Photo: Mike Roemer
Most of the students who appear in the magazine are in their junior or senior years. By this stage in their college career they’ve found their feet, declared a major, figured out their research interests, got to know their professors, moved into leadership positions in their student orgs, studied abroad, had adventures … . It’s not that I’m not interested in the younger students – far from it. In the interest of variety alone, I wish I knew more about them so I could figure out who to feature and how.
So it was very good fun to take myself and our new media relations intern, Stephanie Trinkl ’12, out on assignment last Sunday to cover Convocation. The theme of our fall magazine will be ‟Realizing the Dream,” and I wanted to find out just what dreams were running through the heads of the members of the Class of 2016 at the very moment they marched down the mall, rubbed the college bell for good luck and embarked on their undergraduate careers. At the college picnic that followed, Stephanie and I made regular nuisances of ourselves as we collected these dreams, one by one, from a good portion of the 600-odd first-years.
Picking through my notes tonight, it’s interesting to see the new class already taking shape. I can pick out the class clown, the character, the leader, the pastor … . I’m looking forward to introducing some of these figures on our pages – and I’m especially glad to have made their acquaintance while I still have four years of their company to enjoy.
Incidentally, while Stephanie and I worked the interviews, Green Bay photographer Mike Roemer was out shooting the event for us. We’ll use some of his images in the magazine, but meanwhile you can enjoy a sampling on his blog. It’s worth taking a look – he really captured the spirit of this, the true beginning of the academic year.
