A huge swath of the Wabash community gathered to celebrate John Zimmerman and his 50 years of service to the College.

Dr. John Zimmerman has taught (and learned) at Wabash for 50 years. Photo by Steve Charles.

Hosted by the Chemistry Department, the event paid tribute to “Dr. Z” for a half-century of teaching, learning, and contributing to the life of the College. While specifically a chemist, Dr. Z’s influence can be felt all across Wabash — yes, from the labs of Hays Hall, sure, but also to the Glee Club, Theater, and sports teams.

You see, Dr. Z is almost never without his camera — or at least that’s been the case for the 30 years I’ve known him. He’s made it his life’s work to chronicle and document (on slides, film, chip, card, tape, and disc) the most important events that happen at Wabash.

I had very little time to spend at Thursday’s reception, but I wanted to thank Dr. Z for what he’s meant to me — and give him a hug and handshake to congratulate him on his career. He and I have “covered” a thousand Wabash events and more. The difference is that I get paid specifically to do that; Dr. Z does it because he loves the students, faculty, and staff of Wabash College.

He said to me Thursday, “If I had to give a talk about photography I might start it with, ‘There was a time when Jim Amidon and I were the only ones on campus who had decent cameras.’”

He was right, too. And time changes everything.

Some of my fondest memories of my years as the sports information director in the late 1980s and early 1990s are of early morning cross country races — standing next to Dr. Z as we snapped scores of photos. The same was true during football, basketball, and track seasons — if there was a sporting event happening at Wabash, Dr. Z was there to capture it.

Typically, he’d drop by my office a couple days after an event when his prints had arrived from Target to show me his “wow” photos. (Though you really know when Dr. Z likes one of his images because he always says, “Stunning!”)

For about three decades, he’s been the official photographer and videographer of the Glee Club and Theater Department. He’s traveled the world to capture the history of the Glee Club with images and video from the Sydney Opera House to the old castles in Scotland — and all points between.

Dr. Z with Professor Lon Porter and President Pat White. Photo by Tom Runge.

Last Thursday lots of memories came back to me as I gazed into the display cases in Hays Hall, where many of Dr. Z’s images and mementos were spread out. To show how this scientist has evolved and adapted to technological change, there was a slide dated 1959 that he had reproduced digitally (this week) using a scanner and desktop printer. Back in 1959, you sent film to a lab and you might get it back a week later! And if you used Kodachrome, you needed a slide projector to see the images!

Right next to that image was a large-format digital disc — the size of an old vinyl record album — made in 1995. Dr. Z and some chemists at the University of Wisconsin recorded lab demonstrations and “burned” them to the large videodisc — it was literally the beginning of “distance education” because that disc could go anywhere to provide virtual instruction.

Dr. Z has spent his entire life learning (though his title is professor). We chatted last week about the summer he spent in Greece to photograph Professor Leslie Day’s archeological dig in Crete.

We laughed as we recalled the afternoons we spent in my office darkroom prior to his departure, when I taught Dr. Z how to develop film and make prints — all of which he recorded on a video camera (in near-darkness). Weeks later, he created a makeshift darkroom in Crete and repeated the whole process so the archeologists would have a record of their finds.

There was fondness in his voice as we talked about the funny darkroom scene. It was then that it occurred to me that I had – in my 20s – served as a teacher to a man I have always regarded as one of the College’s finest-ever teachers.

As I left the reception, I overheard Dr. Z and others recounting old chem lab shenanigans and interesting characters — professors and students alike. And it was with a bounce in my step that I walked to my next meeting knowing that I didn’t have to say goodbye to this Wabash icon. He’ll begin his 51^st year of service to Wabash standing beside me this Sunday as together we photograph the 175^th Commencement Ceremony on the College Mall.

And be sure of one thing: Dr. Z’s images will be stunning!

Blooms on the magnolia tree between Hovey Cottage and Kane House given in October 2008 “in loving memory of Susan Veatch Cantrell” by her friends Cynthia Sommer, Mary Kummings, Diane Tapia Quinn, Sandra Ramsey Fanning, and Susan Shearer Rickett.

Steve Charles—Last week I stopped by Class Notes Editor Karen Handley’s office to let her know that the magnolia tree planted in honor of Susan Cantrell by her friends was blooming. She smiled, but I could tell something was wrong. Which didn’t make a lot of sense to me. We had just finished proofing Karen’s section in this issue of the magazine, classes were winding down, evening events were almost over, music was throbbing from a couple fraternity houses, and spring was finally here. I was feeling pretty good.

But Karen had just proofread the In Memory section of Wabash Magazine. It was an unusually long section this time, and we’d lost a number of alumni Karen had worked with or written about during her 30 years at Wabash.

