Dear Dean Shollenberger,
It’s late. I’m up.
I’m sure you know that’s not that unusual for Columbia students. Do you think that there’s actually some silent majority of people who manage to get their work done and are in bed by midnight? Maybe they’re the same people who told AlcoholEdu that they didn’t drink; I worry that maybe it’s just everyone I know that lives like this. I sometimes really do wonder what you envision our lives to be---after so many years, when you picture that quintessential Columbia undergrad late at night, whom do you see?
I read the email announcing your departure when I pulled my phone out after class to see if there had been any updates about whether or not I got into a history seminar I was really excited about (I did, by the way). Since I’m not usually the most sentimental person about Columbia and campus community, I was really taken aback by how surprised and a little sad I was about the news. I’m sure nothing in my day-to-day life is going to change; I just so clearly remember when you walked into my John Jay single the day I moved in three years ago---just to say hello to all of us who had come from the West Coast or farther. That first-year in John Jay had no idea exactly what the next years had in store for her, or who she would be in the Columbia universe.
