Linda Van Loon can remember waking up in the morning with a cup of coffee in hand and looking out her apartment window at a different Broomfield Road.

“Broomfield was a two-lane road then and to the south of it was a cornfield,” said Van Loon, the Beddow residence hall director. “I remember watching deer and pheasant run between the corn rows.”

That was Oct. 5, 1972, a much different Central Michigan University when Van Loon started. She has now been the RHD for Beddow Hall for 37 years.

Today, the cornfield is the Student Activity Center, Kelly/Shorts Stadium and Rose Arena, Van Loon said.

“This university was roughly less than twice the size it is today,” Van Loon said. “The ideal size of growth was projected to be 11,000 students.”

A time of unity

Today, with enrollment double it was then, Van Loon said she can remember a time of more personal interaction from students in her hall.

Students have new technology everywhere, Van Loon said. Only a few students had a television in their rooms in 1972. When they wanted to watch TV, they would gather in the recreation area, she said.

“It was a time to gather socially without the BlackBerry or laptop because they didn’t exist,” Van Loon said.

One of the biggest changes in the residence halls Van Loon has experienced at CMU is the transition from single-sex to co-ed halls.

“I think there were a lot of upperclassmen who were excited about co-ed living when the topic first came up,” Van Loon said. “It was what the residents wanted. They asked for co-ed and we provided that for them.”

Sweeney Hall will be the last to go co-ed next fall. Three years ago, Beddow went co-ed and Van Loon said it was time for a change.

“I have to say I was excited — I had been working with women for 34 years,” Van Loon said. “The change came at the right time for me.”

‘A wealth of knowledge’

One of the first men Van Loon hired when Beddow became co-ed was Rochester Hills senior Joseph Parente as a Multicultural Adviser. He said he likes his job and enjoys working with Van Loon.

“People see her as a mother figure — someone who is concerned for you and yet quick to correct you on your grammar,” Parente said.

Van Loon said her office is a montage of who she is. She has a flourishing collection of plant life.

“I grew up around gardening and my grandparents had a farm,” Van Loon said. “The plants are an conversation ice breaker and I like to talk.”

She often places clippings of plants out for the students with little instructions attached on how to take care of them.

“She is very in to her plants,” said Dearborn senior Christen Henry. “I would be afraid it would break her heart if she knew that some of the plants I have gotten from her have died.”

Van Loon knows Beddow inside and out and she is experienced with everything under the sun at CMU, Henry said.

East Lansing senior Katie Johnson said Van Loon’s life stories are interesting.

“She is entertaining and brings a wealth of knowledge and a lot of respect to her staff,” Johnson said.

Over the last 37 years, Van Loon has had recent freshmen move in whose mothers also lived in Beddow.

“Last year, when I was meeting my residents for the first time, some of my girl residents were surprised to know Linda was still the RHD of Beddow,” Johnson said. “Linda was their mothers’ RHD.”