Our Menlo Story: Contributions and Reflections of the Menlo College Community

From my first day working as a professor here at Menlo College until today, 27 years later, when I am still teaching, I have loved this place, this little island devoted to learning and contemplation in a whirlpool of frantic activity all around us, this sacred space under the oaks where life slows down so that we can reflect, explore our options, determine our values, and set our course in life. Over the years I have been touched by the stories students and alums have shared with me, stories about why they came to Menlo, and how Menlo has impacted their lives for the better. For a number of years I taught a memoir class in which students spent a whole semester writing about their experiences, both happy and sad, funny and tragic. At the end of the year I collected the best ones and put them into a self-published book. In the back of my mind, I promised myself that one day I would create an anthology. Thus the creation of this 'litel' booklet, to borrow Chaucer's spelling of the word. At first I thought I should ask only the current freshman class to address the class that will follow them as freshmen. What better way to prepare for college, I thought, than to hear from those who had recently made the transition? When I didn't get enough submissions, I decided to change my approach and just ask everyone in the Menlo community to contribute their thoughts about what motivates them to get up in the morning. If a topic like that didn't interest them, maybe they had a favorite poem or prose passage they'd like to share. This booklet is the result of that call for contributions. My hope is that reading these contributions will inspire a few of us, at least, to want to meet the authors whose thoughts are shared here. I expect this little booklet to grow over the years. But as Trustee Chop Keenan reminded my students the other day, often it's good to start small.