Centrepiece Online | Fall 2011

Making It Home

They’ve come 8,500 miles. They’ve come two miles. They’ve packed their belongings in suit- cases, boxes, and their younger brothers’ arms. They’ve flown the nest that sheltered them for so long to make a new nest in their first-year dorm. Centre’s Class of 2015 has arrived.

And it’s quite a class. Centre’s largest-ever enrollment—1,309—was boosted by a first-year class of 374, also a record. The class is smart, with a combined midrange ACT score of 26 to 31. More than half ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. Eighteen percent identify themselves as students of color; 52 percent are women. Almost 57 percent are from Kentucky, but the class includes students from a total of 33 states, China, and South Korea.

Yet whether they’re from near or far, it can take a while to find their place in their new family. We asked a few first-years what they packed to make their dorm room seem like home.

Sam Rush ’15 brought a red, sort of cherry-flavored North Carolina-based soft drink called Cheerwine and is now working on making converts to it deep in Ale-8-One territory. Or at least finding fellow North Carolinians. (There are eight in the first-year class.)

It could not be home for Michael Yu ’15 without his acoustic guitar. He plays it frequently in his Wisconsin living room, often with his father, and also in Nevin, where he now lives.

Hailing from the Aloha State, Connor Feeley ’15 has decorated his new home with fabric leis in his high school colors. “They were some of the numerous leis I received on the night that I graduated so they hold a lot of significance for me,” he says.

“I love my bed at home so I decided if my bed at school was just as cozy, it would help me from becoming homesick,” says Anne-Ward Arbegust ’15. She brought a feather bed top (and adds that she hopes not to fall out of the top bunk in it).

Allison Chumbley ’15 brought her banana man pillow. “I won it at Dollywood on our Corbin High School senior trip,” she says. “It reminds me of my friends and our fun memories. It is also a great cuddle buddy to sleep with.”

“To make my dorm room feel like home, I brought a really soft blanket,” says Alyssa Watson ’15. “I don’t know what it is, but when I have my blanket, I always feel safe and warm and close to home.”

Zak Pierce ’15 says that “both as a traditionalist and as a Bard in training” he brought a cast marble bust of Shakespeare that he got one year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Not surprisingly, he hopes to double major in English and theater.

Yudong Cao ’15 packed a laptop full of photos and two sets of bedding from China. “We spend almost one-third of the day in bed,” he says. “As long as mine is from home, I always feel like I’m at home.”