All 18 students registered for my intro to journalism class at Denison University braved the frigid temperatures Wednesday morning, traipsing their way across campus to a nondescript, equally frigid classroom for their first class of the semester.

Even though I’ve taught this class before, I still get nervous on the first day. Will the students show up? Will they find it interesting? What if they think it’s boring? How many of them will roll their eyes when I talk about the assigned readings? How many of them will fall asleep?

Class begins at 10:30 a.m., and by 10:45 — after a quick zip through the course syllabus — the room was filled with chatter. Students were laughing, talking about their winter breaks, quizzing each other on their hobbies, their families, clubs they want to join and where they hope to study abroad.

There were no eye rolls, and no sleepers — not even a yawn. It was all smiles.

That moment of connection put my fears at ease. Journalism, I expressed to them, was about connections, about curiosity, about sharing other’s stories. And then I set them free to explore those connections and that curiosity about each other. We’ll see how the rest of the semester goes, but at this moment, my hopes are high.

Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!