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On Monday, Dale, Josiah and I went on a college visit to Eastern, a Christian College in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We arrived for the visit the night prior, stayed in an old hotel nearby, and walked through downtown Wayne to an Italian restaurant for dinner. We walked past the largest Wawa we had ever seen. It was a large convenience store, not like the gas stations we have around here. On our walk back to the hotel, we stopped at a Diner for dessert, tea, and coffee. Meanwhile Abby was at home caring for her two younger siblings with the help of The Robyn.

When I relayed our fist night’s actions to Abby, she protested “You stayed at an old hotel without me? You ate at an Italian restaurant without me? You went to a Diner without me?” She was indignant. Over the course of the visit to Eastern, we did everything Abby loved to do at the college she wants to attend.

Even though she is only a sophomore in high school, Abby has been researching colleges. When Josiah and Abby’s high school had a Christian College Fair that she could not attend because of a Field Hockey game, she sent me with a list of colleges I needed to get information about. “Make sure you go to the Eastern booth,” she said. “That’s number one.”

Josiah and I went to the Eastern booth without her and then went to the college without her as well. She considers this completely unfair.

The visit started at 8:30am with praise and worship. I knew I was on a college campus when the worship set had songs by both the Newsboys and David Crowder. Thankfully, the student led worship team threw in Stuart Townend’s In Christ Alone to help us old folks find the rhythm. After worship, the admissions department introduced themselves and the President of the University gave a short talk.

We then went on a tour of the campus. We hiked about over the hill and through the woods, back and forth this way and that at a fairly rapid speed. Eastern students must certainly stay in shape hiking between their classes and the dorms. The campus is quite picturesque with streams, bridges, a waterwheel, and a pond. The college is fairly small in population with 1700 students, and there are not many buildings, but the campus grounds are extensive. My own experience with college dorms is limited to military barracks. Therefore, in all the colleges we have visited, upon sight of the dorm rooms, I am pleasantly surprised. When only four people have to share a bathroom, when everyone gets a closet, and when no one has to make their bed, I consider the accommodations luxurious.

After our tour, we came back together to hear Tony Campolo speak. He is a professor of sociology at Eastern. He is also an Italian from Philly through and through and is quite old school in his vernacular. He has been very influential at Eastern in promoting the college motto of “Faith Reason Justice.” The students are encouraged to “grow in faith, learn to reason, and help bring justice.” The students are active in service projects with Habitat for Humanity, Opportunity International, Food for the Hungry, and International Justice Mission. The college faculty and the students take to heart James 2:17 “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Afterwards, Dale and Josiah went to a musicianship class to stretch their brains, I went to a tuition assistance class to stretch my wallet, and we all ate philly cheese steak to stretch our stomachs. The cheese steak was offered in the cafeteria under a sign proclaiming “traditional foods.” It is a good thing the majority of the students are from Pennsylvania. A southerner might be a bit surprised to discover cheese steak as a traditional food.

Our drive to Philly on Sunday afternoon was 3 hours with no traffic. Our drive home on Monday afternoon was 4 hours and 15 minutes thanks to the state of Maryland. Someone thought it would be a grand idea to close off one lane of the I95 southbound bridge which crosses over the Susquehanna river. Of course, there was no construction work, just construction barrels.

When we arrived home, I gave Abby an Eastern school binder and a dessert from the Diner in an attempt to placate her.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t think it worked.

Last Saturday, Josiah took the ACT (college enrollment test). The ACT is the test frequently taken by college applicants in the US Midwest. Here in the Eastern US, most students take the SAT. Unfortunately for Josiah, his mother has signed him up to take both tests. He will be taking the SAT next month.

The ACT is not offered in as many high school locations as the SAT, so Josiah had to drive 30 minutes north from home to the test location. He was required to sign in by 8am Saturday morning, and bring identification, two number 2 pencils, an eraser, a calculator, and a snack.

Prior to Saturday, the farthest north Josiah had driven alone was to Quantico. In the hand drawn maps and exit number memorization quizzes I had given him when he was learning to drive, the I95 map’s accuracy ended at exit 118 to the south and exit 150 to the north. Beyond exit 118 was simply “driving to Richmond” and beyond exit 150 was simply “driving to DC.”

I could lie and say that I thought long and hard about whether I should allow Josiah to find his way to the testing location in a timely manner, but you wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t consider it for a moment. Instead, we drove two cars. Thankfully, it turned out to be a fairly straightforward trip up Highway 1. We arrived at 0740, and I got out of the van and walked over to the car. Josiah opened up his door and looked at me with a quizzical expression. “I’ve got 20 minutes,” he said.

“Get out of the car,” I replied.

As usual for him, no thought was made to the number of people waiting in line to sign in, the need to find the room he was assigned to in a high school he had never been inside of, or any other such planning and preparation.

Why not just dash into the school at the last minute, slide into a desk, and fill in some ovals?

As I was standing behind him inside the school watching him show his identification while he held a paper lunch sack with his name written on it, I realized how I must look to the other students and the test administrator. They are looking at a kid who has a beard, drives a car, is 17 years old, and is followed everywhere by a very testing mother.

