By Eilene Hoft-March
In August of 1993, I attended my first Björklunden Gala, held at the Boynton lodge. Sipping punch on the screened porch, I couldn’t stop admiring the simple charm of the building, so perfectly suited to quiet concentration, conversation, and forest-bathing. Eight months pregnant and pre-tenure, I vowed that if both projects under way turned out well, I would try my hand at an adult seminar in that incomparable setting. Two weeks later, the lodge fire torched that aspiration.
Meanwhile, I had been working with my dear colleague, Judy Sarnecki, to recreate a French “immersion” weekend for our students. Language immersion programs require isolation from one’s native language(s), duration (to let the brain re-pattern), and a critical mass of native or near-native speakers. We had experimented with several French immersion days, but found ourselves cooking for, taxiing, and begging students to resist the siren call of campus activities. Then came Rik Warch’s invitation to faculty to imagine a northern campus. He needed faculty input to convince the trustees to support a rebuilt lodge rather than a quick sale of prime lakefront property. So I submitted a proposal touting the benefits of immersion weekends. In fact, without knowing if colleagues would cheerfully forego a weekend mid-session, I waxed eloquent about other forms of immersive education: performances, experiments, group projects, student panels. (In French, we would say I was “building castles in Spain.”) But Rik—eloquent and persuasive, a firm believer in liberal education, and a great lover of Door County—saw the possibilities. Ever the great champion of Lawrence, he championed the idea of student weekends at a bigger facility.
Fortunately, Rik won the day so that some 30 years after the terrible fire, Björklunden has become an educational center, a haven, and a Door County jewel.
