Wabash College - Class of 1991

As the College readies itself for what looks to be a record enrollment of students this fall, Greeks will undergo the last "fraternity shuffle" as new and renovated facilities come online and the last housing projects begins construction. Here's what's happening:

Tekes

The Tekes have a new house and a new location, on the site of the old Sigma Chi house on the corner of Crawford St. & Wabash Ave. Dedication of the new house is set for the day of the first home football game: Saturday, September 20. The house will be open for tours at 9:30 a.m. with a dedication and ribbon cutting at 10:30 a.m.

While the new TKE House has beds for 40 students, I've heard that the Tekes have been hitting rush really well, and expect to fill up the new house. Construction began last year and was completed this summer.

Delts

The same day, Sept. 20, the Delt house will open its doors at 10:30 a.m. for tours with a dedication at 11:30 a.m.

Like the Betas, the Delts did the only true renovation project, with a 63-student capacity. Construction straddled the school year over two summers. Last year construction included the basement, kitchen, and dining room. This year the renovations re-configured and re-modeled student rooms.

Kappa Sigs

Much to the rejoicing of the Phi Delts, the Kappa Sig house has been torn down. For the school year, the Moids will take up residence in the old FIJI house. The new Kappa Sig house will house 50 students.

I heard a funny story recently. It seems that the College couldn't host a class dinner at the Phi Delt House during the Big Bash weekend because of a new cockroach problem. Turns out, the intrusion of insects migrated across the street after the demolition crew knocked down the Kappa Sig house. In 2004, when the old Phi Delt house was knocked down, a pack of rats scurried across Walnut to the Moid house. I guess karma is a funny thing!

 

This is pretty cool.

Rising senior running back Brock Graham is featured on the cover of the NCAA's quarterly Champions magazine. Here's the online story and a photo gallery. (Read about Brock's trip to Botswana, the photo shoot, and how this happened.)

I'm constantly amazed when our little college gets national recognition and exposure.

Pretty cool indeed.

The school year must be fast approaching because the Princeton Review's college rankings are out. Of course, their Party School ranking is always what feeds lazy journalists in a slow summer news cycle. It's also what makes university administrators cringe. Remember Myles Brand's hissy fit when he was President of IU and Indiana was ranked #1 Party School?

Wabash administrators have much to tout in this year's ratings in this year's The Best 368 Colleges guidebook:

"Students Say" Categorical Rankings
3 — Most Accessible Professors
3 — Best Career/Job Placement Services
3 — Jock Schools
3 — Best Athletic Facilities
4 — Best Classroom Experience
5 — Everyone Plays Intramural Sports
9 — Students Happy with Financial Aid
11 — School Runs Like Butter
14 — Students Pack the Stadiums
14 — Major Fraternity and Sorority Scene
19 — Professors Get High Marks

Some of the ratings we've seen many times before, especially the curious "School Runs like Butter." But the one that really stands out in my minds is "Best Career/Job Placement Services." This is a great testament to the hard work that director Scott Crawford and his staff at Wabash's Schroeder Center for Career Development have done over the past few years. They really are top-notch.

So, you're asking, how did the Dannies do? Check this out...

"Students Say" Categorical Rankings
3 — Best College Radio Station
1 — Lots of Beer
6 — Lots of Hard Liquor
7 — Major Frat and Sorority Scene
14 — More to Do on Campus
9 — Town-Gown Relations are Strained

Here are some interesting side-by-side comparisons:

Category	Wabash	DePauw
Student Faculty Ratio	10:1	10:1
Most Popular Majors	English Lit, History, Psychology	Economics, English Comp, Mass Com
Average High School GPA	3.6	3.6
Total Undergraduate Enrollment	917	2,398
Female	n/a	56.26%
Out of State	24%	54%
International	4.8%	2.96%
Greek	60%	72%
Tuition	$25,900	$29,300
Classrooms with Internet Access	100%	20%
Financial Aid Rating	99	98
Academic Rating	95	91
Quality of Life Rating	90	74
Admissions Selectivity Rating	89	92

I couldn’t sleep last night.

