There I was: a nice southern girl (so I thought) at a nice green-campused southern university with a nice southern roommate, and I was miserable. Academically, I was happy, but socially - well, the year was 1974, and I just did not like jean skirts, sororities or Chicago's current style of music. No jean skirts, no friends. So I decided to transfer to Columbia's School of Nursing because 1) it was rated the number one nursing school, 2) Maxwell Hall had private rooms and 3) everyone in New York was rude anyway, so friends wouldn't be an issue.

I got special permission to move my shag rug and peacock wicker chair in a week early and set everything up so I could prepare my own little retreat prior to everyone else's arrival. Then I flew up a week later, resolved to hole up in the closet-sized rooms in Maxwell Hall and finish out my academic life in compact seclusion.

Move-in day, I forgot to shut my door a few inches and found my doorway occupied by classmate sporting a chestnut ponytail, waving a cigarette, and talking with an accent I couldn't understand. It took three repetitions before I realized she was asking me if I "liked Donna Summah." Down home, she might have been what some people called a "card-carrying slut." She asked me if I wanted to head over to Bard Hall and eat. I looked down to see if my corduroy pants had magically turned into a jean skirt before I noticed she was wearing the tightest jeans I'd ever seen. By the end of the evening, I had more friends than I had ever had in my life.

Maxwell Hall was where I learned that I needed to be in a place where differences were not a cause for disdain. What better place than New York City and Columbia University, where differences are nurtured until they blossom? I needed a place to play my different drum, and those years in that closet-sized room with my great view of the George Washington Bridge set the stage for a richness of life that has stayed with me through every experience since.