Courtesy | Tess Owen
After cultivating a close relationship with Associate Professor of English Dwight Lindley and his family in her first year at college, sophomore Tess Owen chose to spend her second year at Hillsdale living with the family instead of returning to an on-campus residence hall.
“I knew this would be a very unusual situation,” Owen said. “But I really felt it was very clear that that’s what I should do.”
Twenty years ago, Lindley started working at the Owen family farm. After Professor of English David Whalen, a former classmate of Owen’s parents, encouraged Owen’s brother-in-law to work at the farm, Lindley joined him soon after.
“We often joke that we sent Dwight to grad school because he realized digging ditches wasn’t for him,” Owen joked.
After Lindley went to grad school, the families became distant until ten years ago when one of Owen’s sisters went to Hillsdale and became good friends with the Lindleys.
When Tess arrived at Hillsdale last year, she grew close to the Lindleys after they hosted her for dinner several times.
Lindley said the decision came after the family had just delivered their 9th child and needed help tending to the other eight children.
“Tess is a civilizing force in the house,” Lindley said. “We often joke by calling our house the ‘Testostrodome’ just because of how many males there are. She came just at the right time when we needed extra help with the new baby.”
As a student boarder, Owen helps take care of Lindley’s three youngest children and tidies up around the house.
“There’s a big joke that I’m just like a cleaner,” Owen said. “That’s definitely something I can do without worrying.”
Owen said the position was a natural fit given that she comes from a large family.
“I’m familiar with the patterns and the rhythms of the naturally chaotic life that comes with the big family,” Owen said. “It’s necessary to just be able to be flexible, you need a lot of flexibility and patience.”
Lindley described the role student boarders play in managing the home.
“In pre-modern society, you would often have maids or a grandma help out around the house with the kids or housework,” Lindley said. “We’ve moved away from that with the modern family, so there’s not a lot of support for having a bigger family. In a funny way, having Tess stay with us just for this year has been a taste of that older way of life.”
Owen explained that the most powerful experiences are created by living in someone else’s home environment.
“There’s just these little moments like something funny the kids said, to hear Dwight wax on about some poetry or a book, or Emma giving me wisdom and advice about being married or raising kids,” Owen said.
Lindley said boarding students get the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone and to see the bigger picture.
“I think you come away with a sense of what to do with little kids,” Lindley said. “When I was younger, I had no idea how to deal with them.”
Several other staff and faculty members have also boarded students for semesters or breaks, including Professor of Theology Don Westblade and Director of Health and Wellness Brock Lutz.Westblade said he and his wife have boarded students for over 25 years, including Lutz when he was a student.
“We appreciate the connection to students, and when our kids were younger, it was valuable to have students around to just sort of model to look up to,” Westblade said.
Westblade said the connections he made with students while they lived in his home have lasted a lifetime. In particular, his relationship with Lutz led to Lutz’s eventual position as the director of Health.
“When I learned that the administration was looking for somebody to do some kind of staff work either in the Dean’s office or for this wellness need, I called him up and said ‘Are you interested?’ and providentially, he was just at the point of making transitions at his old position, and it kind of fell into place,” Westblade said.
Lutz said over summer sessions or break, him and his family board students whom they formed relationships with at College Baptist through the Adopt-A-Student programs.
Many students may choose to board with staff because they live far from campus or because they do not want to return home for shorter breaks.
“We recognize that our home is not ours, and we look at it as something that we can use to be a blessing to someone else,” Lutz said. “My wife is amazing at hospitality and welcoming people and cooking. If we can use it to be a blessing to someone else, we’re really happy to do that.”
