News from the Alumni Association President Why I Come Back

As I write this column, I am still on a “high” from this year’s Alumni Weekend. I’ve been attending these “never-long-enough” weekends annually for many years now. Yes, I always return home, all charged up about Ripon College and, admittedly, a bit sad, too, that I probably will not see many of these people ever again; some of course, I will see at the next big Alumni Weekend. But, I am not infrequently asked by friends and classmates: “Why do you go back every year?”

Well, along with all the young women I dated while at Ripon, I also fell in love with Ripon as a prospective student and I have maintained this love affair ever since. Whenever I’m back on campus, I feel good. I feel miraculously younger. I feel a pride in Ripon College what it was for me as a student, what it is today, what it will be in the future.

For one thing, I had a great experience at Ripon College, as have the vast majority of Ripon alumni. First of all, I am convinced that I could not have received a better education at any other college. Example: Not to “toot my own horn,” but I was so well-prepared by Ripon’s faculty (individual “stars” like Paul Aldus, John Glazer, Alexander Hooker, George Miller and Bill Tyree) that when I was in graduate school at UW-Madison I earned the first 4.00 GPA of my entire college life! Why? Well, I certainly was not any smarter than my colleagues. It was because I had learned the “hard way,” with Ripon’s truly great teachers, to think and analyze critically, to reason persuasively, and to write well (this column excepted). It was readily apparent to me what a superior education I had received at Ripon when I saw the term papers and projects of my fellow graduate students and how they struggled to complete them. Graduate school was hardly a breeze, but I was very well-prepared. And I have heard the same story from so many alumni I have talked with about their experience in graduate and professional schools.

I am also inordinately appreciative of the lifetime friends I made at Ripon. Although, in the course of my career in higher education, I have lived in nine different communities and made many wonderful friends in each, I still especially cherish the phone call, letter and holiday card contacts I periodically have with many of my friends from when we were students at Ripon. An extra thrill, of course, is when I actually can get together with an old classmate. Seeing many of these friends, from various classes and years dating from the late ’40s to the present. Some of them have also become dear, treasured friends: a bonus for having attended our alma mater.

This may sound terribly corny, but I honestly feel that Ripon College is my “spiritual” home. When I am “home,” I feel renewed and rejuvenated.

So, what have you, my fellow alumni, and I to look forward to at Ripon College? What will keep alive and nourish our love of and for Ripon? First, every spring more than 200 new graduates are added to the alumni ranks (now numbering more than 10,000 “satisfied customers”). They are so bright (as we were, of course), so vibrant, so enthusiastic — they will add so much to Ripon’s legacy Secondly, we can all rest assured that Ripon’s faculty is as warm, friendly, helpful, talented, knowledgeable and creative as ever. Our future alums are in good — no, great — hands. And thirdly, under the leadership of President David Joyce and his staff, there is an excitement, optimism and confidence at our College that says, “We’re going to be better than ever!”

Do I sound like a cheerleader? Well, so be it. These are my honest feelings about our College, feelings that are strongly held by so very many of Ripon’s alumni. I sincerely hope that you share our enthusiasm, that you share our pride in Ripon College. I hope to see you at the next Alumni Weekend; you’ll not be sorry you were there.

Paul Kegel, President Ripon College Alumni Association Board of Directors 1814

Charles St., DePere, WI 54115 920-337-9186