Stepping back onto campus after just one weekend away was like stepping onto a whole new world. This past Friday, before leaving for the Quidditch World Cup in Kissimmee Florida, campus had looked much the same as it had over the entirety of the semester; bleak and void of most signs of life. When I returned, however, it was as if spring had exploded out of nowhere. Flowers and green buds covered all the limbs of bushes and trees that had been barren not three days earlier, and there was an undeniable feeling in the air that said summer was just around the corner. The time I have spent in this class and outside of class doing work seems to have flown by in a largely undistinguishable blur of lectures, speakers, observation logs, service outings and trips to the river, but this recent change in the weather and campus flora seems to have brought everything to a sharper focus, and I can only imagine that everything will become even clearer as the semester winds down in the next couple of weeks.
I am certainly not the only one who has noticed the increasing signs of spring throughout the past several weeks. Nearly all fellow-lodgers have commented on the sunnier, warmer weather, the budding foliage and even the sudden appearance of bugs in their most recent blog posts. I guess the general consensus must be true: spring has arrived. Spring may be here, but I have to keep reminding myself that the presence of a few more colors than I am used to seeing does not mean that our campus was devoid of life until this point. Anne had a similar experience in one of her reflection posts about the budding of life, and wrote, “I appreciated the beauty of the campus and the lake in the fall and spring, but neglected to appreciate the natural beauty and resilience of this ecosystem in the winter”. It may not always be apparent to all of us, myself included, but the lake and its watershed are just as exciting and lively in the winter as they are in the spring, regardless of what our senses may tell us.
As I write this last, overarching reflection of the semester’s activities, I pause every couple of minutes or so to stare out across the lake from my position at a table outside of the commons. Seeing perhaps the most iconic natural vista of our campus laid out before my eyes in its full springtime glory somehow brings everything we’ve learned this semester into a sharper, more-connected focus. Not only is the lake a geographic center of our campus, but to many students, it is also a sort of psychological center as well. It ties various aspects of our social and academic lives together because we are constantly crossing over it or walking along its shores as we move about with our lives. Whether all students, faculty and staff realize it or not, the lake is an integral part of our lives and we would all be amiss without it. The lake connects each and every one of us, not only to each other, but to our watershed and to the natural world as well.
Many of my classmates’ reflection spots are situated at different points around the lake and it is easy to understand why. This relatively small body of water embodies all the themes we have been learning about in class, such as the importance of riparian buffers, connectivity, water quality, watershed health, and place awareness, and it does so in a way that is easily accessible and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I think our lake is an ideal tool for teaching people about the importance of watershed health because it already draws people to its banks for so many other reasons. Taylor, Kenta, Lauren and Bill have already realized and taken advantage of this fact by deciding to place signs around the lake, educating its visitors about the flora and fauna, and I am extremely excited to see these in place when I return to campus in the fall.
After pausing again to survey the slowly rippling waters in front of me, I am reminded suddenly of the service work our class did recently at the James and at the William Byrd Community House. While the work we did at these locations was undeniably useful, I cannot help but think that it might have been more effective and more beneficial to our immediate community, if we had done cleanups on campus instead. Yes, the University of Richmond has a facilities staff that works tirelessly to ensure that our campus remains pristine and aesthetically perfect 24/7, but shouldn’t we, as individuals, feel a need to make our home a better place? Wouldn’t cleanups at the lake, for example, increase place awareness in students at the University of Richmond and cause people to start caring more about their watershed? The James is just outside of our campus boundaries, but given the confusing spider-web of neighborhoods and constantly bustling roads, it might as well be miles away. Our campus truly is a bubble for many people and a large number of students do not feel any connection to the river, despite the fact that it is so very close. The lake, unlike the river, is a commonality and constant presence for everyone on campus. Perhaps it might be worth considering making the lake a bigger part of the Earth Lodge class in the future, so that we can promote its ecological importance to the rest of the school.
It may have only been recently that I truly came to realize the importance of the lake as an aspect of our community, but I would not have come to this realization had it not been for what we learned in class all semester and for the series of blog posts that allowed me to steadily and consistently record my thoughts. As I looked back at the posts before writing this final piece, I noticed not necessarily how my writing style or ideas had evolved over time, but how each piece fit together to make a more complete experience. The hands-on learning from our trips and service work combined with the information from our lectures always came into a clearer focus after I had the chance to reflect on them in a blog post, and looking back over all of the logs from the semester just brought everything together in as succinct a manner as I can imagine.