You Can't Go Home Again

Hollins University

It took me eight years to obtain my four-year degree from Hollins College, now Hollins University. I started in 1985 and received my diploma in 1993. It was still called Hollins College then.

I was ill for much of the time I was at school. I had three major surgeries in six years, each requiring me to drop out of a semester. I was also working full time and going to school part time. It was not easy.



During that period I was unhappy with my work (I was a legal secretary), with my inability to have children, with life in general. I found great refuge in my classes at Hollins.

When I attended my classes, mostly held in Pleasant's Hall (above), I was most content. Hollins and its professors helped me find courage, self esteem, grit and determination, and a new lease on life.



When I went to the Hollins campus, I felt welcomed. The place was a magical balm. I could walk anywhere and feel inspired. The old buildings reverberated with history; the grass seemed to call out to me, the professors knew me and, if they didn't like me, at least had the courtesy not to let me know it.

I continued to feel this even after I graduated. I would go back for poetry readings, or just to visit an old professor. Sometimes I went just to walk around.

I always left feeling calm and sure and grateful for my time at the college.



That changed with the new millennium, and for a long time now I have not felt welcome on campus. I have not felt inspired or happy or glad to be visiting.

I attempted to return to work on my Master's in 2004 - I'm only about four classes short of finishing - but there was no joy. It felt wrong. I loved the creative writing class I took, thought highly of my professor, but the rest of the campus felt plain and ugly.

Where has the magic gone?

I don't know, but I honestly trace my feelings of unease to the construction of the new library in 1999. The library is a magnificent structure (it is visible behind the chapel in the photo above) and I enjoy the library when I visit. But it doesn't feel like Hollins. It feels new and institutional.

The campus has undergone many other renovations since then, including a new arts studio where the old library used to be.

I visited Hollins Tuesday and took photos. I also visited the new hall for the English Department, now called something I can't even remember. The faculty used to be in Bradley and I was pretty sure the creative remnants of past students, like Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle and Annie Dillard, were floundering about the hallway, waiting for some fool like me to pick up a thread and run with it.

As I left campus earlier this week, I knew with certainty that Hollins is no longer the magical place it once was for me. I hope that for those younger that it still may be, but I suspect that the cynicism of this new age, this time of fear-mongering and class warfare, has sent the magic scurrying far away.

I also know that if I ever do return to finish up my Master's, which seems doubtful at this time, it will be only for degree and not for the magical experience that learning there once was.

I doubt I ever again feel like the fairies dance at Hollins, their wings feeling the wind currents, their hearts happy while they twirl to make it all right.