“Hey, are y’all dry today?”
Tammy Patton, associate professor of social work, laughed as she said the phrase her colleagues and she would text each other periodically. It became a phrase they would exchange to catch up with one another after being flooded out of their offices and classrooms multiple times.
“So, it became a joke. We have a sense of humor, like, you know what? Social work: we can survive,” Patton said.
Unique for its cross shape, notorious for flooding when it rained, the Blasingame Academic Complex, commonly called the BAC, housed the business, education and social work departments. As part of the campus master plan, the building was demolished in May.
Patton took me back thirteen years, reconstructing the bricks of the BAC, to when she was a visiting professor before becoming a professor of social work. She explained to me that visiting professors are seen as temporary, but she was never treated that way in her early years at Union.
“They put me in what was considered the adjunct or temporary office,” Patton said as she got up and measured the distance with her hands. “It was probably about six feet wide.”
People won’t typically invest in a visiting professor, but the professors surrounding Patton in the BAC were always friendly and kind to her. She would eventually get her doctorate in education from some of these professors who made her feel so welcome.
After it became clear that Patton would be staying at Union for good, they tried to offer her a new office, but she wouldn’t take it.
“I told them, ‘No, I’m happy in my little hole back here,’ because it was at the very back end of the social suite,” Patton said. “Unless you turned the corner, you wouldn’t know that I was back there. I loved to play pranks.”
Her eyes glowed mischievously as she recounted the pranks that she would pull on fellow professors, like covering their offices in toilet paper and string lights and decorating doors with Elsa and Anna. Once, she put a life-sized Grinch just behind the corner to her office to scare people, as well as an enlarged Aslan and the White Witch from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
“The BAC was a lot of fun. Business, education and social work did a lot of things together. Like, we would do the door decorating contest at Christmas,” Patton said thoughtfully. “So, I kind of miss them.”
The flooding would soon push everyone out of the BAC, and the social work professors were given offices in the English and language area of the Penick Academic Complex, called the PAC.
Patton enjoyed getting to know the professors there. But just as the social work department settled into its new space, on April 3, the PAC flooded, and Patton, along with her colleagues, was relocated into Providence, the pharmacy building. Just when they had finally felt like things would return to normal, Providence’s air conditioning broke, so the professors were moved back into the PAC.
“I call it the social work effect,” Patton laughed, looking around her office. “But I’ve prayed over this room, and so far, nothing’s happened.”
When I first entered Patton’s office, pumpkin spice from her candle enveloped me. A Keurig sat comfortably in the corner, surrounded by syrups of different flavors, and a happy plant graced the other corner.
“I’ve always felt like I’ve had one foot in, one foot out,” Patton said. “Even in the moves, it’s kind of like you got one foot in and one foot out. I think I finally am feeling settled here.”
I couldn’t help but notice how thankful and grateful Dr. Patton seemed despite the difficulty of having to move offices three times.
Madi Rothacher, a senior social work major, attested to the unfailing positive attitude the social work professors demonstrated during one disaster after another.
“It really shows what the professors are capable of as far as a department and also what they’re willing to do in order to help their students,” Rothacher said. “That just shows the resilience and the resourcefulness of social work.”
For Rothacher, it was a formative time in her life as she had the privilege of seeing the core values of social work modeled for her through the difficulty of the floods.
“Personally, for me, it was the start of my social work, finding my identity in social work,” Rothacher said. “I think the BAC has association with that time in my life, trying to figure out what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. For me, I think there’ll always be fond memories in that building.”
Rather than complain and let anxiety consume them, Patton and Rothacher chose to see the inconvenience of the moves as an opportunity to practice the empathy, kindness and adaptability that social work is known for.
“For somebody to be in a really frustrating situation and still come out positive and forward-focused and still make sure others are okay and be able to be uplifting is super inspiring,” Rothacher said.
Patton spoke of how the two consistent things through all the transitions that kept her going were prayer and yoga.
“If you’re going to make it through anything in life, you need prayer; you need God. In the good times and bad, we need God because He can enrich anything,” Patton said.
Although the BAC is no more, the warmth and strength of the social work department have enabled the professors and students to grow closer and provide opportunities to share their experiences with others.
“The relationships that we’ve all built thanks to all of these moves, I mean, we could look at them and think we should have bad luck,” Patton said. “But I have made so many relationships, and I hope that it has been a two-way street that we’ve all helped each other through the process of moving from building to building.”
Patton smiled as she reflected on her students and the many people she’s met along this journey, her joy that much sweeter to revel in after suffering through the feeling of not having a permanent place.
“It is very humbling too because it’s like you’re on a sacred journey with people,” Patton said. “And to be a part of each other’s lives in this way, that’s what sharing in God’s glory is.”
