Do you know your hall’s housekeeper name? Have you ever said thanks or asked how their day is going?
During your time at Davidson, there are going to be dozens of people you pass by nearly every day whose names you’ll never know. They swipe our cards at Commons, clean our dorms, set up our classrooms, repair technology that breaks, and keep the campus alive. And yet, while we spend countless hours learning the names of professors, classmates, and administrators, many of us never bother to learn about the people who support our lifestyle and education.
I didn’t think much about this myself until last year. On Richardson’s first floor I always saw the same lady cleaning everyday. At first, it was the quick nod, a smile, and a small thank you, the kind of thing you do when you don’t want to stop and actually talk. But after a while I introduced myself. Her name was Marisel. Slowly we started talking about our families, how our week was going, random little stuff, up to the point she would know about all the tiny aspects of my life. By the end of the year she wasn’t just “the housekeeper,” she was my friend.
The thing is that once you learn someone’s name you can’t treat them as invisible. Because once you learn their name, you see them differently, not just as someone “working at Davidson,” but as someone who is part of the community. Staff truthfully know what’s happening on campus, be it Battle of the Bands, Frolics or finals. They have a sense of what students are feeling at any point of the year, so why do we not treat them that way?
We celebrate professors for research, alumni for jobs, but rarely do we ever recognize the staff who make our daily lives possible. Why should they count less in the Davidson “community” than the rest of us? Their contributions are the quiet foundation that allows everything else, classes, events, and our traditions to exist in the first place
Davidson prides itself on being a close, tight knit community. We hear this word “community” in admissions tours, in speeches, and in infographics sent out, ut “community” becomes an empty promise if it only applies to people who take classes or teach them. A community that forgets its staff is a community built on exclusion.
So why don’t we learn their names? Honestly because we don’t have to. You can get through all four years here and never bother. When something is easy to ignore, most people do.
Saying thank you is good, but gratitude should be more than that. Gratitude is a practice. It’s stopping for a short conversation, remembering something someone told you, and asking again later. It’s saying: you’re not just filling a role, you’re a person.
And it doesn’t take long. A “how’s your day?” or a small question is maybe ten seconds. But that tiny moment means something. If that can help close the gap between students and staff, then why wouldn’t we?
People will say, “there are just too many staff members to talk to all of them.” But that’s just not true. The beauty of Davidson is in its size. You’ll see the same people, again and again, every week of the year. You might not learn someone’s name today or tomorrow, but you have four years here to understand a piece of who they are. The only reason most of us don’t is because we’ve decided that it’s not important enough.
And when you look back, you’re not gonna remember the exact grade you got on some random econ midterm. You’ll remember faces, the people who made this place feel like home.
When I leave Davidson, Marisel’s friendship will be one of the things I carry with me most. We’re all going to leave with a degree – that’s a given – but why not also leave with more relationships and a fuller understanding of community, one that goes beyond just peers and professors to include everyone who makes this place what it is.
David Anderson Montes Lara is a Philosophy, Politics and Economics Major from Conover, NC. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]