Alums Share Wisdom About Gentleman's Rule
Senior John Penn calls it the rule that “makes a Wabash man who he is,” and Sunday evening he was among a group of current students and alumni who met with incoming freshman across campus for conversations about the College’s Gentleman’s Rule: ‘The student is expected to conduct himself at all times, both on and off campus, as a gentleman and a responsible citizen.’
The Gentleman’s Rule is the one rule that guides student behavior at Wabash. It’s a lodestar that students and alumni take seriously, so in 2005 then-Dean of Students Tom Bambrey ’68 began involving alumni in these conversations during freshman orientation, and Dean of Students Mike Raters ’85 continues the tradition. Last Friday, Raters spoke to these alumni volunteers as they prepared to meet with freshman: ‘We want them to walk into college life not with a rulebook, but a rule, and a rule that will serve them for life.’
Other freshmen found the rule encouraging and a difference maker in their choosing Wabash: 'It shows the confidence Wabash has in freshmen'; 'I had expected a book of rules, and other colleges had books of rules, but Wabash was different, expected you to be able to take care of yourself'; 'I thought it would be something I could handle, something most people could handle.'
A freshman asked Jon Penn ’14: 'When you broke the Gentleman's Rule, did you feel like you had let others down, because others before had lived up to the rule?' Penn: 'If you break it, you feel a churning in your gut, like disappointing your parents for the first time. But the way you grow from that molds you into a Wabash man.'