Home is Where the Socks Are

If you ever take a tour of William & Mary, you will hear the word community more times than you can count.  Maybe it sounds cliché but that’s what this campus is; a community.  And no day is that more evident than move-in day.

When you and your 1450 classmates arrive on campus on move-in day (historically the hottest and most humid day in August imaginable) you will be greeted not just by your Orientation Aids and Resident Assistants but by upperclassmen students, in every shade of t-shirt under the sun.  They are all part of various student organizations (be it APO; our co-ed service fraternity, a social fraternity or sorority, an athletic team, etc.) who have volunteered their time to return to campus early and help arriving families get settled.  They will greet you with a friendly smile and welcome, and most importantly, they will graciously offer to carry your 15 suitcases and unopened mini-fridge up the three flights of stairs to your room (and mind you some of these stairs are in unairconditioned residence halls).  And they will make this trip as many times as you need to.  To my father, that right there was worth four years of out-of-state tuition payments.

This 12 x 15 room that now has your 15 suitcases and unopened mini-fridge and your roommate’s 15 suitcases and his/her microwave will quickly become your home and your hallmates your extended family.  Some time, not too many weeks from that memorable move-in day you will say “let’s go home” and you’ll be referring to that room you moved in to not too long ago rather than your parents’ house.  Because this place is home, and because these 5,800 other undergraduates are your very large and quirky extended family, community really comes to mean something.

So when we talk about community we don’t just talk the talk.  We walk the walk (or in this case move the moving boxes).

Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission