Phoning home

College and university campuses often host summer programs for high school students. After a few weeks of respite once the undergraduates head home, the arrival of dozens or hundreds of teenagers marks a different mood on campus. You can’t help but feel the excitement of these adolescents as they experience their first taste of college life and, I imagine for many, their first extended stay away from home. The typical college junior is already jaded about life on campus. A high school junior, however, is noticeably excited about spending a few weeks living in a dormitory and eating cafeteria food.

I heard the group of high schoolers long before I saw them. A group of four young Black teenage boys joined me at the smoothie counter in the student center. As we all waited patiently for our drinks, they laughed, joked, and presumably shared TikTok videos on their phones. I just enjoyed this brief time in their happy presence. I took delight in the fact that they were spending their summer on a college campus and that the realities of racism or harmful stereotypes hadn’t derailed this possible stepping stone to a college education.

One young man stepped away from the line to take a phone call, which was shocking to me because I’m often reminded that Generations Z and Alpha don’t actually answer their phones. My own daughter texts me from another location in our house, content to have an extended conversation back and forth via texts, despite the fact that a one-minute voice call would quickly answer my questions about dinner.