“Maybe it’s just part of getting older,” she said. “But I know these guys.”

Part of Karen’s job is gathering and editing the obituaries for each issue, often resolving conflicting information from multiple sources, searching the Internet for a fact or story that somehow defines the person to make these short pieces more than just a “death notice.” It’s a thankless task and usually anonymous, unless we get a fact wrong. That’s about the only time she hears about it.

Many college magazines avoid the problem altogether. They simply list the name of the “deceased,” the class year, and date of death. But for Karen—who in our Class Notes insists on listing not only the names of babies born to our alumni families, but the baby’s weight and length and brothers and sisters (“That matters to the parents,” she insists.)—a name, class year, and date of death isn’t enough. Not in a community where fewer than 200 men graduate every year, where so many faculty and staff teachers spend most of their careers. And often, Karen really does know these guys, at least by name from a Class Note, or—as she noted when we lost long-time Class Agent Dutch Friese ’48—from receiving their Class Agent letters.

It was a beautiful day outside, but nothing I could say could shake Karen’s lingering sense of loss, and I realized that, in varying degrees, she goes through this every time we publish. I’m the fortunate one in the process—I take Karen’s obits and go online to add to them or to find remembrances or ask others to write about their friends or write about them myself and I often hear back from grateful family members. At the minimum I have the satisfaction of getting to learn more about the person than I knew before; I am often amazed by the alumni I meet in the loving words of others.

But none of that happens without Karen’s conscientious and faithful hard work. Hers is the historical record. And there’s power in those names and details she gathers. Our production schedule makes it inevitable that most of our remembrances are published four to six months—or even a year—after the person’s death. It’s a time when everyone has gone back to work, back to their daily lives, and a most difficult time for close family members who feel like the person they so loved is being forgotten. I like to think that when a spouse or child of our alumnus opens that issue of the magazine and reads that name, they know their loved one is not forgotten, not by his alma mater. Karen makes sure of that. She knows these guys.

And every issue of Wabash Magazine is bound and placed in the College archives, so that years, decades, perhaps even centuries from now, someone will open those bound volumes searching for a name and, thanks to Karen, they will find it.

I wish I’d been able to cheer her up last week, but I left more grateful than ever for her work. And I thought you should know that when we lose someone here, the name is carried with great care, even a measure of grief, by a woman determined that the person you love will not be forgotten.

The names and remembrances that Karen gathers are like that flower on the magnolia tree that our colleague Susan Cantrell’s friends planted for her; its bloom reminding us of our friend is too brief. But it comes back, year after year. As long as the tree lives on, we will always be reminded of Susan. As long as Wabash lives on, so will our memories of those in the Wabash community that we’ve lost, and you can thank Karen Handley for that.

Dan Simmons ’70 listens to a student writer during last week’s Wabash Writer’s Workshop.

Steve Charles—“You just witnessed the single most amazing moment of my life.”

I’ve worked at Wabash almost two decades, seen many young lives transformed, but I’d never heard those words here until Lucas Zromkoski ’15 said them to me during last week’s Wabash Writer’s Workshop.

I should have seen them coming. It was the second day of the three-day intensive workshop and Lucas had just spent more than an hour listening and taking notes while five of his peers and Dan Simmons ’70, the College’s most dedicated and successful professional writer, critiqued Lucas’s short story, “Shatter.” The students were honest, meticulous, tough, and helpful with both their praise and criticism.

Simmons was taking it down to the word.

“I’m going line by line here, but that’s what I do when I like a story,” he said before he offered specific suggestions and wondered aloud about word choices to improve the piece. Lucas listened intently, jotting an occasional note for his revision, determined to make the story better. When Dan finished, fellow student writer Nick Gray ’15 offered his own suggestions.

Then Dan looked at Lucas and said, “God, this is good. Congratulations.”

Lucas calmly nodded his head and joined the students walking out the door for coffee and snacks. A few seconds later, though, he returned to the table. This young man, who a day earlier admitted he’d wanted to be a fiction writer since he was a kid, turned to me with eyes as wide as Christmas morning and said it: “Mr. Charles, you just witnessed the most amazing moment of my life.”

It was that kind of week, that kind of workshop. And it started, of course, with another story.

At dinner before the sessions began, workshop co-organizer and Wabash English professor Eric Freeze had heard more about Dan’s career before he became the professional writer of science fiction classics, mystery, horror, fantasy, and mainstream novels. For 18 years Dan was an elementary school teacher, creator of the APEX program for gifted and talented students. But even back then, Eric learned, Dan would tell stories, beginning a tale at the start of the school year and spinning it daily in such a way that kids who were sick and supposed to be home showed up at class anyway so they wouldn’t miss anything.

