"You would have to work hard to get lost at Huron."

3 December 2009

One moment that stands out from my early days at Huron, soon after I became Principal in 2001, is meeting one of our Residence Dons who said to me, "You would have to work hard to get lost at Huron."

The years since then have proved to me the truth of this statement. I see again and again the way in which Huron provides a place, a way of fitting in, for students of very disparate backgrounds and interests. It's one of the great beauties and strengths of our College, and as far as I can tell, it's been reality for all of our history.

As I meet alumni from past decades, they tell me different stories of what they found here, what made Huron a special place for them. For many, it was making a set of friends with whom they still regularly connect, or being taken under the wing of that special professor who lit a spark of intellectual curiosity that remains with them to this day.

Pranks and hi-jinks are also a big part of alumni memories, and these escapades were clearly another way of "fitting in." Volkswagens or Morris Minis in the Chapel, cows on the third floor of residence, bells made to ring mysteriously in the night -- all these stories are related with great glee by those who pulled them off and survived to tell the tale.

Support from the students of yesteryear such as yourselves helps ensure that the students of today and tomorrow never "get lost at Huron," and enjoy the many opportunities this very special university community provides.

Ramona Lumpkin, PhD
Principal