So who says you can't go home again?

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So Who Says You Can't Go Home Again

A Tribute - Professor Janet Bews

Sunshine Sketches

In Memoriam

Proud Traditions - Trent Rugby

by Jim Barber '87

Rather than simply talk about residence life at Trent University, Peterborough This Week reporter Jim Barber decided to relive an important part of his youth and spent a week living in residence at Champlain College. He režects on the changes he saw there as well as the things that never change.

Eleven and a half years ago, I was a nervous 18-year-old, moving away from home for the first time and moving into the E-F Staircase at Trent University's Champlain College.

I've been up to the campus countless number of times since I moved back to Peterborough 13 months ago. But I hadn't been in the dorm rooms for a decade. As soon as I heard the clicking of the tumblers in the lock of the C-D door, the flashbacks began. Almost like a Viet Nam vet, every sight and sound for that first, rather nondescript entrance, brought back a torrent of memories.

The creaking door, the echoing thud as it closed behind me. Bang, it was 11 years ago all over again. So many good times began with that creaking door.

Champlain College staircases (that's how they architecturally divide up the dorms) have a particular scent. Any psychologist will tell you that your sense of smell is an incredible trigger for memories. Incredible ain't the half of it.

All of a sudden, the old žoormates come to life. Mac from Rochester in the shoebox, Mary, Kim and ... uh, geez I forget the name of the third year girl on my floor.

The shuffling of slippered feet as the girls walked to the bathroom, the faint hint of cigarette smoke and even fainter whiż of stale beer. Even though I'd gained about 50 pounds since my own days in res, the pounding of my own feet as I wandered through the building, again was an instant time machine.

The walls of the little room (actually the smallest in C-D) were the same shade of white. The desk, shelves and armoire are exactly the same as when they were designed by Rom Thom in the mid-1960s. The curtains are the same and so are the two heavy blankets. And the bed is still small, and the sheets a little too short to cover the mattress completely.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

The word that a journalist was moving into residence spread like wildfire - electronic widlfire. Jim the Reporter (as I became known) was a bit of a cause celebre especially for the first couple of nights.

While at the Don's room (Danuta Piurko '94 and Mark Avery '93) I was told my arrival was preceeded by a flurry of e-mail activity from Champlain College Master, Prof. Stephen Brown. That technological innovation has made a big difference in the way students communicate while living in residence. The biggest difference: Technology.

Students have a lot more of it than I remember my old floor mates having. All of the first floor rooms in C-D staircase are hard wired with high octane internet access. More of the other rooms are equipped with telephone lines for regular speed internet access. Practically everyone has a personal computer and e-mail has replaced the stroll across the quad as the main form of communication. There are even more phones than I remember. The five people on my first year floor had one computer and two telephones. I had neither.

In my day when we wanted to call a classmate about a missed lecture or to borrow a book or just to say "hi", we walked across to their staircase.

Along the way we might encounter so and so from the 4th floor who we haven't seen for a couple of days. We'd wander through the dark tunnels, heavy footsteps reverberating off the dense concrete walls as people roamed from staircase to staircase.

Up on the third žoor of G-H one could run into more people - perhaps you had just seen them at breakfast, maybe you'd see someone you'd always wanted to meet and decided today was the day to muster up the courage. Then you'd visit the person on the second floor who you knew liked the same music as you did. Then the girls from English 105 from another part of the college would ask if you've done the readings for the week.

The entire excursion from your room to your pal's room, might take a half hour or more. But in the grander scheme of things, it's far more memorable that just dialing a couple of numbers.

The students are a bit younger. For the most part that's because there are fewer upper year students living in residence than in my day - mostly for economic and privacy reasons.

THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME:

The rooms are the same. The food is the same (at least at Champlain) and the atmosphere on most of the floors, at least the ones I saw was pretty much the same.

The names may have changed but the characters haven't, in that there are always a wonderful variety of folks in each staircase. Forty idiosyncracies, likes and dislikes, but all working towards a common goal - academic success and a heck of a lot of fun along the way.