So the next night at a public reading that kicked off the workshop, Eric referred to Dan’s penchant for in-class storytelling, concluding: “It’s an astonishing story, not only for how it reveals Simmons’s talents for narrative, but also for what it says about his abilities as a teacher. What it also taught me, what it continues to teach me, is that narrative has a transformative power. It locks us together in a dance—teacher-student, author-reader—and we are changed by that interaction. It is an ancient thing, this storytelling, which dates back to our ancestors, like fire. I’ve seen Dan bring that fire now to our students, and I hope over the next few days of the workshop, to continue to see it burn.”

Then Dan recalled how he wrote in his spare time for years, how he was about to give up when he “gave it one last shot,” attended one last writer’s workshop, and was ‘discovered’ by the writer Harlan Ellison, who told him, “You know you’re a writer when another writer tells you you’re a writer, and you, Simmons, are a writer.”

Then he shared why he was at Wabash that week, volunteering his time, despite the fact the proofs for his novel, The Abominable, were late and waiting on his desk back in Colorado.

“I’m looking for a few good men to be professional full-time writers,” he said, noting there are fewer than 500 such writers in the world. “The world needs writers, and we need a Wabash novelist for the 21st century. I believe that Wabash, the quintessential liberal arts college, is the perfect incubator for the 21st century novelist.”

He said the move from amateur to publishable professional writer was analogous to an electron moving from one orbit to another, a quantum leap very few have made.

Then he and the students went to work.

They shared favorite writers, discussed character and the free indirect style described in James Woods’ How Fiction Works, read passages from Hemingway, James, Flaubert, and others (with Simmons interjecting historical background from each like the rabid researcher he is). They broke down paragraphs by thought units, analyzed word choice and sentence cadence. Dan showed the proper format for submitting manuscripts, the mistakes editors look for to reject stories.

After the first critique circle (to gain admission to the workshop, each student had submitted a manuscript) I could tell something special was happening. Eric has been developing a community of writers since he arrived at Wabash five years ago, training them to be generous with both their praise and detailed criticism, to be thick-skinned enough to hear those things about their own writing, separating themselves from their work so they can get better at the craft.

Lucas Zromkoski talks with Dan Simmons during a critique circle at the Caleb Mills, as Nick Gray, left, listens.

“I’m thrilled when one of my students says they’ve been fiddling with a scene or a sentence until they felt like they were going blind,” Eric said when he received tenure last year. “Something clicks. When they start to feel that compunction, that drive to push themselves to get better, that’s when I know that they’ve become writers and no longer students looking for a grade.”

So the professor had his students ready. Simmons seemed pleasantly surprised.

“That was damned good,” he said after the first circle. “I think you’ve done this before!”

He told Stephen Batchelder ’15, the writer of that piece: “Reading this story made me realize I had to do this workshop, not because you needed my help, but because this story was bold. You have a powerful voice, and a lot of courage.

“There’s some fire in every story this group submitted for this workshop, and for you, that fire was this boldness.”

The story wasn’t finished; it has a long way and many revisions to go, as do all the pieces. But in their critiques Dan and the students had pointed ways forward, and Stephen seemed eager to rewrite.

It was the sort of interaction those at the College who know Dan have envisioned for years. Folks like Alison Kothe and Pat White knew that, regardless of his continued financial success (Dan’s book, The Terror, is in development for a series at AMC), the best gift the College’s greatest practitioner of the art and craft of writing could give was his time with our students.

That goes beyond teaching. When I returned to photograph the sessions after what was supposed to be a short break, I found Dan, the six students, and Eric at a round table in Detchon, laughing and sharing stories way past the allotted 15 minutes. A similar scene was repeated at lunches, with Dan’s wife, Karen, present, and at the final dinner on Saturday night.

Participant Ryan Horner captured one of the intangibles of such moments when he noted, “the workshop took an inaccessible alumnus celebrity and made him accessible to us. We spent three days learning from the best, and then in our free time held wide-ranging conversations that revealed the down-to-earth personalities of Dan and Karen.”

In one of the those conversations, students heard how Karen had encouraged her husband to keep writing, even when he was ready to quit, how she was his not only his best friend but most trusted reader. “Maybe some day you will be so fortunate to find that person,” he said.

Chet Turnbeaugh wrote: “Working with Dan has encouraged me to continue writing—not only the short story I submitted for the workshop, but, in general, to push towards new creative horizons that expand the possibilities of my imagination.

Christian Lopac wrote: “The things we learned showed me the challenges associated with writing, but the workshop also illustrated many of the things necessary to make the ‘quantum leap’ Dan spoke of.

