172nd Commencement Honorary Degree Luncheon
We gather to celebrate the recipients of one of the College’s highest forms of praise, the honorary doctorate.
Gentlemen, Wabash is proud to honor you today. Two of you are proud sons of Wabash College and one of you is a proud son of Crawfordsville. All three of you have distinguished yourselves in the life of the mind, heart, and spirit we foster at Wabash. You have also remained loyal to the place that has nurtured you and shaped who you are and what you have become. For that admirable filial piety, and for your living of the liberal arts, for your achievements, and for your lives well lived as a model to our students, we salute you with gratitude and joy.
—President Pat White, welcoming honored guests to this year's Honorary Degree Luncheon prior to the College 172nd Commencement ceremony Sunday, May 16, 2010
Will Shortz, Wabash honors you today not only for your preeminence in your field, for your fame and great success. We honor you because you have engaged in a life of the mind, a life committed to the play of the mind. You have taught us again to play, that the life of the mind is not a burden, but a passion, not an onerous duty, but the natural state of human experience; thinking and creating are what we have been created to do.
In this you are one with the great teachers, poets, and scientists in human history, and Wabash is proud to honor you today as an exemplary practitioner and devoted teacher of the liberal arts, of the joy that can come to us all when we enact what it means to be human.
—President Pat White introduces 2010 Honorary Degree Recipient Will Shortz
In this you are one with the great teachers, poets, and scientists in human history, and Wabash is proud to honor you today as an exemplary practitioner and devoted teacher of the liberal arts, of the joy that can come to us all when we enact what it means to be human.
—President Pat White introduces 2010 Honorary Degree Recipient Will Shortz
When I was in ninth grade here in Crawfordsville, i read about a recreational mathematics course that was just starting at Wabash, and I was fired with interest in puzzles and recreational mathematics, so I showed up at the meeting. The professor recognized everyone in the room as a student at Wabash, but he didn’t recognize me. He fixed an eye on me and asked, “Are you a freshman?”
And I said, "Yes."
It is a joy to be here, i’m greatly honored to receive this honorary degree, and I so much appreciate it
—Will Shortz, speaking at Sunday's Honorary Degree Luncheon
Although I am the only recipient here today who did not graduate from Wabash college, but Wabash College played an important role in my upbringing. I spent a lot of time at the Wabash College Library. This is where I discovered some great old puzzle books, did my early research on the history of puzzles, and I know that spurred my interest when I went on to get a degree in enigmatology. And the first job in my life was tending tennis courts at Wabash College.
Fathers of two of my three best friends from high school were professors here, and my third best friend is Jack Oest, whose grandfather was Professor Norwood Brigance, one of the great names at Wabash.
Bill Cook, you are a lesson in the speed with which someone can become a legend.
In just two years of teaching at Wabash, on leave from your position as a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY Geneseo, you have won the hearts of students and colleagues and the admiration of all by your joyous passion for learning and your commitment to teaching.
Of course, this is not a sudden flowering. You have been preparing to be a legend for a long time, and your love and devotion to Wabash and liberal arts education began to have a great influence on your alma mater long ago in your student days. We are proud to honor you today for a life lived in deep study and passionate teaching and care for young people in your family, in the university and colleges you have served, and in every encounter.
—President Pat White, introducing Professor Bill Cook ’66 (in photo above), 2010 Honorary Degree Recipient
—President Pat White, introducing Professor Bill Cook ’66 (in photo above), 2010 Honorary Degree Recipient
My first class as a college student was a lecture in Cultures and Civilizations with Professor John F. Charles. Suddenly, the world was bigger than I knew—even though I went from a high school of 5,000 to a college of 800. Wabash grew on me as it has grown on so many thousands of men, and every one of those men is different.
By the time I finished my freshman year, I was excited about learning in a way I’d never been before.
By the time I finished my sophomore year, I abandoned this idea of law school, and knew I wanted to be a professor. No professor at Wabash ever said to me, "You know kid, you ought to be a professor." I simply watched them, listened to them, and observed them, and recognized they lived lives of joy and consequence, and that’s the kind of life I wanted to live.
—Professor Bill Cook ’66, speaking at Sunday's Honorary Degree Luncheon
You have achieved a distinguished career in the law. Some of your clients have been among the most famous people and corporations of our times. Today’s honorary degree praises your achievements in your profession.
But even more we honor you as a profile in courage for our students. Because when you were younger than our graduates today you set out on a life of attention and service to those whose rights are threatened, in your work for voter registration in the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi.
I tell every entering class that Wabash is a place that will expect leadership and responsible action not at some point in their future development, but here and now. David, you have modeled in your life that readiness for action, that kind of engagement and commitment to, in the words of our mission statement, “act responsibly."
—President Pat White, introducing 2010 Honorary Degree Recipient David Kendall ’66
I am very honored by this award. Wabash was a catalytic place for me, it was the place where all the book reading I’d done in high school was now suddenly prized—we got to do that reading in classes, people talked about these things. It is an absolutely fabulous place.
—David Kendall ’66, speaking at the 2010 Honorary Degree Luncheon.
—David Kendall ’66, speaking at the 2010 Honorary Degree Luncheon.
In his Baccalaureate sermon, Rev. Harter described the college experience as the beginnng of a learning experience, and I think one of the most important things about Wabash was how many interests it kindled.
I’m not the first person to observe the difference betweent the word graduation and commencement as a description of this day. At a place like Wabash, it is a commencement.
—David Kendall, speaking at the 2010 Honorary Degree Luncheon