"The best part about this place is the way you can just be who you want to be. Sometimes you don't always get along but for the most part, you become friends with most people pretty quickly," said first year student Anne Simpson.

"It took me about two hours to get used to this place. Once I moved in and had all my stuff put away, I just started wandering around, meeting people," said Kirt Leber, who spends most of his time in the company of his Lady Eaton College girlfriend, Stacey McMechan.

These students welcomed a man often more than a decade older into their midst immediately. Students popped by my room very regularly for the first couple of nights, just to say "hi". I detected no sense of concern, but rather curiosity. Most of them thought my presence was "pretty cool."

Living in close quarters for more than 24 weeks breeds a sense of camaraderie and trust. These things haven't changed. The students in my day would leave their doors wide open or at least unlocked, even if they went away for the weekend. Nothing has changed.

People wandered from room to room, visiting, commiserating, procrastinating and generally enjoying each other's company.

There's also an unfortunate side to res life. "I guess because we all know each other we all know what's going on in each other's lives. It's not easy to keep secrets," said Pam LeCavalier. "There are always rumours floating around and people talking behind your back. That's unfortunate. Sometimes you have problems with people, but there's not much you can do about it with so many different personalities here," added Pam's boyfriend Nick Butler, who, remarkably, lives in the room next door.

At Champlain, there has also been a running war with the catering company responsible for feeding hundreds of students and live-in staff. Food is such an important part of your life that it becomes a major issue for someone paying thousands of dollars and believing they aren't getting what they paid for. Again, some things never change. I think we complained as much eleven years ago but we realized after a few months that not every meal was going to be as good as dear old mom makes.

Every staircase has what I call the local whirlwind, the personality so powerful that it takes over every room and every conversation, and that's not always such a bad thing.

In C-D staircase, Ceri Allen is that whirlwind. It must be her Welsh blood but she is a bundle of nervous energy and emotion - unbridled on both counts.

She's a strict vegetarian who has long, thick red/raven hair that hasn't been cut in years. One night, I was speaking with Ceri, Anne and Rachel Dell, who lives on the third žoor of C-D in the so-called Nunnery, the all-female section of C-D, (top two floors). The three of them were reflecting about life in residence and were so deep in thought they didn't realize that they were all twirling their hair in unison. No profound meaning, it was just a cute little episode, one of dozens that happened over the week.

On my žoor, there were four other students. Mike from Bermuda, the ladies man, and hip-hop music lover. He seemed to be a little wary of the mysterious reporter who lived next door. Kirt and his girlfriend Stacy, and Amy, who I didn't really get much of a chance to talk to because she left very early Friday morning and only returned as I was leaving Sunday. The one conversation we had was very enlightening. She leads a far deeper life than I think even the others on the žoor know. She was very interested in how much political activity there was at Trent in the late 1980s and wondered why it wasn't the same as in 1999.

As in my day, there were pro-wrestling fanatics. Chris Clarke, Ceri's on and off paramour, is a bona-fide fanatic. With his pal Dan from A-B, he spends hours on the internet on chat lines debating the virtues of Stone Cold's Stunner and the Rock's Corporate Elbow.

The decorations on the glass windows of the first and third floor landings were painted by Honor Renouf. A lithe, quiet young woman with a greater artistic gift than even she believes. She, in my opinion, is the staircase enigma.

THE VERDICT

Students are students are students. They are playful now and they were fun and playful eleven years ago. They work hard - when they have to, just like we did.

They have their minor little conflicts with one another. They snipe at each other behind their backs, but will leap to the defense of one another as well. They represent a wide range in personalities, opinions, levels of dedication, majors and maturity.

They were completely welcoming towards the stranger in their midst. They opened up to someone they barely knew and that made me feel very good. Most, I hope I can stay in touch with because they are truly wonderful young people, who did something for me that hasn't been done for a very long time. They made me feel young, and stimulated my interest in learning and the wonderful atmosphere that can be created in a place of higher learning. They restored my faith in the kinds of adults who are coming out of our university system and Trent in particular.

So what if the food wasn't cordon bleu. The students were.

This article originally ran in Peterborough This Week.


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