William and Mary is the first place I fell in love … with a place.

While it was a challenge to decide on William and Mary, by week two of being here I was certain that this was the place for me—I still remember the exact spot on the Dupont triangle where I came to that conclusion. From the beginning of our relationship, W&M and I have had our challenges; homesickness, Banner fights, GER struggles, intense amounts of pollen, and more have tried to pull us apart.  Almost five years later, however, we’re still together, still going strong (5 points if you got the Shania Twain reference—the first CD I loved.)

William and Mary is where I fell in love with brick pathways, traffic that always yields to pedestrians, a backyard full of people in costume being photographed by people in tropical shirts, learning for the sake of learning, Indian food, some of my best friends, wordy and confusing theory articles, social justice work, the words hegemonic, problematic and compulsory heteronormativity, scarves, feminism, TED Talks, curling, and so many other things. William and Mary is where I learned what it is to wake up and whether the day was going to be wonderful or awful, be grateful that I was here in this place to live it.  That’s what I call a committed relationship.

Want proof? One of William and Mary’s newer events is “I am W&M,” a week in the spring during which the campus celebrates the diversity of William and Mary in many ways. Students are provided T-shirts, and last year’s included a blank on the back to be filled in.  Here’s mine:

Always love wearing this

I wanted to blog-confess my love for William and Mary in part because, well that’s what you do when you’re in love.  But I also wanted to tell you something else my love for William and Mary has done—it’s taught me what it is to love places and brought me to other places I love. I’ve told you that I run the weekly listserv full of volunteer and internship opportunities in community engagement. Well two years ago when the listerv was under the management of my dear friend and inspiration, Allison Anoll, she posted an item about working for the Civic Leadership Institute in Baltimore (in simplest terms it’s a social justice summer camp for high-achieving high school students).  At the time, I had intended to stay in Williamsburg for the summer through a W&M program, but I was not selected (yep, this relationship has even survived rejection).  So I applied to CLI, was offered a position with their summer staff, and spent a month in Charm City.

And once again I fell in love.  The past two summers I have spent at CLI have been nothing short of incredible. Even loving my Senior year at William and Mary, I felt a count-down for the time I would return to Baltimore—it really is hard to be in a love triangle.  But one of the greatest things about CLI is that I didn’t fully have to leave W&M. The first summer I worked with Rachel Warrick ’10, to whom I owe a great debt for being the one to suggest Allison put CLI on the listserv. She is currently serving in the Peace Corps.  This past summer I worked with Wesley Ng ’11 and Jason Blackwell ’10. Wes is a former Branch Out Student Director and is now also serving in the Peace Corps–no surprise there.

The last dance of 2010--Rachel (second to the left) had dutifully taken a pie to the face earlier in the week while I streaked my hair grape purple in celebration of a successful session.

Showing Tribe Pride with Wes at the last 2011 dance. Yes, I know I did the W&M in reverse-Tribe Pride nonetheless.

So whatever places I travel to and wherever else I fall in love, I know that William and Mary is my first love and that love means William and Mary will always be home.

From the first flirtations of Freshman year…

Requisite TJ picture from first weekend at W&M

… to Senior year proposals,

I'm still waiting on your answer TJ...

… I am in love with William and Mary!

I will get things done for America to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy, I will take action.

Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity, I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.

I am an an Americorps member and I will get things done for America.

This is the pledge I took when I became an Americorps VISTA and began serving as the Coordinator for Student & Community Engagement at the College.  Honestly, I think this pledge absolutely rocks! While it’s got broad language about being safer, smarter, and healthier, it returns to something that feels so tangible: getting things done.

As I read the pledge for the first time and I continue to live it out through my service as an Americorps, I am reminded that much of my ability to fulfill those words comes from the experience and inspiration I gained from my undergraduate years at William & Mary.

If you allow it, William & Mary is a demanding institution. There is so much to learn, do, join, create, question, and contribute to here that one’s Google calendar can quickly become swamped. Learning to meet the demands of William and Mary, however, is what prepared me for the demands of being an Americorps member.

