Back to the Hill | Fayetteville
When August arrives in Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas and the...
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When August arrives in Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas and the town that loves it settles back into its familiar fall rhythm.
August hits different in Fayetteville. The heat still hangs heavy over the Ozarks, cicadas keep up their afternoon chorus, and summer is nowhere near ready to surrender, have mercy. But around town, there are signs that something is changing.
Cars, trucks and SUVs begin arriving, packed to the windows with lamps, laundry baskets, bedding and far more stuff than any dorm room could reasonably hold. Unless you are a boy mom, in which case a bed-in-a-bag and some kind of flag for the wall seem perfectly adequate. A last run to the store for the things we “forgot” will happen. Lines grow a little longer at the coffee shops. Sidewalks that sat quieter in July begin filling again.
Up on the Hill, the University of Arkansas comes back to life.
I now know this from the parent side now. There is something both exciting and slightly unnerving about pulling into Fayetteville with a child who is making this place his own for the next four years. You arrive with a car full of things we think he cannot live without, offer far more advice than anyone requested and try not to count how quickly another year has passed.
For generations of Razorbacks, returning to Fayetteville has meant more than the beginning of another academic year. It is a homecoming of sorts, a return to a place where fun, opportunity and college traditions all run together. There are universities you attend. And then there are places that become part of your story. For our son, we hope the University of Arkansas is the latter.
The Hill
The campus rises above Fayetteville just as its nickname suggests, climbing steadily toward Old Main, its two distinctive towers rising above the Hill.
Old Main has watched generations of students hurry to class, gather beneath its trees, fall in love, change majors (maybe a few times), make mistakes, find their people and eventually leave Fayetteville carrying a little piece of the place with them.
Students move between buildings with phones in one hand and coffee in the other, some confidently taking familiar shortcuts while new arrivals study maps and pretend they know exactly where they are going. Parents recognize that particular look. It is part independence and part uncertainty, though mentioning the uncertainty is not recommended, trust me.
The names of generations of University of Arkansas graduates stretch along the campus sidewalks of Senior Walk, turning an ordinary walk to class into a history lesson. The university has continued preserving and restoring the walk as the decades pass and Arkansas sends another class out into the world.
It is interesting to look down and imagine those that walked before us. Sometimes you find a familiar last name. Sometimes a graduation year makes you stop. Sometimes you imagine the student who once walked these same paths before earning the name now beneath your feet. And when you are the mother of a student still making his way toward graduation, you cannot help but think ahead a little. One day his name will be here too. There is something wonderfully Arkansas about that. In a university continually welcoming the future, the past is quite literally beneath your feet.
A Town That Comes Back to Life
The return of students changes Fayetteville almost overnight.
Summer in a college town has its perks. Parking spaces magically reappear. Restaurant waits shorten. The pace softens. But Fayetteville in August feels like someone turned the lights back on. Patios fill. Bikes roll through town. Morning coffee lines lengthen. Along Dickson Street, doors swing open and the easy hum of a college town returns.
The relationship between Fayetteville and the university is especially close. The campus is so close to downtown Fayetteville. Walk downhill (s0 much better than up the Hill, trust me) and you quickly find yourself moving toward Dickson Street, downtown and the historic square.
And parents who started coming simply because our children went to school there gradually develop Fayetteville routines of their own. That may be one of the unexpected gifts of having a child in college: their new hometown slowly becomes one of yours, too. For a good place to begin exploring, Only In Arkansas’ guide to the best of Fayetteville rounds up longtime restaurants, shops and places worth wandering.
Saturday is Coming
Of course, August carries another promise in Fayetteville. Football is coming.
Even before the first kickoff, you feel it building. Razorback flags fly proudly from porches, and tailgate plans are discussed with the intensity of Martha Stewart planning the social event of the year. Be aware, no more open Saturdays until Christmas.
For parents, game weekends offer a great excuse for coming back to Fayetteville. We may say we’re there for football, but we are also there to lay eyes on our kid. The football is a bonus. Woo pig.
