Editor's Note: Baker Orange staff member Tera Lyons is one of seven BU students studying at Harlaxton College this semester.<em>Editor's Note: Baker Orange staff member Tera Lyons is one of seven BU students studying at Harlaxton College this semester.</em> Editor’s Note: Baker Orange staff member Tera Lyons is one of seven BU students studying at Harlaxton College this semester.

The experience at Harlaxton College is not marked by one single event and is not solely about travel or attending a university abroad. It is all of the little things in between that make the college worth attending.

Principal Gordan Kingsley describes what draws students and faculty to Harlaxton as “the calling.”

“It’s life-changing,” Kingsley said. “They say it all the time, ‘Harlaxton changed my life,’ and it’s changing their lives for good. We talk about here changing the world one person at a time… it’s transformational.”

Kingsley has been the principal at Harlaxton College for many years and was formerly a dean for William Jewell College in Kansas City, Mo. It was a former Baker University President, Dan Lambert, who recommended him to the position at Harlaxton, and this connection, and the love of the students he has met, has helped him hold BU in high regards.

“I would have encouraged my sons to look at Baker as well as Jewell, and when you have been in that rivalry at Jewell… that’s hard for you to say,” Kingsley said.

This spring seven Baker students are attending Harlaxton for the semester. Junior Liz Jordan has been dreaming of studying abroad and so far this experience has more than lived up to her expectations.

“From day one it’s been like a family,” Jordan said. “I think it’s similar to Baker in that there are so few people there and we are all ready to be friends.”

This semester’s Harlaxton College student government president is sophomore Reagan Wallace from the University of Evansville.

“There’s not drama in the atmosphere like back at home,” Wallace said. “It’s a happy little group and all the people here seem very rare.”

The most recent excitement to reach the manor involved Girl Scout cookies, an event that Kingsley describes as a “cult phenomenon.”

“That was one of the greatest moments in the history of the world,” Kingsley said. “First, we have been here 10 years and we have never had Girl Scout cookies except some relatives might buy and ship them. Out of the blue, this guy writes from a military base two hours away and says ‘well, we can’t sell enough cookies on our base.’”

Kingsley arranged for the family to come to the manor and sell cookies and made an arrangement with Wallace that if over 200 boxes were sold, Wallace would dress up in a Girl Scout uniform.

“They arrived with all the Girl Scout cookies and I thought ‘nobody loves Girl Scout cookies as much as me, and I’m only buying two boxes,’ and then we sold 400, which is twice as much needed for me to dress up in a Girl Scout uniform,” Wallace said.

This is just a small example of an event that brings together the entire campus. From traveling to studying to sports, everything plays its part in the Harlaxton experience.

“I feel like even just four weeks into it I feel more independent than I was,” Jordan said. “I was already really independent, but I mean there is a difference between being independent in your home town and being independent in a different country. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself.”