enrollment and tuition deposits in late spring of 2007 — officially transforming myself from an accepted student to an individual in the College’s incoming freshmen class — I received a letter in the mail from the Colllege’s Office of the President officially welcoming me as a “member of the College of Charleston community”.

Yet, immediately upon finishing the letter, I wasn’t entirely sure of what this “membership” would entail. But I would quickly find out many of its perks through the form of pleasant surprises.

It was not more than one week after I had received the letter that I began to receive phone calls from representatives of different student orgs — namely the Club Swimming team and the Jewish Student Union/Hillel — inviting me to look into each of their respective activities when I arrived on-campus in the fall. Although I mentioned my participation in competitive swimming and Jewish life on my application to the College, I had no idea that this information would find its way to the student orgs that shared similar interests activities with me. I assumed I would have to seek out these activities and the student orgs that sponsored them once school began but the College was right there, on the ball, already taking steps to help ease my transition.

Another week passed and I received another mailing. This time, on behalf of the JSU/Hillel, I received a large maroon t-shirt with the phonetic Hebrew spelling of  ”College of Charleston” written on the front. Appended to the shirt was a note from the student with whom I had spoken on the phone earlier, in which she thanked me for my time and looked forward to meeting me in-person in a couple of months. Unbelievable, I thought. I was perfectly content with this being all that occurred during the lead-up to arriving on campus. But I was again in for another pleasant surprised.

Later in the week, I received a phone call out of the blue from Profesora Devon Hanahan, the Spanish professor at the College whose class I sat-in on during my visit to campus months earlier. (After the class, she subsequently insisted that she give me a tour of campus and bought me lunch at what I have come to learn as one of the best sandwich shops on King Street — Groucho’s.) At first, I didn’t even know how she got my phone number. Maybe the Office of Admissions, I thought. But then I remembered: Before we left the classroom, she had ask me to write down my phone number on what appeared to be a scratch piece of paper in case she learned of any fun weekend activities in Charleston that my mom and I would enjoy while we were in town. Although she never called me during the weekend, she had kept that scratch piece on her office push-pin board and, since she knew the May 1 deadline had passed, she now wanted to know where I would be attending school in the fall. I told her of my choice and the pleasant surprises that I had received after sending in my deposits. After welcoming me to the CofC community again, I distinctly remember what happened next. In a very matter-of-fact tone, she said, “These acts of courtesy might be surprises to you but, really, this is just the way we do things here at the College.”

And with that, I thanked her again for the call and her hospitality during my campus visit and we said good-bye. Yet, although the phone call ended, her words lingered in my mind…This is just the way we do things here at the College.

Throughout the summer, though her words lingered, their face value was lost to my inner-cynicism. That is, of course, until I arrived on-campus and experienced New Student Orientation. It was at this time that the words of Prfsa. Hanahan began to finally sink in. The sentiment embodied in what she had told me was not hers alone; rather it was the comity displayed by everyone I met during the two days I was on-campus. The personableness was not only found in the Orientation Interns but also in what seemed to be all the other people I met around campus, from the academic advisors — patient and amiable during the advising session — to a professor taking a jog throughout the lush campus, stopping briefly to welcome us bright-eyed incoming first-years. I remember encountering current students enjoying their summer vacations, strolling around the grounds. Much to my surprise, they had seemed to gravitate toward us packs of students, asking us our names and where we were from, if we went to this high school or that one, and finally bidding us goodbye with a reminder to Facebook them when we returned to begin classes. 

But the one thing that pervades my New Student Orientation experience is the people with whom I travelled in those packs. They hailed from places I had heard of (Los Angeles, Chicago, and even Trinidad) and places unbeknownst to me (Hinsdale, Ill., and Acton, Mass., weren’t exactly high places of interest in the geography curriculums of Minnesota primary schools). Compared to me, they were accomplished in many varying aspects of life, some having served in the military, others having received athletic scholarships, and still others precocious enough to enroll in the College at 16, 17 years of age. However, although we had different hometowns and accomplishments, we shared this benignity and camaraderie that I really don’t think any of us could have foreseen. And the rest, they say, is history.

It has now almost been two years since my New Student Orientation experience. Last year’s NSO yielded the same results. Now the Class of 2013 is now in the process of going through a similar experience, Orientation Session #1 having taken place already and Session #2 commencing today, all the way up to Session #10 finishing up right before the start of the academic year. While it remains to be seen if  this was the hatched genius of the Admissions Officers in their meticulous attempts to holistically review each submitted application or simply the type of students the College attracts (or both), I have absolutely no doubt that come Convocation, the incoming freshmen will feel quite comfortable with each other and welcomed into the College of Charleston community.