Thirty feet can make a lot of difference. During the height of the advising season, I spend hours hanging out in the foyer, open to any student who might walk by. Just moving the few feet from my office to a low-slung chair in a corner of the foyer quadruples my usual amount of drop-in traffic. Students come and go: we exchange smiles, pull out the phone to share baby and puppy pictures, and bemoan the virus going around. Many students ask "by-the-way"-type questions; others plop down for extended discussions about how to tackle multiple choice questions, study for the bar, or choose courses for the next two years.
Time in the foyer is never wasted. If no one is in my corner, more often than not students are talking with each other, staff, or faculty. I listen. And I am struck by how many people passing through the space tell someone else how they have made a difference in their lives. A 2L tells a 3L how her advice helped him nail an interview. A student thanks an administrative assistant for helping her through a paperwork snaggle; the assistant visibly melts when the student tells her, "I consider you a role model." A 3L tells a professor how his advice helped him in a clinic case. A 1L thanks the tech guru who found her missing appellate brief when it seemed the computer had swallowed it forever. A student back from a funeral thanks classmates who shared their notes; another recovering from illness thanks the friends who brought over supper. A 4L tells me, "You probably don't remember this, but you gave me the courage to continue law school when I thought I'd have to quit." Another student shares, "That day we danced in the library made me smile when things were going really badly." On an ordinary day in an ordinary law school, the spirit of gratitude is pervasive.
With a sense of amazement, a good friend once shared this story with me. Ten years after getting a philosophy degree, he returned to college for a biology degree. A much younger student, whom my friend knew only slightly, invited him to his graduation party. At the party, the graduate pulled my friend aside privately and told him, "When I first came to school, I was close to dropping out because I was doing so badly. So I looked around for someone who seemed to know what they were doing, and I noticed you. We never talked much, and you never knew this, but I modeled everything I did in school on what you did. I'm graduating today because you taught me how to learn. So I want to thank you for everything."
We never know when we may have an impact, minor or profound, on another person. Kindness matters; professionalism matters; respect matters. Acting as though everything we do can have an impact helps us live out our belief in the dignity of every human being. Much of the time it's not the big things we do that elevate others' lives — the little day-to-day things are the big things to those around us.
(Nancy Luebbert)
