Summer scenes from my alma mater

On a recent trip along the National Road in western Indiana, I made it to Terre Haute to see my alma mater, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I hadn’t been to campus in a couple of years. Until, I don’t know, five years ago or so, every building was wide open as long as students were on campus. That included the residence halls, and that let me go into the basement of the one that housed the campus radio station. There’s still a student club down there that carries the station’s old call letters, even though they’ve been off the air for some years now. But now all of the residence halls, and I think some other buildings, are locked to anyone who doesn’t have a key card. Rose-Hulman was wide open for probably decades longer than most other colleges and universities. It was only a matter of time. I always felt fully welcome and wanted on campus until then. Call it irrational, but it’s true. Now I feel somewhat less welcome, and I always worry that security officers will stop the…