BACK TO SCHOOL
BACK TO SCHOOL
For the last 57 years, I have been going back to school in the fall. Sometimes I returned to class as a student and other times as a professor.
My first sojourn was in the late 40’s when my mother accompanied me to school which was just down the block. She had purchased crayons and a special knitted rug that I could sleep on during a designated time. Miss Pearson greeted us and that year and the next six were the best years of my life.
My little elementary school called Rose Hill had distinguished alumni like Warren Buffet the 2nd richest man in America and Nick Nolte the movie star.
From there, I remember turning the corner to go to junior high. There was a pretty girl dressed in an orange outfit who was standing near the door way to the school. Both us were attending one of the first junior highs in the country. Thus, LIFE magazine came out and took our picture.
Later, the young lady in orange would become a Congregational minister and I a college professor.
Junior high and high school were not much fun for me. However, I made a leap of faith that there really was a life after high school.
I first attended a little college in the middle of nowhere and then a local university near my parent’s house. I got out of college alive and two days after graduation, I was starting a masters program. My first job was to run discussion groups of 60 students and later at 22 years of age teach the regular class of 500. I also took 12 hours of grad work.
A few Septembers later, I was teaching at a beautiful little college called Dana that over looked the Missouri River Valley. Ten Septembers later, I had acquired 30 doctoral hours and taught at Kirkwood. It was a little community college overlooking the Cedar River Valley. Twenty five years later it would grow by 5 times the number when I originally started and blossom into one of the top 30 2 year schools as ranked by COMMUNITY COLLEGE WEEK.
Weeks became days and hours became minutes. Soon, I was one of the oldest faculty members on campus.
Our two sons had their start too and I walked them to school. Both wore brave faces with their home made book bags and tiny little tennis shoes. It was the early 80’s and for them it was morning in America.
Years later, they disappeared. One lives on the west coast and the other in East Village of the Big Apple. The second suffered through 9/11 by getting a mask and running in and out of buildings in Alphabet city. He saw the Trade Tower buildings fall from his office window.
Now they come back once in a while. They appear and disappear at the air port. It is almost as if they stay in the back of the building and make their entrances and exits at the time that they had promised.
That’s the rub it is hard to say good bye to those little trips of coming and going. Now that I am semi- retired, the first day of school I don’t need to go to the campus. I teach “distant learning” classes. However, each first day, I go out to the campus at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon when it is the least busy. I drive around campus and emotionally give my hellos and good byes. From there I go to my son’s elementary school to see the little kids playing outside after school.
And so, the 40’s quickly turned into the 21st century. I hope that I have miles to go, but my heart says otherwise. The first day of school is still so exciting and I hope that my entrance so long ago lets me make an exit way down the road.
See you in September.
Prof. Joel C. Snell
Kirkwood College
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