My Alma Mater Burned

Westmont College is my home away from home. It’s where I met some of my most treasured friends. It’s where I reconciled my faith with science. It’s where I experienced and tried to make sense of 9/11. It’s where I grew up. Now, it’s where numerous students and faculty are displaced because their homes have burned.

The Tea Fire started near a place Westmont calls The Arches, last Thursday. It tore through the Montecito, and then parts of Santa Barbara, destroying over 1,900 acres of beautiful land, and 210 homes. In just the Westmont community alone, fifteen homes in Las Barrancas (small housing development for faculty adjacent to the campus) were lost, as well as four buildings that were a part of the Clark Dorm, Bauder Hall, the physics building, the old math building and two Quonset Huts. The latter three were scheduled for demolition to make room for new facilities. Thankfully, no one from Westmont was physically injured.

To outsiders, Westmont is known for its beauty: the Birds of Paradise that looked out below Kerrwood Hall, the Wisteria that drooped from the lattice, the ponds that trickled with water and coy, and the well-groomed campus that elicited joy in the face of every visitor. All of that looks much different now.

But to insiders, Westmont is hailed for its community, one that fosters growth and relationships and learning. That doesn’t look any different now, as the news stations showed images of students huddled together, praying, singing, laughing, crying.

Days later, I ask for your thoughts and prayers for those it has affected, in the Westmont Community that I am so proud to still be a part of.

Photos courtesy of Brad Elliot, Westmont College