After he signed in, I told Josiah “Good Luck” and walked out. I had already instructed him on how to drive home after the test.

Maybe it’s time to let him grow up and accept responsibility. The cost to me is not great: just $49.50 if he should per chance miss the test because he doesn’t get up on time, departs late, gets lost while driving, sits in his parked car too long, forgets to sign in, goes to the wrong room, leaves his cell phone on in his pocket, loses both pencils, etc.

Surely, that wouldn’t happen.

Many parents try to influence their children to enter the family business; be it a restaurant, pawn shop, or law firm. Both my Mom and Dad served a stint in the Air Force and one brother and I joined the Army. Dale’s Daddy had a military career with combined service in the Air Force and the Army. Dale and three of his siblings joined the Army. His one sister, who did not join the military, has one son in the Army and another son soon to join.

Dale and I are attempting to avoid this parenting path. We have told our children we will not force them into the military.

After Josiah registered to take the ACT, he began receiving admissions info from various universities. Upon receiving material from a college in Vermont, he looked the university up on line and discovered a frequently googled query, “Do only hippies go to this college?”

Yesterday, he received an admissions letter in an embossed envelope with “Your exclusive nomination is enclosed” printed on the outside. He looked at it and set it down. He did not even bother to open it.

The letter was from VMI.

A few pictures from our recent visit to Longwood University:

On Monday, Dale, Josiah, and I traveled down to Farmville, Virginia for a college visit at Longwood University. It’s a Virginia Public University a little over 2 hours away with approximately 4000 undergraduate students. The college was established in 1839 as an all female college. It became coed in 1976 and changed over to a university in 2002. It is now 31% male. I told Josiah if he went there, he would get the same ‘I’m outnumbered’ experience as I had in college. Although, his ratio is not quite as severe as mine (10 to 1). Dale remarked that I should be thankful I was blessed with such a good guy to girl ratio, because it enabled me to pick the cream of the crop.

Yep, he’s the cream of the crop, alright.

The campus looks like Old Virginia with its brick buildings and white columns. We could walk from one end of campus to the other in 10 minutes. There were plenty of lawns, a giant magnolia tree, and a fountain. The dorm rooms were a decent size. Each room has two students and two dorm rooms share a bathroom. There is a laundry room and an RA on each floor. There are all female dorms and coed dorms.

The student to teacher ratio is 20 to 1, and professors not grad assistants teach the classes. The admissions people emphasized that the professors really get to know their students and each professor keeps office hours to be accessible to the students. This tidbit made Dale and I laugh, as well as the mention of the College President having an open door policy. We chuckled further when we saw the honor code displayed prominently in the library. Furthermore, freshman are not allowed to have cars on campus. In the autumn, in a mass show of support for their athletic teams, all the students (with Longwood scarves in hand) march across campus to the first sporting event of the season to cheer on the team.

All these little bits here and there bring back memories to Dale and I of our dear alma mater. The reason for all this similarity: in 2010, the former dean of West Point became the President of Longwood University. I personally suspect, over the course of time, the number of guys on campus will begin to increase.

The campus is very safe. There are blue emergency poles all throughout campus. If you press the button, campus security will be there in 2 minutes. All dorms are only accessible to those who live in them, and there is a door watch person who ensures no one enters the dorm who does not live there. Back in the military, we called this person the CQ (charge of quarters). Furthermore, there is an organization on campus called the night walkers who will walk with you across campus until 4 am if needed. Dale remarked he would feel safer walking by himself than with someone termed a night walker.

There are all kinds of handy dandy jobs on campus for students to apply for besides RA, door watch person, and night walker. Each dorm has a student who is its designated tech support available 24 hours a day. If a student is tech savvy, the university will send them to class to learn the in and outs of trouble shooting and then pay them to find lost papers on crashed computers in the middle of the night. A student can wipe down equipment at the gym, check ids, or give tours for a job.

Every thing is accessed and paid for through your college card. It gains you access to the gym’s climbing wall, the cafeteria food line, and your dorm. You use it for the cost of the washing machine and the cost of your books at the bookstore. I found it most remarkable that it could also be used to buy food at the restaurant all Manrys love just down the street. Modern technology – it’s amazing.

There are two secret organizations on campus, one group is chosen for academics and another group is chosen for leadership. The leadership organization has blue rotunda symbols painted on the walkways throughout campus. A student is never to step on one for fear of something bad happening. The academic organization has black crowns painted on the walkways and it is considered good luck to step on those in the pursuit of good grades. Students specifically run outside to do this during finals week. At West Point, we had to sneak out at midnight and spin the spurs on Sedgewick’s monument if we wanted such luck on an exam. I have come to suspect there must be academic luck spots on every college campus.

In a bit of strangeness, Longwood’s secret leadership organization CHI marches through campus in hoods each year chanting as they march along. The members only reveal themselves at a bonfire before their graduation. Josiah found it amazing that in 2012 secret organizations still march around in hoods on their way to bonfires.

I reminded him we live in the south.

We all really liked the campus: the number of students, its accessibility, and the academic emphasis. We got the feeling it was a good place to go to school. The students were very positive and we figured Josiah would not likely get lost. We have several more college visits to do, but Longwood definitely stays on the list.