My wife and I have now lived in Carlisle twice. I  first came to the Borough in the summer of 1999, when I was hired out of graduate school to work at Dickinson. My wife, Audrey, started at Dickinson in the Fall of 1998 and graduated in 2002. After Audrey graduated, we got married, and moved to Chicago where we lived for the next 12 years. In the intervening decade plus we had a family, five kids (currently 8th grade through 1st grade). The youngest four were adopted through the foster care system in Chicago.

My family tries to be involved in the Carlisle community. Obviously with children we are part of the Carlisle Area School District , where next year we will have children at Mooreland Elementary, Lamberton Middle School, and Carlisle High School (a public school hat trick, if you will). We volunteer for events (my proudest moment was serving as The Conductor for a Kindergarten holiday party), helping with Math Facts, and chaperoning class trips.

Audrey is the executive pastor of The Meeting House, a position she’s held since January. She oversees the administration of the church of about 2000 attendees across three campuses (two in Carlisle and one in Dillsburg). We began attending in January 2015 and I’ve served as a senior high school youth group leader and teacher.

One of my proudest moments was being named to the Project SHARE Board of Directors in January 2018. The organization does wonderful work and has earned its glowing reputation in Carlisle and the surrounding area.

How does a semi-suburban/semi-rural town of 18,000 in Central Pennsylvania offer so many amazing food choices? Belgian, British pup, Bhutanese-Nepalese, vegan/vegetarian…banh mis, yucca fries, pupusas, reubens…an old-fashioned candy shop…and five breweries! I don’t know why it happened but I am happy it did.

I also appreciate the town’s size. It’s small enough that you can connect with whomever you want whenever you need but not so small that you feel that you’ve met everyone. You can truly create change because you can always find the people you need to help.

I was here in 2000 when the KKK threatened to march on Carlisle and Dickinson and the town responded by creating the Amani Festival – an important origin story that not enough people know. And here I was again picking up a KKK recruitment flyer a few blocks from my house just this year. (I won’t discuss the myriad Confederate flags I’ve seen in a state that was on the winning side of the Civil War.)

I don’t know if we’ve “overcome” these moments but I do believe that the portions of the community that are outraged over the appearance of these things do outweigh those that support a climate of hate. But we need to be more explicit about building that community that will reject bigotry, racism, homophobia, and other fear-based hatred. We have to not just talk but act.

One of the priorities I’ve have since returning to Dickinson is to push our students into the town more intentionally and not just for a drink or community service. I want them to recognize that this town has a life of its own. I want the students to think of themselves as residents of Carlisle not just as residents of Dickinson. Because a college town is one of the few places that you will return to time and again for the rest of your life.

My hope is that by having our students understand Carlisle that, in turn, the residents of Carlisle will better understand our students. – Josh Eisenberg, Associate Dean of Student Leadership at Dickinson College