If there are silver linings to this disruption, perhaps one is its impetus to reflect on our traditions—to abstract meaning from the motions we normally go through as we consider how to rework them and to anticipate how much more meaningful they’ll be when we’re back.
— Associate Professor of Political Science Shamira Gelbman
Social distancing isn’t natural for me—or for any of us. Ours is an education that is built on face-to-face interactions, to the ebb-and-flow of conversation, to sharing the same air and space. Social distance is what we seek to dispose of here.
I am proud of my Wabash colleagues and, frankly, the educators around the world—from kindergarten teachers to PhD dissertation advisors—who are attempting to build the virtual pedagogical plane in flight.
We will need to imagine new possibilities for the world we will have when this ends. Consider what we ought to become in the aftermath of this. Because all hands will be at the oars.
We need to be kind to each other and ourselves now. To paraphrase the playwright Paula Vogel, when our leaders fail us, compassion won’t. When science fails to deliver what we need today, empathy won’t. When this all becomes too much, kindness will not fail.
— Associate Professor of Theater, Faculty Marshal Jim Cherry
Young men, broadly speaking, have not suffered historic disadvantage. Indeed, quite the opposite. But if you look at the emerging difference in educational outcomes from high school to college to graduate school, men are no longer the horses to bet on. Too many young men are under-served by our current system of education and under-empowered to take on meaningful and positive roles in our societies and communities.
We as a society don’t ask young men what kind of men they want to be. And, I am certain we don’t give them the tools to truly answer it.
There is a stillness to Wabash that benefits young minds and allows young men to figure out and hear their calling.
There is so much grace, joy, and sense of purpose here at Wabash, it is simply beyond our ability to measure it. That’s why Lora and I have always said that we have two daughters, Abby and Meredith, and 900 sons.
— 16th President Gregory Hess
Community is a gift. It happens. What I miss about our community is the chance encounter, the sidebar conversation, the casual insight shared over a meal or over coffee. Those things matter a lot because each of you matters a lot.
In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps us see how quickly we make an idolatry of community and are prone to romanticizing it. “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that community, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”
In the context of Wabash today, we can’t romanticize how good we used to have it. We had it good when we saw each other on campus because each of you matters. And in that sense, NOTHING has changed. Each of you still matters, every bit as much on April 2 as you did on February 1. So community is kept alive when you spend your mental and spiritual energy not on waxing philosophic on how great it would have been to get one last game, or one last walk in the arboretum, or whatever else; but when you think of the needs of your brother, and you think of the goods in your pocket, heart or mind, and you help the two to meet. That’s the stuff of real Wabash community.
Mercy must abound. It is REALLY hard to concentrate. Be merciful on yourself. We are all doing the best we can, if we’re doing the best we can. Let mercy abound, and trust in each other that we will get through this together.
—Professor of Religion Derek Nelson ’99
Senior Chapel Talk
When I came to Wabash, I can promise you I never imagined playing soccer in the hills of Lima, Peru, with a bunch of children I had never met with a group of guys that I didn’t know two years prior.
—Owen Doster
All the time we have spent together has really been the most educational part of my experience. This has been an exceptionally special place and an exceptionally special four years.
—Waleed Elrefai
Wabash is no place for one-way relationships. The community is strong because of the people who make it up. Even after you have graduated, the most important thing about Wabash is the brotherhood.
—Matt Fajt
Solving complex problems means we need to think in multi-dimensional and creative ways. The relationships we build, the skills we develop, and the “always fight” attitude we have will help us through this strange and difficult time.
—Ben Kiesel
View weekly Chapel Talks on the Wabash College YouTube channel.