Pictured with Professor Eric Freeze and Dan Simmons ’70 are students from the first Wabash Writers Workshop: Nick Gray, Lucas Zromkoski, Chet Turnbeaugh, Stephen Batchelder, Chistian Lopac, and Ryan Horner.

Eric summed it up: “In his Thursday night talk, Dan mentioned that improvement in writing usually happens in creative spurts, like an electron jumping a valence to a higher orbital plane. I saw this improvement firsthand during the workshop. By the end of the experience, Dan was saying that students were producing publishable work, probably the highest compliment that a writer can pay to a student. The workshop was so successful, with many of the students saying that this was the most intensive and helpful experience of their careers, that we anticipate continuing to offer these workshops in the future.”

And Dan wrote in an email after his return to Colorado, where he was working through the frustrating task of responding to copy edits to his novel The Abominable: “That frustration fades away when I think of how much fun the three days with the students were . . . and what great young men they are. I’m honored and humbled to have had the chance to work with them.”

What’s next? Dan has a couple of generous and once-in-a-lifetime ideas, and both he and Eric have imagined a weeklong workshop for a time when the College is not in session, addressing a frustration voiced by Zromkoski, who after the encouraging yet challenging critique of his story wanted to get to work on a revision immediately, but admitted he had a 20-page paper, Japanese homework, and a yearbook to finish in the next few days.

‘What if we had an entire week to focus only on our writing?” he wondered aloud.

Right now, though, I’m savoring what I witnessed last week. I’ve seen inspiring things during my time at Wabash. I was 20 feet from Kurt Casper when he grabbed Ryan Short’s tip to the end zone and won the Monon Bell with “The Catch.” I was here when the College cancelled afternoon classes and converged on Detchon Center for the first Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work. For more than a decade, every time Bill Placher wrote a book, I got to be one of the first to interview him, a personal lesson in theology and faith from a master writer.

But I’m with Lucas on this one: In my life at Wabash, I just witnessed the single most amazing moment.

Most of the time when a fund-raising event involves a million little details, the students get overwhelmed. With the burdens of their classes, sports, and activities, the fund-raisers tend to be good, but often unrealized ideas.

I should have known Rashaan would see his idea through to a successful conclusion. See pictures from Saturday’s event here.

Rashaan is from Philadelphia and he’s proud of that fact — so proud that his idea to raise money for the Dr. Mary Ludwig Free Clinic was to sell authentic Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. He told me about the famous places in Philly where locals stand in line for hours to get a sandwich, and said he wanted to introduce his adopted hometown of Crawfordsville to what he called “the greatest sandwich in the world.”

You have to meet Rashaan to get a sense of his enthusiasm — for travel, life, studies, and Philly cheesesteaks. He’s like a human tornado who is always on the go. Our conversation about the fund-raiser was a blur. We talked about all those million little details in minutes, and when he left, he was literally undaunted.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be in touch when I get everything in place.”

I didn’t hear from him for about 10 days so I thought the pressures of mid-semester probably got the best of him. I was wrong. He spent that time meeting with our food service partner, Bon Appetit, and lining up workers from the organization he leads on campus, the Muslim Students’ Association.

Everything came together perfectly on Saturday, including the season’s warmest day of the year so far. Under bright sunshine, Rashaan, Tyler Griffin, the MSA, and the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies set up tables outside the Scarlet Inn and decorated the whole area with red balloons.

I arrived shortly before the event started, and Rashaan was busily running all over campus. He couldn’t even stop long enough for a photo. But I found Bill Doemel, who is executive director of the Free Clinic, and we talked about the significance of the fund-raiser.

The clinic will provide free healthcare to uninsured people of Montgomery County, and over the last five years, a dedicated group of volunteers have managed to raise $300,000 in funds to match a $900,000 grant from North Central Health Services. Located on Mill Street near Milligan Park, the clinic is set to open mid-summer.

Right now the volunteers and board members are raising operational funds. That’s what Rashaan and the MSA brothers wanted to support.

Selling five-dollar cheesesteak sandwiches may not seem significant, but think about the symbolism:

Rashaan Stephens is a senior from Philly on his way out of Crawfordsville, yet he wanted to leave a footprint

Rashaan Stephens is a Muslim. The Free Clinic is growing out of the long-standing Christian Nursing Service’s Well Baby Clinic and Adult Clinic.

The Muslim Students’ Association wanted to demonstrate the true tenets of Islam, and those students worked tremendously hard to show they care deeply about this community and all of the people who live here.

Local chef Adam Laskowski manned the flattop in the Scarlet Inn and made it look like he’d been slinging Philly cheesesteaks all his life.

