Goodbye to Room 719 and the "Thoreau Kid"

My final in-person college class may have been the most memorable

There’s a room on the 7th floor of the building at the corner of Ida B. Wells Drive and Wabash Avenue in the heart of Chicago’s South Loop, a room where I have spent most of my college teaching days. It’s been through a few renditions and changes—new audio editing stations, new computers, an overhead viewing screen, and several versions of an audio studio. There have been modern, long desks brought in and new, more comfortable chairs. Countless words have been written in that room, and thousands of drafts reworked. For 18 years I have tried to bring stories to life inside 719, either journalistically or stylistically in Audio Documentary or Radio Storytelling, the two classes I had taught the longest at Columbia College Chicago.

Recently I said goodbye to that room and all the ghosts inside.

Many had asked in the days before I locked the door to 719 for the final time and headed for retirement: “How does it feel?” To be honest, I felt little in those final days. I was just doing what I always do, working toward the final projects in my classrooms, challenging students to give me their very best, and hoping for a strong finish. It was like any other end of a semester.

Except that it wasn’t.

I had planned the last day of class to be celebratory. My students had produced a one-hour radio show of audio stories and we were poised to listen to it. It was the culmination of their hard work—the countless drafts and digital edits.

I brought pizza.

On my way to the room for the last time, I spotted a student just outside the door, alone, sitting on the floor. His backpack at his side, His head in a book. He was not one of my students, but I had seen him occasionally. For many years, I had developed the habit of recognizing the books people read. I see someone reading and I take a moment to notice the title.

The student’s book was Walden.

“Are you reading that for class or for fun?” I asked.

He looked up, the bangs of his dark hair falling over his eyes, and smiled. “For fun.”

“Really?” I said, a bit surprised. “That’s tremendous. Good for you.”

“One of those books I think I probably should read.”

“And?”

“I love it,” he said.

“I’m thrilled, and honestly you’ve made my day,” I said, smiling and opening the door to 719 to head inside.

The small exchange had lifted my heart, the little artistic connection had touched me somehow. I’m not certain why in that moment it was so special. I had asked other readers over the years about their choice of books, but this student, this book, this day—well, it was different.

My students brought cookies and macaroons, a bag of Skittles and Hershey Kisses, and one offered a six-pack of Snapple. I placed the boxes of pizza on a table in the rear of the class and reminded everyone to eat at a distance, and keep their masks on when not. We were still under Covid protocol. It might have been a stretch of the rules to be doing this, but we were careful, respectful, cognizant of each other’s health sensitivities.

I updated the class on a few final details—when grades would be posted, what to expect at commencement, and lastly, I told them for the first time that I was leaving Columbia, and that they were my last in-person class. There was an audible group gasp, then applause. My heart fluttered.

“And you know, it’s not that you guys aren’t special,” I joked. “As I’ve told you before you have been a fantastic class, one of my favorites. Talented, collaborative, hard workers. Loved this class. But . . .”

A few of them laughed.

“But . . . when I was arriving to class this afternoon, I met a student in the hallway and he really did make may day. I want you to meet him.”

I walked outside to the hallway and asked him to come into the classroom.

“I just met this young man today,” I said. “Please tell everyone what you were reading in the hallway.”

He raised the book up to eye level and showed the cover to the class. “Walden. Thoreau,” he said.

“Oh, I love that,” one student said.

“Cool, I read that in an advanced English class in high school,” another said.

“And tell them why you’re reading it,” I said.

“Just for fun,” he said, smiling.

Heads nodded. And I, too, smiled.

For several minutes he and others talked about what they liked about Walden, and if they had been to Concord, Massachusetts. If they wanted to visit the cabin someday.

“Are you a big Thoreau fan?” one student asked me.

“One of my heroes,” I answered. “But this guy right here,” I said gesturing toward the student with the copy of Walden in his hand, “is my hero today.”

The student thanked me for introducing him to like-minded students and for allowing him to come into my class. I thanked him, too.

Sometime after he left, the class began settling in for the listening party of the audio show they had produced. Just as I was about to hit play, one of my students returned from the restroom and rushed up to my desk.

“Hey,” she said, “that Henry David Thoreau kid is still in the hall.”

“Tell him to come in,” I said. “He’s welcome. He can listen, too. Give him some pizza.”

For an hour the “Thoreau kid” sat and listened with all of us to more than a dozen radio narratives produced by my students. Like the rest of us, he smiled, laughed, and even teared up a bit. And when the show was over, he applauded with the rest of us. He then thanked me for inviting him, and said, “I hear you’re retiring. Really? What’s up with that?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I am. It’s time.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “That’s really too bad.”

My final class of students was a gem. Great group. Talented, caring, and collaborative. The perfect last class. I’ll remember them fondly. But what I will remember most about this last in-person class was the kid in the hall, reading Walden.

Godspeed, “Henry David Thoreau Kid.” You are everything a college education should be about.

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