Wabash College - Class of 1991

While I was—and still am—inclined to dismiss the “article” that appeared about Wabash in the Indianapolis Star last month, that didn’t stop Bob Hobson ’57 from clarifying a few points. What follows is his letter to the article’s author. Enjoy.

Dear Staci,

I read with only passing interest your piece in the Sunday, November 19, 2006 Indianapolis Star. I concluded it was simply a follow-up to the interest generated by the Wabash-DePauw football game on November 11. But after receiving other information I am curious whether your piece was a planned follow up to a letter written by a disgruntled visiting Wabash instructor named Karolyn Kinane, complaining of rampant sexism on campus. Ms. Kinane seems to be a rather ungrateful visitor in light of the unflattering remarks she has made about her host, Wabash College.

Back to your article, you seem to indicate that the only invited guest speakers at Wabash are those with viewpoints such as the Harvard University professor who believes that men are not cut out for housework. Quite to the contrary, a large number of feminists, socialists and other anti-men’s college speakers are regularly invited to speak at Wabash. The only balance is maintained by a campus publication, the Wabash Commentary, which brings more traditional speakers to Wabash, at private expenditures, not funded by the College.

You mentioned old-fashioned traditions distinguishing Wabash. Pray tell what other types of traditions are there than old-fashioned ones? This was mentioned in the context of Wabash being only one of two men’s four-year colleges in the nation. May I call your attention to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia? Or does Morehouse not count because it is an all male African American college?

You mentioned that many faculty members worry the cloistered campus fosters a chauvinist culture. I do not remember any walls or fences at Wabash. I always found it easy to visit Greencastle (DePauw University), West Lafayette (Purdue University), Muncie (Ball State University), Indianapolis (Butler University) and other close locations for culture. But remember, Crawfordsville, itself, is a historic location with much in the way of Indiana culture to be found. Have you ever tried a week-end in Crawfordsville and its environs? You should give it a try.

I have never felt the Wabash campus was a cloistered environment, either while I was a student there or upon my many return visits to the campus. If you want to see a cloistered university, try Sewanee which is also known also as the University of the South. Now there is cloistered.

It is interesting that so many of the Wabash faculty describe the climate there as intolerant. It is really too bad that they feel they are “captured” on an intolerant campus with no way to escape. Maybe tenure keeps them there and they fear they do not have the mobility to go where they would feel more comfortable. Alas, when I have been employed in an atmosphere I considered “intolerant,” I moved on. Perhaps we could invite the same action to those who so strongly dislike the climate at Wabash.

You mentioned that one professor, John Aden, who graduated from Wabash, indicated that people are expecting equality. That is not what I expected when I enrolled at Wabash and I do not think that is what the people I know expect. We expect EXCELLENCE, not equality. Now Professor Aden should not complain too much about the intolerant climate at Wabash since he graduated from Wabash.

You indicated that nearly all 90 of the faculty signed a letter saying that conflict on the campus spurred at least two faculty members and four students to leave Wabash last spring. My information indicates that it was 28 liberal professors who signed the letter. Far fewer than the 90 indicated, and it is probably best that the 2 faculty and 4 students left. Wabash is not for everyone. Most people realize that and are happy to be accepted at Wabash. It is good that those who realize Wabash is not for them can move on to find what they really want. After all, there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of institutions of higher education in this country. Not one fits all and, of course, Wabash is one that does not fit all.

You concluded with Ms. Kinane’s belief in Wabash’s masculine heritage, b= ut there’s this tiptoeing around trying to figure out an identity. With all of her complaints, I was surprised at that. Then you ask, “Are we stepping into the 21st century or are we holding onto our traditions?”

Well, the answers are:

1. As to identity:

Wabash is a men’s college providing an excellent opportunity for the education of young men.

This is quite plain and simple. There is nothing more and nothing less. Look to the results (as you did in pointing out some of the highly successful graduates Wabash has had). You only mentioned a very few. You could write another article about the many more.

2. Are we stepping into the 21st century or holding onto our traditions:

YES!! YES to BOTH questions. YES, Wabash is stepping boldly into the 21st century and YES, Wabash is proudly holding on to its traditions.

Are you planning any follow up articles on sexism at women’s colleges? Remember there are many, many more women’s colleges in the country than men’s colleges. Are they cloistered? Is there rampant sexism (it works both ways) at women’s colleges? Do women need men coeds to assure they properly adjust to the world? Do women’s colleges find it easier to study without the distraction of men? Are there any faculty members at women’s colleges who find it difficult to teach only the one sex? If 25% of the Wabash faculty are women, what is the percentage of men teaching at women’s colleges. What kind of speakers do they have at women’s colleges? Do they have speakers advocating the excellence of men? Here is one you could devote a whole article to: the many women who have attended women’s colleges and have gone on to illustrious careers in business and government. Is there a women’s college who has but one rule of conduct: conduct yourself as a lady at all times? Are there traditions at women’s colleges that professors criticize, such as wearing “pots” or other such? Have there been faculty members and students who leave women’s colleges because they are single sex? Can young women learn to be effective leaders without men on campus? Would it be hard to develop a woman “with emotional intelligence or the social skills necessary” without men in the student body, as Gar Kellom, vice president of St. John’s University states? Do they offer courses in masculinism at women’s colleges? If not, why not? Are there courses in masculine appreciation at women’s colleges? Are there courses in Masculine Theory at women’s colleges? Are professors at women’s colleges petitioning to review the campus climate at women’s colleges and do some find it intolerant? If not, why not? Are women’s colleges considered to be pretty much in the 19th century? After all, coeducation has been around for a long time. Do people at women’s colleges expect “equality” or are they more interested in EXCELLENCE? What is the social life like at women’s colleges? Have there been any visiting professors at women’s colleges who complain about the lack of diversity in the student body and write letters to the host school’s newspaper complaining?

