“THESE TEARS, SHARED THROUGH THE DECADES BY THOUSANDS OF OTHER ALUMS, REMIND US THAT THE COLLEGE’S CENTRAL MISSION—one concerned with character and the gifts of the Spirit above all—has not changed one iota. From my spot on the Neville steps, I give thanks for the thousands of people whose love for Presbyterian College moves them to become custodians of 503 South Broad Street.”

Some things here never change: Neville Hall still smells of old books; the oaks along the East and West Plazas stand impervious to time, wind, and Frisbees; PCuns still run to Whiteford’s at all hours for chicken strips and sweet tea; the midnight oil burns until dawn during finals week; and what Mama says, goes.

But the changes brought about since the millennium by The Promise and the Challenge campaign make the heart glad. Our library used to be so deserted in the evenings that you could stand on a chair in Periodicals, yell “Go Hose!”, and not bother a soul. Now, expanded and refurbished, its lights shining through glass walls into the night, Thomason is packed with students poring over their books and tapping away at their wireless laptops.

Or take the new Bailey Memorial Stadium during home games in the fall: The PC Scotsman looks over a grassy parking field of SUV’s and station wagons loaded with BBQ, fried chicken, and potato salad. Properly basted and caught up on the talk, alums and parents and college friends then head for the crowded stands and boxes, checking the state-of-the-art video scoreboard as the cannon booms and our Hose dash for a halftime pep talk and cool down in their new field house. Afterwards, swaggering with triumph or resolute with “Next time!”, some of those alums and parents and friends swing by the Depot, the College’s new bookstore uptown, for a tall java chip frappuccino or Hose t-shirt before heading out of—wait: is Whiteford’s still open?

We marched into Belk Auditorium to the strains of a new organ at Opening Convocation a few weeks ago. We regularly sit before the stages of Belk and Edmunds Hall and applaud our students whose talents are honed and strengthened through a steadily growing number of music scholarships. Almost daily we note the progress of the Lassiter wing of Richardson Hall and await the day next semester when our biology colleagues will share their knowledge in what will be one of the finest facilities of its sort in the Southeast.

So many donor gifts have upgraded our infrastructure and made such scholarships possible; they’ve brought competitive salaries to the dedicated people whom I call my colleagues and friends. Those gifts that have pushed the campaign past the $100 million mark have been acts of faith by people who believe in what this small and venerable college is all about. They know something of the transforming magic of the liberal arts that sends our graduates beyond the front gates forever changed. And after 19 years of teaching on the front steps of Neville Hall, I know it too.

You can understand, then, why I established the Field of Dreams Baseball Scholarship in 2004. A portion of my salary goes to that scholarship each month, and my hope is that there’ll be several Field of Dreams scholars by the time I arrive at the Pearly Gates (I may have to hang onto my buddy Brian Beasley’s heels to get there, but hope springs eternal). Whether their team ever wins a division championship is a moot point. If they play America’s pastime with love, fine; if they toss their preconceived notions of x and lose themselves in pursuit of y, great; if they spend a semester in China, Norway, Peru, or Ireland, so much the better; if, on the eve of their graduations, they look at their PC rings, shaking their heads in wonder at how they’ve grown in four short years—well, as the old song goes, who could ask for anything more?

I like to think that however far they may roam in this vast and fascinating world, they’ll never lose sight of where they came into their own. It’s a state of mind eloquently summed up by an ’07 graduate from Charleston who emailed me a few months ago while visiting her sister in Phoenix. She dropped by a bookstore one night, and then it happened:

“I was wandering up and down the aisle marveling at all there was to read. Suddenly I turned a corner, and right there in front of me was a whole section devoted to Southern Literature. My jaw dropped. I began perusing the authors—Welty, Conroy, Faulkner, Wolfe—everyone was accounted for. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, or books, as the case may be: I MISS PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE!!! Dr. Thompson, I am not kidding one bit when I say this. I stood in the aisle, touched the books, and cried. No lie. Luckily, it would seem that not many people in Arizona are terribly interested in Southern Lit at 10:00 at night, so I got to stand there and just let it all out in peace. I miss that campus more than I thought possible. There is a train near my sister’s house, and I don’t like it at all; it is garish and rude compared to the sweet comfort of the train in Clinton. I was remembering the other day how much the train annoyed me when I first got to PC and how it eventually grew on me, but I don’t think that will ever happen with this train. It just isn’t the same.”

These tears, shared through the decades by thousands of other alums, remind us that the College’s central mission—one concerned with character and the gifts of the Spirit above all—has not changed one iota. From my spot on the Neville steps, I give thanks for the thousands of people whose love for Presbyterian College moves them to become custodians of 503 South Broad Street. Because of their faith in William Plumer Jacobs’s vision, future generations of the PC family will find their hearts welling with love and gratitude when they too remember where they found their truest selves.