Ripon Magazine Winter 2019

MAGAZINE WINTER 2019

Teaching

excellence Faculty-student relationships remain Ripon hallmark

Longtime Ripon educators reflect

Alumni: Favorite life lessons W I N T E R 2019

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Winter 2019 VOLUME 52, ISSUE No. 1

RIPON COLLEGE SOCIAL NETWORKS facebook.com/ripon.college instagram.com/riponcollege linkedin.com/company/ripon-college twitter.com/riponcollege vimeo.com/riponcollege youtube.com/riponcollegevideo

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Ripon Magazine (ISSN 1058-1855) is published twice annually by Ripon College.

Postage paid at Ripon, Wisconsin. Copyright © 2019 Ripon College POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ripon Magazine, 300 W. Seward St., Ripon, WI 54971

Ripon College prepares students

Editor: Jaye Alderson, email: aldersonj@ripon.edu Editorial Assistants: Melissa Anderson ’02, Loren Boone, Ric Damm and Mike Westemeier Student Assistants: Dakota Marlega ’21 Design: Ali Klunick Photography: Ric Damm Office of Constituent Engagement: alumni@ripon.edu

citizenship. Our liberal arts

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of diverse interests for lives of productive, socially responsible and sciences curriculum and residential campus create an intimate learning community in which students experience a richly personalized education.

Inside 4 T EACHING THROUGH THE DECADES Several longtime Ripon College educators reflect on how the classroom experience has changed at Ripon — and how it has stayed the same.

8 TEACHING EXCELLENCE

Students at Ripon are not just a number. Our faculty make sure of it. Four faculty members share what teaching at Ripon means to them.

12 T RAINING STUDENTS TO BECOME EDUCATORS Educational studies remains one of Ripon College’s most popular areas of study, and the student teaching process is designed to develop students into influential mentors.

14 ROUNDUP OF ALUMNI EDUCATORS From teachers to administrators to influencers in service and business settings, Ripon College alumni share their knowledge and passions around the world.

20 A LUMNI PERSPECTIVES: WORDS OF WISDOM Alumni share their favorite life lessons learned from faculty and staff at Ripon College.

DEPARTMENTS : 26 Sports 28 Around the Clocktower 33 Obituaries

37 Remarkable Ripon ON THE COVER: Robert Wallace, the Patricia and Philip McCullough 1969 Professor in Biology, leads a class in an earlier year at Ripon College. Wallace will retire this spring.

PHOTO: Harwood Memorial Union at dusk, Dec. 13, 2018

PRESIDENT

Ciao, Presidente!

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ccording to Wikipedia, a sabbatical is “a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from one month to a year.” In the Bible there is advice to abstain from working the fields every seventh year.

Now in my own seventh year as the president of Ripon College, the Board of Trustees granted my request for a sabbatical this spring. My family and I are spending time in Milan, Italy — it started in January and lasts until June.

I am researching a book about Americans playing basketball in the Italian professional league. But it also will be a chance to step back from the day-to-day job of being a college president and spend time with my children (now ages 16 and 14) and show them a country and a culture that I adore.

My passion for Italy is directly linked to a professor I had in college. Professoressa Giulianella Ruggiero introduced me to Italian cinema, politics and the beauty of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees. I distinctly remember an older colleague in my first job tell me that “Italian is a dead language, it won’t ever be useful to you!”

Fast-forward 30 years and Italian is more important to my career and life than ever.

Along with Professor of History Diane Mockridge, I’ve introduced more than 100 Ripon students to the Eternal City of Rome through the Liberal Arts in Focus course each May. I’ve co-edited a book about Arezzo — a dreamy city in Tuscany — and even taught an introductory Italian language course at Ripon last spring.

We always say that you don’t come to college just to learn a skill but to find your passion.

I know my world is richer because of my interest in Italy. I enjoy eating in Sheboygan at Il Ritrovo (best pizza, I am not kidding, in the United States) and talking to chef Stefano Viglietti (2016 Ripon College honorary degree recipient) about food. I love the Neapolitan novels of Elena Ferrante and thought the HBO adaptation of My Brilliant Friend was

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bravissimo. I own a sky blue Vespa and often pretend to be driving through the streets of Bologna or Florence on my way down Watson Street in the summer.

And all this began with a teacher at a liberal arts college. A professor who shared her love of Italy with me when I was 20 years old.

Ripon’s calling card is teaching excellence.

From alumni and current students, I know that Bob Wallace’s love of vertebrate zoology influenced career choices. I have first-hand accounts of how the dulcet sounds of Kurt Dietrich’s trombone or Sarah Kraaz’s (or “Mom,” as her students affectionately call her) organ playing inspired Ripon students to a lifelong love of music. There are so many stories from Ripon College alumni who have made it big in the financial or business world who can trace it back to class with Paul Schoofs. And there are future leaders in public policy who will certainly remember debating the big ethical issues in 2018 with Brian Smith.

Of course, there is a lot I’ll miss about Ripon this spring. Our first Catalyst Day seminars are April 24, 2019. They’ll be open to the public to comment on what our juniors discover in their applied innovation seminar. And I am curious to see what the Ripon faculty who won a National Science Foundation grant this fall will develop with their work on how to better integrate data and quantitative analysis across our curriculum.

And, as always, there will be great teaching. As winter turns to spring, classes will continue in East and West halls, Farr, Todd Wehr, Rodman and Willmore or over pizza at Roadhouse Pizza downtown. The Ripon tradition of professor and student learning from each other goes on.

It is a legacy of which all of us can be proud.

ZACH P. MESSITTE, PRESIDENT (On sabbatical spring 2019)

FROM THE RIPON ARCHIVES

A condensed timeline of teacher education at Ripon College 1854 Brockway College organized a Preparatory and a Normal Department. “The Normal Department is designed to embrace the solid and ornamental branches of a finished English Education, together with the Modern Languages.

Particular attention will be paid to those preparing to teach.

In addition to a thorough drilling in the elementary branches, frequent lectures will be given on a school discipline, and the best methods of imparting instruction.”

1950s Twelve courses are offered in the Education Department, led by its only faculty member, J. Frederic Andrews. Courses of study include secondary education, physical education and music education.

1867 Of the four members of Ripon College’s first graduating class, Luthera Harriet Adams, Harriet Hemans Brown and Susan Ann Wright Salisbury all became teachers.

1992 Major revisions to the course offerings are made because of a program review by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. New certifications are offered in elementary education (grades 1-6), elementary/middle education (grades 1-9), secondary/middle education (grades 6-12), secondary education (grades 9-12), physical education (grades K-12) and music education (grades K-12).

1870s-1906 The only education course taught at the College is in the Philosophy Department with President Emeritus Edward Merrell.

1907 Dr. William Mutch is hired to replace Edward Merrell in the Philosophy Department. Mutch brings expertise in pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching), and the department is renamed the Philosophy and Pedagogy Department.

