What Grows in Your Garden

by Carolyn P Schriber

  “Oh, sure, Beth. I’ll enjoy showing you around. I’m headed for the grocery store early tomorrow morning, but after ten will be fine. Just knock on the door. It’s 6A, remember. The middle one in the building on the right as you enter the enclave.” As Sarah headed home, she realized that the evening had served an important purpose. She was feeling a part of this new community.

  Chapter Six

  Orientation

  Thursday, August 21, 2008

  Sarah and Beth slid into a comfortable friendship from the start. They shared similar upbringings and almost parallel career paths, When they met on Saturday, they even discovered they had graduated on the same day. Their tastes matched, too. Sarah, still putting away her grocery staples, sighed with pleasure as she unpacked a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. “Look,” she sighed. “Chocolate icing and crème filling.”

  “Heaven.”

  “Shall I put on a pot of coffee?”

  “Only if I don’t have to wait too long to bite into one of those.”

  Over their shared guilty pleasures, they speculated about their future students.

  “I wonder about their preparation for college work,” Sarah admitted. “I’ve always heard disparaging remarks about the quality of southern schools.”

  “Well, I know that Smoky Mountain accepts any high school graduate with a score of 16 or above on the ACT.”

  “That low? The cut-off at Columbia was 21, and students needed at least a 25 to compete with their fellow students.”

  “Chicago demanded a 22,” Beth replied. “But that doesn’t mean that the high scorers are brighter than the others. They may just be more skillful at outguessing the test-makers.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m already worried about my freshman syllabus. I think I’ll run it by my departmental colleagues to see if I’m expecting too much.”

  Wednesday night, Sarah was so excited she had trouble falling asleep. For a week she had been trying to make herself think like a professor, but it felt like play-acting. This time it would be for real. “My students,” she murmured to herself, and then shook her head at the very concept. She kept wondering how these nameless young people were feeling at that moment, knowing they were heading into a whole new stage in their young lives. When she fell asleep, her dreams conjured up images of a young Sarah, headed to her freshman advisor’s office in fear.

  “Enter,” he had barked when she tapped at the door, and when she introduced herself he had raised an eyebrow. “What do you want?”

  “You’re my advisor. I’ve come to find out what courses I should be taking.”

  “Young lady (and I use the second term advisedly), did they give you a student handbook?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you read?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then. There’s your answer. Everything you need to know is in that book. If you can’t figure it out for yourself, you’re not smart enough to be a student in this fine institution.”

  “But I’m going to be a Latin major, and you’re my Latin teacher.”

  “Then I’ll see you in a class. Dismissed.”

  She had left the office, holding back the tears until the door closed behind her. Then she sank to the floor and sobbed. She wanted to go home, but instead she headed back to that grim dorm room where her older roommates had consigned her to a top bunk. She knew she couldn’t go home. Her father, the rabbi, would never forgive her. He was angry enough that she wanted to study Latin, not Hebrew.

  Sarah awoke in a cold sweat and struggled to remind herself that her freshman year was far behind her. She blamed the dreams on first-day jitters, but she still felt much like a freshman herself. In the cold moonlight, she understood that Doctor Parks had been right to treat her as he did that first day. He had taught her the first of many lessons—that she possessed more strength and control than she realized.

  Once on campus in the morning, Sarah’s nerves gave way to curiosity about the newcomers who swarmed the grounds and gardens. They fell into distinct patterns. There were parental groups, shepherding a son or daughter. The daughters placed themselves between their parents, almost using them as buffers. Once in a while she noticed a daughter clinging to her parent’s hand as if to say, “Please don’t go away and leave me here alone.” In contrast, the boys walked behind their parents, scowling and pretending to be nonchalant and bored with the whole process.

  A few outgoing teenagers broke the ties early and went dashing off to join their newly discovered best friends, leaving the parents stranded and feeling like fifth wheels. And a few students arrived alone, trying hard to look confident, but mainly appearing lost. And the more Sarah watched these young people, the older she felt.

  By afternoon, she was feeling comfortable in her new role. And right on schedule came her first test. A well-dressed couple appeared at her office door. “Are you Professor Chomsky?” the woman asked as if she suspected she was meeting the cleaning crew.

  “I am. Can I help you with something?”

  “We’re the Cartwrights. Our daughter Olivia is one of your advisees, I believe. She’s the tall one with braces,” the father said with an apologetic shrug.

  “I haven’t met my advisees yet, so . . .”

  “Well, good. That allows us to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. We want you to discourage Olivia from her foolish idea of becoming a history major.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sarah couldn’t be sure she had heard him.

  “She wants to major in history,” the woman whispered “but we’ve already told her she must be practical in her choice. Her father and I prefer she concentrate her efforts on courses she can use—like economics, accounting, business practices, computer technology—that sort of thing.”

  “Well, we discourage students from declaring a major until their sophomore year. We prefer that they spend this first year testing themselves and learning where their passions lie.”

