New Semester

The semester starts with new students and a new building.

The new building, the Center for Student Success, was quietly opened last Thursday for faculty and staff. It was referred to as a "soft opening." Everyone was given a free lunch. This building houses many of the Student Services staff and the food services.

Throughout this past year I have occasionally blipped the construction of that building. It seemed like the large earth-movers rearranged the dirt for months before any construction was started. Here I am lookiing toward the place where I was standing today at the edge of the library building. Today I was standing as close as I could be to where I was a year ago. Because many of the walls are glass, the facility has an open-air feeling with lots of illumination. It really has a good feeling.

My early morning drive to the campus (which is less than 2 miles and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes with all the stop signs and signal-lights) started in absolute grid-lock. It took me twice as long to get there because every "feeder" street to the campus was jammed with traffic. So I was late arriving at the Writing Center, but that was not an issue because the Writing Center was not open to the general student population today, but only for the classes of students coming with their instructors for orientation.

What was surprising, though, was that at 10:15 as I started my class, students came in late for the first 30 minutes because the parking lot was absolutely filled. The campus has huge parking lots and my classroom is next to the largest, so this is a new problem and it will only be a problem for this first week or so and then the student population will dwindle. When one female student entered the class 25 minutes late, I asked her if she knew what time the class began and she answered with the correct time. I responded with "You couldn't find a place to park?" and she proceed to tell the entire class that she actually gave a guy a ride to his car so she could have his spot. The high volume of students and the filled parking lot made for an interesting morning. I "added" four students and thankfully only had to turn away another half dozen, who left politely.

I started the class by welcoming them to "calculus." I had their undivided attention at that moment. I smiled and said, "No, really, this is English 50 -- Basic Composition, but in a few days when you think this class is hard, just remember, it's not calculus." They all sighed and relaxed some. I spent the full 2 hours with my students distributing the syllabus and assignments, walked with them to the Writing Center for orientation, and then told them I'd see them online this week and back in the classroom next Tuesday, and then they were gone.

I spent the afternoon in my office and had a nice surprise when, Denise, a former student stopped in. She's 50 and doing school with gusto after getting laid-off from the mortgage banking business. She's ready to transfer to the university, but her husband was laid off from construction work this past April after 29 years with the same company. So she is staying at community college and taking a few more classes for much less money and was extremely optimistic and cheerful just like she always was in the classroom. She was always a "can do" person. It was refreshing to be with her and good to catch-up.

After Denise left, I finished my work, sent Mr. Fun a text "I'm coming home." We spent the first hour of the evening in the pool. It's been an A+ day first day back to teaching.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol