Our flights were safe and uneventful. Our drives were also safe, but not quite so uneventful--for Mom and me, it was our first drive with a GPS system, which Dad had insisted on since we would be driving several hundred miles on completely unfamiliar roads. It turned out to be a wise decision. Since we arrived in Detroit somewhere around 6:00 p.m. on Monday, it was late evening by the time we reached Hillsdale, about 90 miles away. Both colleges we visited are extremely rural, and people in the midwest seem to have a pathological aversion to outside lighting. We were, therefore, in the dark, without any prior experience to help us find our bearings. Even with the GPS Mom took a wrong turning (or else the GPS whacked out - which happened later, as you will learn), and after it "recalculated" it took us on some unpaved and bumpy roads, on one of which I saw a goat jump out of the way of our headlights. We were rather nervous, but lo and behold, we finally reached civilization in the form of the college itself.
We didn't explore the college that night, it being late, but we did get to have a good, long conversation with David and his mom, whom we met in person for the first time just then. It was a fine conversation, ranging over race, discrimination, politics, and probably some other things that I've forgotten.
The following morning was our main day at Hillsdale. After breakfast we came to the admissions office in the impressive Central Hall, Hillsdale's landmark building.
We were there met by Brian, our exceedingly courteous campus ambassador, who took David and me to our first class, Rhetoric and Great Books. This is one of the core English classes, so its format was that of a literary survey. In this particular class the professor covered some rules of MLA citation (his students were writing a paper) and talked about a work by Rousseau, and then about Wordsworth and Hawthorne as examples of the light and dark Romantics respectively. He mentioned Young Goodman Brown, and I think I was the only person there who'd read it! Which was kind of cool. :)
After this class Brian gave us a tour of the campus, which is fairly small for a college and localized enough that I suspect one could become thoroughly familiar with it in a week or so. Central Hall, Lane and Kendall Hall (the two main classroom halls), Delp Hall (mostly administrative and faculty offices), and the science building surround the main quad, with the Student Union and Dow Center (a conference area and hotel) near by. The dorms are a little farther out, and then across an intersecting street are a number of fraternity and sorority houses, and the Sage Center for the Arts and the Roche Sports Complex. There are other buildings, but such were the main highlights that we were shown.
Our next classes were different, that is, David went to one and I to another at the same time. Mine was on modern American history, in this particular instance economic and social developments in the 1970s in the context of the 'social revolution' of the 1960s. This was an enjoyable class, and informative too. I learned some interesting things about inflation and discrimination in the workplace, among other topics.
As I recall, we next proceeded to the Slayton Arboretum, a fine park-like area just a wee walk from campus (and owned by the college, as far I know). It has two lakes, of which one below:
and these excellent little gazebo sort of buildings made out of stone, which looked very
medieval:
In the sister building of that shown above, I had Mom snap a picture of David and me:
After that, we linked up with Brian again for dinner, and he, quite of his own initiative, discovered an event going on that evening, so we would have something to occupy ourselves with. We went to a talk on Reagan and economics, which might have been very interesting, but a) I couldn't follow all of it very well and b) the speaker was limited to half an hour, and though he took about ten minutes' liberty with that he didn't flesh out his points too much, at least to me. In any case, we asked him some questions after word, and that was very pleasant.
That night, David and I got to stay in a dorm room together--common utilitarian fare, but it had just about everything a college student would require. Below is the front half of the room: there is another desk and bed behind it, along with closet space, two dressers and a sink.
We declined meeting other gentlemen in the dorm because we had a lot to talk about ourselves. We stayed up until past 2:00. :-) The conversation included C.S. Lewis, writing in an archaic style and how modern publishers might react to this, Harry Potter, Tolle Lege, writing in general, and I'm sure quite a few other things. Can you fill in some extra blanks here, David?
The next morning we sat in on another class together, this time Roman Civilization. This was all about the ins and outs of "Romanization," the phenomenon of Roman-influenced architecture in civilizations that Rome conquered, and vice-versa: foreign fads or the adoption of local stylings in Roman buildings and art. The professor (who was very animated and reminded me of J.E.B. Stuart :P) also talked a lot about literature from some particular period or other in Roman history--post Vergilian--and that was all pretty fascinating.
After that class we--eheu!--had to leave, finding little or nothing to dislike about our experience at Hillsdale, and not terribly happy about having to leave so soon. From there David and his mom went home, while my mom and I set off on the 200+ mile drive across northern Ohio to the fastnesses of Grove City, PA. Of which, more to come...
