Nicole Bigley
When Kimberley Kasper ’92 brought her son Alex Bartels ’26 to campus for the first time, she found herself describing a place more from memory than from what stood in front of her. Her old dorm, the library, the dining hall, the building she worked in were all gone, reshaped by decades of growth. “The transformation is incredible,” she said. But the feeling she remembered was still there.
Kimberley arrived at Chapman not knowing a single person. What struck her most was how quickly that changed. “I was surprised by how warm and welcoming everyone was from the moment I arrived on campus,” she said.
Alex had grown up hearing only pieces of his mother’s Chapman story. That campus visit filled in the gaps. “She showed me the apartment she lived in, talked about how different the university and the Circle looked, and explained how dramatically Chapman’s presence in Orange has changed since her time there,” he said. For him, that same sense of belonging shows up in the small moments, running into friends crossing Attallah Piazza on a sunny day. “There’s nothing better,” he said.
What carried across three decades was Greek life. Kimberley found her community as a transfer student through Gamma Phi Beta. Alex followed a similar path through Phi Kappa Tau, where he later served as president and vice president. Both describe the same turning point: that first long break away from campus, when returning to school started to feel less like leaving home and more like going back to one.
“It was the first time I left home to go back to school, feeling like I was going to something rather than away from something,” Kimberley said. Alex felt it too. “That was when it really began to feel like home,” he said.
This spring, Kimberley will watch from the crowd as Alex takes the same walk she has never forgotten, the first woman in her family to earn a college degree, now watching the next generation follow. “Chapman didn’t just prepare him academically,” she said. “It sparked a curiosity and drive that will carry him through everything moving forward.”
Alex is looking ahead to graduate school, with hopes of pursuing law or continuing his research in international policy and development economics. But when he reflects on his time at Chapman, he comes back to the relationships through Phi Kappa Tau, the Honors Program, Pre-Law Society, and the Undergraduate Law Review. “Say yes to opportunities and get as involved as possible,” he said. “It has genuinely changed my life and led to friendships I will cherish forever.”
