Whether you live in the area or will be traveling to Fort Collins for the weekend, we would love for you to join us in our homecoming festivities on October 16th. Come help us celebrate our return to the new and renovated Eddy! Drop by our open house between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the third floor of Eddy Hall, where there will be a band, tours of the new building, refreshments in the Whitaker Conference Room, and a special presentation at 3 p.m. Please RSVP to Louann.Reid@colostate.edu so we can be sure to have enough refreshments on hand.
In the days leading up to the English department’s “Homecoming Celebration” (October 16th from 2-4pm),we will be highlighting some special memories from our alumni. Here are some special memories from alumni Sam Iacovetto (MA 2014) and Ben Findlay (MFA 2014):
Sam Iacovetto (MA 2014):
One of my favorite memories was when my friends and I all went to Estes Park and I scared them with one of my night terrors.
Six of us did the ghost tour at The Stanley. It was a bit of a dud; our tour guide was bonkers, and no matter how hard we tried to antagonize the ghosts, they wouldn’t show up. We had a great BBQ dinner before we all crashed in one room at the Econo Lodge. We slept two to each bed, and two on the floor in sleeping bags. Just a few hours after we fell asleep, apparently I scrambled out of bed, and announced, “There’s a man at the window.” I don’t remember this, but I remember everyone’s responses the next morning. I effectively incited creepy chaos in the room, then crawled back into bed, asleep, as though nothing every happened. Then I slept like an evil baby. Yay!
I also really loved when Whitney Dean and I would use our ten-minute breaks in classes to sprint up and down the stairs of Eddy, or do push-ups and sit-ups and planks in the hallway.
Finally, without Debby Thompson (and her love of Foucault) I would not be so lucky to have a husband, who, when feeling oppressed, walks around the house shouting, “PANOPTICON!”
Ben Findlay (MFA 2014):
My last class at CSU was Narrative Voice with my advisor Steven Schwartz—it was his last class at CSU as well. We were discussing the Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, as well as the author’s life, and it came out that Ms. Porter had sold the movie rights to Ship of Fools for $400,000 (in 1962!) and that she had blown all a sizable chunk of the money on a gaudy emerald ring. Alam, a usually quiet and reserved MFA student in the front row, threw the class into uproarious laughter with just two words: “Treat yourself!”
To read more memories from our alumni in honor of Homecoming, you can find the whole series here. If you would like to share your own memory from your time with the CSU English department, please send a description of your favorite memory and an accompanying photo to Joelle Paulson at jpaulso2@gmail.com. We’d love to hear what you remember!