3 Weeks at Wabash: Passion is for Pros
Karen Russell, whose novel Swamplandia was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, visited Wabash at the beginning of April. Here she talks with and listens to a small group of student writers in the College’s Caleb Mills house.
The writer enjoys a lighter moment during the question and answer session of her reading.
One of the College’s most distinguished scientists, Dr. Tom Roberts ’70 visited Wabash to deliver the annual Haines Lecture in Biochemistry and to talk with faculty and students about Gleevec, the highly successful cancer drug developed from work in his lab at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University, a drug that has made one rare form of cancer manageable with a pill a day. Roberts began his talk for the general public with a reflection: ‘I’ve spent the last 30 years working on smart drugs; I should have been spending more time thinking about the economic implications of the smart drugs people like me and others have been working on.’ He took the next 40 minutes to do just that.
‘Health care takes too much of the public’s funds, and these smart drugs are part of the problem,’ Roberts said. After giving examples of how several of the drugs work, their limitations, and other approaches the near future may bring, he concluded: ‘Can we afford these smart drugs? If we use them smartly, we can’t afford to live wihout them.’
During an interview for the Fall issue of Wabash Magazine, Roberts was asked, ‘What is your calling?’ ‘When I came to Wabash [as a student] I wanted to be a scientist; I wanted to find out new things. Working at a cancer institute, though, and seeing what cancer does, the problems patients there face, my emphasis is more practical. I really would like to help cure cancer.”
On April 12, artist Zach Medler ’01 opened his exhibit, 'Art from Where You Live,' at Crawfordsville's Athens of Indiana Gallery. Medler created the exhibit during the Gallery's open hours. “I wanted to work when the gallery was open so people could see the process. I don’t come in here with an idea—I come in with these materials, then I respond to the space, to what I saw when I drove by on the way in, to what comes to me while I’m here.'
Medler's own idea of what art can be was changed when a Tibetan monk visited the College’s Eric Dean Gallery years ago. Medler was a Wabash religion major and watched as the monk spent a week creating a sand mandala, taking up most of the gallery’s floor space with the intricate work. The day it was finished, the monk poured all the sand back into a bag and dumped it into Sugar Creek. “I was studying Buddhism intensely at the time, then these guys come up and do the sand painting. I saw the temporal nature of these pieces, and why that is so important to think about. I wouldn’t say that event inspired this work, but I wouldn’t say it didn’t.”
“It’s a lot of firefighting, as my boss likes to say to me,” Matt Tanney ’05 said of his job as Assistant Athletic Director at Western Illinois University. “You put on your fire hat every day and put out fires each day.”
On campus to talk with students while 'March Madness', the NCAA Division Basketball Tournament, was in full swing, Tanney discussed some of the 'maddening' aspects of Division One athletics.
Wabash grads approach even their avocations with passion! Indiana University Maurer School of Law Assistant Dean of Communications Ken Turchi ’80 informed and entertained students in a talk about his book for the Indiana Historical Society, L.S. Ayres & Co.: Store at the Crossroads of America. Turchi interviewed 40 people in his spare time for the 283-page coffee table style book.
Turchi was an Ayres employee during his college days, and his personal knowledge of the company woven into its history made for a fascinating presentation.
Award-winning and bestselling author Dan Simmons ’70 returned to campus last week to lead the first Wabash Writer's Workshop, a three-day intensive program that brought together six students with one of the world's finest and most successful writers. “If I were to advertise my visit, I’d say, ‘Full-time professional novelist Dan Simmons is hunting for a few good men to become the novelists of the future,’ Simmons said. Last Thursday night he shared with students his own journey to becoming a writer, from Wabash to his teaching days to being 'discovered' by writer Harlan Ellison. 'We need writers,' Simmons said, "And I believe that Wabash, the quintessential liberal arts college, is the perfect incubator for a fine novelist in the 21st century.'
Simmons listens during a 'critique circle' in which the writers discuss and make suggestions for one another's stories. 'I'm going to go line by line, but that's what I do when I really like a story,' Simmons told one of the young writers.
Simmons and student writers work together in the Caleb Mills House. 'We spent three days learning from the best, and then in our free time held wide-ranging conversations that revealed the down-to-earth personality of Dan and his wife, Karen,' said workshop participant Ryan Horner. 'The things we learned showed me the challenges associated with being a professional writer,' added Christian Lopac. 'But the workshop also illustrated many of the things necessary to make that
Dan Simmons ’70, Professor Eric Freeze, and the student participants in the first Wabash Writer's Workshop: Nick Gray, Lucas Zromkoski, Chet Turnbeaugh, Stephen Batchelder, Christian Lopac, and Ryan Horner.
The week of April 8-12 ended with a visit from television, film, and stage actor Richard Thomas, best known for his roles as 'John Boy' on the tv series The Waltons and for his role in the FX series The Americans.
Thomas told students that, while film roles are more lucrative, he loves theater work and the opportunity to work with the words written by the best playwright. “The difference is texture and the excitement and real challenge is in the text,” Thomas said. He noted that making a movie or even television is hours of waiting and sitting and shooting scenes out of sequence. “In theater, once the curtain goes up everyone is going to get to go on and perform.”