Whereas, I usually sleep like a rock, insomnia has been too common an occurrence this month for me. I'll spare you the details but I’ve been going through a lot this month and truth be told--I’m ashamed to admit it--I’ve been feeling a little sorry for myself. And at times like this, I’ve found that it’s best to reach for pearls of inspiration.

So... a few month’s ago, I caught this ABC report on Randy Pausch. That 47-year-old Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and gave this really amazing lecture last fall. It was all over YouTube and is really something to watch. (I’ve embedded it here.) Please take time to watch it.

So last night, I picked up his memoir, The Last Lecture, and read the entire book in one sitting. It tells stories from his life and a behind-the-scenes of his famous lecture. Here’s a guy whose talent, skill, and determination allowed him to fulfill his childhood goals. He achieved everything in his curtailed life everything except one: He will not see his three young kids grow up.

Randy Pausch died last Friday (July 25) of pancreatic cancer, and the professor leaves behind a great lesson for us all.

Make every day count.

I’m not much of a bandwagon guy, but ABC Primetime is rebroadcasting "The Last Lecture: A Celebration of Life" tonight at 10 pm EDT. Do me a favor: Watch, tape, or Tivo it.

I'm done feeling sorry for myself now. And I hope that the full day I've lived today affords me a good night's sleep.

...or make that $3.1 million!

Many thanks and due to the 96 of you who donated to this year's Annual Fund.

As the College closes the books on its last fiscal year, the Class of 1991 made a great impact on helping Wabash rise to the Hays Challenge and surpassing $3 million for the first time. This, of course, is especially exciting and heartening when we're all doing some extreme belt tightening in these tough economic times. Check out the full story here.

Here's how the Class of '91 stacked up:

Highest # of Donors 1. 1965 - 102 2. 2008 - 102 3. 1966 - 97 4. 1991 - 96 4. 1967 - 96 6. 1968 - 95 7. 1964 - 90 8. 1969 - 88 9. 1961 - 80 9. 1970 - 80 9. 1972 - 80 9. 1971 – 80

Largest Increase over Last Yr 1. 1958 - +12 1. 1974 - +12 3. 1964 - + 11 3. 1968 - + 11 3. 2003 - + 11 6.1965 - + 10 6. 1999 - + 10 8. 1991 - + 9 8. 1985 - + 9 10. 1981 - + 7

Really damn good, guys!

"I gave by the deadline! Are we gonna beat the Dannies? Man, I hate those girly-men."

Brett Miller, you couldn't have said it better, We don't have solid numbers yet, but DePauw's giving Web site is claiming that they came in at 39%. While Wabash garnered 140 additional donors this year, putting us over 4,000 donors for the first time in 5 years. But, our solicitable roll went up as well and we came in at a very remarkable 37.68%. OK, I'm spinning it. The damn Dannies barely beat us. (They don't mention how much they raised. Curious.)

Next question: How did our IM Giving Challenge turn out? Here are the numbers:

Living Unit	%	Rank
Phi Delt	63%	1st
FIJI	55%	2nd
Sigma Chi	45%	3rd
Beta	44%	4th
Lambda Chi	42%	5th
Delt	35%	6th
Phi Psi	33%	7th
TEKE/Theta Delt*	33%	7th
Kappa Sig	32%	9th
Independent	25%	10th

*Just like any poor IM ref caught between a Beta-Phi Psi football game, you can't win on some points. As expected, a Teke or two wasn't thrilled with being lumped in with their former pledge brothers. So, if it makes some people feel better, when you split out the numbers, Tekes had 14% and Theta Delts had 80%. Unlike IM football, there ain't no trophy.

Once again, on behalf of the College, THANK YOU for doing your part to ensure great opportunities for current and future generations of Wabash Men.

You're Some Little Giants!

