Suddenly, 300 students are back, and we've plunged into the winter term.
The community, however, is not exactly the same.
Fifty students have returned from fall term away, and almost the same number of students--who were here this fall--are off for winter terms in Spain, France, Mountain Classroom, Costa Rica and Morocco.
The effects of this exchange are more dramatic than you might think, because the benefits of the off-campus programs are many. Dave and Johnny have been dispatched to the bookstore for Themes in Literature books.
First, the educational benefits to the participants are tremendous. We can measure some education growth (Spanish proficiency, for example,) but the personal growth is truly immeasurable, yet very real.
The forty students who just returned from Ocean Classroom--a nine week adventure at sea--bring back to campus a kind of euphoria. Their sense of what is possible has been advanced.
So this is a kind of secondary benefit: the experience that students who spent the fall term here have, watching and experiencing those who were away integrate back into Proctor.
The power of this human transition can be underscored with some simple math. There are approximately 300 students on this campus. (That does not count kids who are away for the winter). Of the 300 who are here, 130 are new this year. Very few of them are away this winter.
For the 170-something "old" students here today, 50--close to a third--are old friends last seen in May! That means that only 120-something "old" students...who were here this fall...are on campus today! Their number is equal, or a tiny bit smaller, than the population of new students. Wow. Think about it. Most of the students on campus at this moment are new this September. That is amazing.
This triggers a unique, newness to the community, and a kind of short-term lovefest.
For the 130 "new" students who started in September, the experience of witnessing this process is equally powerful, yet different.
For all, it is a healthy dynamic that was never anticipated when the first Mountain Classroom trip took ten students off campus thirty-four years ago.
Back from Ocean Classroom, Cody starts the first term of chemistry despite the distractions of the classroom....
