At gatherings of college presidents, I find myself a member of a few informal affinity groups—for example, fellow leaders of Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) and NCAC schools, and former chemists. The most interesting is the group of small-college presidents who began their presidencies during the summer of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. We share a strong bond.
In the week prior to Commencement, our informal group exchanged emails to arrange dinner at an upcoming conference, and it got me thinking about the Wabash Class of 2025 and their journey to and through Wabash during COVID-19.
In some ways, they are our first fully post-pandemic graduates, arriving in August 2021. Showing maturity and resilience, this group of young men led us out of that difficult period in ways that no one could have imagined when they arrived on campus.
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the Class of 2025 is that they made the choice to attend Wabash having never spent a night on campus! When I ask most alumni how they decided to attend Wabash, the story invariably involves an overnight visit during Honor Scholar Weekend, Monon Bell, or any number of the key events that anchor the College calendar. But our overnight-visit calendar was completely blank during the spring semester of 2021.
In retrospect it should have been no surprise that the group of men who enrolled then—deprived of chances to authentically experience Wabash—was the smallest it had been in about 20 years. These men taught us something before they even arrived by reminding us how important visits to campus are in demonstrating the Wabash value proposition.
That motivated Dean for Enrollment Management Chip Timmons and his team to rethink and reinvigorate our visit programs. Working across campus with faculty, coaches, staff, and students, they have developed best-in-class programming typically featuring our current students front and center.
The payoff has been huge, with the majority of this fall’s entering class having visited campus three or more times.
The small but bold group of young men who formed the Class of 2025 immediately got to work. Their achievements in the classroom were many. Despite being a small class, they produced a record number of Fulbright Fellowships this spring (nine semifinalists and six finalists). And they graduated with the second-highest four-year graduation rate in the modern history of the College.
Contributing to campus life, however, is where the Class of 2025 really shone. While I remain proud of the ways in which our campus adapted to maintain in-person classes and minimize disruptions to students’ academic progress, there is no doubt that much of what makes Wabash special was put on hold in the early years those men were on campus. We lost concerts, sports, clubs, and countless opportunities for fellowship to COVID-19. As the pandemic waned, it became clear that the disruption had left us out of practice and had interfered with the ways in which traditions are passed down.
A great example is the publication of The Bachelor. During COVID-19, a small band of students managed to push out a weekly PDF of varying lengths. Under the leadership of this year’s seniors—Sam Benedict, Ethan Wallace, and Logan Weilbaker, specifically—the 12-page newspaper earned the state’s top honor for small-college newspapers three years in a row.
My favorite way to measure the work of the Class of 2025 is in decibels. I am a big believer that the best antidote to the cold, dreary Indiana winter is to gather under Chadwick Court’s bright lights to yell and scream one or two nights a week at home basketball games. When DePauw came to town in late January, two seniors led us to resounding victory—Vinny Bucilla scored 20 points and Noah Hupmann blocked five shots—and the energy that shook the gym kept us going for days.
Cheers by and for the Class of 2025 returned at the end of this semester as well. Joy, laughter, and loud applause filled the Wabash Chapel on awards night in April. That decibel level was then topped two weeks later as the graduates cheered on each other at Commencement, filling Little Giant Stadium with the resounding sounds of brotherhood.
Scott Feller
President | fellers@wabash.edu