I really hope to see your follow up articles on these subjects.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Bob Hobson
Wabash Class of 1957

You may remember back in April that I wrote about a kid named Brent Kent that Matt Hanson and I helped get to Wabash. (Here’s the story.) He’s now a sophomore and had quite an extraordinary summer. I thought it would be nice to give a little update, courtesy of the Bachelor.

Finding America on Her Backroads

by Brock Johnson '07
December 7, 2006

Brent Kent knows the Cookie Lady. He met her in Afton, Virginia while biking across the contiguous United States.

Brent Kent reaches the Continental Divide in Colorado. Directly after taking this photo, he built a snowman.

Moments after completing his last final of his freshman year, the ambitious student from Martinsville, Indiana set off for Yorktown, Virginia, to begin his 49 day trek across varying terrains of the US. Armed with three outfits, running shoes, a tent, Chunky soup, essential bike tools, a small propane stove, a mapped route, and a journal, Kent’s trip westward began with a ceremonial back tire in the Chesapeake Bay.

Kent’s idea for the trip sparked after volunteering to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina during his freshman year. He thought biking across America would be a great way to raise money for the clean-up. He sold his laptop to buy a suitable bike and found a company sponsor to pledge money. Unfortunately the company bailed out after hearing Kent’s plan, thinking he would not be able to make such a journey.

But the company obviously didn’t know Brent Kent.

"I told everyone, including myself, that I was going to do this trip. I was determined to do it. I sent the company two postcards—one from each coast."

But the trip did have its rough points. Already by day three, a severe cold and bad weather made for "the worst day of the trip." But once this far, Kent was not about to give up.

"The Appalachians were the hardest part. I thought my legs were going to explode. But after Berea, Kentucky I was home free. The Ozarks are barely a mountain range, and the Rockies are a gradual climb."

But people like the Cookie Lady made the arduous terrain fascinating and manageable. Since 1976, the Cookie Lady, June Curry, has been assisting cyclists by offering food or shelter in a barren part of Appalachia. Her current log book has over 11,000 entries with people from every state in the US and over fifty countries. And visitors often return her generosity with Christmas cards, letters, money, or random crafts. Kent sent her cowboy figurines from HobbyLobby to assist with a model she was creating.

"Her life revolves around this. The world came to her!" Kent said.

The rest of America turned up many interesting encounters, too. Like the internet faith-healer in Missouri that offered Kent shelter from a tornado. She was kind enough to offer Kent a TV dinner and a shovel to guard against snakes and rats in her barn where Kent slept. But rats and snakes were a minor hurdle in comparison to cougars and scorpions in the desserts of Nevada.
Kent found lodging in places such as parks, fire departments, churches, picnic tables, deserts, and junkyards. Kent said people were surprisingly hospitable, offering lodging and food, simply because he was cycling across the country.

"They open up and tell you everything because you are never going to see them again."

Kent ended the trip at the Golden Gate Bridge on June 23, earlier than expected. His goal was to average at least seventy miles a day—he averaged eighty-three. His only problem now is finding a way to top this trip next summer.

But through this experience, he took comfort in and began to understand the words of Steinbeck: "You will finally begin to enjoy the trip when you realize that you’re not taking the trip, the trip is taking you."

Johnson '07 is Bachelor Photo Editor. Each week he takes one or two pages for an essay or photo essay.

For anyone interested in getting (or asking for) a unique Wabash gift this Christmas season, check out the custom minted items produced by John Goodrich '68 at his shop in Portland, Indiana. He made up a slew of keychains for the Wabash swim team last year that proudly carries my keys around. He's produced items for the last couple of Monon Bell games in addition to a coin commemorating the presidency of Andy Ford. Pretty cool stuff! Check out the catalogue here.

Esquire is one of my favorite magazines. It's doesn't have that juvenile sense of girl-lust like Maxim, it's not so dense like the New Yorker, and it's not fashion-obsessed like GQ. What it does have—month in and month out—is great writing. Case in point: writer-at-large Tom Junod's September 2003 essay entitled, "The Falling Man" at once chilling, poignant, and full of curiosity.

One of my favorite regular features is entitled "What I've Learned." It's a simple one-page catalogue from someone imparting wisdom that person has gleaned from existence on this Earth. A few months ago, I submitted some life lessons online, and voilà, one of my entries appears in the January issue (page 94) along with a list of other reader submissions and profiles of people like Peter O'Toole, Rick Rubin, Penn & Teller, Forest Whitaker, Alan Arkin, Jack Bauer, and Bryan Anderson, a 25-year-old soldier who lost two legs and his left arm below the elbow from a roadside bomb in Iraq. Here's what I submitted:

When you're feeling your worst, your most insecure, write it down. I assure you that no matter how depressed you feel at the time, you won't believe how stupid you'll sound later when you read it back.

In our never-ending quest to keep our communications to you fun and interactive, here's our new year's request: Send us some of your own nuggets of wisdom that we can send along to the Wabash students. What have you learned in your 37-38 years that's worthy to pass on to others?