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Cougar Tales: Director's Cut (October 2014) 

Y'ALL COME BACK NOW

Working for the College of Charleston and being an alumnus, I have the luxury of seeing my alma mater every day. I walk through the Cistern Yard frequently, I hear the Pi Kappa Phi bell tower toll every hour, and I trip over those darn bricks at least 3 times a week. But what if you don’t live here? What do you remember? What does it matter?

You have probably heard the old adage: How many Charlestonians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Three - one to change the bulb and two to stand around and talk about how much better the old one was.

Well to some degree that applies to our campus.  However, whether it has been 1, 5, 10, 20 or 40, or 200 years, on the College of Charleston campus there are some things that have changed and others that have not changed a bit. Visitors can enjoy both.  In a snapshot, this is what you should know and this is why you need to come back to visit your College campus. 

What’s changed? 

1. North Campus facilities – bigger, bolder, better. 
2. Harbor Walk facilities – yup, classrooms on the water. 
3. Addlestone Library – if you’ve already seen it, there have been updates! If you’ve never been in it, let us just say that it is a bit of an upgrade from Robert Scott Small Library or Towell Library. 
4. As you saw from our campus news, King Street was named one of America’s greatest streets.
5. More students. Period. 

What’s not changed? (Thank goodness.)

1. The Cistern; it was already perfect to begin with. 
2. We still wear white dresses and dinner jackets for graduation. 
3. Tony Meyer ’49 – Former Physical Education teacher, Executive Secretary Emeritus of the Alumni Association. An institution within an institution. This man knows more about CofC history than anyone on campus. 
4. King Street; we always knew it was one of America’s greatest streets. There’s just more of it now. 
5. Our students have a thirst for learning, lead by example, expect inclusiveness, work hard, and play hard.

So, whether you love the old or the new I encourage you to revisit your alma mater. Come back to refresh your memory of majestic Spanish moss; come back to see former professors and show them how their classroom shaped your career; come back to sunbath on Marion Square, to reminisce with classmates, to tell your children stories about when you were a young’un; to be a part of campus again; to remember why you enrolled here and why you loved it. 

I look forward to seeing you on campus again soon,

Jack Huguley '72 
Director of Alumni Relations
College of Charleston
huguleyj@cofc.edu