  “Hah! That’s a waste of their time and my money. If you know teenagers, you know their interests are all over the place, and I don’t even want to think about their passions. I expect Olivia to get on with the business of equipping herself for the future. She will one day inherit my company. She needs discipline, not time to . . . to find herself.”

  “Smoky Mountain is not a vocational school, Mr. Cartwright. We’re not in the business of training children for job placement. We’re here to provide pathways to greater knowledge and understanding, to open the eyes of our young adults to the world’s endless opportunities.”

  “You’re here to do what I pay you to do.” He snarled at her.

  “With all due respect, sir, the university pays me to teach your daughter the lessons of history, and that is all I can promise to do. I cannot help you with your other goals.” Sarah stood and moved toward the door, ushering them into the hall.

  Later that afternoon, Sarah fretted that she might encounter the disagreeable pair again at the parents’ reception. Luck was with her this time. She did not spot them among the crowds of tired and emotional parents who swarmed the refreshment tables in the Cloister Garden. Instead, she tried to approach the single parents, the mothers who had just said good-bye—not so much to the children as to their childhoods. She offered a quiet hand, a smile, a promise to take care of their most precious possessions. Perhaps that made up for the acrimonious end to her first parental conference.

  Each day seemed to get better. Sarah’s drive to campus became routine. Her favorite parking space was always available because she arrived early in the morning, eager to discover what the day would offer. She was also beginning to wander the campus, learning the layout and its hidden treasures. She often enjoyed the perimeter walkway that took her from the parking lot to Bailey Hall.

  The campus buildings lay to the left. On the right an expanse of lawn around an outdoor amphitheater seemed something of an oddity—a space reserved for mysterious rites of passage, perhaps. Then came a trimmed orchard of old trees, planted a c
entury earlier by the original nuns to supply fruits for the winter. After that, a fenced pasture with the veterinarian school’s barn at the far end caught her attention.

  On Monday morning, that pasture held several frolicking lambs, an image so out of place on a college campus that she stopped to stare in fascination. Not seeing anyone to hinder her movements, she stepped up on the lowest rung of the fence to lean over and dangle her fingers. Soon she had several soft woolly lambs nuzzling her hand. She cooed at them for a while and told them they were adorable. Then she forced herself to turn toward Bailey Hall and her schedule for the day.

  She was still smiling as she exited the elevator. Gwen looked up from her secretary’s desk and smiled in response. “Somebody’s in a good mood this morning.”

  “I just had the most incredible experience. Did you know we have some lambs on campus? They’re the sweetest things I’ve seen in a long time. I wish I could have spent the morning with them instead of a flock of problem students.”

  “Oh dear. Please don’t get attached to them—the lambs, I mean. Or to any other animals you may see out there.”

  “Other animals? Like . . .”

  “All kinds. But you don’t understand . . .”

  “What?”

  “That before the end of the day, you’ll receive a message telling you that the vet school has some prime lamb chops for sale at their front desk.” Gwen cringed as she waited for the truth to sink in.

  “Lamb chops? Who . . . Oh, no!”

  “It’s a vet school, Doctor Chomsky. Their students need anatomy lessons on all kinds of animals, not just dogs and cats, and they must have time to practice surgical procedures, too. Joe says . . .”

  “Oh, I had forgotten. Your husband works there, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s doing a three-year internship and hoping to stay on as a resident. That’s how I know what’s going on. I had the same horrified reaction as you just did, but Joe assures me that they only use animals that are being raised for butchering, not someone’s pet.”

  “It’s hard not to fall in love with them when they are so cute.”

  “Joe says they ought to have a spitting camel or llama out there once in a while to be disagreeable.”

  “Well, thanks for the ‘heads up.’ I think I’ll find another place to walk for a while.”

  “You ought to explore the kitchen garden. They’re raising food crops, too, but when you see one of their luscious tomatoes, you’ll think about having a BLT, not a pet tomato.”

  “I’ll remember to do that.”

  Sarah moved on to her office, waving at Julia, the modern Europeanist, as she passed. With the rest of the student body now on campus, Sarah kept wondering when Cassie might appear but she hadn’t seen a sign of her. A few upperclassmen wandered in to meet the new professor, but the ease with which she dealt with them gave her confidence. Her colleagues in the department were helpful and encouraging. One by one, they had come by her office to chat and welcome her. “I can do this,” Sarah told herself.

  Sarah's final lesson on how to behave like a professor came with Tuesday’s scheduled convocation. The ceremony was open to all, but required of faculty and first-year students. As Sarah opened the suit bag that held her new academic regalia, she felt a thrill of pride at what it represented. Her gown was a light slate blue, the institutional color of her doctoral home, Columbia University. It displayed black velvet lapels and three black bars on her sleeves to announce that she held a doctorate degree. The hood was black both inside and out to identify her field as one in the Humanities, and the piping echoed Columbia’s slate blue. Since she had finished her studies, she had jettisoned the awkward mortarboard headpiece and replaced it with a jaunty black six-sided beret that made her feel like a French artist.

