Fall Semester Returns, Welcoming the Latest Chapter of Storied Legacy

The quiet of summertime in State College is but a few hours from being jetted into hyperspeed as the students return for the fall semester. After two long years of COVID protocols, social distancing and hybrid/remote learning there is a desire for a full return to normalcy. 

But this fall is a time of continuing change at Penn State. A new president has taken the helm. With that will come new directions and decisions, some expected, some unexpected. Some things that are new may or may not be popular… time will tell.

New students arrive, facing the unknown, trying to adjust to new realities, new routines and a new life. For many this will be a first foray into life on their own. The four (or more) years ahead of them seem like a limitless blank canvas, an era that seems that it will last forever.

Seniors arrive for that last semester or two looking back at their first days at Penn State and wondering where it all went. Already they have the capacity to reflect on goals met or not met, goals still ahead and unexpected twists and turns along their journey. 

For those seniors, the time of COVID robbed them of time, the most precious resource of all. 

As the new year and new semester’s first days turn to weeks, we are once again reminded of time’s passage. Time marches on for all of us, no matter how much we try to live in the moment and hold onto each day and how much we want to freeze some aspects of our life right where we are.

Parents or families are excited that their children are off to a new chapter in their lives at Penn State, but part of them will always fondly long for those days when that child was always under their roof at the end of the night. As they return home from dropping off their child, there will be a moment when they come face to face with future’s uncertainty.

That has been the case at Penn State for generations.

For those new students, that first night they will go to sleep in a new place, an unfamiliar place and the family that surrounded them before will be miles away. On that first night will be both excitement and some trepidation. They find themselves suddenly in a new community, surrounded by new people. And classes are just days away. New people to work with on group projects, a new and bigger talent pool to compete with. New professors who may have different methods of teaching.

Who can they trust? Who will become a lifelong friend? Whose friendship will flash and then will fade?

New students have all felt the same hesitancy.

Penn State was here long before we arrived, and Penn State will last long after we are gone. Yet at this moment, all of us, from trustees to faculty and staff, are entrusted with Penn State in the here and now. The things we do, the things we do not do, will be part of Penn State’s arc of history.

We are entrusted to further a proud history of incredible achievement. 

There were students sitting in these same classrooms that became teachers, doctors, lawyers, CEOs, politicians, a Medal of Honor winner and innovators who changed the world. 

And with our grasp of the Penn State of here and now, what will we all do with it?

Growing up in State College and going to Penn State, those first days didn’t hit me like other students. This was all familiar territory, and as such I never fully sensed the immortal timeline of this place.

When I began coaching at the University of Virginia, I found myself in an unfamiliar place. Often, I would walk the grounds of UVA after dark to understand the history of a new place. On those evening walks it became easy to feel the past. Across the darkness, walking the grounds among old buildings, you’d hear the chatter and laughter of current students through the night air. But at the same time the mind sensed that the ghosts of the past were there too.

Across the decades, students, many now long gone, had walked these same grounds, headed to many of the same places and chased the same dreams.

At Penn State, it is easy to feel the same things walking across campus after dark. Pass Old Main, or Atherton’s grave or walk to Pattee Library or through West Halls and you feel it. From this piece of earth that we hold dear, you’ll feel both the past’s presence and the future’s possibilities here.

When we are part of a place with a storied legacy, we must remember that the ghosts of the past are watching us. The names and faces may be gone. But they are here. And as they lived and breathed in this place, they too believed that they would be here forever when their journey began.

So as this semester turns us towards a new year, it is good to understand that the time here may be short. And that being the case, hold these days as valuable treasures to be spent sparingly on the things that matter most to you.