Welcome to the Hokie Community!
A message from Frances Keene, Vice President for Student Affairs
In a recent round of spring cleaning, I happened upon a box of old photographs. They seemed like a welcome distraction from the cleaning tasks at hand, so I paused to look through the photos. In the box I found a picture I took after setting up my first residence hall room. What was equally entertaining in the spring cleaning was when I found an old packing tube that contained all the posters you see on my wall perfectly preserved since 1996! What you can’t see in the photograph is the classically cliché cat poster featuring a cat with its fur a mess and a caption that reads “bad hair day!” I am contemplating putting it up in my office…
My family and co-workers found both the picture of my room and the time capsule of my posters to be quite hilarious. As the fall semester and on-campus move-in get closer, I find myself reflecting on what I was feeling during those first few days of my first move-in all those years ago. I arrived on campus at the College of William and Mary unfamiliar with how to approach the newfound freedom that I had. I have always had a strong, independent streak and so I’ve always demanded (yes, my mom would use that word) freedom to make my own choices.
For the first time, in that room in the picture, I was completely in charge of my own schedule, to see friends when I liked, and managing my life in general. What I quickly learned is that the freedom I longed for came with it an equally important set of responsibilities to make sure that the choices that I made were aimed towards my academic goals, promoted my well-being, and held me accountable to myself and my community.
I can now admit many years later that I often failed in that balance of freedom and responsibility. I also learned quite a bit that first year that my choices not only impacted me, but those around me. If I had the freedom to make the choice, I had to own the responsibility for that choice. When the outcome was positive, I celebrated my success. When the outcome was detrimental to me or others, I had no one to blame but myself. It seems simple to say, but as family members and supporters of college students, you know all too well that this lesson is sometimes only learned through experience.
For many students, life in a residence hall may be the first time they have experienced that heady mix of freedom and responsibility. The truth is that throughout our lives we will have experiences that both expand our freedoms and our responsibilities. We may be tempted to want to grab the freedom but hide from the responsibility when things don’t go as planned. Living in community with others requires that we understand that how we live impacts those around us, and that we have an obligation to maintain a safe, healthy, and vibrant community as much as we can enjoy the freedom and fun that community provides us.
In these last few weeks before the semester begins, ask your students how they plan to make decisions about how they can use their time. Ask them how they will help reinforce the importance of shared responsibility in their residential community. This means talking to them about taking the time to ask their neighbor if they are okay if they seem stressed and holding one another accountable for trash, noise, and other common challenges of communal living.
Most importantly, ask them how they can bring their unique gifts and talents to Virginia Tech. I know that each student has unique gifts and talents that they will bring to their academic and campus life and Virginia Tech will be better because each one of them is now part of the Hokie Nation!
Frances Keene, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Affairs
