By Lindsay Robinson | Echo
Taylor University: where melons and gourds are more than just fruit and Silent Night isn't a Christmas song, but a basketball game. While we tend to forget how odd our events seem to outsiders, the Master of Arts in Higher Education (MAHE) students are fully aware of our craziness-and they love us for it.Graduate students who had not previously attended Taylor are often pleasantly perplexed by the traditions and aspects of Taylor's culture that undergrad students find entertaining.
"A lot of times I find myself trying to rationalize what's happening during these traditions," graduate assistant for Taylor Student Organizations (TSO), Wil Story said. "For example, I remember being stressed the entire time Taylathon was happening. It's legitimately a time where four people on bikes race along a sidewalk that can barely handle two people walking side by side, let alone four bikes . . . That is bravery that should be commended more often."
Story graduated from Union University and lived in Memphis, Tennessee before attending Taylor as a MAHE student. He said that it has been interesting to transition from a school that places little emphasis on traditions to Taylor, where traditions, in Story's words, "make the world go around."
Peter Carlson, a community outreach graduate assistant at Taylor World Outreach (TWO), earned his undergraduate degree from Bethel University-a small Christian college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He understands quirky traditions, but admits that Taylor offers a brand far different from anything he has ever experienced.
The Awk-Walk, Melon and Gourd and open houses (specifically the Zoo Open House) are among the more confusing traditions to MAHE students.
"The cow live birth was crazy," TWO Global Outreach graduate assistant Lauren Carter said.
After waiting in line for an hour to get in the open house, she was amazed by the amount of support that Taylor students show for these traditions.
For MAHE students, a strange aspect of Taylor culture is the unspoken seating arrangement in the DC.
Campbell Hall Director Haley Williamson attended Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, before coming to Taylor. She and her fellow MAHE students found it difficult to navigate DC etiquette during their weeks here.
Williamson and other MAHE students who had not attended Taylor during their undergrad, sat down at a DC table, unknowingly taking a floor's designated spot. When a MAHE student who had attended Taylor saw what had happened, he apologized to the displaced table group and asked if they wanted their seats back. The floor said no and let the MAHE students use the table.
"I was beyond confused," Williamson said.
Story said that during his first DC meal, he related to the scene from "Mean Girls" where Janice Ian, a veteran of cafeteria politics, explains the cafeteria seating chart to Cady, the new girl in school. He has learned to just follow the lead of his Taylor friends in similar situations.
While life at Taylor is often different from a MAHE student's own undergraduate experience, its residence life often parallels the Greek life some experienced during their undergrad years.
"The dorms here are like fraternities and sororities," Carter said. "I think it's good for students to have that sense of identity on campus."
She appreciates the quirky, unique atmosphere at Taylor and wishes her alma mater had more traditions like Taylor's.
Often Taylor students' reactions to the traditions are what MAHE students find most enjoyable.
"It's fun to watch Taylor students I know get excited for an event or a certain tradition, because it gives me a small glimpse into what it would have been like to be an undergraduate student at Taylor," Story said.
Somewhere in the midst of Taylor's many costume-themed events, community atmosphere and traditions, MAHE students have learned to accept this college and its people in the middle of the cornfields.