At William and Mary I learned what it is to learn. I learned inside classrooms from incredible lectures and discussions that still keep me thirsty for more knowledge. I learned outside the classroom from conversations, events, friends, and strangers who brought new perspectives and ideas into my consciousness.

At William and Mary I learned to listen. From the very first day in my freshmen hall, surrounded by 70 new voices with their own stories to tell, to the last goodbyes of graduation when official speakers and friends alike were trying to impart one last bit of wisdom into my life, I have listened to the Tribe family.  Listening brought so many new stories and shared experiences into my life, and listening is one of the skills I rely on most in my work.

At William and Mary I learned to overcome challenges; whether that was having no understanding of Astronomy, fighting with Banner, facing rejection, or the very real struggles of just growing up through my four years here.  I developed problem solving skills, gained a support system of faculty, staff and friends, and found so much strength within myself to succeed.

These lessons and many more are why each time I read my Americorps pledge, I am certain William and Mary is so much of why I can live up to it.

About a month ago I was skyping with my very first and one of my absolute best friends from William and Mary. We were trading stories about post-college life when she finally asked, “Do you ever feel like we’re on study abroad and you’re just waiting to go back next fall?”

Even though I am on the very campus I knew as a student (writing this from a picnic table I used to lounge on as an undergrad), my answer remains a resounding YES! My geographic location hasn’t changed, but being an alum and a staff member at William and Mary is a completely different world.  Despite all the wonderful things in this world, there is no doubt that there are days in which I wish to return to my undergrad life. In fact I sometimes think of undergraduate life as Narnia, and then this clip starts playing in my head.  (Silly Aslan and his rules!)

Driving down Jamestown Road on my way to an evening meeting, I passed students laughing with friends as they walked home and it felt like I was driving through my own memories. While I know I can’t return to that world and those memories that doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting to try. . . Chelsea (another VISTA and Class of 2011) once sent me a g-chat from the Daily Grind exclaiming, “I feel so incognito right now. You don’t know I’m not a student.”  I once stayed after work for a film screening, and as I changed from my work attire into my old and comfortingly familiar uniform of jeans and a grey William and Mary hoodie,  it felt like slipping out of my grown-up self and into a past life.

So much of this campus is embedded with who I am. Moments of laughter, play, studying, discovery, friendship and friend drama, laziness, celebration, adventure, heart break, questioning, success, and even watching trashy tv with friends have been witnessed by this campus since 1693, and my memories add just another layer. (If these bricks could talk.)  As I walk across campus for assessment meetings instead of classes, toward administrative offices and emails instead of the Sunken Gardens and a nice nap in the sun, I have moments of remembering and wonder if it’s possible to be in one place and yet two times at once.

This is some kind of strange study abroad that I’m pretty sure I never get to return from.  Yet William and Mary will always be here for me as an incredible place that has shaped the core of who I am.  Always will this be my family, my home, and my pensieve.  And maybe one day an owl will drop a scroll in my lap saying I’ve been accepted to return. (I just realized that would be an awesome way to receive our Homecoming invitations—think about it Alumni Association.)

P.S. I do believe this post might be my personal record for number of mixed metaphors and pop-culture references. My sincere gratitude to you for putting up with it.

One of the coolest and most daunting parts of my job comes every Monday afternoon: sending out ‘the listserv.’ Crafting a message that goes out to over 2,500 recipients (mostly students but also alumni, community partners, faculty, staff, and really anyone who wants to subscribe – email efmiller@wm.edu if you want to be added :p) – is both empowering and intimidating. Most of the email is a list of community engagement opportunities like volunteer needs, film screenings, non-profit jobs, and service trips. The first paragraph(s), however, are mine to produce.  Usually themed around an event or issue that’s been on my mind relating to community, I recognize that these listservs have become my own personal soapbox to share information, provide a different perspective, and encourage others to engage.  I share questions, stories, facts, quotes, and plenty of hyperlinks to music videos I attempt to somewhat thematically link to my message.

