A Culture of Trust
I grew up in an atmosphere of trust and responsibility.
Being the son of a minister probably had something to do with that. When I came to Wabash as a freshman, I joined another family based on trust and responsibility: my Wabash family. I am not sure exactly why I felt so at home during my first campus visit, but this culture of trust and responsibility is part of the reason.
We are immersed in a culture of trust; it is part of the fabric of Wabash.
I recall the way that Dean Norman Moore, Wabash Dean of Students from 1959 to 1984, interacted with students. If Dean Moore saw something he didn’t approve of, more often than not he would contact that fraternity’s president or the leader of that particular group and ask him to take care of the matter. And, that was that. He trusted the student leaders, and they rose to the occasion.
Take the painting of the Senior Bench: The tradition has varied through the years, but students still govern the process. These days the Bench can be painted by any fraternity or group, and this can cause some trying and tense moments.
Recently, a fraternity painted the Bench without realizing that another student group had just painted it earlier in the day. When that group discovered the repainting, the space around the Bench became extremely tense. With Dean of Students Mike Raters’ encouragement, the presidents of the two groups met over coffee, and after hearing each other’s side of the story, they developed a solution: The fraternity and the student group joined forces one evening to paint the Bench together.
They did not refer to the “Manual on Senior Bench Painting”—that doesn’t exist. They simply trusted and respected each other.
Two moments during my own student years stand out as examples of this culture. The first happened at Delta Tau Delta when I was on the Rules Committee and had to levy a fine on my friend and roommate to cover the cost of a wooden door that he had broken. He was not happy with me, but that didn’t last long. He took responsibility for his actions.
This culture of trust is modeled by the close relationships between professors and students. In my second example, one semester I was scheduled to have two finals on Monday, two on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday morning. Hoping to even out my schedule, I asked Biology Professor David Krohne if I could move the final exam in his ecology class from Tuesday to Thursday. He told me that I could take it Thursday if I agreed to not ask others in the class about the test contents (since the rest of the class was taking it Tuesday). I agreed, and that was it—no signing my name to a contract, no polygraph test, and nobody checking to see if I kept my word. I didn’t ask anyone about the test contents, and I took the test Thursday. No questions asked.
And if there had been any doubt, my score on that test proved that I had, indeed, kept my word!
In a world grown cynical and with fewer people willing to own their actions until they are caught red-handed, the trust and responsibility woven into the culture of Wabash makes all the difference for our students and our alumni. And because that culture is portable—something our graduates can take with them wherever they go—it makes a difference in their communities too.
— STEVE HOFFMAN ’85 Director, Alumni and Parent Programs
hoffmans@wabash.edu