I’m driving across the country and it’s amazing how even in the summer, campuses seem like oases from the chaos in American life.
When I drive through a campus district, or even a whole town or city where the university is a major institution, I always get that special feeling, that sense of comfort.
I may not have felt that after a bad class as a student or as an adjunct. But I feel that now.
Be it Lawrence, Kansas. Columbia, Missouri. Boulder, Colorado. You name it. Whenever I drove past a university campus on this trip, whether it was University of District of Columbia deep in the heart of our nation’s capital, or Georgetown on the district’s leafy green edge, private or public, two-year or four-year, it doesn’t matter.
It always feels like I am in a welcoming space. The campuses are all landmarks, places of lux and veritas, where rationality ruled and problems and their questions are meant to be solved logically and with humanity.
They are sanctuaries, to some degree, at least to me. And if they aren’t for everyone, maybe you should ask your college administration.
What I feel about a campus is unlike what’s being felt throughout the rest of the country, where a car backfiring triggers off fears of mass shootings. We’ve had a few of those in the last two weeks.
