Too often when we debate issues on campus, we like to throw the word “tradition” around, myself included. Sometimes a tradition is something fundamental that has been carried forward for a great number of years. The Board of Trustees, for example, has protected the all-male status of Wabash since the founding of the college. From this crux has stemmed a number of smaller traditions that depend on this status. For a time, Wabash was no different from the hundreds of other single-sex colleges in the country; now these traditions make us incredibly unique.
But sometimes something is termed a tradition when it has only occurred for a few years, or at worse, just the previous year. A student body that cycles itself out every four years would of course lend itself to the tendency of having a fairly poor institutional memory. This year, I tried to extend my own institutional memory through research and attempted to share what I learned with the campus. Because so much about Wabash at the fundamental levels (size of student body and faculty, size of fraternity population, rigorous academic culture, and all-male status) has remained the same over all these years, it was an intriguing experiment to try to build a bridge to a Wabash removed almost 50 years into the past with a call to all-class traditions and the return of a senior leadership council.
Now that of course doesn’t sound very progressive. Not only was the all-campus tradition chosen an old one, but it caused major conflicts with a strong fraternity. The Senior Council has done well so far but looks nothing like its 1960’s version and still has to default to the Student Senate. So the big question then is whether or not we are currently progressing and perhaps what we can do to turn our shared sense of nostalgia into progress towards a healthier and happier student body. With my last article, I want to identify a couple of broad areas that my experience here has led me to believe must progress in order to reach towards an ideal residential and academic community.
1. Rivalry vs. Division. Rather than being overly simplistic and just calling for more campus unity, I want to call for more instances on campus of friendly rivalries between groups as opposed to outright division. Having a snowball fight, playing in intramural competitions, and cheering on your pledge class in chapel sing are great examples of rivalries where the community can come together over spirited competition. In order to keep these rivalries friendly, it’s important that we work to promote activities that bring people from different areas on campus together. That’s why class unity is such an important concept and one that the students practiced prior to the 1970’s. Division occurs when a lot of guys in a living unit don’t participate in activities outside their own living unit; and division results in misunderstandings and sometimes major, unfriendly conflicts. This is one problem that the Senior Council can be a key player in by fostering communication and understanding between the upperclassmen leaders of groups between which divisions might exist.
2. Conservative vs. Liberal. I’m sorry. I find this to be the least productive conversation on the table at Wabash College; and it has caused nearly irreparable damage to one of our most fundamental traditions especially over the past 15 years. That tradition, which I think has endured here long enough to be called one, is a student body that supports its faculty and a faculty that in turn supports the activities (student life in addition to academics) of its students. We all know that in 1992 a large number of faculty members wanted the college to admit women and a large number of students wanted to remain all-male; but that debate has been over for long enough. But instead of letting the Board of Trustees have their say and accepting their decision, these stupid broad classifications of “conservative” and “liberal” began being used to describe the students as a body and the faculty as a body. The problem, to be truthful, is that a majority of the faculty and a majority of the students simply don’t fall into either of those classifications. We are all our own individuals, with unique and interesting ideas on a variety of subjects. The beauty of a liberal arts college is that we should feel free to share those ideas with each other and learn from one another. But instead we have my first point – division. I sincerely hope that the students in the future will reach out to the faculty and that faculty will in turn reach out to students to help re-establish these severely damaged ties. Faculty members provide strength through their continuity and as mentors to students. They have always and continue to support the good academic work of their students; but hopefully they will begin to return to participation in student life. And if faculty members disagree with certain aspects of student life, they should work to engage students in conversation about it rather than just turning their backs. The latter does not lead toward progress.
3. Sphinx Club vs. Senior Council. After harping on two broader and more philosophical debates, I want to finish by focusing on the role of specific institutions in our student life going forward. The Sphinx Club serves as our fail-safe. Its institutional structure guarantees a certain number of students committed to the idea of supporting Wabash College in any way possible. When student life on campus is rich and healthy and student apathy is fairly low, history shows the role of the club to be that of a strong support group, providing manpower where needed and sponsoring new activities or reviving good things left abandoned by other groups. When student life, on the other hand, is incredibly apathetic as it seemed to be when I first arrived on campus, Sphinx Club members become the majority of the people who actually want to do stuff on campus. What results is what I saw my freshman year- campus governance by a self-selective student club. Now is that something to blame on the Sphinx Club? No, in fact it’s something to blame on the campus at-large. I would argue based on my own research especially that the club has become an integral and fundamental tradition. To destroy it would severely weaken the state of student life on campus for the foreseeable future. So where does the Senior Council come in? The council is really just the tip of an iceberg that has formed in the past couple of years of numerous student groups across campus working hard and becoming active in Wabash life again. The IFC has just been transferred to the first non-Sphinx Club president in six semesters and has been working feverishly to re-vitalize fraternity life. The IMA and the independent men in general have leapt forward in their involvement on campus. Student Senate had its budget practically used up last fall by club activities compared to about a 70% utilization the year before. It seems we are cycling back to a state of lower campus apathy; and I hope it continues. The conflict, then, between Club and Council should be a no-brainer. The Sphinx Club should support the actions of student government and student organizations and engage groups in discourse about the best way to promote strong traditions on our unique campus. Better yet, perhaps the meeting of the minds within the Sphinx Club can come up with something new or revived on its own that the campus can enjoy. Whatever happens, the Sphinx Club should hail the return of what is hopefully a new era of strong student life at Wabash and leave the politics up to the Senior Council and its Senate counterpart.
Well this was a long one, so I’ll cut the conclusion short. Wabash has been a great place for me to think and to grow. I hope that everyone will make the effort to experience what he can here and not to squander what truly is valuable time.