I often hear stories about the way we treat people at Guelph. Visitors often say with surprise "I wasn't on campus for more than a couple of minutes before sometime stopped and asked if they could help".

I want to tell the story about such an act of kindness this week because it says so much about the University of Guelph.

Each morning I trot down to "Williams" in Centre Six for coffee/tea. On Wednesday of this week, I was called over to be introduced to two international students. A faculty member introduced me to two students who were on exchange and had just arrived.

The faculty member had spotted two students obviously weighed down with a considerable amount of luggage and stopped to ask if she could help.

The new students were grateful for the help and slowly revealed their story.

Coming to Guelph for the Fall semester, they had originally booked their flight to Canada on an airline that has recently gone into receivership. Their alternate route took them to New York and Greyhound bus arriving earlier than morning in the City of Guelph.

They are not certain where to go so the faculty member bought them coffee and was sitting with them until the Centre for International Programs and Student Housing opened at 8:30am later that morning.

What luck - I was buying coffee with the Associate Vice-President Student Affairs and she was able to expedite their transfer to residence and move-in.

What wonderful people we have here at the University of Guelph. How super to care so much not only to offer help but to buy the students coffee and wait with them until the offices were open.

If this incident was isolated it would be remarkable but the fact is that it isn't ! It happens so often that it is almost a tradition at Guelph.