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The Desk Is Gone. The Song Remains
Yesterday, I wrote about the things we build as leaders that don’t last. I told the story of a successor who removed everything from my former office, including the desk, and of a spirit rock that students had dreamed up and that I helped make possible, only to see it removed after I left the…
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You Don’t Get to Choose What Lasts
For the past couple of days, I have been writing about some evergreen trees I planted outside Joy Hall about 26 years ago. I recently discovered that they are still there, towering alongside the building. There was something deeply satisfying about seeing that a small decision I made all those years ago was still having…
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Who Has to Mow Around Your Idea?
Yesterday, I wrote about the $2.50 evergreen trees I planted outside Joy Hall about 26 years ago. I wrote about discovering that they are still there and about how some of the small things we do as leaders can continue making a difference long after anyone remembers who did them. There is another part of…
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The $2.50 Trees
When creating the blog banner for yesterday’s post, I found a current photo of Joy Hall at Greenville University. I was looking at the building itself, trying to remember what it looked like when I was the Resident Director there in the late 1990s, when something along the side of the building caught my attention.…
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The Freshman Who Wasn’t
Many years ago, probably August of 1998 or 1999, I was sitting outside Joy Hall at Greenville College on the first day of school. It had been move-in weekend, which meant I was exhausted. I was the Resident Director of Joy Hall, and after helping welcome a building full of new students and their families,…
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A Roommate Assignment and a Family Tree
This time of year, my social media feed is filled with pictures of parents taking their kids to college. There are pictures of dorm rooms, cars packed with far too much stuff, families standing in front of college signs, and parents talking about the mixture of pride and sadness that comes with driving away and…
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The Day Hope Had a Waiting Room
It was February 10, 2021. Early that morning, I received notification that I was eligible to receive the brand-new COVID vaccine. I was working in Oklahoma at the time, and because of agreements between Native American communities and the federal government regarding pandemic response, our area was receiving vaccines earlier than many other parts of…
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A Table for Three
By the time I left the Obama Presidential Center, I thought the day had already given me everything it had to offer. The museum had moved me more deeply than I expected. Then, as I rode the elevator down from the Sky Room, the doors opened to reveal an unexpected encounter with President Obama himself.…
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When the Elevator Doors Opened
There was one story I intentionally left out of my last article about the Obama Presidential Center. Not because it wasn’t important. Quite the opposite. I left it out because I didn’t want it to overshadow everything else I experienced that day. The museum deserved to be the story. Its architecture, its accessibility, the extraordinary…
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More Room Than You Imagine
Months ago, I reserved a ticket to visit the Obama Presidential Center. I knew I would be in Chicago in July for a conference, and when I realized the Center would be open, I signed up to be reminded of when the tickets went on sale and was eagerly online when they did. I was…
Brandon D. Hill, PhD 