The quiet life: What happens to campus in the summer?

Quiet sidewalks, short Trophy lines, endless parking and scrounging for meals are only some of the factors that come with remaining on campus once summer rolls around at The Master’s University.

Most TMU students only get to enjoy the commotion, that is, the school year filled with classes, events, sports and ultimately, people. But rarely can students witness the happenings on campus in the summer, or more accurately, the lack of. 

Kaelyn Peay, a communications and public relations writer for the Communications Department, has seen six TMU summers since graduating in 2019. “It’s a very different vibe,” she says. “When school is in session, the Caf is open and the students are all around. There's just lots of energy.”

Peay continues, “But as soon as graduation happens, everything goes silent. A lot of people clear out immediately.” She says the quiet atmosphere is a pleasant change, but only for the first few weeks: “The quiet gets pretty loud pretty quickly.”

While most staff members remain at work all year round, the few students who remain — those on GO! Trips, international students, and those with jobs on campus — all relocate to Hotchkiss for the summer.

Andrew Truong, a junior who worked on campus as a marketing intern last summer, was one of the few who stuck around.

“I was working two jobs, like 50 hours a week. So I worked most of the time,” he says. “But my roommate and I watched movies a lot, and then I would go play soccer by myself at the intramural field. And I’d go to the gym, and no one would be there. So I basically had the whole campus to myself.”

He added that even Trophy was always empty, and how in the summer it was only open for a few hours in the middle of the day.

With the closing of the Caf, students who are living on campus throughout the summer go great lengths to get fed, including Truong. “I bought an induction cooker and went to the Dixon fire pit and plugged it in there. I’d invite two or three friends that were living on campus with me and we would have a shared cookout almost every night. It was super fun. And then on Sundays, we would go all out with steaks.”

Truong said that if he were to do it again, he’d want to be more prepared with supplies for cooking.

Peay enjoys the quality time spent with the other few who are around during the summer. But come August, she says, “We’re so glad to have students back, because the quiet is nice, but we are here for the students. In the summer the students aren’t here, so in some ways, it feels like a pause. But we’re here for you guys.”