Like a brand new world

It was a sight to behold that sunny day in late August, as I walked out the front doors of Nord Hall. Case Quad was aswarm with students. I had almost forgotten what that looked like. 

Eighteen months before, walking the same quad, I saw a handwritten note pinned to a bulletin board. “Be Safe Everybody,” it read. There was not a soul in sight that cold March day. Dorms and offices had emptied for a pandemic that would rage longer than any of us imagined. 

Now, young people filled the Quad from Crawford to Bingham. They were wide-eyed first years thrown into Discover Week, and they clustered in orientation groups playing silly get-to-know-you games, sending peals of laughter across the bright green lawn. 

Upper-class students joined them the next weekend, and Case looked much like its old self. Students sallying off to class, whizzing by on skateboards, eating lunch around the Michelson-Morley Fountain. 

Yes, we’re still wearing masks. We all have vaccine cards on file and we had to be tested for Covid-19 thrice those first three weeks back. Case is open, but the pandemic can still surprise. 

Still, there’s a feeling of excitement and optimism in the air — a sense of a fresh start. It’s something maybe you can see and feel for yourself over Homecoming & Reunion Weekend Oct. 21-24. 

You’ll find the mood is as bright as the fall colors washing over the Quad. As Cooper Reif, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major, tells us in this issue, there are plenty of smiles behind those masks. “People are just really excited to be back on campus.”

Long may it last.