Storytelling comes naturally to Noah McRoberts ’25.
“If there’s a core universal human thing, it is storytelling,” said McRoberts. “Everyone has a background, a lens through which they see the world. The music, the theater, the film, they all color that lens.”
Alongside his involvement as a reporter for The Bachelor, McRoberts also produces the “Keepin’ Up with the Theta Delts” podcast, which features current students and alumni of Theta Delta Chi fraternity.
Associate Professor of Religion Jonathan Baer was unsurprised by McRoberts’ talents behind the microphone, having also seen him in action as the play-by-play announcer for the Wabash College Video Network’s home sporting events.
“He’s a skilled conversationalist,” said Baer, one of McRoberts’ mentors and a faculty advisor to Theta Delta Chi. “He’s become quite captivated with the power of narrative to shape our worldviews. He’s developed a real love for stories.”
Playing the easy-going conversationalist wasn’t always that simple for McRoberts. Coming from a homeschooled background didn’t initially match up with his experience of the campus’ fraternity life, as he lived as an independent and served as a resident assistant during his first two years.
“The culture shock initially scared me,” he said. “By my junior year, independent life started to get a little bit disenchanting. I was looking for a new group.”
All it took was an invite from Theta Delta Chi’s president to reconsider, and soon McRoberts found a new story to tell about himself.
Comparing student life as an independent to his time in the fraternity, McRoberts finds value in both chapters of his four years on campus. What he struggled to foster in the residence halls suddenly became unavoidable in the fraternity: learning to live in common with others.
“To encounter people you disagree with is 100% a good thing,” he said. “The number one thing you’ll always be doing in life is working with people and trying to make relationships better. Fraternity life is better for that because it gives you more opportunities to learn relationship dynamics. When you’re having every single meal with the same group of guys, you get to know them pretty well.”
McRoberts often sought to find common ground with friends running in different circles early in his Wabash career. He appreciated talking with fellow students who held differing viewpoints.
McRoberts remembers long talks with one of his best friends, Thomas Schnerre ’24, at the Newman Catholic Center.
“We would shoot (ideas) back and forth,” McRoberts said. “There were informal nights sitting on the Newman Center porch, where we would just talk for hours. I enjoyed the give and take of sharing different theologies. That was one of the first kind of pure liberal arts experiences I had at Wabash. That first experience with people who think differently than me.”
The connections with others and the consideration of new ideas are what captivates the religion and Classics double major.
“It’s the why, rather than the what,” he said.
“I like that distinction,” Baer said. “In the humanities, we emphasize that question: Why? Noah understands that deeper than many students. He is hungry to learn and grow in ways that are enlivening. He has a restless, searching spirit that pushes him to dig.”
The restless spirit identified by his mentor is evident in McRoberts’ plans following graduation.
“The end goal isn’t extremely defined,” said McRoberts, who submitted applications for graduate school and is considering careers in teaching, film, script writing and even architecture.
One certainty for McRoberts is his desire to employ what he has gained from telling peoples’ stories at Wabash in whichever community he finds himself.
“Something I’ve learned a lot about myself is being intentional about the story that you see yourself playing a part,” he said. “That’s the whole liberal arts thing: you take ideas from this domain or that domain, and you kind of add them together. That’s what a Wabash education does best.”