Let’s talk about those sandwiches, too: Beef steak and fresh-baked rolls flown in from Philly. You got your choice of provolone or Cheese Whiz, peppers or onions, or both.

I had mine with provolone and could not believe how terrific the sandwich was. As I sat in the sunshine with my wife, Chris (a Free Clinic board member) and Bill Doemel, I had a sudden urge to get another sandwich. This time with Cheese Whiz, at which Bill grimaced.

I returned with the slightly sloppier, bright orange cheese-covered sandwich and had it polished off in about 90 seconds, which included allowing Chris to sample two bites. It was even better than the first sandwich.

By this point, a large crowd had gathered and the fund-raiser was up and running. Several fraternities provided funds to allow all members to eat there Saturday afternoon.

We left about an hour into the event. Rashaan was still running around like a crazy man making sure every detail was covered. I asked Tyler Griffin how many sandwiches he had sold in that first hour. He laughed (he always laughs) and said, “I have no idea — this many” and he showed me his cash box stuffed with money that will soon help support our neighbors in need.

Needless to say, I left feeling exceptionally proud of Rashaan, Tyler, Nick Gray, and all the students who pitched in to make the Cheesesteak Festival a rousing success.

The story talks about the efforts of our students to give back to the community and provide opportunities to others. What doesn’t appear at first is the opportunity provided to its author, Jocelyn Hopkinson ’15.

Jocelyn
Hopkinson ’15

Jocelyn has spent the past seven months working with the office of communications and marketing at Wabash in addition to serving as the sports editor for The Bachelor. He has learned about writing on deadline by covering football and basketball throughout the school year. He’s also taken the time to write thoughtful pieces such as the Special Olympics story that is now receiving national attention thanks to the NCAA.

You can read Jocelyn’s original story regarding the Special Olympics program here. To vote for Jocelyn’s story and read more about the NCAA Division III partnership with Special Olympics, go here.

Jocelyn is a perfect example of what Wabash students do every day — work in and out of the classroom to make the most of their education.

Bender

Here is how he started his  note: “One of the things I miss most about leaving Wabash is not being able to write professionally. My position as the computers teacher at Fountain Square Academy doesn’t afford me the same opportunities I once had writing for the Bachelor and Public Affairs.”

So what does a Wabash man do? Bender volunteered to help create a newsletter for TFA Corps members in Indy. When he got a list of teachers to profiles, he immediately saw the name of Patrick McAlister ’10.

So here is Kyle’s story – edited by his former Bachelor Advisor and Public Affairs employer, just like old times.

by Kyle Bender ’12

Patrick McAlister has already developed a host of experiences in just three removed from Wabash. He began as a Charlotte 2010 Teach for America Corps Member, but transferred to Indianapolis to complete commitment.

He teaches 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th grade ELA at Indiana Math and Science Academy-North, Indianapolis.

But McAlister has always liked multiple challenges so last fall he managed Caitlyn Hannon’s campaign for Indianapolis Public School Board.

The draw to education first began while he was a Wabash student. Several alums visited campus to reflect upon their time in the classroom as corps members. McAlister was impressed and inspired by their words, particularly how TFA changed their entire perspectives on educational equity.

McAlister teaching in his Indy classroom

“My classmate Gary James and I talked a lot about getting involved in politics and policy,” McAlister said. “We felt that education was the most important thing we could do right out of college. Based upon our backgrounds and experiences, Teach For America became the obvious outgrowth of what we could do.”

Both joined TFA in 2010 – James assigned to Washington D.C., McAlister to Charlotte. Teaching honors chemistry and physics courses his first year, McAlister’s students posted some of highest gains on the Charlotte district test.

However, at the end of his first year, family health issues prompted McAlister to request a transfer closer to his hometown of Fort Wayne.

“I needed to be closer to home, but I also didn’t want to give up pushing forward and fighting for education reform,” he said. “Teach For America was great. They understood my circumstances and I was able to be transferred to Indianapolis. I already knew the city and was also able to teach a subject I really enjoy and can incorporate other interests such as journalism and theatre. I feel very fortunate to be here.”

While teaching ELA at IMSA-North, McAlister was also able to utilize another of his passions to support education reform efforts in the city. A veteran of several political campaigns and former press intern for Senator Evan Bayh, McAlister stepped up as campaign manager for his colleague Caitlyn Hannon (Indianapolis 2010) and her bid for IPS School Board.

“When you get into the business of working campaigns, too often you have to work for whoever pays you,” McAlister said. “I have been fortunate that every campaign I have been a part of, I really believed in the candidate.”

McAlister advises current corps members to not let teaching envelop their entire lives. He suggests trying new hobbies, reading good books for leisure, and enjoying everything Indianapolis has to offer. If not, he says, “you’ll lose your mind.”