While creating the listserv is my platform to speak, one of my main goals is creating a platform for students to speak and share their voices, which was the theme of this week’s listserv as we are in the midst of the Stand Up Campaign.  Here’s what I wrote:

This afternoon students literally stood on milk crates to take a stand for issues they believe in (They’ll be at the Crim Dell again on Thursday) and throughout the week there are events about social entrepreneurship, faith & service, community gratitude, and self-care–all so we can stand up for issues we believe while learning from each other. 

I know I ask something of you almost every week, and today is of course no different. I am asking you to show up, to Stand Up, and to Speak Up.  We are each not alone in our struggles, choices, and hopes to make change so let’s be purposeful about coming together.  Below is a list of Stand Up events as well as a lot of other opportunities to connect—take a stand and join in.

P.S. I couldn’t decide which song to hyperlink this week, so take your pick.

I’ll give you a full recap of all the awesome Stand Up events next week, but here are a few photos just because I am so inspired by our students.

I have many memories of my experiences as a Sharpe Scholar my first year at William and Mary, and as I was warned that first year: once a Sharpie, always a Sharpie. That year in the Sharpe Program strongly influenced both my undergraduate years and my continued life choices.  That year set me on my way to becoming a Sharpe Teaching Fellow, living in the Community Scholars House for three years, and beginning my addition to the Office of Community Engagement & Scholarship. Sharpe also helped me define my personal commitment to focusing my scholarship on issues of community and social identities and developed my daily investment in living out the values of equality, social justice, and active citizenship.

As I was recently cleaning out my Google Documents, I found something I wrote my freshman year about my experience in the Sharpe Program. Monica Griffin, Director of the Sharpe Program, had asked a few of us to speak to the Board of Visitors about Sharpe and what it meant to us, and this was what I drafted in preparation:

“The Sharpe Program has changed not only my service experience but my William and Mary experience.  Most community service programs ask you to give of yourself: give your time and your skill. Sharpe asks for these only as prerequisites. What Sharpe really asks you to do is engage, and when you feel like disengaging—when a community partner frustrates or you feel like the reading is going to swallow you—Sharpe asks you to keep pushing and realize that you are no longer just giving of yourself.  If it were just you, then you giving up would not make that much of a difference. Sharpe instead makes you realize you are a part of a collective: your classmates and professor, other members of the Sharpe program, community partners, all relying on each other. Even larger than that is the history, the people and the choices that came before you, and the possible future you are trying to create.

My particular seminar focuses on Maggie Lena Walker. I don’t know how much you know of her. I knew nothing until I googled her over the summer. Here are some interesting facts. Maggie Walker was the first female bank owner. She ran a newspaper, a store, and led the Independent Order of St. Luke. She strived for economic independence for women, African Americans, and her community as a whole. She also struggled with the prejudices against Black women during the Jim Crow era. If I were in a lecture class about Maggie Walker, these, along with many other facts, would be the kind of knowledge I could bring you today. Instead, the breadth of knowledge my seminar has brought me is quite astounding. The best way I can think of describing it is this: In a lecture class we might look at a series of neighborhood photographs and say, “Look at the houses in these photographs. What can we learn from the houses?” In my Sharpe seminar we get only one photograph and we ask, “What can we see in the one photograph?” We study everything from the houses, to the cars, to the people, to the blades of grass. We spend a semester with that one photograph. Because of this we become intimate with many aspects of our topic, to the point that it becomes more than a photograph, but rather a mental image. Once that image is in your mind you’re committed.

Maggie Walker, as I mentioned, owned a bank.  In the North Jackson Ward district of Richmond, there still stands a structure with large letters reading St. Luke Building. Inside the building you will find a bank vault and a bank window. You will also find that the pressed tin ceiling has been ripped down to get at the copper piping above it. Watch your step because you will find dead pigeons, broken bottles, and countless other shattered objects on the floor. The plaque that used to commemorate Maggie Walker and the St. Luke Building is only a memory in the four screw holes that held it to the wall.

