MY CLASSMATE TOM MARTELLA’S WORDS in this issue about “a life of place” got me thinking. I’d call my own version of what Tom is talking about “leading a liberal arts life.” It’s not much different from Tom’s way of seeing things. Both are the result of a Wabash education preparing us to make the best of the places life takes us.
Or, as the New Testament says, to “grow where you are planted.”
Both are about doing something productive and sharing our lives.
Both have one true measure of success: Impact people for the good and leave this “place” better than you found it.
For some of us, the “doing something” part is our full-time work. For others, the job is something we enjoy, tolerate, or endure, and the real calling comes after hours.
Working at a local steel mill? Job.
Spending extra time afterward coaching a youth soccer team or supporting the local free health clinic (like right here in Crawfordsville). That’s sharing a life. A liberal arts life.
Let me give you some Wabash examples:
• Bob Einterz ’77 is a practicing physician, dean, and teacher in Indianapolis. It’s his job and also his calling. He takes his skills halfway around the world to help people struggling with HIV, and he teaches others to do the same. That, my friends, is sharing.
• Professor Eric Wetzel does much the same with our Global Health Initiative. He pursues his invertebrate research in Peru, but he also shares himself when he leads yet another group to that country to provide basic health services.
• Herm Haffner ’77 is a sales consultant who, with his wife, runs a consulting company. Haffner is also an avid Habitat for Humanity leader-volunteer.
• Greg Castanias ’87 is an accomplished attorney (as is his wife, Jane) who has appeared multiple times before the Supreme Court. Greg and Jane also are national leaders in the field of adoption.
Leading a liberal arts life means we continuously study, learn and put the newfound knowledge to use. If you think critically, you’ll act responsibly. If you act responsibly, a natural result is to live humanely. And if you have what it takes to push it to the next level, you’ll lead effectively.
And that takes me back to the words I have heard in Chapel so many times when the speaker is talking about Wabash. They ring as distinct and clear as the Monon Bell: “This Good Place.”
— Tom Runge ’71, director, Alumni and Parent Programs, runget@wabash.edu