By Zoe Folsom
“I love it up at Northern,” my friend said. “It’s so pretty.”
When I decided to transfer up to NMU from Kalamazoo Valley Community College, I was mainly guided by the effusive praise offered by my childhood best friend, who’d started her time at Northern a few years earlier. She spoke highly of the hiking and natural beauty of the place, and how it felt so different from downstate, which is just what I wanted. So, I applied. Two years later, I’m about to say goodbye (or maybe farewell for now) to Marquette, as I move to Connecticut to pursue my Ph.D. Although much of my time at Northern was compromised by the pandemic, I feel incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this project through the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center.
There’s no doubt that Marquette is among the most physically beautiful areas to attend college in the Midwest. Over the course of working on this project, though, I’ve learned that Northern is much more than just a pretty face. From learning about its beginnings as a teacher’s college (primarily for young women) to the student protests of the 1960’s to the way Northern’s outdoor recreation program helped to pave the way for the outdoor recreation opportunities that current NMU students know and love, I saw a side of the university that I wouldn’t have known without working for this project. But even better than learning about the history, I got to know the people who lived it. Across states and even countries, I recognized the obvious gratitude for the role that Northern has played in so many people’s lives. I was inspired by people and encouraged to think differently about professions I probably took for granted in the past—the university bus driver, the first grade teacher, or the driver’s ed instructor, for example. Everyone I spoke to cared deeply not just about Northern but about the ways they could take their education and truly make a difference in their communities, many of which are in the U.P.
I hope this website, more than just being a place to learn something new about Northern (I know my peers would be surprised at what campus used to look like, just like many alumni are surprised by what it looks like now!), really highlights the spirit of the Northern community. Perhaps these stories can serve as role models the way standout Northern community members have to those who graduated throughout the years—they prove that a small-town life does not have to have a small-impact, and that just because anything is possible with a Northern degree, doesn’t mean you have to go the path most taken. I was inspired by the balance between living with others and with nature that so many of my interviewees sought, and by the ways that they determined to stay in (or come back to) the U.P., which we can probably agree is pretty hard not to love. I will take their wisdom with me, and think that you will too.