“Are the rooms set up for wireless Internet?” a prospective student asked. Our tour guide said no, and I could tell the asker mentally marked Guilford off her list of ‘Maybe’ schools.

Last week, I decided to go on one of the admissions tours of our campus, something I hadn’t done since I led several my first year here.

I was wondering what changes had been made while I wasn’t looking – to campus, to the tour-guide spiel, to what makes Guilford appealing to students – and what kind of students are applying.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the students who were on that tour. It was evenly distributed gender-wise, but I was the only non-Caucasian. Three of the guys were hanging back, talking about their high school wrestling, baseball, and basketball careers.

One of the girls (the one who asked about wireless Internet) cradled her cell phone for most of the tour, and another girl was wearing modest pumps to trek all over campus.

There was one girl, out of that entire group, who I could look at and think, “You belong at Guilford College.” She was dressed in a funky, arty style, wearing wide-rimmed square glasses, and she exuded individuality, as if the concept was steeped in her pores. She was the only person in the group I had any inclination to get to know any better.

And that’s the impression I had without even talking to her.

But me wanting to see more like her applying and coming to Guilford is me committing the cardinal sin of stereotyping. Just because I remember the wonderful quirkiness of the campus when I took my tour as a prospective student, just because I’ve spent the past four years watching my peers drop out, transfer, or otherwise leave Guilford doesn’t make me an expert on what a ‘typical’ Guilford student is, does, or could be.

Maybe here is a good time to mention that I am not the biggest fan of change.

Don’t get me wrong, I accept that it happens, and that it often needs to happen, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Quite frankly, I’m not sure what to make of all the changes I’ve seen Guilford undergo since I applied here as a high school senior four and a half years ago.

I mean, there are the little changes that I enjoy, like the new signs identifying the campus, and the fact that the paths from Binford, Frank, and Bauman to the big parking lot are now bricked and well-lit.

Then there are the little changes that drive me crazy, like the new, evil speed bumps by the gravel parking lot.

But there are also the huge changes that I detest.

There’s the fact that non-traditional adult students will soon outnumber traditional students-right now there are 1,244 traditional students and 1,181 adult students. There were only 270 adult students when I applied in the fall of 2000, and those non-traditional students weren’t even mentioned on my tour then, nor in the one I took last week.

There’s also fact that I applied to a school because it had fewer than 1,300 students and four years later we’ve almost doubled that number.

And the fact that once upon a time, tours lingered at Project Community, but this time through, we skipped that and spent time hearing the merits of Ragan Brown field house.

Even the former slogan – “Be the change you wish to see in the world” – has changed Guilford now appeals to people with “Empower your future. Engage your mind.”

I think that change is the one that encompasses all the others. Look at the buzzwords of ’empower’ and ‘engage,’ giving emphasis to the supposed outcome: “We’re gonna prepare you for the real world. Guilford College will arm you with the facts and you’ll be a force to be reckoned with!”

What was wrong with Mahatma Gandhi’s “Be the Change?”

Even as someone too set in her ways to enjoy change, I found the old slogan inspiring. It said I could devote my time and energy to ‘fixing’ problems or making them better.

But maybe blind faith that I can achieve anything I put my mind to isn’t the best way to go about things.

Maybe we should look at the change that’s occurring around us and deal with it.

Now, that doesn’t mean blindly accept changes, neither those we like nor those we don’t. It means we should be actively engaged in the processes of change, understand the implications and consequences, and know that the outcomes are more favorable as a result of the change.

It means we should attend town hall meetings explaining the Strategic Long Range Plan or the college’s budget process. It means we should get involved with Community Senate and take advantage of the avenues in place to make change happen. It means we should take an active interest in the world around us, that we might shape it and leave it a better place than it was when we found it.

So while I’m not happy that the current student body is not especially similar to the one in place when I applied, I’ll accept it. And I’ve done my best to make sure that ‘things’ are the ‘best’ for that body that I can make them.

And maybe I’ll accept the new slogan, and change it to something that is the best for the college, as a whole:

“Engage your mind. Be the Change.