SOAR
6/13/2006
Well as you may know this stands for Student Orientation and Registration and so far this summer we've had one such extravaganza, welcoming over 60 of our entering freshmen to campus for quirky party games and deep meaningful faculty advising sessions—or was it the other way around? In any case a rousing batch of new Dominicanites gave us 120+ thumbs up last week after they had some laughs, made some friends, rode around downtown, Learned All About Us, slept (a little—maybe) in a dorm and went home having registered for their first year of college classes.
Most of them also signed up for Ready to Read . . . in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences. It's a summer reading program where new freshmen get to choose a book, and then a faculty member leads a 90-minute discussion of that book with other students who selected it, the day before classes start in the fall. No grades, just interesting reading and a chance to meet some other new Dominicaneers before the Dominicamazing adventure ensues full-blown. (OK, I'll stop.)
One of my own advisees in the Freshman Seminar I'm teaching, Dimensions of the Self: Thinking for Oneself, intimidated me a little when she said she'd be extremely disappointed if my class isn't fantastic. This after I confided that I hadn't ordered the books yet. Talk about pressure. But I'm ready now. Bring it on. I ordered the books on Friday.
Later this week we'll welcome a bunch of new students who began their college careers, ahem, elsewhere, but found the good sense to want to finish it here. Itinerancy is something of a virtue especially when it brings one across our campus where we get to share and shape part of the journey.
And now through my window as I write this I'm seeing dilapidated desks, chairs, cabinets and shelves flying out of the science building in long graceful arcs before landing unceremoniously in a gigantic ascending pile. Interesting. Chemists run amuck? Bad cheese in the nutrition department? The cadaver did something unexpected? No—it's the start of demolition season here at Dominican as our old science building gives way to a parking garage—or rather, the Collegiate Gothic Parking Pavilion, to use the preferred terminology.
Meanwhile on the other side of campus Parmer Hall is rising between the woods and the soccer field. It's our new $35.5 million academic building with five levels, 17 science laboratories, 15 classrooms and a flexible auditorium (come and help us bend it), along with 50 offices, nine research and six observation rooms. Collegiate Gothic of course, it will be as important to our university campus well into the future as the Cloister Walk, Library and Chapel have been for our first 100 years. One of my favorite parts will be the courtyard leading to the atrium, which will be named Founders' Court to honor all the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters who built this place. We've got a history that's going somewhere. SOARing in fact.
Well as you may know this stands for Student Orientation and Registration and so far this summer we've had one such extravaganza, welcoming over 60 of our entering freshmen to campus for quirky party games and deep meaningful faculty advising sessions—or was it the other way around? In any case a rousing batch of new Dominicanites gave us 120+ thumbs up last week after they had some laughs, made some friends, rode around downtown, Learned All About Us, slept (a little—maybe) in a dorm and went home having registered for their first year of college classes.
Most of them also signed up for Ready to Read . . . in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences. It's a summer reading program where new freshmen get to choose a book, and then a faculty member leads a 90-minute discussion of that book with other students who selected it, the day before classes start in the fall. No grades, just interesting reading and a chance to meet some other new Dominicaneers before the Dominicamazing adventure ensues full-blown. (OK, I'll stop.)
One of my own advisees in the Freshman Seminar I'm teaching, Dimensions of the Self: Thinking for Oneself, intimidated me a little when she said she'd be extremely disappointed if my class isn't fantastic. This after I confided that I hadn't ordered the books yet. Talk about pressure. But I'm ready now. Bring it on. I ordered the books on Friday.
Later this week we'll welcome a bunch of new students who began their college careers, ahem, elsewhere, but found the good sense to want to finish it here. Itinerancy is something of a virtue especially when it brings one across our campus where we get to share and shape part of the journey.
And now through my window as I write this I'm seeing dilapidated desks, chairs, cabinets and shelves flying out of the science building in long graceful arcs before landing unceremoniously in a gigantic ascending pile. Interesting. Chemists run amuck? Bad cheese in the nutrition department? The cadaver did something unexpected? No—it's the start of demolition season here at Dominican as our old science building gives way to a parking garage—or rather, the Collegiate Gothic Parking Pavilion, to use the preferred terminology.
Meanwhile on the other side of campus Parmer Hall is rising between the woods and the soccer field. It's our new $35.5 million academic building with five levels, 17 science laboratories, 15 classrooms and a flexible auditorium (come and help us bend it), along with 50 offices, nine research and six observation rooms. Collegiate Gothic of course, it will be as important to our university campus well into the future as the Cloister Walk, Library and Chapel have been for our first 100 years. One of my favorite parts will be the courtyard leading to the atrium, which will be named Founders' Court to honor all the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters who built this place. We've got a history that's going somewhere. SOARing in fact.