This was not the mental image my seminar had come to create; it was instead the sad reality that we are working to change. While the building is a very graphic symbol of what has happened to the history and legacy of Maggie Walker, it is not the core of our efforts.  Instead what our class has been inspired by is the community of North Jackson Ward. A struggling population, mainly African American, North Jackson Ward is about to undergo extensive redevelopment.  We want to help create a place for the community to come together during this time of change and live the values that Maggie Walker so cherished.What we want most is a use for the space that keeps the historic character of the building while directly serving the people.

While I have expanded beyond Sharpe to take on volunteer opportunities that make me feel good as soon as I show up, Sharpe satisfies a completely different need. As I said before, it’s not service, it’s engagement.  It is recognizing that there is more than what you want, and more than you thought you could give. It’s looking at one photograph and saying what now?”

I continue to ask myself “what now” as I consider how to make the best impact on the many communities I am a part of (including my Tribe family), and I remain grateful for all that I learned from my Sharpe engagement experience.

A little less than a year ago, I wrote a post as an almost second-semester Senior about all the amazing things about William and Mary for which I was thankful.  On my most nostalgic days, I often re-read that post and all of it still rings true—I remain incredibly thankful for my four years at William and Mary.  It’s hard to imagine another place and time that will be more empowering, challenging, transformative, and absolutely amazing than my undergraduate life on this old campus.

I still spend five days a week on campus and while there is much to learn, gain, and give during my year here as an Americorps VISTA in the Office of Community Engagement, being professional staff at William and Mary is not the same as going to college here.  So while I still walk across the same old bricks each morning, I find myself missing college sometimes, and as I talk to other members of the Class of 2011 scattered across the globe, I know they are missing the College as well.

Recently, I sent an email to a few of my Class of 2011 friends spreading some Tribe love and asking them to send me a list of things they love and miss about William & Mary.  Below is a collection of our responses.

To the current William & Mary undergrads and the Class of 2016 that recently gained its first members I say: get to work collecting as many memories as you can. I promise you will cherish them. 

We miss …

Starting off the day right by saying hi to the sheep in CW on my morning run.

Being able to go to lots of random talks and events that are completely unrelated to what I am studying.

Spending two hours trying to travel a few hundred yards because I would let me myself get caught up in a conversation with any and every friend who strolled by the Terrace.

Being able to use [W&M E]xpress for laundry!!!!!!! The things I do these days to obtain quarters…

Meetings were always more of a social activity than work.

Pass/fail classes.

Last day trips to the campus-convience stores to buy an assortment of junk food side dishes to accompany the massive amount of pizza you just ordered just to use up your Flex points for the semester.

The Wawa Gobbler sandwich at 4AM.

Seeing Colonials out and about in the real world, like at Five Guys or Nawab.

Deep, philosophical discussions that often took place in quaint, ‘collegiate’ places and also often degenerated into/incorporated really absurd, ridiculous, hilarious topics.

Using [W&M] Express to buy a late-night snacks from the vending machines.

The professors who genuinely care about their students.

Hanging out at the Matoaka docks.

Yesterday I was in a meeting for the Many Hands One Home Project with two students, two community partners, and Drew Stelljes, our Co-Director.

While the entire meeting went well and a lot of progress is being made on this great project, my absolute favorite moment was when one student said:

“Here you learn almost as much from students as you do from professors.”

After four years here as a student and now a semester as staff, I can attest to the accuracy of her statement. Hearing her speak that truth was just another reminder of the incredible character of William and Mary and how grateful I am to be a part of this College.

Last year I blogged about making my outfit matter by wearing a “Gay? Fine By Me” t-shirt as part of a campus-wide campaign.  Today, I’m writing about another–but quite different–outfit choice.  Today, Melody and I decided to wear non-coordinated outfits to the office. I want to be able to tell you it was motivated by some grand sociological experiment we devised or an act of protest/solidarity–but really it was just an idea we came up with one day.

