Before I get started, I’m going to have to give some background. My time at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) as an undergraduate student were amazing; I developed my leadership skills, fell in love with involvement, became the founding member of two student organizations, served as a Student Orientation Leader for two summers, served on several executive boards, chaired a retreat, and graduated with an acknowledgement from the university for my service to our community. I left my legacy on NKU through two philanthropic events that are still held to this day, and I never thought I would be back. I had done my time at the institution and I was on an adventure, destination unknown.

In the four years between undergraduate and graduate school, I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. What this boils down to is that I did a minimum of forty hours of community service a week, and I worked in Utah, Ohio, and Kentucky. This will focus on my last two years of service, which were spent at my Alma Mater, NKU, where I served as a Volunteer Coordinator for the Office of Student Engagement.

My role was to oversee any campus-wide service events, provide leadership and guidance to the organizations that fell underneath the Northern Kentucky Leadership Institute (NKLI), and establish a philanthropic event. I expanded our service events to three in the fall semester and partnered with two in the spring. I was able to advise developing leaders in both Leadership Mentors and Norse Leadership Society and acted as the sole advisor for NKU’s only all-freshmen student organization, Freshmen Service Leadership Committee. I even created an annual philanthropy, Big Pink Volleyball, which is a volleyball tournament that is played with a four-foot in diameter pink inflatable volleyball. I successfully did my duties as a volunteer but it wasn’t the work that kept me there for the second year, it was the people.

It was weird coming back to campus, after two years away I had never really thought about coming back but a job opened up and I gladly took it! I would be serving under one of my undergraduate mentors, Tiffany Mayse, alongside several professionals that I had idolized. I moved back to Kentucky, into the residential halls in June 2014, and began recruiting for the Fall semester.

I met hundreds of incoming freshmen, traveled to Lake Cumberland with upperclassmen students for our summer retreat, and met hundreds of more freshmen… all before classes started in August. I was serving ten to twelve hour days, retreating to my on-campus living assignment, and then going back out the next day. I was happy and loving what I was doing, knowing firsthand how these programs would benefit students who were willing enough to listen to my speech and write down their information so we could gently remind them, via email, about upcoming events. I did great things, talked to students I eventually became a mentor to and expanded the idea of college could be if you just gave me a minute of your time.

When classes started, students were back on campus and my office was now overrun with students who had questions or concerns or who just wanted to work in peace; the last one rarely happened. I began serving as an advisor to a student organization, first with FSLC and then branching out to Leadership Mentors and Norse Leadership Society. While each of these organizations has amazing members and powerful mission statements, I’ll be talking about my interaction with freshmen mostly.

When the meetings started, I thought I was going to act more like a silent figurehead, showing up to just ensure that everything was being done correctly and smoothly, I quickly learned otherwise. Freshmen have this amazing energy, once you get it going, to bring people into their lives and establish these powerful connections because they’re new and excited about everything. They build these bonds with people they’ve known for days that make them seem to like best friends since childhood, and I wasn’t immune to them.

My first year was a struggle, the energy quickly dissipated but we had some amazing student leaders who took initiative and bought into the projects I was pushing (service days and Big Pink Volleyball). Those leaders stuck it out, finished the year, and became upperclassmen in leadership roles and took on challenges with my full support behind them. They were the first generation of my kids, which sounds like I’m talking down to these students but they bought me a Dad shirt… so this is their fault. I watched them grow up their first year, see them work through hard classes and due dates and projects that involved a lot of writing as if you were a senator in ancient Greece.

Year two brought in more people, more recruiting, and most importantly, more freshmen. This class, overall, was better; they understood what it meant to get involved, they consistently showed up to things, and the level of apathy that had plagued my first year never really showed up. The students I met are doing amazing things, some are RAs and others are leadership professions in other organizations, one is even trying to start a dance marathon to become a spring philanthropy for all of NKU. They’re not perfect, they struggle and work hard and some didn’t persist, but they’re wonderful human beings with huge hearts that always put the needs of others at the top of their priorities.

And I miss them all.

As I write this, I am struggling to hold it together, the fact that my computer faces that wall is a blessing right now. They’re living their lives, being great people, and I get to only see snippets through Facebook and Snapchat. I’m proud of each of them, as they challenge themselves and each other, how they’re moving towards their end goal of a degree. They’re wonderful human beings and I miss being able to have them in my life on a daily basis.

I want you to know that I’m happy for you all, and proud of all the work you’re putting into your classes and student organizations and developing yourselves. I’m so excited to see where life takes you and I’m sad that I won’t be there along the way, to see you make mistakes and learn from them, to build upon what has been established on campus and make it better, and more importantly I won’t get to know what you do during those mundane times of the day, like lunch.

I don’t think I’ve ever been homesick before, honestly. I’ve missed people and my interactions but never a place, probably due to the fact that I moved eleven times before fourth grade. So, as I work towards the end of my third week of classes… I’m excited and heartbroken all at the same time. I love and miss you all!

thaNKU, Love your “Dad”

PS. I know Meleia, Madison, Emily and the Brown twins are crying; Christy can’t but looks like she wants to; Dubs is probably ironing his will and failing; Nick is still angry I took him out of my Facebook profile picture; Tyler is probably denying emotions exist but crying on the inside; Sabrina is probably gonna well up; Nicole should put on whatever sling or brace that is medically recommended; Clayton is still a poop; Marsha you've got this; Tiffany you're still the goddess of leadership in my book; all the FSLC members who I’ve touched may not read this but I hope that y’all share it with them; and finally… Spemcer is probably too manly to cry, but he’ll take a couple extra minutes in the car to get his emotions in check before heading inside.