Steve Charles

It’s about to show up in your mailbox, and much of it is the work of two Wabash students.

Senior Ian Grant spent last summer interviewing alumni at the Big Bash Reunion, covering events, and reviewing, scanning, and organizing thousands of historic photos (some not seen for decades) from the old News Bureau Archives. As our first intern for Wabash Magazine, he also served as an editorial assistant for an edition comprising some of those archival photos. And as the internship was a partnership between WM and the Wabash English Department, Ian also meet with Professors Eric Freeze and Marc Hudson and spent at least one hour a day writing his own work, separate from the magazine.

It was following one of those hour-long writing sessions in the Scarlett Inn—after two or three spontaneous conversations with alumni, faculty, and staff on the way out—that Ian turned to me and said, “I never realized how connected people are here.”

The moment he said that, I knew we had chosen not only the right student to be our first intern, but a poet/writer who would become practically a co-editor of this issue of the magazine. His way of seeing connections drove not only his own section of the edition, but our creative approach to presenting these photos and inviting alumni, faculty, students and staff to share their own stories.

Senior Riley Floyd already had a sense of the depth of these connections. He had walked into my office last year after studying at Oxford University and noticed two large oars hanging on my wall. As I finished a phone call he studied the oars, and after I hung up he said, “I didn’t realize you had studied at Oxford.”

I hadn’t. The oars had belonged to Wabash President Byron Trippet ’28; he’d brought them home from Oxford in 1934, a gift of his fellow rowers on the Jesus College team. They were hanging in my office because no one else had wanted them.

Riley stood there with his mouth open. He didn’t know much about President Trippet, or that he had studied at Oxford and rowed on the same River Isis that Riley had rowed on during his own time there.  It didn’t take long to persuade Riley to check out the archives and Trippet’s experience and to write about his own, and Riley connected it with yet another: Wabash Professor of History Steve Morillo had rowed during his time at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in the 1980s.

“It’s one boat rowing, and I’m just a part of it,” Riley writes in a personal, thoughtful, reflective piece that makes a fitting conclusion to this issue of the magazine.

I wish I’d figured out a way to include both Ian’s and Riley’s Wabash Magazine work in last week’s Celebration of Student Research, but I couldn’t even attend. I was in Midland, Michigan doing a press check on the very issue that includes their remarkable efforts, watching it flash by my eyes at the rate of 50,000 impressions per hour as the web press made fast work of months of thought, collection, writing, photography, art direction, layout, and proofing.

But I’m proud of this issue of Wabash Magazine because of the way of seeing that these two Wabash seniors bring to us. The connections they made. It’s a very inward-looking edition, asking for stories from alumni, faculty and staff from their own histories and recent pasts. Yet others may wonder at the connections between people here.

Researcher and nationally known speaker Brene Brown says that what ultimately gives meaning to our lives is that very sense of being connected. The Wabash community is a petri dish of connections—a place that reveals and inspires them practically every waking moment. That may be our greatest strength, the hidden secret behind so much of what we do well, the sense of being cared about that our students talk about.

Brown defines connection as “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued.”

When I think of it that way, watching Ian’s sudden realization last summer of this place he’s a part of, and hearing him say, “I never realized how connected people are here,” was one of the most rewarding and reaffirming moments of my 17 years at Wabash.

I hope his way of seeing—and Riley’s—comes through in the edition of Wabash Magazine about to arrive in your mailbox. It’s something to celebrate.

Nothing.

I missed the chance to actually be a day early on deadline on Wabash Magazine for the first time in 17 years. I came to work in the morning, finished an interview with Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts Director Charlie Blaich, then drove to Indianapolis and learned how to sit. Something my dog Jules mastered long ago.

My wife and I sat with my best friend and his family while his wife had surgery for breast cancer at St. Francis Hospital. Two skilled surgeons and their teams operated for more than four hours, and we just sat there. Huddled with our comfortable chairs arranged in a square, talking about trips we’d taken, laughing at the various challenges we’ve each been facing as we get older (You know you’ve become a senior citizen when your conversations begin with how often you get up in the night to pee), catching up about our kids, anything else that came up.

Nothing, really.

I remember observing such moments as a kid when I accompanied my parents or grandparents to the hospital, or to gatherings after funerals, to sit with their friends. How could they stand to sit for so long?

Didn’t they have anything better to do.

Now I understand that they didn’t; they were already doing the most important thing they could do—sitting.

