You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Just north of the Midwestern University Glendale Campus Auditorium is a low, aging, white-painted ranch-style house with yellowing windows.

This house, I am told, is known as Shipman Hall - not officially, but in the vernacular of long-time Glendale Campus staff. It was named after Peggy Shipman, the current Manager of Maintenance Accounts for the Glendale Campus who lived and worked there until the campus opened. It is within walking distance of every building on campus - or, as Peggy puts it, she "had everyone beat for the shortest commute."

The house today is surrounded by dirt, some building materials, and a couple of construction trailers. It serves as a storage area, and it has a new roof and air conditioner. But it's anyone's guess as to how long it will be around as the Glendale Campus continues to grow.

If it does go, it will be a bit of a shame - to me, at least. After all, it was near the center of business for the fledgling Midwestern University Glendale Campus, and at the time it was by far the prettiest structure in the area until Sahuaro Hall was completed in 1996.

Karen Mattox, Assistant Director of Communications and my supervisor, recalls "the Trailer Years" with a mixture of nostalgia and a tiny bit of relief that they're behind her... not because of the work, but because of where she was doing it. When she first started working here twelve years ago, one of her early offices was located in the equivalent of a double-wide trailer surrounded by an expanse of dirt and dust.

She tells me that when microbursts hit the area ("microburst" is a euphemism for "tornado" in Arizona - you don't say "tornado" because nobody has tornado insurance around here), the trailer would become disturbingly lively. The way she describes it, on a few unsettling days she was basically working inside a paint shaker with telephone service. Fortunately for Karen, she was spared the ordeal of another co-worker who once experienced actual movement. Like, across the field.

You get a sense of the frontier town that the Glendale Campus was, looking at Shipman Hall and its dusty environs. But if you turn around 180 degrees, you see just how far the campus has come since "the Trailer Years."

Trim, neat buildings rise up all around. Sahuaro Hall - the first academic building on campus that dates to 1996 when Midwestern University matriculated less than 150 students - is now encompassed by almost two dozen other buildings. Immaculately-kept grounds tastefully accent the surroundings. The scale seems big, even though the campus is small in relation to larger public universities. But most strikingly, what you feel when you take in the campus is a sense of order, competence, professionalism, and warmth.

And it is ever-growing. Two new clinics - the Dental Institute and Eye Institute - have recently opened to join the Multispecialty Clinic across the street from the main campus. A new Wellness and Recreation Hall sits next to the freshly-built Chanen Interfaith Chapel, both constructed to serve the ever-expanding numbers of students that call the Glendale Campus their educational home.

(By the way, I'll address the new clinics in another blog. I toured them yesterday and was mightily impressed. But more on that later!)

If it weren't for Shipman Hall and the construction trailers, you might never know that this well-appointed, professional-looking educational campus came from such humble beginnings. For now, though, Shipman Hall still stands at the north boundary of the MWU property - a testament to how far the University has come in a short time.

It is a metaphor for the journey that MWU students take, from their first steps as uncertain first-years to their graduation, residencies, internships, and fellowships - a reminder of where they came from, so that they can see more clearly where they are going.