bevedog

With bonus South Beloit, Illinois content!

Nick and I traveled to Beloit, WI to visit Beloit College, where Nick has been accepted. It’s one of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest where we get a nice tuition break, and Nick wants to go to a small school outside of Colorado. We flew to O’Hare and drove the 90 minutes or so to the Beloit / South Beloit metropolitan area. Beloit is supposed to house the world’s largest can of chili, but I never saw it so how large can it be, really? Maybe it has been recently covered up to obscure it from Chinese spy balloons.

We stayed in a Best Western just across the state line in South Beloit, Illinois. As we drove into town, Spotify served up Phoebe Bridgers’ cover of Tom Waits’ “The Day After Tomorrow” with the line “I miss old Rockford Town / Up near the Wisconsin border” just after we’d passed by Rockford. Synchronicity.

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The Beloit College tour started in the “Powerhouse,” a reclaimed and renovated industrial space on the Rock River which now houses large meeting spaces, a cafe, and student services. I guess a good thing about being in the Rust Belt is that there are a lot of empty existing spaces ready to be renovated into useful college buildings.

With Luke and Nick, I have been on at least seven of these school visits with tours, panels, Q&A, and so on. And of course I work at a college, but not in admissions. Honestly, they are starting to blend together. The small humanities/social science building with the all the flags in the foyer—did I see that before at Macalester? Or was it Lawrence? The science building with the four-floor-high atrium—there was one at Colorado State and at Portland State?

One thing I know for sure is the same everywhere is the aura of hope and anxiety. Not among the prospective students—they are cool and aloof, a little bored, not giving anything away, afraid to show much enthusiasm lest their parents take that as a sign. Especially at this event at Beloit, which was for students already admitted to the college, they know that they are in the driver’s seat and the college is trying to woo them/us into putting down our deposit money.

So the students have no detectable affect. It’s the parents and the representatives of the schools who are sweating it out. Do they—the students, our children, their potential customers—feel that intangible “fit?” Can they see themselves “thriving” here? Which of the programs, the amenities, the study abroad, the theme dormitories, the dozens of clubs, the promised internships, the social life, the inevitably-Bon-Appetit-catered meal opportunities, the gyms, the exhibition & performance spaces, the free laundry, the free mental health services, the study lounges, the tutors, the desperate parting gifts of t-shirts, and socks and gourmet popcorn; what amongst all that will resonate? WHAT DO THEY WANT AND CAN THIS COLLEGE DELIVER? Oh, and is the education any good?

Anyway. Beloit College is nice. The residential buildings are red brick with white trim (haven’t I seen that at University of Virginia and University of Delaware?). The library looks a little like a post office or other nondescript 20th century building, but the collection looked up-to-date and they had a prominently featured zine collection with a somewhat odd collection of zines mostly from the ‘90s and ‘00s.

The student employees we met were charming. I did sometimes wonder where all the other students were. I guess they were in class or napping or something, and it probably just had to do with where we were and when, but it seemed under-populated.

We also met up with King-Cat comics author and artist John Porcellino who has lived in Beloit / South Beloit for a while. I have been a reader of John’s since the mid 1990s, and while I’m a bit self-conscious about calling him a friend (I’m clearly more of a fan with the King-Cat patch on my jacket, and sticker on my laptop, and magnet on my refrigerator, not to mention the shelf of books and comics), John has always been very friendly and warm every time I’ve spoken to him, so I should probably just get over it.

Anyway. When I told John we were coming to Beloit he immediately suggested that he could give us a little walking tour of downtown Beloit. We took a brisk walk and talked about the city and the college, and John pointed out all the properties owned by Diane Hendericks, the billionaire businesswoman and right-wing megadonor.

We ended our walking tour with lunch at Bushel & Peck’s, a cafe and market. John mentioned that the store did a lot of their own canning and preserving and that their signature item was beet ketchup. Since Shanon had texted me not 24 hours before a message saying “did you know that beets can be good?” I took it as a sign and figured it was the logical gift from our trip.

Sadly the TSA did not agree. Being a liquid in a container larger than the legal limit, it was contraband and thus was seized and (presumably) destroyed at O’Hare Airport on our trip home.

Next time: Evanston, Illinois scene report!