This Way Thursday--This Way to an Education

When I first entered these portals some years ago, Gonzaga was not so well known as it is today. We did have a great basketball team in the Big Sky League, playing other schools of similar size from Oregon, Montana, Utah. Basketball has brought my alma mater into the national spotlight, but the solid education provided is still the main feature of the university.

In our time, the new statue of St. Ignatius and its fountain pool would have been in the traffic of Boone Avenue. The whole stretch of Boone through campus was closed to traffic and made into a bricked pedestrian area a number of years ago as the University grew.

I remember checking into a hotel on the ridge west of Spokane with my parents and looking down over the city for my first glimpse of the spires of St. Aloysius (fondly called St. Al's) the parish church which is an enduring symbol of Gonzaga University. As a terrified seventeen year old about to embark on the great adventure of college, I was not sure I didn't want to crawl back into the car and go home.

High school seniors are pondering college entrance forms and scholarship applications at this time of year--waiting and hoping for the thick envelope full of additional forms to fill out instead of the thin one with the single "I am sorry...." sheet. Hopes, studies, struggles, friends, independence...what an adventure looms ahead for them!

This Way Thursday--look here for other paths.