Yesterday, I moved my second oldest daughter into college.
My baby girl is officially a freshman at Saint Joseph’s University.
There are a lot of emotions that come with dropping your kid off at college. I wrote about some of those feelings the first time around — the adjustment, the anxiety, the strange realization of raising somebody for 18 years and then eventually having to trust that you raised them well enough to go figure some things out without you.
You would think the second time would be easier.
It is. And then it isn’t.
But yesterday felt different for another reason.
Walking around Saint Joseph’s campus felt strangely familiar. Not because of all the college visits we’ve made over the last year, but because I had been there before — a long time ago.
I Used to Run Here
I went to Beeber Middle School back in the mid-1990s, I ran track. Saint Joseph’s was right there in our backyard, and our track team used its facilities.
So somewhere around 30 years ago, I was a kid running around this same campus.
Yesterday, I was carrying boxes across it for my daughter. She’s the runner now.
Funny how life works.
There are places you pass through in life without realizing they are going to mean something later. You think you’re just there for that moment and there is nothing special about it. Then one day you look up and 10, 20, 30 years have passed and somehow you find yourself back in the same place under completely different circumstances.
That was Saint Joseph’s for me.
The school was always physically close. But growing up, it didn’t necessarily feel accessible.
In Philadelphia and Delaware County, there is this an ecosystem of Catholic and parochial schools that I wasn’t really part of. But you hear the names: Archbishop Carroll. Father Judge. Archbishop Ryan. Bonner. Cardinal O’Hara, The Catholic League.
As a public-school kid, my perception was that these were the schools where parents sent their kids when they were serious about getting them into the best environment they could find near the city. And Saint Joseph’s felt like a natural extension of that world.
I could literally walk onto the campus.
But attending there?
That felt like something different.
Things come full circle
Now my daughter lives there.
That’s wild to me.
We parked near McShain Hall, her new home, unloaded what felt like everything she has ever owned, and eventually got a chance to just walk around Hawk Hill.
And it’s a beautiful campus.
Saint Joseph’s has grown tremendously from what I remember. Some of the campus is new and modern. Other parts have the stone, Gothic architecture that gives the school its character.
McShain itself represents some of that history. It was built in 1988 and named after Philadelphia architect and Saint Joseph’s alumnus John McShain, who designed and built the iconic Barbelin Hall. The building uses ashlar limestone and Gothic architecture that intentionally connects it to the older character of the university. (Saint Joseph’s University)
Saria will experience both sides of the campus.
She’ll live in McShain, one of the university’s four first-year residence halls, while many of her business classes will take her over to Mandeville Hall, home of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business. (Saint Joseph’s University)
Walking around, you see places like Barbelin Hall, probably the building most people associate visually with Saint Joseph’s; Mandeville Hall, the center of the business school; Campion Student Center, one of the hubs of student life; Hagan Arena, home of Hawk basketball; Drexel Library and the Post Learning Commons; the Chapel of St. Joseph; and the newer Maguire side of campus. The university has expanded considerably over the years, including its 2008 acquisition of the former Episcopal Academy property that became the Maguire Campus. (Saint Joseph’s University)
What mattered more was watching the people walking around it.
Finding the Right Fit
We put a lot of research into Saria’s college decision.
By the second kid, I think I approached the process a little differently.
I cared about the academics, of course. I cared about the cost. I cared about outcomes. I cared about the reputation of the business school.
But I kept coming back to a simpler question:
Can I see my daughter being happy here?
Not me.
Her.
That distinction matters.
Saria chose Saint Joseph’s because it gave her the right combination of academics, culture, community and opportunity.
She liked the business program. She liked the size of the school. She liked Campus Ministry and the number of clubs and organizations available. Athletics are part of the appeal too, especially with the possibility of continuing to run track.
And we wanted her somewhere where she could find community.
Walking around campus yesterday, I saw Black kids, Latino kids, Asian kids and kids from all kinds of backgrounds who looked comfortable being there. That mattered to me.
Saint Joseph’s reports that 39% of its Class of 2028 were students of color. (Saint Joseph’s University) It’s still a predominantly white institution, but what mattered to me as a father wasn’t hitting some magic demographic percentage. I wanted to be able to look around and reasonably believe that my daughter could find her people.
Yesterday, I could.
The Second Time Around
This is our second time sending a daughter to college.
And strangely enough, it’s also the second time one of our kids chose a school practically in our backyard.
Maybe there is a lesson in that too.
We spend so much time looking outward.
What’s the best school?
What’s the best city?
What’s the biggest opportunity?
What’s next?
Sometimes the answer is already sitting a few miles away.
Senior year wasn’t particularly easy for us. There were changes. There were disagreements. There were moments where everybody was trying to figure out what this next stage of life was supposed to look like.
Then summer came.
And Saria and I got to spend a lot of time together.
I appreciated that more than she probably knows.
Because eventually the boxes get packed.
The Target runs stop.
You make that last trip from the car to the dorm.
You look around the room and realize there isn’t really anything else for Dad to do.
And that’s the point.
Roots and Circles
I keep thinking about that middle-school kid.
Running around Saint Joseph’s.
Probably tired. Probably joking around with his teammates. Definitely having no clue what his life would look like three decades later.
He didn’t know he’d eventually become a father of three girls.
He didn’t know he’d be able to give his daughters choices he didn’t necessarily believe were available to him.
And he certainly didn’t know that one day he’d walk back onto that same campus carrying his daughter’s stuff into her freshman dorm.
That’s the part that sticks with me.
We talk a lot about progress as if it’s a straight line.
It isn’t.
Sometimes progress is a circle.
Sometimes God takes you somewhere early in your life just so you recognize it when He brings you back.
Yesterday, I wasn’t running around Saint Joseph’s anymore.
My daughter was starting her own race there.
And this time, I just got to walk beside her to the starting line.
Blue Collage
