When people ask me about my dad, I usually choose words like dedicated or devoted to describe the way he approached his career. He was an old school guy in that respect. He worked in personnel and safety in agribusiness throughout his career, and always believed the best way to tackle problems was face to face. Email? Are you kidding? I'm not sure he knew how to turn it on!
As his career progressed his industry changed radically with new technology. In the last portion of his career, he directed corporate safety initiatives for the poultry giant, Tyson Foods. What I remember most was how he effectively merged his old school manner with the new technology.
It was great touring with him, for example, the processing plant that produces all of Burger King's chicken products. I watched carefully as he dealt with every employee in that old school way-treating each like a close friend. And yet he marveled at the robotics and automated processing lines, and bragged about the technology as if he was the public relations guy!
So what does that have to do with Wabash?
For some reason I was thinking about my dad's professional style when I toured for the first time our stunning new science building on the Wabash campus.
As I walked through the building, which sits on the precise footprint as old Waugh Hall where I took biology and physics courses years ago, I had an odd feeling come over me. The building felt old and familiar, but at every turn were new technologies, improved laboratory equipment, and ventilation.
And now, as I describe this remarkable new structure, I feel like my dad gleefully extolling the virtues of Tyson Food's automation.
Just as my dad couldn't explain the robotics in detail, I don't know what makes the new building tick. I am sure of one thing-Wabash students will have state-of-the-art facilities at their disposal.
Best of all, the grand tradition of students interacting with faculty, face-to-face, is better than it ever has been. Faculty and student research labs are side-by-side in the new building, which will further enhance the valuable relationships formed between teachers and students.
The College's Strategic Plan calls for more opportunities for students to collaborate on faculty research. The new science building gives them the place to make it happen.
Up on the third floor of the science building is a lecture room shaped in a half-moon with raked seating. As I walked into the room for the first time I was awestruck-not by the room itself but by its view. There, in this state-of-the-art lecture hall with hanging video projection systems and individual data ports at every seat, were floor to ceiling windows with the most magnificent view of the old Center Hall bell tower.
Here was yet another example of the merging the old and the new, high tech and classic standards.
No wonder I was thinking about my dad giving me a tour of a Tyson plant when I walked through the new Wabash science center!
I went back a day or so later after my tour and still thinking of that confluence of old and new. This time I saw people. Friends like David Polley, Aus Brooks, David Krohne, and John Munford, who have been on the faculty since I was a student. They work side by side with our new biology faculty, bridging the way we've always taught the sciences with new teaching styles and techniques.
Once again I was reminded of what wonderful teaching and facilities we offer our students-with administration, trustee, and alumni support of all that happens here.
Like my dad, I'm not always sure how or why it works, but I sure am proud that it does.