1908 The Philosophy and Pedagogy Department is broken into three departments: Philosophy, Pedagogy and Religious Education. All three departments are led by Mutch.

1921 The Department of Philosophy and Education is divided.

A new professor, J. Clark Graham, became the head of the new department, the Department of Psychology and Education.

1960 Elementary Education program is introduced.

1972 Several courses are revamped and new courses are added like “The American Public School.”

2001 Early Childhood Education major and minor programs added to the curriculum.

2010 Art Education certification program is offered in partnership with UW-Oshkosh.

2018 Dual certification program is offered for students to licensure in elementary education (grades 1-8) and special education (grades K-8) with a joint program through UW-Oshkosh.

2019 The Department of Educational Studies offers more than two dozen courses leading to teacher licensure, an educational studies major or minor, or a combination of licensure with a major or minor.

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Ripon faculty on teaching through the decades Since the founding of Ripon College, its faculty have brought passion about their subject areas and devotion to the ideals of a liberal arts education to their classroom and mentoring duties. Several longtime educators share their reflections on how things have changed at Ripon over the years — and how they have stayed the same.

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Sarah Mahler Kraaz Professor of Music, College Organist and William Harley Barber Distinguished Professor Kraaz, who has been at the College since 1989, retires this spring.

“The most obvious aspect of teaching that’s changed since I started in 1989 is the technology. We had no computers and only a party line — that’s right, no individual phone lines — in our offices in Rodman. It’s hard to look back and realize how dramatically the resources for classroom teaching have expanded. In the ’90s, CDs replaced records, and in the 2000s digital music replaced CDs, making thousands (millions?) of examples available to us. Really, without YouTube, I couldn’t teach music in the classroom.

“On the other hand, pianos are still the same as they’ve been since the mid-19th century, and the organ in Demmer uses 17th-century technology — except for the electrified blower that supplies air to the pipes. Students still have to practice and acquire the same techniques as every previous generation. And young human beings are essentially the same: confident (or not), curious, contradictory and complex.”

For Kraaz, the most rewarding aspect has been “the students, of course — it’s the best antiaging medicine in the world to spend most of one’s days with energetic, enthusiastic young adults, and it’s safe to say I’ve learned a great deal from the students I’ve had over the years.

“An effective teacher has to be a lifelong learner.

I’m a naturally curious person, always eager to acquire knowledge and explore new ideas about many things, not just music. I try to model this openness to my students by talking about my intellectual interests, my performing, research and writing experiences, and my love of reading and listening to people’s stories. The liberal arts philosophy of education suits me perfectly because in today’s world, a person has to be able to think critically and embrace complexity, survival skills that students learn at Ripon.”

Jeanne Williams Professor Emerita of Educational Studies Williams began with Ripon College in 1992 and retired in 2017. She now is an adjunct professor of educational studies.

“At the core of good teaching is a human relationship between a teacher and his/her students; That hasn’t changed since Socrates gathered students around him on the streets of Athens. The technology changes, the amount of information available changes, but that core relationship is the bedrock of education.

“The sense of community among the faculty and staff was tremendously supportive throughout my time at Ripon, both on a personal and a professional level. I always felt that people were there for me and willing to challenge me intellectually. I also enjoyed having the opportunity to see students develop from their admissions visit to the campus through their programs and into student teaching. So much happens over these four years and it is lovely to be a part of that growth process through its various stages.

“I tried to make my teaching experiencebased — lots of activities and discussion with exploration of what a particular practice can mean in the development of a child’s skills and abilities. Learners need to see that the content or skill they are working with will enrich their lives in very specific ways. That doesn’t mean that everything we learn has to be useful or practical in terms of earning a living or making mundane decisions. It does mean that learners have to experience that their lives are richer and their connections to other people stronger as they learn more about themselves and about the world.”

Robert Wallace Patricia and Philip McCullough 1969 Professor in Biology Wallace, who has been with the College since 1977, retires this spring.

“Clearly, technology has made teaching easier — lots of information is now at our fingertips, but that brings on other challenges.

How much information is too much? The part of technology that I like is to be able to show PowerPoint slides to my students of places that I have been that support the ecological topics being considered. And if I have not been there, I can extract them from the Internet.

“Nevertheless, authentic teaching is a personto-person enterprise and will remain so, or at least I hope it does. I can imagine some early hominid sitting by the fire instructing others on how to nap a flint arrowhead. If teaching moves completely to the disembodied Internet, society will lose something dear.”

In his approach to education, Wallace says, “I start with the assumption that while each student is unique, all are keen to learn.

Unfortunately, some students do not know how to be very efficient at learning and they try to memorize everything. That strategy can lead to frustration. I posit that learning how to learn is an important skill that can be gained and improved with practice.

Accordingly, I see part of my job to be a facilitator to learning.

“The most rewarding thing about working at Ripon is the interactions with my colleagues, both students and professors. Moreover, Ripon has been a place where my teaching and scholarship have become integrated.

Thus, Ripon has allowed me to wed Wallace, the teacher, to Wallace, the scholar — without the absolute need to be chasing money from funding agencies.”

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Robert Amsden Director Emeritus of Theatre Amsden has taught in the Department of Theatre since 1991 and now is Director Emeritus.

“As a generalist, I enjoy teaching and learning more about many topics in theatre,” and he hopes that his students will become independent thinkers and learners. “I hope they understand that acting is a craft, a collection of skills that can be learned. I hope they learn to empathize with characters rooted in different social circumstances and time periods other than their own. This learning has the most impact in playing a character out of our time period, or working as an assistant designer, but it also can come through understanding the cultural circumstances of characters in plays read for class that are very different from a college student’s own.”

Teaching, in many ways, has stayed the same over the millennia, Amsden says. “I imagine Plato, Aristotle and Socrates had an array of students following them around, and some vigorously grasped the material immediately and others struggled. With some there surely were motivational factors that caused other issues in their lives to take precedence over their studies. Teaching has remained the same because students enter the classroom with an array of gifts, background preparation, interest/curiosity and motivations. A teacher’s presentations must attempt to take this wide variety of background and interest into account.”

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Kurt Dietrich Professor of Music, Barbara Baldwin De Frees Chair in the Performing Arts

Paul Schoofs Patricia Parker Francis Professor of Economics

Dietrich started at Ripon in 1980 and retires this spring.

Schoofs started at Ripon in 1974 and retires this spring.

“Every year, it’s the journey you make with the ensembles. There’s some serious work to do and by the end of the year, it comes out pretty well. I can think back to certain years when we had more numbers of skilled players than other years. On the other hand, I can think back to just a few years ago (when a particular) group has made more progress than any other group I can remember.

“What I want to do and have always tried to do, without just preaching it, is modeling in my own behavior that everybody who knows me can see how much I truly enjoy learning and helping other people learn,” he says. “I have a passion for it. It’s a wonderful life to be a learner and to help other people learn. Every day is a chance to know more, to learn more, to better understand ourselves and our place in the world.”

