When I started going to Michigan State, I commuted from Jackson to Michigan State, to East Lansing. So, I was a commuter and worked full-time, and I had a three year old son when I started at Michigan State. Um, and a lot of time he — times he had to travel with me, sat through very long classes. And the Student Union was a place of refuge, a place of comfort, a place that gave me some calm.
In essence, it was — it kind of was a place — it not kind of, it was a place where you could go. Nobody ever judged or looked at us strangely when I would take my son into Student Union, into the women’s area. There were couches and chairs and desks. And I remember how quiet it was, but also how not everybody turned and looked at me when I brought him in. It was a place for him as well. He grew up going to Michigan State University from the age of three to the age of, really, six because sometimes he had to come with me after he got out of kindergarten, which were half days back then. And, uh, we always brought a bag for him. He had a backpack as well, so he matched Mama, and he really liked that. And we would go to the Student Union and we’d grab something to eat. We would hang out together in between my classes, but he also would lay down and he would take a nap in there and I would study. It gave me such a peace of mind that I could do that, that I could — that I knew that I had a place to go and a place to take him in between, in between my classes.