Back home again

A FEW days after I graduated from UNH, I started my first job as a newspaper reporter in Maryland. At the time, I couldn’t wait to leave New Hampshire. I was tired of living in one place for so long (growing up as a military kid, I was used to moving around a lot), weary of the cold and dark winters, ready for something different.

Six months later, I couldn’t wait to move back. And I did — first as a journalist in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, and finally really back home in 2014, to work at UNH.

This past June, in covering Reunion for this edition of UNH Magazine, I asked attendees throughout the weekend a simple question: “What motivated you to come back to UNH?”

Their answers had a common theme: This is home. Some admitted to crying at hearing the T-Hall bells for the first time in years. Others enjoyed looking themselves up in printed student directories from decades ago. They wanted to catch up with fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, see how the campus has changed in the last 25, 40 or 55 years, or revel in how much had stayed just the same.

Two weeks before Reunion, I talked with graduating seniors and their families at Commencement. While the graduates were looking ahead to leaving UNH and discovering what’s waiting for them out there in the world, they also shared a sentiment in common: I’m excited to graduate, but I’m sad to leave UNH. These new alumni will be our next generation of Reunion revelers. It may be impossible for them to imagine now, but they’ll be back in 5, 10 and even 50 years, talking about their college friends and experiences in joyful reminiscences.

Three years as roommates,  a lifetime as friends, here I am with Erica (Fricklas) Freve ’97 (right). I had no idea on this day of our own  Commencement that I’d be back home at UNH some 25 years later.

Three years as roommates, a lifetime as friends, here I am with Erica (Fricklas) Freve ’97 (right). I had no idea on this day of our own Commencement that I’d be back home at UNH some 25 years later.

This issue of UNH Magazine allows us to think about two milestones of our college experiences — the dizzying thrill of Commencement, where we embarked on our journey into the real-world, and the reflective nostalgia of Reunion, when we look back and wonder, “Where has the time gone?”

I keep thinking about something Doug Knapp ’71 said when we were chatting about his 50th reunion. He said seeing classmates in person taught him a lesson: He had been out of touch for too long with college friends he enjoyed the most. “These are people who have been meaningful in your life. I don’t want to miss out … I just don’t want to miss out anymore,” he confided.

I hope this edition of UNH Magazine allows you to connect with someone or something that you love about UNH — whether it’s that shared nostalgia as you look through the Reunion coverage, the pride you’ll feel when reading about this year’s alumni award winners and their achievements, or the excitement you’ll sense from this year’s graduates, knowing that, eventually, everything comes full circle, and soon they’ll join their fellow Wildcats in coming back home.

MICHELLE MORRISSEY ’97

Editor-in-Chief, UNH Magazine