Photo Albums

Professor of Religion David Blix '70 delivers his colloquium, 'To Dig and to Love Your Home: Teaching at Wabash College,' on Saturday afternoon.

'There is a style in the Wabash classroom, perhaps laid back and casual,' said Blix. 'They will give you sass and question you. But at the same time, they work, and they work hard. The encounter with (unfamiliar) religions is transformative. It's a creative experience of having these traditions bump up against their expectations.'

Said Blix: 'The cardinal rule of teaching is that you can't ask a question and answer it. You have to let the silences form. A lecture, above all, is theater. You can't record a lecture. Once you do, it becomes something else. In a lecture, you are interacting with students. As I lecture, I'm watching students and I see that moment where a face clouds over, so I stop.'

Dr. Todd Rowland '85 presents his colloquium, 'How Can We Incubate Innovation in Health Care.'

'How can we learn from cutting-edge technology,' asked Rowland? 'We live in a world where there isn't a great deal of trust in security. My suggestion is that the health care industry should send you the audit trail. You are the ones to pick up on something that isn't right. It's a partnership between the hospital and patient.'

Ryan Thornberry '05 uses a Yeti bike frame as he delivers his colloquium, 'Chasing Dreams Up A Mountain: My Journey at Yeti Cycles in Carbon Fiber Full Suspension Mountain Bikes.'

'We try very hard to get it right,' said Thornberry. 'Once the frame passes lab tests, it goes to the real world for testing. You can't relplicate actively riding the bike...you have to get on one and try it out.'

'I design both bikes and apparel,' said Thornberry, who was given a birthday serenade by his Class of '05 brothers. 'It's been a cool challenge to be a part of. The liberal arts certainly helps. Every day I'm dealing with engineers, graphics, etc. I'm able to jump around and do a bunch of different things.'

Planned Giving Director David Troutman introduced Albion College President Mauri Ditzler ’75 and his talk, 'A Bright Future for the Liberal Arts.'

Ditzler began his talk recalling the building of Wabash's Hays Science Hall, a project which required the removal of dirt from around the foundation of Center Hall. 'As we dug away the dirt we found a marvelous stone foundation, and for me that's a metaphor for the great foundation of Wabash College that has been there through the years but that we don't always notice.'

Noting that very few private residential liberal arts colleges are found outside the U.S. and are concentrated in the Midwest, Ditzler said, 'You might say we are America's competitive advantage.'

Ditzler reflected on five things private liberal arts colleges do particularly well, including teaching 'our graduates to draw from different disciplines and understand metaphors to solve problems.' He also spoke of the responsibility of private liberal arts colleges to 'take care of the towns' in which they are located.

Former Dean of the College at Wabash, Ditzler visits with Professor of Physics Jim Brown following his talk.

Ditzler said that private liberal arts colleges are 'a great place for students to go find a vocation or calling, something more than a career.'

Vietnam vet and Professor Emeritus of English Tobey Herzog H’11 begins his talk about his recent return to Vietnam with his sons: ‘Vietnam: It’s a Country, Not a War.’ The trip was a gift from his wife, Peggy.

‘The difference between what the trip was intended to be, and what it turned out to be, surprised us,’ Herzog said.

In some places they visited, Herzog said, ‘it was as if the landscape had forgotten there was a war.’ While other places memorialized the war in surprising ways.

Herzog asked veterans in the room to raise their hands, and the audience thanked them for their service.

‘Most of all, I cherish the life-lasting connection my sons and I have forged through this brief time together,’ Herzog said. 'For me, the word ‘Vietnam’ is no longer the name for a war… It is a state of mind and an emotional home, one built on a foundation of experience, memory, and imagination, but above all on the love of a father, sons, and brothers!’ Here Herzog catches up with Steven Gross ’90.

Larry Niemann '65, along with Houston Mills '85, spoke on the safety of air transportation.

Former Aviation Safety Inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration, Larry Niemann '65 told of how an honest and open look at air transportation has helped make air travel one of the safest ways to travel. When mistakes happen, ‘we sit down and try to figure out how it’s not going to happen in the future. On a really bad day there’s an aircraft accident. I was on duty the day American Airlines 191 crashed at O’Hare – a bad day in aviation but we learned from that. Not only was I involved in the investigation I was actually standing in the smoldering wreckage 15 minutes after it happened.’

Houston Mills '85, Airline Director of Safety for the United Parcel Service, presented alongside Larry Niemann '65 on air transportation safety.

Houston Mills '85 said, 'you are more likely to get into an automobile accident on the way to the airport than on the flight itself.'