Both of us stuck to our commitment this morning, but we clearly took different approaches to our non-coordination. Melody went for the more subtle, maybe-they-will-think-I-just-made-an-error-in-judgement-and-not-say-anything approach by mixing blacks, blues, browns, and oranges, whereas I went for the no-one-will-be-able-to-mistake-the-ridiculousness-of-this-outfit-but-maybe-they-will-be-too-shocked-to-comment approach:

What do you mean this doesn't go together?

And so far the only un-solicited comment I’ve received about my outfit today was: “You look nice.” Granted, it was while I was sitting at my desk so that only my top was fully visible, and when I rolled back the student said, “Oh!”

Other staff in the office gave us quite a few looks, but no one directly asked anything until we prodded a little, and then our Co-Director said, “Yeh, I was wondering about that, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

One of my co-workers rightfully wondered what it says about our office that no one did make a comment and that some assumed I really thought today’s outfit was stylish. I think though, that it says a lot about how wonderful a staff we have here, that accepts and supports each other even in the craziest non-coordinated moments.

It’s easy to feel the countdown to Thanksgiving Break in the air on campus.  For many students, getting to Thanksgiving Break is cause for celebration because it means getting through midterms and paper assignments that always seem to stack up this time of year.  Unfortunately for some, Thanksgiving Break will be the time when they will slog through take-home exams and papers.

I remember the exhaustion of this time of year and that it becomes survivable because you can countdown to Thanksgiving. Plus, this break really marks the beginning of the end for Fall Semester. You return from feasting with family with only a week and a half of classes remaining and then that strange other-world of finals and then a magical month off for Winter Break.  I remember the exhaustion of this time of year, and yet I miss it.

The feeling of walking out of an exam knowing that the professor will find it easy to grade because you rocked it or turning in a paper in which your thesis could be described as sophisticated (or some other fancy term)–those are good feelings.  While professional life has its moments of accomplishment, they can’t compare to flipping open the inside cover of a Blue Book to see a grade that quantifies and exclaims that you got it, you did it. Before coming to William & Mary, I didn’t even know what a Blue Book was (it’s a small notebook to write exams in) and now I find myself missing them.  I find myself missing the thrill of academic success–knowing that you know what you are talking about–that shows up in the professor’s scrawl of your grade across that Blue Book cover.

As a Senior, I wrote about how at William & Mary you will find success—and I am appreciating that experience even more now that I have graduated. Attending an institution that challenges you and then finding your own way to success in (and out of) the classroom is so satisfying.  Those moments of success can often get lost in the stress of the next paper you have to write or meeting to attend, but now that I live a life without Blue Books, it is those moments I flashback to when I need motivation and reminder of my own capacity to succeed.

So to all you tired undergrads, go home and get some rest, but I also hope you can savor this feeling.

So I went shopping on Sunday and here is what I bought:

What you are looking at is lunch for me, the other two VISTAs, and our amazing supervisor, Melody Porter, for the week. With the exception of a can of soup from yesterday—our entire meal plan for lunches is on the table.  Monday’s lunch was the two cans of vegetables and melted cheese sandwiches.

This food and the meals we are eating this week are based on the guidelines of food provided to families that visit FISH, a local food pantry.  Looking at this table of food I’m already hungry and mentally watching the supplies deplete with despair—and we are just eating on this system for a week, for one meal a day, knowing that we all go home to plenty of food. This is just a small picture of hunger in Williamsburg, a daily reality for 20.7% of the population who are food insecure and must make continual calculations about how to divide up their insufficient food supply and must continually face a table with not enough food on it.  I know this week will change the way I think about hunger and again, it’s only a week.

If you want to know more about hunger and how students in Williamsburg are addressing the issue, check out Molly Bulman’s, Student Coordinator of  The Campus Kitchens at William and Mary, video speaking up about hunger awareness: SpeakUP: Molly & Hunger Awareness.