There’s this scene in the film Lars and the Real Girl, where a painfully shy young man whose mother died giving birth to him has turned away from all relationships and orders an inflatable doll online to be his life partner (I know, I know—but watch this movie some time to see a writer and a director turn something potentially perverse and maudlin into just the opposite). At the end of the movie when the doll is ‘dying’, a group of older women from Lars’ church brings food and stays with him as he takes a break from being at his vinyl beloveds bedside. He sits on the couch in his living room as one of the women knits, another embroiders, another looks up every now and then and smiles. Lars finally asks, “Is there something I should be doing?”

“No dear,” one of the women says. “Just eat.”

“We came over here to sit,” another says.

‘That’s what people do when tragedy strikes,” another says. “They come over and sit.”

“Don’t you feel a little better?” the first woman asks.

Lars looks down at his food, at the small gathering of knitting and embroidering women, considers this, and nods.

Lars has to learn this from women, as I did from my wife. When we first heard about the surgery, CJ said, “I’m going to be there.” I felt the same instinct. But when the day finally arrived, one obstacle after another threw itself at my plans.

Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts Director Charlie Blaich
photo by Kim Johnson

What finally convinced me to go was something Charlie Blaich said when we were talking about the deeper purpose of a liberal arts education, how “Wabash will be doing great work if it can play a role in this process of helping you become a good man, and help you with habits and things to think about that will keep you reflecting upon that process the rest of your life.

“We’re always becoming men—it’s not like you get the stamp of manhood when you graduate.

“A good man tries to do good by the world, to serve others,” Charlie added [excerpts from the interview will be featured in the Spring 2013 issue of Wabash Magazine]. “They are loving. They stand humble before the world and hope to have a positive influence, but don’t claim things too overtly for themselves.”

As I transcribed Charlie’s words, I knew that on this particular day, being a good man for me meant setting aside my anxiety about online magazine and blog deadlines and concerns about my viability as an employee here, driving to Indy, and doing nothing.

Even when I had no power to change the outcome of the surgery and or help in any material way.

Any doubts I had about this truth were put to rest soon after we’d arrived, when my friend thanked me for showing up. I dismissed it matter of factly: “Where else would we be?” Even as I remembered how close I’d been to not coming at all.

“Still,” he said, “I really appreciate it. The little community and all, just sitting. People used to do this all the time for each other. Not so much anymore.”

Yet in the waiting room there were several huddles like ours: People sitting—some talking, some silent, all these prayers in the flesh for someone in an operating room just down the hall.

After the surgery and the doctor’s report CJ and I were trudging up to my friend’s wife’s room with her sister, Lisa, when a volunteer said, ‘You’re all immediate family of the patient, right?”

“Yes,” I answered without thinking.

“It’s a new policy, you know. Immediate family only,” she insisted, looking quizzically at me, then Lisa, who nodded. When we got on the elevator Lisa said, “Well, you’ve been part of our lives long enough—you might as well be family.”

The most tangible reward of sitting is getting to see the person you’ve been thinking about all that time after the operation—she’s alive, awake, safe. At least one part of her ordeal is ended. We walked in with about 12 others into the room, each of us wearing our pink visitor sticker (So much for another rule: “Only two allowed in the room at a time”) She smiled for a second when her youngest son Luke told her that he had done the laundry for her that day. I looked around the room at this family doing the most mundane thing families do at such times and to be in the middle of it all felt miraculous.

I was remembering that scene this morning when I realized that CJ and I really had been the only “non-immediate family” there that moment. The family could easily have asked us to wait outside and we’d have understood; we had no ‘right’ to be there. But gathered up in this moment of grace, trust, and gratitude, there we were. And it finally made sense—Where else could I be?

This morning it’s time to get back to work, and later today or tomorrow (depending on when the print copies arrive) I’ll be posting the Winter 2013 issue of Wabash Magazine. I’m proud of the writing and thought that seniors Ian Grant and Riley Floyd put into this; the work that Tim Sipe ’78, Karen Handley, Howard Hewitt, Pat White, Ethan Hollander, Christie Byun, Pete Prengaman ’98, Tom Runge, Greg Castanias, Beth Swift, and David Phillips contributed; the photography of Kim Johnson, Quentin Dodd ’94, Jim Amidon ’87 and others that so enhances this issue. I’m lucky to have had such creative, talented, dedicated collaborators on this project. I’m looking forward to telling you about that work. In some way, it’s about unexpected connections we have to each other, present and past, and it’s a little risky in its own way. Not too far off from yesterday’s lesson.

We mean more to each other than we ever dare say. But if getting older brings any wisdom, it’s that we’d best find a way to say it once in a while. If not in words, then by doing nothing, with those we care most about. Maybe we should add to the Wabash curriculum an essential lesson for a liberally educated person of any age: learning how to sit.

