The calendar may say mid-August, but signs of fall have begun appearing. The days gradually grow shorter. On campus we see the first signs of the new school year. Juniors have arrived for Orientation and August Term, and returning middlers and seniors trickle back. The Fall Semester begins the Tuesday after labor Day. After years of unlearning the academic calendar, my new job has immersed me in it.
Although the methods of higher education show all the signs of adapting to new technology, the school year still begins in August or September and ends in May or June. Families buy new clothes and supplies. College students pack up their belongings. As long as residential schools exist we will probably continue to have the familiar academic calendar.
And so the new students begin the process of settling in and making the campus their own. Empty dorm rooms take on new personalities. A lone figure practices hurling (the sport, people, the sport!) on the Grove. Students sit on benches talking on their cell phones to friends or family back home or struggling with the unfamiliar alphabets of Greek and Hebrew. They trade their stories with the others with whom they will share the next two or three years of their lives. While the Seminary forms them, they also form the Seminary. Another generation in a long line.
But even here at the Seminary working within a changing church and changing world gradually expands the calendar, and for more than just than academics. As part of the Hospitality team I work with both internal and external groups plan and implement programs, meetings, and conferences held on our campus. How do we meet the needs of all of our constituents, both internal and external? How do those different groups interact and where? All of this while working within the context of the Seminary's mission.
However, the calendar says August. The new students have arrived. It must be the beginning of a new year!
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