When did you fall in love with Gordon?

Gordon is back! 
 

It was a joyful morning of introductions and re-introductions.
 

The full faculty and staff returned to campus today. 
 

They kicked off a full week of meetings and workshops.
 

Teachers and staff got up to connect over summer discoveries and fun facts.
 

Who excels at singing along to songs when they don’t know the words?
 

Who bonded over their love of Love Island?
 

Who has been to Lotus Pepper on Hope Street?
 

In her opening remarks, Dr. Thomas López talked about the importance of these shared cultural experiences.
 

In a time of narrowcasting, it’s important to notice the breakthrough pop culture moments that helped define communities.
 

Some of these, like Beyonce’s “Everyone on mute,” have compelling, immediate implications for elementary school teachers.
 

Dr. Thomas López then mined some wisdom from the cultural legacy of the first fifty years of hip hop, focusing especially on the air of possibility that pervaded hip hop’s golden era.
 

In 2004, the documentary Brown Sugar asked artists to look back on that golden era and identify when they first fell in love with hip hop.
 

Today, Dr. Thomas López reimagined the question and had faculty and staff talk about when they first fell in love with Gordon.
 

The answers were as varied as the people in the room, and as the community they fell in love with.

The common thread? The sense of possibility that provides so much of the magic when falling in love with anything.