Hidden Gems of the Wabash Web Site
In August we changed the look of the Wabash Web site to provide an “entrance” more appealing and navigable for prospective students and more user-friendly for alumni.
WM asked Web site designer Kim Johnson for her “must-see” additions to the alumni pages:
Alumni Voices
This alumni “blog roll” is totally new to the site. Any alumnus with a blog is welcome to post a link and description.
Curious what your fellow alumni are writing about? Check out at www.wabash.edu/ alumni/voices
Uncensored
One of the best places for a fresh, honest look at Wabash from an “uncensored” perspective, here you’ll find links to all of the College’s blogs, photo galleries, The Bachelor, Wabash Magazine, weekly Chapel Talks, and much more. Wabash men speak for themselves and this is the place to hear what they are saying at www.wabash.edu/voices/
More Hidden Gems in WM Winter 2012.
“Piqued My Interest”
I have never written to your magazine before, but the Spring 2011 edition is one of the best efforts you have ever put together. I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed it; I read it from cover to cover.
I’ve never been especially interested in Asian travel, but this issue has definitely piqued my interest in exploring this old and complicated culture. Our sons graduated in 1992. We have kept a close eye on Wabash and always will.
Congratulations on a job well done.
—Pam Green
Days in Greece
When WM wrote Professor Emeritus of Classics Leslie Day in October for an update on her recent publications,
we received this email from Greece and the epicenter of the European debt crisis, where she is continuing her writing
and research and where Professor Emeritus of Classics Joe Day is Elizabeth Whitehead Visiting Professor at
the American School of Classical Studies:
Greetings from Athens, where the helicopters are circling Syntagma Square because of demonstrations during a two-day general strike (no transportation—no flights or boats, no taxis or buses; small businesses remain open, so one
can still eat!). Every street corner is piled 10 feet high with garbage (the result
of a three-week garbage strike).
Fortunately, we are sitting in the library, mostly unaffected by what is going on.
Hope all goes well there.
The Pottery from Karphi: A Re-examination, edited by Professor Leslie Day, was published by the British School at Athens
in September and has been praised as “a significant contribution to our overall understanding of Early Iron Age Crete.”
Homecoming 1969 and ?
In WM Spring 2011 we asked readers to help us identify students pictured in two photos, one from Homecoming 1969, another from a date we did not know. Readers’ responses were both helpful and moving:
Thumbing through the current issue, I got to the two photos you had requested comments on and was pleasantly surprised to see my brother, Peter Patchell, front and center in front of Dr. [President Thad] Seymour. Peter graduated in 1973. I’m sad to say that he died in an auto accident the following August.
The return of old memories is one of the great things that happens almost every time I read Wabash Magazine. In this case, one is heart-wrenching, the other much more enjoyable.
Dr. Seymour led Wabash my four years there and graciously drove his 1936 Packard for my wedding to Natalie, DePauw Class of 1974.
The stories come back in a flood when triggered by something as simple as a photo. Keep up the good work.
—Chris Patchell ’74,
Kalamazoo, MI
Back from three weeks in Alaska and working my way through the latest issue of WM. Great reading about China and
the various connections with Wabash.
The photo on page 68 is of my Delta Tau Delta pledge brothers during our freshman year, 1962. You can see the
handheld poster with the fraternity name on it toward the background.
The four people who are the focus of the picture are (from left) Max Mason ’66, Jim Gineris ’66, Tom Moorman ’66, and Will Grimes ’66.
Tom graduated with me in 1966 and served in Vietnam with the Marines. Others from my class who went into
the Marines were Frank (Lefty) Grove and Mike Hall. Mike was a campus leader and died tragically in Vietnam. Several
of us (including me) named our sons Michael after him.
—Dennis Whigham ’66,
Crofton, MD
Professor Freezer or Professor Winter
I could not have been more surprised to see the picture of Robert Winter [Class of 1909], in Wabash Magazine [“One of Us,” WM Spring 2011]. I wondered if this man might be the famous professor my friend, Huang, had told me about—an American teacher who had spent most of his life in China.
So I sent the picture from the magazine to Huang, who confirmed that Robert Winter was the man well-known in China, but by the name of Professor Freezer. We talked for two hours about this brave man, the founding father of China’s English as
a Second Language programs.
Why Mr. Winter wanted his students to call him Professor Freezer is a mystery. What is clear is that
he founded the English program at Tsinghua University.
He was also the first person in China to publicly declare his identity as a homosexual, and not during the liberal post-Mao
period, but during the Proletariat Cultural Revolution, the most tumultuous era in Chinese history.
Huang spoke of Mr. Winter’s bravery in trying to protect his partner, a Chinese scholar, from being beaten by the Red Guards—an act that led to Mr. Winter’s unemployment and confinement to a labor camp for five years.
His teaching, his long-term commitment to his partner, and his courage in defending him and others, gave the Chinese people a model of education, perseverance, and fearlessness.
Wabash always fights!
—Qian Zhu Pullen,
BKT Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and History Crawfordsville, IN
A great article on Robert Winter. Thanks and congratulations to [Professor Emeritus of English] Bert Stern for his eloquent writing.
—Steve Wagner ’75,
Okemos, MI
