As I write this article, I’m sitting on the colonnade. It’s a warm 70 degrees out, and spring has finally sprung. Students are taking advantage of the good weather, either laying out on picnic blankets or playing Spikeball by University Chapel. This weekend, it’s Admitted Students Day, and I can’t help but envy the future students and families. This is the university at its peak—who couldn’t fall in love with a campus that sometimes feels more like summer camp than a college?
In contrast, I first fell in love with this university when it was cold, windy and deserted. It was March 2021 when I first visited with my mother and a rental car, determined to make the most of our college road trip. Still rattled by the Covid pandemic, the campus was relatively empty, with just a few students milling around. No tours were being offered, so my mom and I just pressed our faces against the classroom windows to try to get a view of the academic buildings. Most restaurants in town were closed, except for Sweet Things, where my mom tried their banana ice cream and then immediately declared that I HAD to go to school here. I, however, was less persuaded by the ice cream (though it is amazing) and more so by the students I met.
One such student caught us trying to peek into Reid Hall. She was sitting on the amphitheater steps and smiled at us. We told her we were visiting—I had applied but did not yet have a decision. She then offered to show us around. As she pointed to Leyburn Library and the Center for Global Learning, she talked about how the university changed her life. She studied abroad, presented her research at conferences and even had dinners with her professors. I was hooked.
About an hour later, we were wandering around Sorority Row when another young woman introduced herself. It didn’t take long before she, too, was bragging about the university—how it had given her lifelong friends and the support she needed to explore different majors. Initially intent on pursuing a pre-med path, she was graduating with a degree in art history and couldn’t be happier. I remember wondering aloud why everybody was so willing to speak with us. I later found out why: It was just who Washington and Lee students were. They were honest and intellectual, curious and kind, and always exhibiting the age-old traditions imbued in the brick walls lining this campus—such as the Speaking Tradition and Honor System.
That visit was the first time I fell in love with Washington and Lee, and then again at virtual Admitted Students Day, and then every day after that. Washington and Lee became the college I didn’t even know I needed, the space where I could discover my values and define my future. To the high tables in CGL where my friends and I constantly join to do work but more often end in giggling fits, to the rocking chairs outside Hillel that provide prime people-watching, and to the Huntley classrooms where I discussed, thought and wrote about all the best thinkers, these are the places that made the campus home. And to the people—you know who you are. It is, of course, bittersweet to say goodbye, but I take solace in the fact that next year, a new generation of students will move into Glees or Gaines, and they will fall in love with this campus just as much as I did. And don’t worry; it won’t be long until young alumni weekend (or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself)!
