Chapter 21: Memory and Hunger: Feeding on Remnants of the Past in a PWI

I came to graduate school at Pennsylvania State University from East Texas searching, like many others, for a sense of home, safety, and belonging in both my work and life. Although I was invited to tour the campus and the surrounding town of State College, located in rural, central Pennsylvania prior to arriving, I did not have the means or resources to visit. I arrived with very few ideas of what central Pennsylvania and Penn State were like outside the high national rankings for its college of education. Despite these unknowns, I ventured forward with a heavy heart, from the home I had only recently learned to love again. Driving through the night from Texas to Pennsylvania, I conjured up all kinds of fantasies about this new place I was going to call home.