Photo Courtesy Alaina McKee
Yup, still snowing!
Class are canceled for today and the College is officially closed — it was simply unrealistic to expect faculty, staff, and non-residential students to make it to campus.
Students are sledding (or, well, traying, or cushioning) down the hill behind the Chapel and over by Guion. As I walk the dogs, we encounter snow art of various kinds. There are a few places on campus where greenery is poking up through the snow; these have become popular gathering places for the deer.
Gathering places for the students include, of course, the FAC, where staff are making sure that everything is kept running even though they’re a bit shorthanded. Students who might be feeling a touch of cabin fever can go over there to play, snack, work out, or hang out.
Last night, in a brief interregnum between snowfalls, I got to hear some wonderful music in Pannell. Virginia Schweninger and Lynn Buck are both instructors in our music program. Virginia teaches harp and Lynn, flute. They performed a short program yesterday evening surrounded by the art of the current exhibit. (Which I highly recommend, by the way, to any who will be on campus.)
Faculty, guests, students, and staff sat together in that stately room, surrounded by pieces from Sweet Briar’s art collection, listening to two of our own make music. My favorite piece was one in which a 20th-century composer had written a flute part to accompany a much older piece of music for the harp. The way in which the new voice both commented on and harmonized with the older voice struck me as a perfect metaphor for education and for the College: a melody rich in history and a contemporary creation, interdependent and more beautiful together than apart.