Micah Tillman

The Wife and I just returned from CUA’s campus, where we were doing some final tax printing/mailing, and it’s fascinating to see the preparations for the Pope’s arrival. CUA is a pontifical institution (which means, unlike all the other Catholic universities in America, we [whoever "we" are] answer directly to the Vatican), so it’s an especially big deal that the Pope is actually coming to campus.

Even though His Holiness won’t be coming until the 17th, all the networks already have their large vans (with huge satellite dishes on top) parked in front of McMahon Hall (the former home of the School of Philosophy). It’s making driving around campus a bit more difficult.

One of the Network People actually was directing traffic. When he signaled to me that it was okay for me to drive, I wanted to tell him he wasn’t the boss of me. “I not only am a student here, but I teach here.”

I amuse and sadden myself sometimes.

There are many business-attired men standing around and looking official. Not that there aren’t always well-dressed men on campus. In fact, the Seminarians (whom The Wife affectionately calls “Priestlings”) have to wear a tie every day, even to class.

(At first, some of us philosophy grad students thought that others among us were trying to look superior to the rest of us by dressing up. Then we found out they were Seminarians working on the philosophy part of their education [M.A. equivalent] and had a special dress code they had to follow.)

But these guys look business-y. And some of them are standing, not walking. (Which is unusual.) So I can only assume they work for the networks. Or the Secret Service, says The Wife. Or the Pope’s security team (also says The Wife).

Security is a big deal. There are signs up around campus informing us that we’ll have to have our CUA ID’s on us.

(Even the nun in full habit whom we passed on our way into McMahon was wearing her ID card on a lanyard around her neck. And The Wife identified the aroma in the hallway from which the nun had just come as incense. [Not that that's relevant to the security issue, but it was interesting. I thought someone had been smoking one of those flavored cigars.])

As a commuter, I’ve heard I won’t even be allowed on campus Wednesday or Thursday because of traffic issues. Well, I guess I could walk.

They repainted a lot of the traffic lines around campus over the past few weeks (I even had to move my car once because a kindly gentlemen indicated to me in broken English that they needed to paint where I had just parked my car) and a friend tells me the DC parking authority people have been cracking down on parking on the edges of campus. (A lot of us park in the 3-hour zones on a road which is DC property, even though it runs between plots of University land).

With the (Clinton/Obama) Compassion Forum at Messiah last night, and the Pope coming to CUA in a few days, I’m wondering if it’s “Famous People Visit Higher-Education Institutions Associated with Micah Tillman Week.” Let me check West Chester U of PA’s site . . . .

Nope.

Well, there are plenty of things going on at WCUPA, but nothing as big as a Papal or Presidential Contendorial visit.

So I guess I’m not the one thing that ties the universe together after all.

Tags: Campus, Compassion Forum, CUA, Messiah College, Papal Visit, Pope Benedict XVI, The Catholic University of America