On game day, the Hill becomes something else entirely. Families arrive early. Tents rise. Grills smoke. Old friends who have not seen one another since last season fall easily back into conversation. Parents, students, alumni and children in tiny Razorback jerseys, so cute, all move in the same direction. Be ready for the traffic, it will be worth it.
If you’re making a weekend of it, 25 things to do on a Razorback game-day weekend offers plenty to fill the hours before and after kickoff.
Eventually, somewhere across campus, someone starts that familiar call.
Wooo.
Pig.
Sooie.
RAZORBACKS!
It builds, gathering voices as it goes, until thousands of people are participating in one of Arkansas’ most recognizable traditions. To outsiders, it can seem strange, a bit crazy. To Razorback families, no explanation is necessary. Some traditions are best understood by standing in the middle of them.
Beyond Campus
One of the things I appreciate most about sending a child to school in Fayetteville is that his college experience extends well beyond a classroom. The beautiful Ozarks are all around. Drive far enough in almost any direction and the landscape starts pulling you toward wooded trails, limestone bluffs, rivers, mountain roads and small towns tucked into the hills.
A free Saturday can mean hiking, mountain biking or simply getting out of town for an afternoon. If you’re looking for an easy place to start, there are hiking trails within a short drive of Fayetteville, and nearby state parks make it easy to turn a free weekend into an Ozark getaway. Devil’s Den and the other state parks of Northwest Arkansas are reminders that one of the great advantages of going to school here is what waits just beyond town.
When fall finally reaches the mountains, the landscape shifts. It is so beautiful there are now rods to explain, you just have to see it yourself. My son sends me photos from these places now; trails he has wandered, overlooks he has found, sunsets caught somewhere beyond town. As a kid who grew up living in and exploring Arkansas State Parks, I love that college has given him even more of the Natural State to discover. There is something full-circle about that.
The places are different, but it is also so Arkansas-familiar: take the back road, walk the trail, stay for sunset, say yes when someone suggests going somewhere you have never been. I love that he is also still discovering the beauty of the place that raised him.
The First Goodbye
No college brochure adequately explains this part the move -in and leaving your child for the first time. You unload, make the bed, find somewhere to put his shower bucket, run to the store for some groceries and then offer to organize something that your child has absolutely no interest in having organized. You keep finding small things to do because jobs postpone the inevitable. Eventually, however, there is nothing left to unpack.
There comes a moment when everyone understands it is time. Your child has things to do and you have to drive home. There is no ceremony for this particular milestone, though perhaps there should be. Leaving your child on a college campus is one of those quiet markers of parenthood where pride and heartache occupy the same square inch of your chest.
You want them to miss you. You also hope they are having far too much fun (and studying) to do so. You want them to need you. You have spent eighteen years preparing them not to.
So you hug a little longer than usual while trying not to break down crying and embarrass him, tell them to text and walk back toward the car without turning the moment into something bigger than they will tolerate.
Then, if you’re like me, you look back anyway. And, he knew I would.
Photo courtesy of Experience Fayetteville.
The Hill – Take Two
The beautiful thing about the Hill is that eventually the direction changes. The freshman who once needed directions learns every shortcut. The student who arrived knowing almost no one finds his people. Fayetteville becomes less a place his parents drive him to and more a place he returns to the next year. Maybe that is why the beginning of another school year feels like so much more than a date on an academic calendar.
Another August arrives. Another family pulls into Fayetteville with a car packed to the roof. Another freshman looks up at Old Main, scared but excited about what the next few years might hold. Another mother helps carry the boxes, gives one final piece of unnecessary advice and eventually gets back into the car.
And the Hill does what it has done for generations: it welcomes them, gives them room to grow into who they are becoming and becomes part of their story. If Fayetteville works its magic, it won’t simply give them a place to spend these years, it will give all of us a place we’ll always be happy to return to.
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