Mike VanHulle
So here I am, standing bare-ass naked in front of a filled auditorium of my peers, classmates and future friends. Surrounding me is a very sketchy-looking group of men covering their junk with as little as a pair of boxers. With the crowd hootin’ and hollerin’ at my adrenaline-filled body, I wonder how I got here. Was it the rum at the $lum or peer pressure from fellow runners that was having such a negative effect on my judgment? Surely, it must be something more.
First, we must look back to over a year ago when my college search began. Even living in Iowa, “Where the hell is Grinnell?” was exactly what came to my mind when I received a small postcard from admissions. It wasn’t until my mother’s wandering eyes came across the postcard that I was informed Grinnell wasn’t a glorified community college. Instead, Grinnell was supposed to be some kind of haven for great thinkers, intellectuals and hippies.
My decision to go here ended up coming down to three things: I could run for Grinnell, they gave me the most money and it was my parent’s first choice. These are not good reasons to select a college. I’ve always said academics come first and I didn’t even know what classes Grinnell offered. Obviously, this kept me full of doubts for my arrival.
Walking around campus, I began hearing things that I was not used to. People were talking about politics, academics and the environment. These weren’t just people talking about what they read in the news, but things they were involved in. I had never seen people so ambitious and devoted to what they do.
My SA and ninja friend Maggie quickly helped teach me the ins and outs of campus. She explained that she was there to help me, not to boss me around. She wasn’t going to turn me in if I came home from the $lum drunk and puking. Instead, she would join me, and then help me get home!
The system of self-governance gives me a feeling of empowerment unmatched to anything I have felt in the past. This feeling is what gives people the courage to do anything, or in my case streak into a packed auditorium. Would I be willing to be naked in front of the whole freshman class at the University of Iowa or my high school graduation class? No, only here at Grinnell am I capable of such an act.
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