  Sarah had assumed they would use the auditorium, but because the weather was still pleasant, the convocation took place in the amphitheater. The faculty assembled on the first floor of Bailey Hall. Administration and faculty marshals lined up in front, and the rest of the faculty arranged themselves in order of seniority. Walking to the back of the line meant running a gauntlet of unfamiliar faces, but it gave Sarah a chance to survey the wild array of colors that proclaimed the wearer’s academic credentials—some gaudier than others.

  She slipped into place between Beth and Lyle Agaretti and greeted them with a sardonic grin. “Who would have guessed what a bunch of peacocks our colleagues would be? When I saw them for the first time in yesterday's faculty meeting, I thought they were all identical middle-aged men in white short-sleeved shirts. And now here they are, sporting pinks and greens and golds.”

  “You should talk. That trendy slate blue is attractive, but it shouts Ivy League one-upmanship.” Lyle grinned at her with a mock challenge.

  “And you are protesting by wearing a plain black gown?”

  “I am. I went to Stanford, but I refused to order their colors.”

  “Why was that?” Beth asked, staring down at her own maroon and black.

  “Because, my maroon-wearing friend, Stanford tried to outdo Harvard by going with cardinal red. But if you stand a Stanford man next to a Harvard grad, that cardinal red looks like a faded Ford Mustang and the Harvard crimson shines like a Porsche.”

  They shared a laugh before a marshal came along prodding everyone into line. The fellow had been listening to their comments, and he could not resist giving them a bit of wisdom from the depths of his experience. “Laugh at our colors all you like, but I assure you that our students will take notice. Heads up now, and look sharp. I don’t want to see any of you tripping and falling down the amphitheater steps.”

  “Oh I wish he hadn’t suggested that!”

  From outside came the sound of drums and trumpets as the marching band led the freshman class to their places of honor in front of the platform. Then the music stopped, and in its place came the sound of joyful bells pealing from the top of the clock tower on the other side of the campus. That was the cue for the faculty to march forward past rows of bemused teenagers. They crossed the stage in two lines, filling the raised rows of seats behind the speaker’s dais and staring straight at the assembled student body. It was an impressive start, and Sarah felt her back straighten and her gaze lift to take in the expanse of this ceremonial stage. This was the beginning of her academic career, and she wanted to drink in every moment.

  Chapter Seven

  Off to a Good Start

  September 3–9, 2008

  Sarah had the usual start-of-the-semester worries, but once in the classroom, her nervousness faded, replaced by a growing sense of excitement. Her undergraduate courses were full, and her students seemed interested and eager to get on with their studies. The classes themselves were small, a result dictated by the intimate nature of the small classrooms. There were no huge lecture halls here at Smoky Mountain, no back rows where the sleep-deprived could hide out to take a short nap, no anonymous class rolls on which students checked themselves off and their professors never learned their names.

  Sarah’s first class was the introductory American History Survey course. She had the syllabus ready, but at the last minute she held it back and tried an experiment. Instead of telling the students what the course would cover, she raised a question.

  “How do we understand the forming of the United States? What’s the first event, the first topic we should cover?”

  Silence at first, but someone in the back spoke up. “The Revolutionary War. That’s where it all begins, isn’t it?

  “Is it? Will we need to talk about the causes of the revolution?”

  “Well, sure, but you can cover that in a lecture, can’t you?”

  “So you want to know about King George and his fabled mental weaknesses? OK, but why is it the Americans who refuse allegiance rather than the English who are much closer to seeing the king's peculiarities and the problems of English government?”

  “You want us to start with the colonies?”

  “Those full-g
rown colonies or their origins?”

  “The Plymouth Rock pilgrims, then. It starts with them.”

  By that point, hands waved and other voices chimed in with spontaneous comments.

  “Religious persecution.”

  “Reformation.”

  “Renaissance.”

  “Spanish explorers.”

  “Why not go all the way back to ideas of the Roman Republic?”

  “Or the democracy of Greek city-states?”

  As the debate raged, Sarah stepped into the background, noting each new volunteer with interest, but letting the students carry the discussion to its limits. As time ran out, she called a halt.

  “Think about this until our next class. We’ll use that fine American idea of a secret ballot to set our starting point.”

  As the students filed out, Sarah noticed with delight that they were still talking about the issue. “Gotcha!”

  For her afternoon seminar with upperclassmen, she tried a more sophisticated approach. The topic was “The Motivating Impulses Governing America’s Civil War.” To open the discussion, she told them a story from her past.

  As a new college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in education from Boston College, she had set out to get her teaching license. Her family was considering a move to Florida, so she applied in both Florida and New York. Her Latin major with a double minor in English and History made her a desirable candidate—one who could teach a variety of subjects. Her New York license arrived without a problem, but the Florida board turned down her request that they certify her in all three subject areas.