”The Energy of Your Heart Is Moving You Here”
I moved from out of state to attend graduate school here in Santa Fe and have embarked on a truly life changing journey. Recently, I watched our president, Jim Nolan counting the views on our schools website, www.SWC.edu. There were a few nights where his Facebook posts were comparable to the fervor of the world series or to our current presidential debates, with animated updates of our stats coming every hour. In one day we nearly reached 1000 views, a record for our school.
Watching the updates come through my news feed, I was reminded of my life before coming to Southwestern College. Surviving my last cold dreary winter in Portland, OR after 8 years in the NW, and I have vivid memories of looking at the school’s website multiple times a day. I was curled up with my cat Steve, pouring over each page on the site. I was reading details that even now I smile about…I mean, who reads the 85 page SWC Self Study for the Higher Learning Commission? I did. Sitting in my room 1400 miles away knowing that my path would eventually take me to Southwestern College, looking at the website, soaking in the words, colors and pictures, it was the closest thing I had to feeling and experiencing the next part of my journey.
I’m not the only person with this story. I hear people say how they, too, looked at the website over and over to just be at the school, to be with the school. When Jim was counting up the number of hits on our website that night, I thought of the folks all over the country and the world, who might be sitting at home, visiting our website just to be with the school, with the community here at SWC and get a glimpse of the next part of their own journey. I imagine the person who is so eager to go to Southwestern and meet their new community but has a handful of prerequisites to finish. Perhaps they need to attain some financial stability in order to make the move to New Mexico. My heart goes out to those who sit at home, reading the blogs, looking at the art work, and watching the videos on our website, wondering what life will be like here at SWC.
I have a message for all of you:
The energy of your heart is moving you here.
You will get here exactly at the moment you need to and the community you will go on this journey with is out there gathering their own momentum to meet you here too. This is not to say it doesn’t take work to apply, get a portfolio ready etc, but Southwestern is a starting point for many journeys. We welcome you and we are waiting and when you get here, we will be very honored to have you.
Jill Campoli is in her second year at Southwestern College and also serves as the student member on the SWC Board of Trustees.
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About the Moderator
Jim Nolan is in his 6th year as president of Southwestern College. He has worked for a dozen universities or colleges, both online and on the ground. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and attended graduate school in English/Irish Literature. He reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos, plays guitar, got married in India in 2010, and has a wire haired fox terrier named Barney. He is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called.
