[Before we start: NO, this is not a formal welcome message, nor is it a description of all the wonderful sides of our college. Surf our website and you will find out that there are these sides in abundance. This is just a little blurb from the bottom of our hearts, to let you know who we are and how we feel.]

Since November 1, 2002, we, Mandy and Klaus Boehnke and our son Philip are College Masters of Mercator College. On February 1, 2003, we finally moved into the college master apartment, and since then our lives have changed. Not in a way that some of our friends predicted, namely in the form of frequent phone calls at 3.45 am of students needing an accompaniment to the hospital, or of loud music robbing us our well-de served sleep [we after all have a professional life beyond the non-paid job of college mastering, namely as a professor at Jacobs University and as a re search associate at ‘the other’, the public university in Bremen].

Well, not that Mercatorians are quiet folks; there are unacceptable breaches of silent hours, and ‘illegal’ floor par ties, and the like. Usually these ‘events’ stay within boundaries (not too frequent, not too obstructive), and as long as people clean-up the mess they created on the occasion of a private party before noon on Sunday, we do not see it as our duty, to actively seek out perpetrators just for the sake of rule enforcement. We see the regulations of such disturbances as resting in the hands of student self-governance. Other problems, to which we will come later, do indeed need our more immediate attention.

Well, when we have now said that we do not see watch-dogging as our primary role, what is our primary role then?

The least liked part of our role is that of being administrators. Even though in Samuel Johnson we have a superb college office manager (plus his great college team), there is a lot of work to maintain a smooth running of the college. This part of the work is more time consuming than we originally thought, though with Sammy taking a great share of it, it is usually not that stressful, just a lot.

What else do we do?

"I locked myself out" is probably the most frequent phrase we hear at our door: College Masters as reserve door openers. But more important for us is the role of a good neighbor. It’s nice when students come to borrow baking powder or ask for “a rolling pin (a wooden thick stick used in rolling dough out).” A third role is that of being supporters of Mercatorians in a more symbolic fashion (cheering for them at girls' football games, e.g.). Then there is indeed also the role of being foster parents of students, not a frequent role, but we are open for this role: Mandy is young enough for inside knowledge of student problems, Klaus is old enough to take a fatherly role. And Philip has lived some two thirds of his life time in a college. What else is there to say?

YES, there are problems in our college—as are in the other colleges! Smoking in non-smoking rooms is annoying, and we are still seeking a way to enforce the non-smoking rule in the entire college. More importantly, Jacobs University property like chairs, small tables, and the like ‘disappear.' This destroys trust that we all need. It forces us to be suspicious, to try to find out who the perpetrators are. Equally problematic: vandalism. How can members of Jacobs University, or even of our college engage in vandalizing their own home? We hope to exert a maximum of influence on this through cooperation with the floor reps and the Mercator student government, but heavily have to rely on a Mercator spirit that should help to prevent such problems in the future.

May it flourish in accordance with our mission: (1) Make Diversity an Asset, (2) Care for Emotions, (3) Foster Personal Growth, and (4) Experience the Community.