“I can remember times when numbers were really low and how hard it was to fully staff the symphonic wind ensemble. Again, both of those experiences can be rewarding and I just look back on them in different ways.”

He feels that “knowledge is power” and that learning should be fun. “There’s a real joy in gaining more of that power and understanding how the world works, and the many dimensions of it,” he says. He appreciates “the chance to be involved in the learning of the individual students and then to see its impact, too. A professor in a larger place can feel confident in their impact, but they probably have to assume it more than to be able to see it. In this kind of a teaching context, I do get to see that regularly.

He feels that it is worthwhile to expose students to fine art in all its forms. “We can appreciate fine art and we can appreciate this and that, and that music makes a difference in people’s lives. So whatever I can do to have students have as much exposure as possible is what it’s been all about to me.”

He says composers from earlier periods still impact people’s lives today more so than other historical figures. For instance, from the 19th century, “Napoleon’s whole career is fascinating, a big part of history and made a difference to people alive then.

Beethoven makes a difference to people who are alive now. Here are composers who lived hundreds of years ago, but they still make a daily difference in people’s lives. I want to get students to get to realize that.

This music makes a difference. Napoleon doesn’t change how I feel day today, whereas Beethoven could.”

“Ultimately, good education still involves interaction, and you can’t have as much of it in an online context. Interaction with fellow students, as well, is important. That kind of interaction has always been a key element in learning and in education.”

CATALYST

Major NSF grant advancing Catalyst skills instruction A

new National Science Foundation grant of nearly $300,000 will enhance Ripon’s ability to produce graduates who are able to apply quantitative reasoning to decision-making.

The grant will help build capacity for interdisciplinary quantitative reasoning instruction among faculty so that they, in turn, can apply the skills across disciplines in the new skills-based curriculum.

These include non-quantitative fields such as communication, languages and the fine arts.

Quantitative reasoning is the application of basic mathematics, logical and problem-solving skills to analysis of real-world needs.

Catalyst 120, a required course where students develop skills that can be transferred to the workplace, focuses on quantitative reasoning. Different sections are taught by faculty across a variety of academic disciplines.

While quantitative reasoning instruction is limited to math classes at many institutions around the country, “in this project, we will leverage the institutional and curricular strengths of Ripon College to develop quantitative reasoning skills in all of our students, regardless of major,” says Andrea Young. She is the acting vice president and dean of faculty, associate professor of mathematical sciences, and a principal investigator of the NSF grant.

In Ripon’s grant proposal, authors suggest this approach “provides students with the opportunity to use quantitative reasoning skills within disciplinary contexts and allows for broad transferability of these skills.”

According to Young, Ripon is training students to use numerical evidence to make convincing and correct arguments. “This

Andrea Young

Soren Hauge

approach is broadly valuable to all of us as well-educated citizens, but also to employers who are looking for students with at least some degree of fluency in quantitative methods,” she says. “The way in which Ripon College provides quantitative reasoning instruction from an interdisciplinary approach is unique.”

Faculty development opportunities will be provided in the form of faculty learning communities and mentored course development.

The first yearlong faculty learning community began in January and has 13 faculty participants from across all academic divisions.

“Numbers and quantitative reasoning touch all of us, not just those of us in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics),” Young says. “We also are going to study the effects of this interdisciplinary approach to quantitative reasoning and instruction on student learning and attitudes toward quantitative reasoning.”

She says grant reviewers were enthusiastic about how Ripon faculty have structured the Catalyst curriculum to employ faculty from different disciplines, all teaching for the same purposes. “That demonstrates that our faculty had to work together in a collaborative way to develop that curriculum and then to maintain it.”

Other principal investigators on the project are Soren Hauge, professor of economics and the John Barlow Murray ’37 and Nellie Weiss Murray ’37 Professor in Economics; Matt Knoester, associate professor of educational studies; McKenzie Lamb, associate professor of mathematical sciences; and Steve Martin, associate professor of communication.

Matt Knoester

McKenzie Lamb

Steve Martin W I N T E R 2019

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Julia Meyers-Manor, left, in the lab with Katie King ’19

TEACHING EXCELLENCE:

Faculty-student relationships are hallmark of Ripon experience The commitment of Ripon College faculty to help each student — to get to know each one as a distinct individual and ensure that every student realizes his or her unique promise — is profound. It’s a huge reason why close facultystudent relationships remain a true hallmark of the Ripon educational experience, not just a tagline on a glossy brochure.

Unlike a big university, Ripon’s liberal arts environment creates a community that embraces the faculty-student relationship and prioritizes it above all else. Our alumni frequently tell us how humbled they are and grateful for the attention they received from their Ripon faculty, whom they refer to as mentors, role models, colleagues and friends.

Whether it occurs in class discussion or the lab, office hours or in the hallway, at a game or in Pickard Commons, Ripon’s wonderful and accomplished professors are there for each student. They want to help. Their deepest satisfaction comes from seeing students grow and flourish over four years, and then watching from afar as alumni live lives of meaning and accomplishment.

We asked four Ripon faculty members to tell us in their own words what teaching at Ripon means to them.

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What excites you most about teaching at Ripon?

MARY UNGER “I love the small class

Mary Unger Associate Professor of English

size, of course, but I especially enjoy being able to teach the same students multiple times throughout their careers at Ripon, sometimes even as many as four or five times!” says Mary Unger, associate professor of English. “This allows me to get to know students on a much more individual level, track their growth over several years, and help them personalize their liberal arts education to suit their interests and career goals.”

PAUL JEFFRIES “The students are the

Paul Jeffries Associate Professor of Philosophy

Lamont Colucci Associate Professor of Politics and Government

Julia Meyers-Manor Assistant Professor of Psychology

source of my greatest excitement about teaching at Ripon,” says Paul Jeffries, associate professor of philosophy. “They come from such a wide range: first generation, diverse economic, social and ethnic backgrounds, different community sizes, international students and students of different levels of preparation. I have worked with some truly gifted students and also with students who faced significant academic challenges. What excites me is that both kinds of students can and do thrive here.”

LAMONT COLUCCI “Traditionally, Ripon College students are more diverse in thought than in other institutions. This is particularly true in politics,” says Lamont Colucci, associate professor of politics and government. “The monolith of thought that exists on the majority of American university campuses does not exist among the student population here. This allows the professor to ignite political discussions and debates where multiple sides are illustrated.”

JULIA MEYERS-MANOR “I love the opportunity to work one-on-one with students,” says Julia Meyers-Manor, assistant professor of psychology. “I like watching them grow in their courses as writers and thinkers. I also love being able to partner with local community members to enrich the students’ experiences.”

As you prepare your classes, what are some of the universal objectives you have no matter the subject matter?

UNGER “As an English professor, I always want my students to work on critical reading and writing skills, as well as develop an ability to articulate their ideas out loud to a group of their peers. Knowing how to weigh evidence, construct an argument and interpret the world around them are objectives I hope my students will master no matter what class they take from me.”

