Wabash FYI

Steve Charles—Yesterday I did one of the wisest things I’ve done in a long time.

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.

Mark Miles ’76 talks with WM at the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership offices in Chase Tower.
photo by Joni Jeffries

Steve Charles—I love it when writers, poets, and artists come to campus, especially the Q & A sessions that follow readings and openings. It’s a chance to ask these accomplished practitioners of their art: How’d you do it? What inspires you? How did you put this all together?

I felt similar anticipation visiting Mark Miles ’76 last week in his soon-to-be-vacated office in Indianapolis’ Chase Tower. Here’s a man whose work helped elect a mayor and a senator; brought to Indy the Pan Am Games, the catalyst for the sports-fueled renaissance of the city; reshaped and revived (and renamed) the RCA Championships, then led the international organization of tennis players that play there; brought the Super Bowl to town; harnessed the power of Central Indiana corporate leaders for visionary initiatives; and is on track to help get a mass transit plan passed in the legislature—in Indiana!

I wanted to know how he does it: How does he pull people together to get such good things done? Does he consider his work a vocation and, if so, what is that calling? What could students and young alumni learn from a career trajectory that reads like the College’s mission statement: to think critically, lead effectively, act responsibly, and live humanely? And what about his latest challenge: Today is Miles’ first day as CEO of Hulman & Company, parent group of the Indy Racing League and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I learned two of Miles’ gifts the minute we met: He puts others at ease, and he listens well. In the midst of moving with an office half in boxes, he welcomed photographer Joni Jeffries and me. He gave us more than the allotted hour and a generous conversation which will be part of an article you can read in the Spring 2013 issue of Wabash Magazine.

One of my favorite exchanges from that conversation came about after Miles’ ability to see potential connections between people reminded me of the way poets and writers see the world:

Miles: Sometimes I’m in a room with people who are clearly much brighter, and I’ll be amazed at how they don’t connect the dots and see where that’s going to go.

You have a different way of seeing the world.

Miles: It’s like chess—an ability to see where things are going.

Can it be taught?

Miles: I think it can be learned; I don’t know if you can teach it. You can absorb it.

Miles named former Lilly Endowment, Inc. President, former World Food Programme Executive Director, now Indiana Pacers President Jim Morris as a mentor, recalling a conversation with him as Miles was beginning his efforts with the Pan Am Games:

Miles at his now-old office in Chase Tower.
photo by Joni Jeffries

“I thought we were going to talk about the Pan Am Games, and he starts telling me about the canal that we’re going to try to get developed, what we’re going to do in terms of housing at Lockfield Gardens, and 20 other things I can’t remember. My head was swimming. He has this ability to think of all these irons in the fire, and how we could connect them, and how they might have a greater relevance in a bigger context. A really extraordinary guy—that vision, that skill set. That’s a good example of someone I learned a ton from.”

Our students, faculty, and alums could learn a ton from Miles. So will I as I write the story. Thanks to him, and to Executive Assistant Linda Whitaker, for fitting us in during this busy time of transition.

And Miles’ vocation?

“How about ‘challenge hunter,’” he said.

Read more in the Spring 2013 WM.

President and Mrs. White singing with the Wabash College Glee Club.

Howard W. Hewitt – Every year the College makes a special effort to get out a Holiday Greeting to all alumni and friends of the College.

Last year Adam Bowen and I thought we should do something a little different and we made a full video with the Glee Club that served as our official ‘greeting.” You can see that video from last year below.

Last night we shot the 2012 Holiday Greeting with President and Mrs. White. The greeting will go live on the web and linked through email to alumni and friends very close to Christmas.

It takes a lot of planning and enduring a bit of stress, but its a fun project. The only clue here is the photo above. You’ll have to wait to see what the first couple and Glee Club members are singing and how the greeting plays out.

We think you’ll love it!

Howard W. Hewitt, Chicago, ILL. – Jeremy Bird walked around the quiet and largely empty sixth floor of the Prudential Building in downtown Chicago. He explained the mechanics of President Barack Obama’s re-election victory.

He shared stories, spoke of co-workers with great admiration and fondness, and often minimized his own contributions.

How many people can say they had a key hand in electing the President of the United States – twice? The St. Louis native and Wabash graduate can say just that.

Bird was a field organizer in 2008 orchestrating one of the campaign’s most important primary victories in South Carolina. He led the field effort in Ohio during the general election. After the 2008 Obama win, Bird worked for the Democratic Central Committee and then Organizing America. When it came time in 2011 to restart the Obama campaign Bird was on board and named the National Field Director.

He worked the election out of Obama’s Headquarters in downtown Chicago.

He compared the 2012 campaign to his Wabash education. “We knew we couldn’t run the same campaign,” he said Monday. “We had to rethink everything and that’s what Wabash guys do.”

The Wabash religion major and Harvard Divinity School graduate believes the President’s second term will be very different than his first. In 2008, Bird said, the President had to hire and appoint people to deal with the ecomonic crisis. Bird said the President can take a broader view organizing his leadership team now.

Media Center’s Adam Bowen taping Bird’s tour of Obama Headquarters

The sprawling headquarters was alive up until election day with 500-600 people working on the campaign. The staff now is down to 50 or so working on a legacy project to document the Obama ground strategy.

Personally times couldn’t be much better for Jeremy Bird. He married in 2010, lives in downtown Chicago, and will be in demand for future campaigns. He wants to continue community organizing work either for social issues or electing political candidates.

The Wabash website will feature an extensive video interview over the holidays on Bird’s success. He is expected to return to campus in the spring for a public talk about the campaign.

Adam Bowen did yeoman’s work getting lots of Jeremy on video for the upcoming feature. And it was fun for both of us to have Wabash freshman Derek Andre along to write a story about the experience for The Bachelor.