Latin

I was born in California and moved to New York a few months after I turned eight. I am very fond of five younger brothers and sisters and my wonderful, encouraging parents. Besides a year in private school early on, I was homeschooled all the way through high school. Some of my earliest memories are of my father reading the Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia to me, or of my mother reading me Little House on the Prairie. Living just over an hour outside of NYC, I grew up enjoying lots of different ethnic foods and relishing the fast-paced intensity so often associated with the Northeast. I love large family gatherings, baking with my siblings, cooking for lots of people, reading almost anything I can find, petting cats, drinking tea, watching classic films with friends, discussing history, skiing, swing dancing, listening to music (especially classical or acoustic guitar), and sneaking up on people in the library.

Hillsdale’s commitment to liberty, self-governance, and the liberal arts piqued my interest in the school my senior year in high school. Hearing it received no federal or state aid, I became even more serious in my examination of the school. When I visited, the enthusiasm and friendliness of the students surprised me. A couple of other schools I had visited were positive about their professors and classes, but Hillsdale students were ecstatic. As a prospective, I sat in on a Great Books I class with Dr. Somerville; I think that was the pivotal moment that sealed my decision to come. He spent the first half of the lecture giving out a paper topic assignment, and still I sat in my seat riveted. The way the professor spoke, the way he later discussed their text, and the way he shared himself with his students as they discussed the Odyssey impressed me greatly. I found more Christian love and spirit and lively intellectual discussion at Hillsdale than anywhere else, and it became immediately clear to me what a close trust existed between professors and students. I couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

To pick one thing is difficult, but I think everything can be summed up under the idea of an “invigoration atmosphere.” My fellow students push and encourage me to achieve excellence, not only in my studies, but also in my walk with Christ. Despite all the great restraints on their time, my professors are willing to spend hours teaching and talking with me, driving and challenging me to learn while at the same time making that learning so enjoyable. The administration also makes students feel so at home and does such a wonderful job at being personal to over a thousand students.

I’m not really sure yet, but I think I would like to teach history and Latin in a classical Christian school. I have also considered working to develop classical resources for home schoolers and working to enable homeschooling moms to provide a more excellent education for their children.

This past August, a few of us went on a College-organized leadership retreat at the Gordon Biostation. At the end of our time there, they took us on a two-hour canoe trip, which proved to be an excellent bonding experience for myself and a girl I would be working with this year. While cruising down the river, we got overturned, and when we were finally able to right the boat, we found a spider the size of an orange running around in it. My friend and I decided that if we could work together through that experience, we could work through anything and, so far, it’s been true.

Although I actually don’t remember the name of the professor, I think my favorite story is how one of them had to plan around 45 minutes for his walk from Delp Hall to Kendall Hall because he would get stopped by so many students wanting to talk with him. Many professors, I think, could fit versions of this story—so many of them devote their lives to encouraging and challenging us both as students and individuals.

After going through Western and American Heritage, as well as the Great Books courses, I felt like I saw myself, my country, and my world with historical eyes, eyes that, only very slightly perhaps, understood them in the greater tapestry of time. I remember in Western Heritage reading the first chapter of John—“In the beginning was the Word.” For the first time, I saw the text through Roman eyes in a first century culture influenced by the Stoics, and it all became so much more real and meaningful. That experience repeated itself throughout the year as my professors helped us trace and wrestle with the history of thoughts and ideas from the book of Genesis to the present. I understand myself much differently too—more as a unique being given freedoms and responsibilities by those who lived, died, thought, wrote, and fought before me, instead of as a isolated individual facing a confusing world apart from any real context.

sfiore@hillsdale.edu