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Katie came to the university in 2000 when Briana was a sophomore. “We were both very excited about it,” Katie Adams said, “Briana and I were excited as well about the tuition benefits.”

For children of staff and faculty, the discount is 90 percent off tuition after scholarships and federal aid. Families’ students still pay for room and board, though. “Both Briana and Cori lived on campus their first year,” Katie said. “We felt it was very important for them to have a college experience,” Katie said.

According to Katie it was “really rare” that she and one of her children would commute to school together. “If it were the weekend and either Briana or Cori were coming home to get some stuff then they would ride with me, but like I said it was rare that we would go to school together,” Adams said.

Katie said she tried to treat her children in a “very professional” manner if they came into her office. “They would set up a time and an appointment. When they were in my office I would treat them the same as any other student,” Katie said. “I was not in their face or business, but it was really nice to be there for them.”

Junior Morgan Pontiff also has family ties to the university. Morgan’s father is Harry Pontiff, the university’s chief information officer.

“It was a little different.” Morgan said. “Of course I got a little heat from my team for having my dad work at the school I go to, but he is a popular guy and was never in the way or anything.”

Morgan said, “I looked at some schools, and nothing really stood out, but I had been to Hamline and met the faculty and saw the campus and liked what I saw, and I guess the tuition benefits played in.”

Like Cori and Briana, Morgan lived on campus his first year and then lived nearby in a house off campus after that. He said a downside was that “it does feel like it is a little close to home and not very different.”

It is not just children and parents who have a special bond with the university. Married couples do, too.

“In some institutions it is still frowned upon to have two professors who are married,” Mike Reynolds said. Reynolds and his wife Kris Deffenbacher are both English professors. “It is very hard for academic couples to get a job together,” Reynolds said. “So when a position opened up, Kris had already been teaching here for a few years, and I applied for a position. But it was not as though the administration said that because his wife teaches here, we should hire him too.”

“Many academics end up marrying other academics. We did not ever expect to teach together at the same institution,” Reynolds said. Reynolds noted that the university fosters a “strong sense of community” among staff and faculty. “What has been nice is that a lot of us with younger kids, it is nice to talk to people going through the same thing and intermingle our kids with theirs,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds and Deffenbacher have a young child, which makes the commute interesting. “Usually one of us will take our child to day care and then come to the university while the other just walks. We live in the neighborhood so it makes it convenient,” Reynolds said.

“Our child is three years old, so college is a really long way away. We’re not really thinking about that now,” said Reynolds. But for staff or faculty who have older children, like Katie, whose 16-year-old son is beginning the college search, Hamline generally hasn’t been ruled out.