The Collegian Weekly

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The Collegian Weekly

This week the Collegian editors are feeling nostalgic. Indulge us, if you will, in a quick flashback.

With only a few papers between us and the void that is the rest of our lives, it’s funny to remember our first assignments and tests at Hillsdale College, along with our burning desire to impress our Rhetoric and Great Books professors –– and then to remember the subsequent horror at those first paper grades. Was that your first C? We feel your pain. How many passive verbs did we use? How many dangling modifiers? Oy vey.

The scars have almost healed enough for those stories to be funny; that first C-, and its fellow grades from Jackson’s English class are now standby party anecdotes.

Looking back, we can’t help but notice how the college’s rhetoric changes when we are prospectives and when we become freshman.

This week, our memories of this difference seemed especially humorous as a group of 19 promising prospectives visited campus to vie for leadership scholarships. They hailed from California to New York, with stories of high school conquest and achievement behind them. They were accomplished and exuberant, and treated accordingly.

Seeing our gracious admissions staff accommodate these eager youths reminded us of our first conversations with admissions staff. We fondly remember when “Artes Liberales” and “Siegel midterm” meant nothing to us. We harken back to the age of innocence when we could rattle off the names of our first-semester professors without getting a sentimental catch in our throat.

These prospective leaders were doted upon, enjoying dinner after dinner and the finest entertainment Hillsdale had to offer on a rainy weekend.

“You are the best and brightest,” they were told, “You are the future!” — the epithets of accomplishment flowed like the sparkling apple cider at Dr. Arnn’s house.

The sharp contrast between the prospectives’ dinners and our first meals at Saga were all too obvious. Upper classmen’s words still ring in our ears: “The ‘C’ stands for ‘Congratulations, you’re in college.’” “We don’t hand out As to freshmen.”

It seems like an inside joke, from one class to the next to the next.

Of course, the two kinds of rhetoric can and should coexist. Success and accomplishment in one season of life translate into great challenges and higher expectations in the next.

Our faculty and staff know that too.

We hope many of this weekend’s guests decide to attend Hillsdale –– and we hope they aren’t crushed by their first report cards.

And even though the school’s language to prospectives is different from the one it uses to correct and mold its students, the respect and love that underly both sets of communication remains the same.

It’s one of the best things about this college.