I think I’ve finally totally fallen for this place. If I can’t make it here, it is my own damned fault. The physical sensation hit when I came around the bend on Campus Drive towards the Publix on The Strip and saw Bryant-Denny Stadium out of my peripheral vision.
It’s been kind of an overwhelming week for the College of Human Environmental Sciences, of which I am a tiny cog of a large and extremely well-functioning machine. Two big things happened in our department: a faculty member lost a parent, which is not all that unusual and tragic in a group of our size and a population our age, but it was a very sad thing. The other thing was an unspeakable revelation about one of our students, one who is a particular favorite of mine.
It is the second thing that has really touched me. Not to diminish the first one at all; losing a parent is never easy, no matter what your age. We have pulled together, the faculty and our graduate students, to support our colleague and minimize the impact on others. It is the second incident that has profoundly touched me. The student in question is sharp and fun and enthusiastic. The thing that happened to him/her is something that many young people have had to deal with; I can think of times in my life when I narrowly escaped a similar crisis. However, in this instance, the scale of the event rather transcends the reality. But enough about that.
The sense of family enveloping this situation has overwhelmed me. It is like a huge defensive net has descended upon the involved parties and solidified to protect our student, our very real asset. Evidently, our academic family has exceeded expectations in ways that the student’s biological family has not met them. It started with the student combination of a need to protect himself/herself, and to protect the other students at the University and in the College. What an incredible showing of maturity. Then, resources were rallied, committed and executed to achieve all of the stated goals. It has been an amazing and impressive thing to see. The level of personal commitment and personal contact has been inspiring.
There will never be a place that I love so well as Kansas State University. However, I cannot imagine that the circumstances of this week would have been handled nearly as well in Manhattan as they were in Tuscaloosa. Judgments would have been made, resources would have been sequestered; the shared needs of the student and the college/school/university would not have been treated as such. There would have been denial of responsibility and assignment of blame rather than a consolidation of resources and an acceptance of a forward-thinking reality.
It begins with leadership. It is supplemented by tradition, but it is leadership that sets the tone for management and for the allocation of tangible and intangible resources. I thank God every day that He placed Joe and me within this community. I love the University of Alabama and the College of Human Environmental Sciences and Milla Boschung. I am so blessed in so many ways by my husband and the community we have found at Canterbury Chapel. I’ve got a big-assed cloud hanging over my head, but we are so close…..
I think there was a line in “Animal House” that went something like this: “THANK YOU, GOD!!”
That is pretty much how I feel right now.
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