Very briefly last week, the Wabash Web site featured an article on Brent Kent, who Matt Hanson and I helped get to Wabash. Brent was featured as "Intern of the Week" in the Hill, the newspaper about the U.S. Congress.

Then the post and the link disappeared from wabash.edu altogether.

Considering that he biked across country two summers ago (blog), I was curious to check in on this rising senior and what he's doing this summer. I e-mailed Brent, and he reported back that he's in DC interning for Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer. "I work for the House Veteran Affairs Committee and absolutely love the investigative work I've been doing."

This kid shows a good knack for investigative work. Last semester, when seemingly everyone else on the Bachelor was writing columns and opinion pieces--just like in our day--Brent wrote a very solid investigative piece on the campus food service's green campaign. When he followed the money, it traced the parent company of Bon Appetit back to corruption in the UN food program, bribery, and Al Queda! (Bachelor, April 3, 2008, pg. 4-5)

It led to a boycott of Bon Appetit's Low Carbon Day by Brent and others, who had a cookout instead. (Think of it, conservative students staging a boycott. Only at Wabash!)

He's also president of the Will Hays College Republicans and worked with the College Democrats to organize a gathering during Super Tuesday.

Oh, and I solved the mystery of the disappearing posting. "The article was what I call 'sob slop' and had some inaccuracies," he wrote, "so I asked [the College] to take it down."

From what I know about Brent, he's not a grab the spotlight kind of guy. (In fact, if he found out I was writing about him, he'd bristle.) No, he's more about getting things done.

Somehow, I knew he'd be a great fit for Wabash.

When I was a rising senior, I spent a lonely summer on campus finishing the Wabash yearbook. To say campus was dead was an understatement. So, it's gratifying to see how the Wabash campus seems to bustle with various sports camps and workshops (like OLAB) during summers of late.

Wrestling Coach Brian Anderson had sought to maintain the strong reputation of Wabash wrestling at his summer camp, bringing in two Olympians each year to help give gold-medal instruction to campers. This year, Greco-Roman competitior Rulon Gardner and Freestyler Brandon Slay participated in this summer's Little Giant Wrestling Team Camp. (story1)(story2)

Classmate Chris Ervin, Crawfordsville High School Head Wrestling Coach and 2002 Wabash Hall of Fame Inductee, brought nine of his wrestlers to the camp.

Having high schoolers on campus during the summer does wonders for showing off our beautiful campus to those who may soon decide where to attend college. Having world-class instruction doesn't hurt either.

Photo: Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner "the Big Erv" discuss technique during this week's wrestling camp.

OK, as of this morning, here are the latest tallies:

Living Unit	%	Rank
Phi Delt	63%	1st
FIJI	55%	2nd
Beta	39%	3rd
Kappa Sig	32%	4th
Lambda Chi	32%	4th
Sigma Chi	32%	4th
TEKE/Theta Delt	28%	7th
Delt	27%	8th
Phi Psi	24%	9th
Independent	24%	9th

And, no I'm not giving an update just because the Phi Delts are winning. FIJIs need just two more donors to surpass us! For an updated list of who's given so far this year, check the Honor Roll online. It's updated regularly.

Obviously, the real reason to give is for the sake of current Wabash students. We pay it forward for their benefit. I'm constantly gratified to see great examples of Wabash students doing great things. Like this week, where a group of students went down to Martinsville to help residents clean up after the devastating floods that have plagued southern Indiana. Nobody asked them to do this; they chose to and organized the effort.

Photo from the Reporter-Times (Martinsville)

Indiana Solicitor General Tom Fisher can report the best Father's Day of all. The arrival of his new son, Daniel Paul Fisher (Wabash Class of 2030).

He was born at 1:10 p.m., Father's Day, Sunday June 15, 2008. He weighed in at 8 lbs., 11 oz. and is 20 1/4 " long. Tom reports, "Mother and baby doing fine. Dad remains a lost cause. A fine Fathers' Day indeed."