JEFFRIES “(I try) to cultivate a passion for learning and seeing the world through a new way of thinking. My goal is to make apparent some of the ways they are already ‘doing philosophy’ and ‘doing ethics’ in their lives, as I also challenge them with ways they might engage in these activities differently and more thoughtfully. I see myself as planting seeds, seeds that may take root that semester, but more often after lying dormant for a time and may come to fruition many years down the road.”

COLUCCI “My teaching of Ripon College students has been constructed along three pillars: content, critical engagement and provocative communication. Each class has to revolve constantly around these three pillars.”

MEYERS-MANOR “I always incorporate writing and critical-thinking skills into my courses. I think these are skills that are essential for all students to have. I especially like to get them thinking about connections of the material to real-world problems.”

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What are some of the key lessons you want your students to take away from their time at Ripon College?

UNGER “I want my students to gain the knowledge and experiences to live deliberately. No matter their major or minor, their extracurricular activities or their career goals, I want students to be able to construct lives that are meaningful to them.”

JEFFRIES “I want all of my students to

Lamont Colucci

know that they can and must make a positive difference in the world. I want students to become more curious about the world around them and to be open to learning throughout their lives. Such a capacity can help a person navigate a wide range of jobs and careers in the span of a single lifetime.

Finally, I want them to see that what is most important about each of them is not the job or career they have but what kind of person they are and are becoming.”

COLUCCI “I am often identified as a ‘policy practitioner’ so it is surprising to some that my foundational focus on politics is on great ideas. Policy and opinions without grounding in the world of philosophy, morality and ethics is an exercise in futility.

The great questions of politics, which go well beyond policy issues, are the foundations of my classes. Students need to understand that ideas and opinions must be grounded in content. Opinions and beliefs are not in and of themselves worthy unless they are built on knowledge, logic, reason and wisdom.”

Paul Jeffries, at right

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MEYERS-MANOR “I want students to be able to leave Ripon College and to read newspaper articles or chat with their friends and to be able to think and speak critically about research conclusions. I want them to be able to look at a problem behavior and think of ways that they could change that behavior. I also want them to know that there is someone out there who believes in them and is rooting for their success.”

What are some of the ways you engage your students in the classroom?

UNGER “Facilitating class discussions about readings is the primary way that I engage students. Rather than providing them with answers upfront, I ask questions, present them with pop quizzes (which are often games) and set up problems for them to solve in order to make their learning experience more engaging. I want them to give me the answer and be able to articulate in a convincing way how they arrived at that interpretation or conclusion.”

JEFFRIES “The dominant metaphor for my teaching is ‘surfing the chaos.’ I think philosophy is an activity, not merely a body of knowledge that one masters. The surfing analogy comes when we get to our Socratic dialogue as a class. Sometimes I happen to catch a really great wave and can ride it for a long time. But I never know exactly how the discussion will go or what direction it will take, so I just ride the wave and see what happens.”

COLUCCI “It is my desire and goal to create an atmosphere where the student is constantly challenged to engage, defend or refute a host of arguments and concepts at all times. I pride myself on maintaining such an environment where I am neither neutral nor partisan. This means that I am the challenger to the right, the left and the center. A constant stress imposed on me is the balance between allowing the free flow of discussion and debate, and ensuring the content is completely presented.”

MEYERS-MANOR “In the classroom, I use mini-experiments such as dissecting Twinkies ‘brains’ or training dogs on a novel behavior.

I also use a lot of videos and classroom discussions to engage students in difficult topics. I use outside-of-class exercises to get them to think about why the topics matter.

That might include putting on a neuroscience fair for kids or writing advice columns to solve practical dating and family problems.”

Mary Unger

What does success look like for a teacher at Ripon?

UNGER “Success for me means helping students become more independent, compassionate and aware of the world around them and their impact on it.”

JEFFRIES “Teachers must find their own way of teaching that fits their strengths and personality and then develop their own unique excellence. And part of developing teaching excellence is recognizing that each class each semester has its own personality.

What works with one class may not work with another. Hence, ‘success’ can be a real challenge to define. I believe it is more important to be faithful to one’s calling as a teacher.”

MEYERS-MANOR “To me, student success is to help students better understand the topic. That doesn’t necessarily mean an A for every student but that each student can engage with the material at whatever level they are at. I feel like my students have succeeded when I can take their progress from first paper or project drafts to excellent final products that make everyone proud.”

COLUCCI “For me, success is measured in what my students do after Ripon. I am proud in how many of my students I have assisted in placing in graduate school and law school. However, I am even prouder of the tremendous number I have helped in getting their first career slot in places like the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, Capitol Hill and the Wisconsin State Legislature.”

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Josh LeGreve ’09 teaches Spanish at Green Lake (Wisconsin) School District, which offers a 4K-12 International Baccalaureate program.

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Crucial live classroom experience prepares students for teaching success R

ipon College is not just a destination to experience excellent teaching. It is producing excellent teachers at all levels of the educational system.

Year after year, educational studies is among the top areas of study of graduating seniors at Ripon. In the past decade alone, 174 students graduated with a teaching certification. This academic year, 13 students will complete their student teaching assignments in various local and national school districts.

Ripon students achieve their dreams of working in classrooms in a variety of ways.

Teacher education programs are approved by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and prepare students for Pre-K through 12 licensure and crosscategorical special education in public and private schools, locally, nationally and even internationally. In addition, there are 24 subject licensure programs, ranging from traditional biology and life sciences to general music, foreign language and physical education.

The teacher preparation process at Ripon College requires a rigorous sequence of classes throughout multiple disciplines, ranging from the history of public schools to the importance of diversity in the classroom.

Methods classes enrich students with pedagogy and allow them the opportunity to practice teach to their peers. Education students also develop specialties for the areas and grade levels at which they wish to teach.

Future educators must have at least 100 hours of classroom time observing and teaching before they are placed in student teaching positions. Department professors observe student teaching lessons and provide feedback.

“Almost every education class has a clinical component,” says Abby Hilker ’19 of Menasha, Wisconsin, who is student teaching chemistry classes at Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton, Wisconsin.

“I had many opportunities to watch excellent teachers and to teach myself before I actually started student teaching. It is a lot more work than I ever could have imagined. I even find myself hoping for no snow days because we are a little behind on content. It seems like there are never enough minutes in a class period when you are student teaching.”

Still, she insists, “It is awesome to see students develop understanding, and I get to watch as they progress from unsure about a topic to a thorough understanding.”

Beccah Jones ’18 of Dixon, Illinois, now is a health teacher at Reagan Middle School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her student teaching experience began in the Princeton School District where she worked individually with students. Her second placement was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“My placements for student teaching taught me more life lessons and how to relate to students probably more so than teaching itself, which is not a bad thing at all,” she

says. “I definitely saw myself grow into the teacher I wanted to be someday.”

Ripon College students and alumni like Hilker and Jones benefit greatly from their applied experiences, becoming knowledgeable, passionate and able to positively impact their classrooms and communities.

