It’s 11:49 on a Monday morning and you’re on your way to class. It’s April, and life is in bloom again; the weather is bearable for the first time since last semester. You enter the Main Green through Faunce Arch and a gust of warm wind grazes your cheeks as your eyes adjust to the scene. Your gaze bounces from tree to tree, taking in the abundance of people planted on the grass with their computer in lap and iced coffee aside. The light hum of chatter floats around The Green. Clubs are tabling, sending out elevator pitches to passers-by in the form of a cheery call, but you don’t have time to stop and chat.

Your eyes dwell on the trees. The leaves, basking in the imminent Spring’s sun and blowing in the lasting winter’s wind. Someone’s dog’s tail wags against your calf and you give it a smile. Your eyes remain at the ground, where you notice the weeds poking through the cracks in the sidewalk. The early bell rings from the summit of University Hall—the changing of the guards. Academic building doors prop open and students spill onto the green to find a settling place, while others gather their belongings and abandon theirs to fill the empty classrooms. You wish you could respond to a patch of grass under the Rock Tree that is calling your name and soak up the sun and happenings, but the unfinished task of class is still ahead of you. You head down to Simmons Quad, a less densely inhabited stomping ground and enter Maxcy Hall. The door shuts behind you and the wilderness outdoors is now to wait. This is the hub of Brown. This is our ecosystem.

In its most generic sense, an ecosystem is defined as a complex network or interconnected system. A network, the collection of relationships and often interdependence, means one’s actions inherently have an impact on another. All have an impact. The strength of an ecosystem depends on the balance of these impacts across our network. Without support and reciprocity, an ecosystem breaks down. Brown thrives on the bonds between our students. Our ecosystem is stronger when together, a sum that is greater than its parts.

Where is your niche within the ecosystem? How do you engage in symbiosis with other members of it? Who supports you? How do you reciprocate that?