Signs of Progress

I don't have many opportunities to go to the University of Tennessee campus these days. But, if "change is the one constant" in the world, then, I'd say things at my alma mater are very constant. 

Not that you'd expect things to be just like you left them when you tossed your cap into the sky at commencement. Or even as, in my case, when I returned a decade later to pursue my Master's degree. 

Time marches on.

And with that march, when you drive around the campus–if you can successfully navigate the work trucks and delivery vehicles–you'd see myriad major construction projects around the place. Indeed, there are signs of progress everywhere on campus. 

Suffice to say, I'd tell my adult children: things have definitely changed. It is not your mother's (or your dad's) old school any more.

Gone: My college apartment

Gone: The fields where my grad school softball team, the Phuds, won multiple titles in the 1990s

Gone: The building where I did my grad school assistantship. 

Going going gone!

You definitely get the feeling this is a place on the move (upward) with lots of fuel for the engine of progress. Wrecking ball here. New building there. 

And on the quad where Lisa and I spent many bucolic autumn days relaxing or studying, I saw a sea of tailgating tents being installed; ready to greet visitors for Saturday's big game. We didn't have those back in the 80s.

And as it turns out, it wasn't really a big game, as the Vols beat Kennesaw State by the score of 42-9. But alumni, donors and friends had fun just the same.

And I'm sure as they passed through campus, they got a glimpse at the university's advancement. And how couldn't you be impressed. 

Impressive growth, yes. But on some level, I miss the old school, too. But sometimes you can't have both.

You can't progress if you pine for the past. That big orange bus already left the station.

JG