Josh LeGreve ’09 teaches Spanish in the Green Lake (Wisconsin) School District and says his Ripon education “made me intellectually curious, and the quality education program at Ripon helped me take that and become a reflective and responsive classroom teacher.”

His student teaching semester was at Kenwood Academy High School in Chicago Public Schools as part of the Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture. He also had clinical experiences with public schools in Ripon, Berlin, Green Lake and Two Rivers.

“Even before beginning my student teaching, I had the opportunity to participate in plenty of observational and hands-on experiences in the classroom, learning from practicing teachers and being able to use the methodologies that I was learning in practice,” he says.

He says this variety of experiences made him a flexible teacher — “able to work comfortably with students from many different paths of life and to reach students at their level. I feel this experience helped prepare me at such a depth that I went into the classroom as an independent teacher with confidence.”

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OUTSTANDING ALUMNI

Kelly Millenbah ’90 finds passion in both classroom and administration “My current position is 100 percent administration,” she says. “I oversee our college’s Office of Academic and Students Affairs and manage one of the main funding lines for the college.”

She appreciates both the classroom and administrative aspects of education. “I love being in the classroom,” she says.

“Students are phenomenal. They challenge you to be a better you. I love their excitement and energy.”

Kelly Millenbah ’90, left, listens to a colleague.

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career in education brings together many passions for Kelly Millenbah ’90 of Mason, Michigan, now a college professor and administrator.

Millenbah majored in biology at Ripon and made trips to the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Wilderness Field Station near Ely, Minnesota. She remembers her experiences there as some of the most impactful of her life.

“After leaving Ripon, I knew I wanted to go on to graduate school,” Millenbah says.

She wanted to be a wildlife biologist and her time at the field station confirmed that desire. She received a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in fisheries and wildlife from Michigan State University.

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and interacting with students while serving as a teaching assistant for a population analysis course.

“It really evolved from there,” she says.

“I loved teaching and the more I learned about how students learn, it was clear that I had another new passion — teaching and learning.”

Halfway through her Ph.D., she was offered a faculty position. In that role, in addition to on-campus courses, she also led study abroad programs to Kenya, Australia and South Africa.

Now, at Michigan State, she is senior associate dean and director of academic and student affairs for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; and a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.

As an administrator, though, “I get to work at a different level and effect change by influencing and shaping experiences that enhance our students’ ability to be successful,” she says.

While no longer regularly teaching, Millenbah continues to publish and engage in research, most notably in the areas of teaching and learning.

A good educator, she says, needs “passion to make a difference and passion to see the importance of affecting and supporting other individuals. That is critical. It’s important for us to be concerned about others and ensure they have access to the best classrooms, programs and curriculum.

“There is no greater gift that someone can give themselves than education. Your education can never be taken away from you. As an educator, we have the ability to shape and support students and give them all the tools possible to be effective leaders and global citizens.”

Sam Dougan ’48 encouraged students to learn responsibility E

ducation wasn’t a career that Sam Dougan ’48 actively pursued, but it presented itself as an opportunity, and it grew to be a significant force in his life.

Dougan was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and enrolled at Ripon College in 1940 as the first in his family to attend college. He says he came from a farm family where the men previously had not gone on to school, but two aunts on his father’s side and an aunt on his mother’s side were teachers.

He spent only a year at Ripon before enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II. “Instead of showing up for my sophomore year, I enlisted in the Army three months before Pearl Harbor,” he said.

“I was overseas for 34 months.”

His service included the invasion of North Africa.

He returned to Ripon at the conclusion of the war. He majored in history and he had a job helping to clean the biology classrooms and labs. This job paid for a third of his yearly tuition of $510.

After graduating, he taught history for three years in Oconomowoc and geography for four years in Watertown.

He then received a master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied education at the University of Arizona. He remained in Tucson and taught social studies for 27 years. He also acted as a liaison between

the school district and the University of Arizona’s teacher training program.

At first, he says, he felt it was “just a job, and I was pretty strict. But soon, I got to really like the kids and their enthusiasm.”

He also liked to help young people who needed it. “If I got a kid who had a bad time at home, he could be a little negative to the teacher,” he said. “I wanted to teach them responsibility. When I was a kid, people did whatever they did and got the best out of it and made the best out of it.

The kids in those days are not the same kids who are in the classroom today. Kids today are more demanding and freewheeling.”

One of his favorite students is a retired medical doctor who still stays at Dougan’s house when he visits Tucson.

He says the qualities that make a good educator are confidence in their subject matter, patience and a good self-image.

For 25 years, Dougan was a volunteer at the Arizona Postal Museum in Tucson. He also was actively involved with his church.

Dougan retired in 1983. At 95 years old, he remains actively committed to working out, managing his collections of stamps, art and postcards, and keeping up with what is going on in the world and at Ripon College. He is a member of Ripon’s Partners in the Legacy.

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Elizabeth “Lizzie” Brown ’13 works with a student at Central Washington University’s Brooks Library.

Ripon alumni impact the future with careers in education From the first graduating class in 1867 through today, Ripon College has continued to educate students who are passionate about sharing their knowledge, continuing their own learning and influencing generations to come through the power of education. They teach around the world at all educational levels from pre-school to graduate school. They serve as counselors and in administration, the Peace Corps and educational programs in service and business settings. Here are some of them.

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A desire to help others and to share her passion for language led Madeson Walgenbach ’16 to major in educational studies and Spanish at Ripon College. As a student, she received the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers Future Language Teacher Award.

Walgenbach is a Spanish teacher at Waupun (Wisconsin) Junior/Senior High School, teaching sevenththrough 12th-grade Spanish. “Good educators invest in their students and work to mold learning to fit their needs,” Walgenbach says. “My hope is for students to understand that life will always throw them challenges but that those challenges are what will mold them as people and help them grow.”

The transition to being an educator happened “organically” for Elizabeth “Lizzie” Brown ’13. She has a degree in English from Ripon College and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. She now is an associate professor and reference librarian/ instruction coordinator at Brooks Library at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.

There, she now also works as an instructor and educator.

“I’ve found that the values of educational work aligned closely with my personal interests and values,” she says. “The work I currently do allows me to help students achieve their educational goals, explore the learning edge with them, expose students to new ideas, contribute to the available scholarship in my profession and learn something new every day.”

She says a good educator should be open-minded. “If we ask those we teach to gain new knowledge from us, we have to be open to gaining new knowledge in return,” she says. “Teaching is definitely a forked road, and the same lesson that works for one class may flop with another. Being flexible in the moment requires keeping your perspective on the big-picture goals and constantly reading your group to provide information in a way that’s relevant to them.

“There is so much to learn in life, and the time I have with students is limited. If I can inspire them to be their own motivation to learn more, I have done my job.”

“I feel that education is the most important career there is,” says Leah Hover-Preiss ’08 of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. “Without quality teachers at all levels, there would not be good doctors, lawyers, engineers and so on. Society needs educators who want to make the world a better place, and I have always wanted to do so.”

