Elizabeth Searle graduated class of 1988. She teaches Fiction and Scriptwriting at Stonecoast MFA program (University of Southern Maine) and is the author of four books of fiction and several works of theater. She shared the following memory of the Rock:

I remember clearly—it is as vivid as the gold color of her hair—coming upon Amy Carter, daughter of former president Jimmy Carter, in the cavelike bowels of the Rock.  I loved the intense quiet and sense of many minds concentrating that always filled the Rock, especially in its latest hours and lowest levels.  I also loved the dim cavelike lighting and the handy snack machines.  I spent many happily trancelike hours ‘wandering the stacks’ and pacing the lower levels of the Rock with my notebook at hand.  This was in pre-iPhone, pre-laptop days.  I remember how my advisor, the late great John Hawkes, was suspicious of computers.  He seemed to blame the entire computer revolution on his fellow fiction faculty luminary, Robert Coover, who carried a computer around with him, much to Hawkes’ horror.  But most of us lowly students wrote on paper back then.  So, alas, I had no cellphone in hand when—amidst a late-night pacing session at the Rock—I happened to stumble upon the former president’s casually dressed golden-haired daughter, Amy.  Amy Carter was seated at a table near the ever-popular snack machine, absorbed in quietly reading, looking utterly at home in the late-night deeply silenced Rock atmosphere.  I stood in the doorway of the snack area, staring, unseen.  Then pretending not to stare as other students slipped in to quietly purchase snacks.  Amy turned a page.  I come from a wildly political family and my father was perhaps one of President Jimmy Carter’s biggest fans.  I thought of telling Amy Carter this, but did not want break her own magical stone-deep lowest-level Rock concentration.  Amy did not raise her eyes but her skin had a rosy glow and her face a contented calm.  Just as well that I had no cellphone, as I might have been tempted to steal a quick shot.  As it was, I took a long look instead, then stole away.