by Caitlin La Ruffa
Conference week is here!
We’re counting down the days, hours, and minutes until SIU 2015 kicks off! Over the last week we have been simply blown away by registration – which has now surpassed 300, making SIU 2015 our BIGGEST conference EVER!
As we dot our proverbial “i”s and cross the “t”s, I can’t help but think back to my very first Love and Fidelity Network conference in November of 2012. Just a few days before, Hurricane Sandy had hit, the electricity and phone lines were out, and every operational hotel room in a 10-mile radius had been commandeered by emergency workers. Princeton University was closed for lack of power. I woke to a phone call the day before the conference started informing me that the conference participants would no longer be able to stay in the rooms we’d reserved for them. Deliveries were on hold so we would have to make do with less food.
By some miracle, and the help of faithful friends, we scrambled together what we thought would be the remnants of a little conference. But what happened next surprised us most. In spite of the weather, the closed roads, the delayed flights, the stalled trains, and the lines at gas stations, people kept coming. From New England, and Washington D.C., from the west coast and Utah, from Pennsylvania and Texas, the Midwest and the South – students and alumni kept pouring in. Over 250. Check-in was so crowded there was barely room for the staff. What I remember most about that night was the joy of reunion – students and alumni, old friends and new, connecting and reconnecting, relieved to be in each other’s embrace once again.
Thankfully most of us won’t have to brave a hurricane to get to Princeton this year, but I hope that joy of reunion will be as palpable as ever. To get us through these next few days of anticipation, will you tell us – what’s your favorite SIU memory?
Caitlin La Ruffa is the Director of the Love and Fidelity Network.
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