Hover-Preiss teaches math at Poynette (Wisconsin) High School. She also is coach of the math team, adviser to the Link Crew Freshman Transition Program and co-founder and co-adviser to the Literary Arts Council. She recently defended her dissertation toward a doctorate in education from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota and has presented papers at education conferences and workshops.

“My biggest desire is for my students to know that while they may never use some of the formulas or mathematical properties they learned in algebra and geometry in their everyday lives, they will use the perseverance, resiliency, collaboration and problem-solving strategies that they developed in the courses and that with those qualities they can do anything they want to do.

“A good educator cares not only for each student they work with but wants to push them to be the best individual he or she can be.”

Lindsey Kreye Heil ’08 of Savage, Minnesota, is a high school special education teacher, working with students who have mild-to-moderate learning disabilities. She also teaches 10th-grade English and a small-group structured English class.

“While I was growing up, I faced a variety of academic challenges,” Heil says. “Along the way, I was lucky enough to have teachers who believed in me and encouraged me to never give up. … I decided to go into education, specifically special education, with hope that I would be able to help students through their learning challenges and in reaching their highest potential.”

She says a good educator is passionate about the subjects they teach, develops meaningful relationships with students and families, and holds high expectations for all students.

“Each year, I have between 18 and 22 high school students on my special education caseload,” she says. “All of these students have individualized education programs and all have very unique needs.

My hope is that they not only take away the skills that I have helped them learn throughout high school but also remember that, although things in life might not always come easily, with hard work and determination, it is possible to obtain your dreams.”

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Olivia Wetzel ’13 originally planned to teach, but hearing a school counselor speak about justice sparked a career change. After completing the professional counseling program and earning a master’s of science degree in education at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, she now is the K-5 school counselor at Rossman Elementary School in Hartford, Wisconsin.

Erika Doss ’78 of South Bend, Indiana, comes from a family of educators. Her mother taught elementary school, and her father, Seale Doss, was a professor of philosophy at Ripon College from 1964-99. “Their respect and enthusiasm for learning and for critical thinking about how and what we learn was infectious,” Doss says.

“I decided to go into education because I wanted to be the safe place/ person for students at school,” she says. “Without those safe people I had the privilege of meeting on my own journey through school, I would not be where I am today. WB Yeats said, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’ I wanted to be the spark that inspires perseverance, compassion, curiosity, open-mindedness and acceptance. It is truly an honor and privilege to be this support for both students and staff.”

She now is a professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame and received Ripon College’s Distinguished Alumni Citation in June 2018.

She feels a good educator has a passion for educating others and uses their own education to do so. “A great educator, however, knows they are always as much of a student as they are an educator,” she says.

“They are vulnerable, passionate and authentic. They are ready to be challenged and take on challenges, and they believe in their colleagues and students fiercely.”

Making an impact on a larger scale led Bryant Bednarek ’07 to transition from being a classroom teacher to an administrator. He is the assistant principal at Wautoma (Wisconsin) High School.

As both his parents were teachers, “I saw firsthand that I could live a fulfilling life as an educator. I also feel strongly that today’s youths are in need of positive influences and role models from outside the home because many do not have a stable home environment. I felt I could have a positive impact on many lives as an educator and leave my mark through that impact.”

He says good educators like and want to help students be strong, engaging communicators, and have a love of learning for themselves.

“Today’s teachers have to be especially creative to engage students who come in hooked on instant gratification platforms like social media,” he says. “Education is changing and what worked well five years ago may not work well in five more years. In order to stand the test of time, you have to continue to grow your craft.”

He says the most important lessons aren’t found on standardized tests.

“I hope my students realize that even though we all come from different places and that we all have different aspirations, the world is better if we are nice to people along the way,” he says. “If they don’t learn anything else, I hope it is how to get along with others who are different.”

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The qualities of a good educator: “Being fair and being clear. Being able to explain how and why the subject that you are teaching is relevant and important. Not assuming you know everything and being open to alternative points of view. Modeling a kind of behavior and a way of thinking that motivates and inspires students to think for themselves and achieve their own goals and ambitions. Having empathy. Having a thick skin. Staying curious and enthusiastic about what you teach.”

Her hope for her students, she says, is for them to always forge their own paths and stay curious about the world.

Education is a family tradition for Stuart Russ ’07. His mother and three aunts were teachers. His father was a school board president. His uncle was an elementary school principal. He has siblings and cousins who are all in education.

“Growing up, teaching was something that always interested me,” Russ says.

“It was not until I entered the classroom that I became interested in pursuing a career in administration.”

At Ripon College, Russ majored in history and minored in English and educational studies. He taught for six years, was associate principal at a high school for four years and now is in his first year as principal of Shawano (Wisconsin) Community Middle School.

“No two days are ever the same,” he says. “I am responsible for staffing, professional development, student achievement and everything in between.”

He says good educators can form genuine, positive relationships with students and challenge themselves and their students to achieve at levels they did not think possible. “I hope my students know that I value them as people,” he says. “I want them to be able to go into the world with the ability to think for themselves and not take everything at face value. We live in a time when the ability to critically think and evaluate information is more important than ever.”

Missy Skurzewski-Servant ’04 discovered a passion for education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. She earned a Ph.D. in leadership studies, served as associate dean at UW-Sheboygan and now is dean of the School of Business and Technology for the various campuses of Mid-State Technical College in Wisconsin.

“Lifelong learning is a part of (an educator’s) identity, while at the same time they are masters of their skill/discipline,” she says. “A good educator cares about people’s needs and mentors individuals toward their goals. They set high standards for students and colleagues and hold themselves and others accountable for providing a quality learning experience and environment in their classroom. These individuals know that their impact is experienced not only in the classroom, but also through their support of institutional events, in the building of partnerships with businesses and other educators, and in spreading their knowledge to the larger surrounding community.”

She wants students to learn and develop from her modeling and guidance. “I hope that all students realize how fortunate they are to have had the opportunity to experience education and that they encourage others to embrace learning,” she says. “I hope they achieve their dreams, utilize their talents to contribute positively to society and pause often to reflect and appreciate all that their educational experience provided for them.”

“One of my first memories is pretending to be a teacher with the neighborhood kids as my pupils, so being an educator was something I grew up wanting to be,” says Nick Osenberg ’11 of Ferndale, Michigan.

At the Warren (Michigan) Consolidated School of Performing Arts, he teaches design and technical theatre, oversees costume shop operations, works with student carpenters and painters, and with parent volunteers on box office duties and ushering.

“A good educator is a listener and a believer in the next generation(s) of citizens,” Osenberg says. “I strive to make my classroom a place where I talk for less than a third of the class period and my students spend the other two-thirds working and actively participating in class while I listen and respond to their work.”

He says he also believes in the power of education to help democratic societies thrive and create well-informed citizens. “I want my students to believe that they can do whatever they set their minds to and make them self-actualized learners,” Osenberg says. “Much like Ripon College taught me, I want my students to be able to learn new things throughout the course of their lives.”