Hao Liu ’11 in front of Kane House on the Wabash campus, 2010

Steve Charles—I wasn’t surprised to read in the current Chronicle of Higher Education about Hao Liu ’11 and the SIE International Summer School program. He co-founded the school when he was a sophomore at Wabash, we featured him in the Spring 2011 issue of Wabash Magazine, Wabash professors have traveled to Shanghai to teach in SIE, and retiring Professor Melissa Butler H’85 has been named the first dean of the program.

I also knew that Hao’s was the first such program in China, and was doing very well.

But I had no idea how well!

The Chronicle calls SIE the first of a “booming enterprise.

“SIE’s success has spawned a slew of competitors,” Chronicle reporters Beth McMurtrie and Lara Farrar write. “New ones are popping up seemingly on a monthly basis.”

And it all started here at Wabash when Hao “realized that Chinese students had little opportunity to take classes for credit at home during the summer, unlike his American counterparts.”

And another of the programs—Summer China Program—was co-founded by Hao’s friend and Wabash alum, Xianwei (Victor) Meng ’10.

In our interview with Hao in the Spring WM, the Wabash philosophy major mathematics minor talked about starting SIE, the differences between doing business in China and the U.S., and the formative two years he spent between his high school and Wabash exploring the business world.

But one part that interview which didn’t make the final feature makes a lot of sense now. I’d asked Hao what first interested him in coming to the U.S. for college:

“When I was a boy, I was not particularly interested in coming to America, though I was constantly influenced by American popular culture, especially music and movies,” he said. “Then in high school I read a book called Harvard Girl by Liu Yiting. It introduced me to American college life and I found it fascinating. I started to do research about how to apply to American colleges.

“I like the spirit of freedom prevailing in the United States, and American entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel were my idols. I became more and more interested in having the education which led to the success of those entrepreneurs.”

So Hao Liu came to Wabash.

Read the Chronicle article here, and our 2011 interview here.

Alison and Charlie in Kane House, her last day before retiring as the College’s Director of Development.

Steve Charles—I just glanced out my Hovey Cottage window to see that Alison Kothe has driven out of the Kane House parking lot (with her labradoodle, Charlie) for the last time as the College’s director of development.

After un-retiring three times to help us successfully complete the $68 million-plus Challenge of Excellence campaign, she’s finally taking retirement seriously this time.

She’s deserves this break. I’m happy for her. But there’s a lump in my throat as I watch her leave.

For 11 years Alison has brought (and taught) a deep understanding that advancement work is ultimately about honoring relationships—honest, heartfelt, mutually beneficial relationships. For Alison, many of those friendships will endure well past her tenure here.

Her work focuses on one person, one moment, at a time. She’s an extraordinary listener and observer. She not only “got” this place, she loves it, and she cares ferociously about our work of teaching and learning and the future it can bring. She holds herself accountable to the relationships she developed with alumni and their families, inspired others to try to be equally caring, and tried her best to teach me to do the same. I will miss her reminders.

My friend Susan Cantrell (who knew Alison from working in Illinois Senator Charles Percy’s office) told me we were lucky to have her here when she first arrived at Wabash in 2001, and Alison has proved her right every day. She eventually took up Susan’s role of having the most recognizable laugh on campus. Not hearing that hearty laugh in classrooms and at campus events and meetings will feel a little like losing them both.

Alison doesn’t like public attention; she didn’t want a fuss made about her retirement, doesn’t trust gushing sentimentality, and she slyly dodged any efforts at a reception.

And that’s fitting, as her best work was always behind the scenes. I glimpsed some of it when I interviewed or visited alumni like Bruce Baker ’66 or Karen and Dan Simmons ’70. But it also came alive in hundreds of face-to-face conversations and emails and phone calls with alumni, students, and faculty; in unexpected kindnesses; in the creative ways she found to connect alumni with the College; in being an advocate for what alumni cared about and finding who at today’s Wabash they would benefit from knowing; in mending fences and listening when alumni were disappointed with their alma mater, then finding a way to begin healing that relationship.

I talked with Alison today for a story I’m writing for the next Wabash Magazine and learned that it was one of Wabash’s legendary professors who directed her toward her vocation at Wabash. So I’ll probably start the story something like this:

Alison Kothe says Wabash Professor John Fischer gave her “the greatest gift” of her working life.

Twelve years ago she had just left an unsatisfying job with a bank when she sat down with Fischer. He had been her brother Jim’s faculty advisor at Wabash and had become a family friend. Fischer told her about an opening in development at the College and suggested she “try something completely new.”

 “John said with a sweep of the arm, ‘Child, come to Wabash,’” Alison recalls. “So I did.”

And Wabash is so much better for it.