At the beginning of the fall semester, I assigned my Arrive and Thrive (AS.360.105) students a scavenger hunt to help them get oriented to campus and explore the resources available to them at Hopkins. Off they went with a list of tasks to complete via online submission: upload photos of key spots on campus, the title of a book you found at the library, a summary of a chat you had with a professor, and so on. Out of all of the tasks, though, my favorite was:
Words that Move: Find a quote on a wall, building, or elsewhere on campus that
inspires or intrigues you and share a picture. Inspiration is all around!
Before I share the quotes that they found, allow me to share a bit of personal context.
I have PhD in Spanish (Penn State, 2019). My dissertation examines representations of movement through space in Spanish literature and art of the modernist era. In 230 pages, I analyze novelistic and painterly portrayals of regional travel, city walking, and processions to interrogate the ways in which these rendered moves captured the shifting and uneven development of modernity in Spain between 1888-1923. I’ve always been fascinated by how we – as individuals and as communities – navigate spaces around us. We inhabit space, but we also create it, whether physical spaces raised through construction or social ones produced thorough interpersonal interaction. We move through space, at times once and at others repeatedly, creating palimpsests of experience and memory. We negotiate space, especially its structures, which challenge us to find a crosswalk or just jay-walk, to scale a mountain or build a tunnel through it, to speed down the highway or take the scenic route.

When we step back to reflect, it is obvious that we all have strategies and attitudes that we employ to navigate the spaces we encounter, as well as the opportunities and tensions existing therein, to the best of our (dis)ability. So, what does any of this have to do with scavenger hunts or quotes, you ask? Well, if you’ve ever been to the Imagine Center – the Life Design Lab’s homebase – you know that it is filled wall-to-wall with quotes, words of encouragement, and multilingual sayings, all intended to foster a sense of belonging and innovation in the space, reflecting values that are key to our work in Integrative Learning and Life Design that goes far beyond the walls of our building.
While working at the Imagine Center one day, pondering what would make for an informative yet meaningful scavenger hunt, I found myself feeling inspired by the words around me and compelled to invite my students into the same experience. As such, I asked students to find quotes on campus in the hope that 1) it would help them consciously and critically engage in this new JHU space they had recently entered, and 2) they would find some words of inspiration or encouragement around them. Here are my students’ Words that Move found across the JHU campus (working individually or in pairs), complete with a photo collage below:
“Veritas Vos Libertat (The Truth Will Set You Free)”
Engraving on Shriver Hall building
“Nobody is Free Until Everybody is Free ~ Fannie Lou Hamer”
Poster in residence hall
“Seek Together a World at Peace”
Banner on campus building
“Here must be a community of scholars who…are constantly pushing back the dark walls of the unknown – Milton S. Eisenhower, University President 1956-1967”
Wall quote in JHU bookstore (Barnes and Noble)
“Hopkins Lacrosse: We must find a way or make one”
JHU Athletic complex
“Nothing is Given. Everything is Earned ~ Lebron James”
Poster in residence hall

Looking at these quotes together, what strikes me is the connectedness between them despite the differences in appearance, location, and content. Half of these quotes are permanent (engravings, affixed words), while half are temporary (banners, flyers). Half are attributed to authors or speakers, half are anonymous. The named authors represent radically distinct sociopolitical contexts: Fannie Lou Hamer, a voting and women’s rights activist; Milton S. Eisenhower, a former Hopkins President; Lebron James, an NBA legend. These differences seem to challenge – no, invite us to reflect: Who or what has the authority to deliver a meaningful message and by what means? My students show that meaning lives in words and messages of all kinds across this campus space, persistently in view and acknowledged when encountered by focused observers. To be sure, moving through life as active and observant practitioners of humanity means having open eyes and open ears, lest we miss an important message, a muffled voice, a chance to learn something new. The same is true for how we interrogate the past and the present, even when rife with tension, conflict, or discomfort.
And the connectedness I mentioned between all these words? That lies in the ethos of endurance and dedication to a pursuit – of enlightenment, social justice, world peace, scholarly rigor, athletic excellence, or lived success – that is shared between hard-workers and wellness-seekers across campus and beyond. I’m encouraged to know that these are the messages that stand out for my students, these first-years who have arrived at JHU and thrived, in their own ways, throughout this semester that is swiftly coming to a close.
To conclude, I leave you with the quote that motivated me to create that scavenger hunt prompt and write this blog, this one that hangs on the wall of the Imagine Center above my favorite booth:
“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s – Joseph Campbell.”

I noticed it the first day I started working at the Life Design Lab in September 2023. One of the last courses I ever taught in my career as a Spanish professor was on heroes and heroism across the globe, a special topic in intercultural communication. Naturally, we studied Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces from which his famed Hero’s Journey comes, a widely-used and broadly-adapted model designed to explain the elements and trends common to all hero stories across space and time (aka the monomyth). In a very crude nutshell, all heroes are called to action, they enter the unknown where they meet and are helped by allies – face difficult trials – sink into despair – prevail against enemies, and then return to their known or regular world having changed forever…until the next call to action sounds.
I know this is about myths and stories and fiction, but I can’t help but think we’re all heroes in our own right, always and forever at some stage in our (current) journey on the quest for fulfillment and betterment. What is life but a series of battles and attempts to endure, of seizing opportunities and blazing paths forward, of persevering (and having fun!) even if/especially when that path is dark and spooky ahead. At first, I thought it was ironic that Cambell’s quote stared me in the face as I walked through the Imagine Center doors, a threat that maybe I made a huge mistake moving on from what I had known for so long; but now, I know it’s life design at its best and a message of encouragement. I was at the start of a new journey then; I was terrified and unsure (I still kind of am) but I’m fighting and gaining allies and making my way to somewhere. I don’t know exactly how to clear or navigate this path I’m on…but that’s because it’s mine and nobody else’s. That is what I choose to take from these words, these Words that Move me to grow, learn, and help others along the way. If they inspire someone else too, even better.