Teaching was always the goal for Bryan Nell ’09. “I find it very rewarding to share my knowledge of a subject with my students and pass along what I know,” he says.

“It is a very challenging but very gratifying experience.”

Nell majored in chemistry and minored in economics at Ripon College. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Oregon, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He now is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Morris, teaching primarily organic chemistry and other upper-level electives. He also performs chemical research with the help of his undergraduate researchers.

“I think there are many ways one can be a good educator, and it is a constantly evolving process of learning how to be better at teaching,” Nell says. “I find that being passionate about a subject can really engage students and get them to be actively learning in the classroom.

Other key things I think are important: patience, being a good listener and asking lots of questions.

“I hope that my students come away from my classroom being able to solve problems and to think critically. Not every student will continue on in chemistry, but they still can learn valuable skills they can use the rest of their lives.”

“I am passionate about learning and wanted to share that passion with others,” says Emily Dozier ’14 of Quincy, Illinois. “Education provides endless opportunities, and I believe the lack of an education is what keeps people rooted in poverty.”

Dozier is an adult education transition coordinator at John Wood Community College, working with adult students on their GEDs, basic education skills or improving their English.

She says a good educator recognizes that one size does not fit all. Her students come from diverse backgrounds and ability levels and learn differently and at their own pace. “On top of educational challenges, many also struggle with very real-world problems like transportation, child care and even housing,” she says.

It is important for students to realize that education is the only thing that can’t be taken away from them, she says. “I hope they keep moving forward in their educational journeys or careers. Most of the students in our program live challenging lives with poverty at the center of it. Since many have grown up in, or are still immersed in, a culture of poverty, it can be difficult for our students to see the bigger picture to continue their education when they have immediate needs.”

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ALUMNI PERSPECTIVES

Dean David Harris, right, converses with a group of students.

What is the greatest life lesson you took away from your professors at Ripon College?

A liberal arts and sciences education exposes students to new perspectives, worldviews and a personal understanding of who we are and who we can become. A single sentiment can expand our outlook, summarize for us how we want to carry ourselves through life and keep us going in the right direction. Here, alumni share some of those great words of wisdom learned from Ripon College faculty and staff.

Many years ago (1980), I was a budding freshman, new on campus and new to Wisconsin. It was the first big trip I ever made in my life, and Ripon was the chance I took to grow out of my Connecticut roots.

One of the first things they did with the freshman class was to split the men from the women so they could meet with the respective deans.

I got to meet with David Harris, an older gentleman with wire-frame glasses who was very well-spoken and was a few years away from retirement. In my head I was saying, “What could this old man tell an 18-year-old that will be useful?” I thought it was going to be a boring talk about the College or how to

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behave in class. Boy, was I wrong.

Dean Harris instantly captured our attention by saying one phrase that has stuck with me for all these years: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

We’ve all heard it before and have passed it off as a useless aphorism. Dean Harris made it genuinely come alive in front of 100+ boys. He told us, “Life is hard and that anything important will take determination, resilience and elbow grease.”

He said, “The next four years here at Ripon can be happy and productive ones if you work hard — college is not an amusement park ride like most people think.”

That 15-minute speech changed my life.

I graduated from Ripon in 1984, went to work for a number of great companies over 20 years, and now run my own highperformance coaching practice. I say those same words to every one of my clients when I onboard them.

In addition, my son, Chris, just graduated from Ripon this past year, and my other son, Andrew, is actively applying!

Thank you, Dean Harris. You were a powerful dean of men, and a “Marcus Aurelius” who truly changed my life.

Rich Gee ’84 Oxford, Connecticut

Thanking Dr. (Paul) Aldus (English), Bill Tyree (philosophy), Robert “Spud” Hannaford (philosophy) and Sidney Goodrich (classics). Dr. Goodrich said that my name, Phyllis, meant something like “a young tree whose branches will bend greatly but are very hard to break.” What a thought (!) as I have gone through some hazardous life events. Bill Tyree taught me and my husband, Richard Kraft ’58, that anyone who leads in any capacity, a teacher, parent, politician, office manager, friend, takes “hostages to fortune” — the hostages being those whom he or she leads. Finally, some words I try to keep in mind are: “What is your tolerance for ambiguity?” They tend to keep one humble.

Phyllis Schaffer Kraft ’58 San Antonio, Texas •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Dr. Jack Christ (leadership studies) taught me, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” This has stuck with me through the years and helped me in my personal and professional relationships.

Daniel Mikesell ’14 Kanagawa, Japan •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Hands down, Dr. William Tyree. “Sometimes you have to put aside the books and tend to the education.”

Favorite words: Life is a participatory sport.

You do not stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old if you stop laughing!

Henry Holzkamper ’62 Bonita Springs, Florida •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I almost weekly recall a quote from Shakespeare that frequently came up in our Alpha Phi Omega (the Boy Scout fraternity) meetings: “To thine own self be true, for then it surely follows as night the day, Thou cans’t not be false to any man.”

J. Peter Jensen ’58 Belmont, California

Jack Christ makes a point during a lesson.

When I was midway through my chem/ bio double major at Ripon, I had misgivings about spending so much time studying science and not enough time studying other subjects. I had always loved music, art and literature and was tempted to take courses outside of Farr Hall, but I feared that if I did that it would detract from my science education.

I mentioned that concern to Dr. Richard Scamehorn (chemistry), and he stopped whatever he was doing and gave me some well-thought-out and sound advice.

He suggested that it might improve my scientific work if I have a continued interest in the humanities, adding that the two complement each other. He recommended a book that I believe was called The Two Sciences, about just this issue. I think he grabbed the book from the shelf in his office and handed it over. ...

Ripon was a place where our professors were accessible and so helpful to us as students for lessons learned not just in lecture but also in the interactive projects we worked on and in our campus life.

Dorothy Jaeger Jayne ’73 Cleveland, Wisconsin

As a biology major with med school aspirations, my curriculum was weighted heavily with science and math courses. If Ripon’s liberal arts requirements hadn’t forced me to also include a smattering of history, foreign language, English and philosophy, I would not consider myself an educated person.

Such courses exposed me to what I can describe only as an intellectual journey into a vast world of knowledge of which I had no awareness. As an example, I was enthralled as a freshman by the introduction to such a world in Dr. John Glaser’s (history) ICHME class — Introduction to the Culture and History of Modern Europe.

Other such classes followed, many offering me an opportunity to discuss a variety of topics in small classes in an informal setting.

Such a class was the History of Religion, taught by Dr. William Tyree, in which we were exposed to religious philosophies around the world and encouraged to form our own personal credo while being tolerant of those of others.

My greatest life lesson was becoming aware of all that the world has to offer and keeping my mind and heart open to the fulfillment that knowledge brings. Ripon provided me the tools for achieving that, and I will always be grateful.

Donna Haubrich Reichle ’59 Fripp Island, South Carolina W I N T E R 2019

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It wasn’t so much what Ripon professors said as it was the example that they set, each in his own unique way, but all pointing to a respect for intellectual life. One of my favorite memories is of Dr. John Glaser of the history department (who wrote his dissertation at Harvard on Gladstone) frequently reading the Times of London in Lane Library.

The greatest life lesson I was taught by a Ripon professor may not have been an intentional lesson, but it is one of the most powerful truths I know. When I arrived at Ripon, I already knew I wanted to be a biology major. With Ripon being a liberal arts institution, I was required to study in other areas and I found that economics was of particular interest to me.

Susan Vonder Heide ’74 Chicago, Illinois

Halfway through my sophomore second semester and second class in economics, I told my professor, Paul Schoofs, that I wanted to earn a degree in economics.

I liked it that much. He asked if I had decided on a major yet, and I told him I was majoring in biology. “You already have a major. I highly advise that you reconsider your desire to be an economics major, as well. Doing both at this point in your college career could be a bad mistake.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The statement that has remained with me is from a speech by President Fred O. Pinkham.

He told us that at Ripon, we are not teaching you what to think, but HOW to think.

Lynn Siebel Sundelius ’63 Kalispell, Montana •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I learned that the professors cared about each of the students personally and were willing to help get you into grad school if you wanted to go. I learned that being one of two female chemistry majors in my class made no difference to the male professors or to guys in our class, and that I was equally qualified to get a good job after graduation. I learned that as a woman, I was equal and deserved to be treated as an equal to the men.

Many thanks to Dr. Jack Powers, my chemistry professor who still corresponds with me at Christmas 53 years later. Last year he sent a note that said, “You may never know how much it means to me to hear at Christmas from former Ripon students, and this is especially true of the select group of women that joined us in the chemistry department and went on to being successful in that field. That was a time when relatively few females could be interested in the physical sciences even though the job opportunities were more encouraging in chemistry or physics than in so many other disciplines. And Carol, I include you high on that list. Jack.”

Carol Rummel Dingman ’64 Dallas, Texas

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The challenge was made. The challenge was taken. I received a bachelor’s degree in each discipline two years later. It took some summer school to get it done, but done is what it was going to be. The lesson was about the power of a challenge and the will to see it through. Although I have nothing much to do with either biology or economics today, I experience no shortage of challenges. It was a lesson well-learned at Ripon, and applied ever since.

Bake Shaffer ’83 Tucson, Arizona •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Dr. (Edwin) Webster (history) taught me that learning was exciting and important to my understanding of the world. The study with him of Ancient Near East History, Greece, Rome and Byzantia gave a lens to look at today’s world and politics.

A saying I taught my children and try to live by from “Auntie Mame”: “Life is a banquet, and most poor (souls) are starving to death.”

Deborah Johnson Van Slyke ’60 Scottsdale, Arizona

Ripon taught me to think critically and live ethically — as my parents did. The key words I tell people I work with is that we need to “take care of our people so they can take care of our customers.”

In most businesses, it is always important to demonstrate that the people in the company are its most valuable asset and all are key to the success of the company.

Harry Quinn ’77 Bel Air, Maryland •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I’d say that I learned a couple of great life lessons at Ripon. First of all was simply learning how to learn. I’ve said for a while now that “If you don’t want to learn, IT is not the right field for you.” My Ripon experience taught me how to be a selfdirected learner, which has helped me immensely over the last 20 years as my career in IT has progressed.

The second lesson was something that Dr. Ted Jones, professor of German, taught me.

“College is to Learn How to Learn!”

While a student, it was very easy for me to get wrapped up in thinking I didn’t know enough stuff while I was in school.

How can I possibly learn all that I need to do a good job after I graduate? But once I became aware of the real reason for college, it gave me more confidence in being able to navigate my own future. I think it would be VERY helpful to students currently in college to learn that key purpose of college.

Nicholas P. “Chip” Retson ’69 Aiken, South Carolina I was initially an indifferent student who really didn’t take the time to prepare for class. One day, Dr. (Ted) Jones had had enough of my indifference and laid it out for me: “Look, I’m not here to hold your hand.

If you’re not going to bother to prepare, why don’t you just not come? Don’t waste my time.” Yes, it was hard to hear, but it opened up my eyes to what I needed to do, both in German class and in life. I, and only I, was responsible for my success or failure,

and I, and only I, could ensure that. It took me a while to change my habits, but that particular lesson taught me to look ahead and to be ready — a habit that has also been of particular value in a changing field like IT. David Presuhn ’86 Fridley, Minnesota •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Several of my business professors continuously told me to appreciate the people you know to build relationships because you never know what doors will open down the line. Seize opportunities when they present themselves. (After several changes of areas of study and taking opportunities when they presented themselves), I realized that the printing and design industry is where I ultimately wanted to end up in. … So now I work at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), home to the largest air convention in the world, and I made it as a graphic designer in publications. Ripon College didn’t offer graphic design as a major, but through the opportunities and relationships built in my time at Ripon College, I was able to still achieve my career I wanted! I seized opportunities and will continue to seize opportunities when they present themselves later in life.

Cordell Walker ’18 Ripon, Wisconsin •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Ripon professors taught me that you had to work to succeed and that no matter how long it took and how hard it was, if you believe in yourself and work hard, you can make anything happen. The professors gave you the tools and showed you the road but you had to walk it by yourself. They were always there to help but not to do it for you.

I think I first learned this in Professor Dino Zei’s Chem-Phys class freshman year. …

Professor Zei never took attendance. When asked why, he replied, “Your parents already paid the tuition. I hope you will come to class, but that’s up to you. We’re here to teach you if you’re here to learn.” That’s when it dawned on me that it WAS all up to me.

Brian Smith gives a classroom lecture.

Words to live by? Mine have always been: “Good enough is not good enough.” You can’t phone it in. You have to do the work to be the best.

and criticize his own. It was beautiful to watch someone honor other people’s beliefs while still loving his own — something I strive to do every day.

Scott A. Nyquist ’69 Naples, Florida

I have two favorite words to live by:

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Be kind to others because you don’t know what they’re going through.

Difficult concepts can be overcome with determination and persistence. And my favorite words to live by: If we don’t learn anything by the movement of history, we’re bound to repeat it.

Say what you mean. Don’t try to hint or say things in code. Be direct.

I’ve applied that in my life. If I make mistakes, I’ve tried to learn from them.

I’m so indebted to the education I got at Ripon College. It changed my whole life.

I’ve had a successful career as a lawyer and now a mediator in employee disputes. Had I not gone to Ripon, I would never have succeeded in law school and in life because of the education and the discipline that I developed.

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Howard Myers ’61 Mequon, Wisconsin •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I learned an important lesson from Brian Smith, the religion professor. He taught my World Religions class and my History of Christian Theology and Ethics class. He showed me that, as a former priest, he could accept and see the beauty in other religions,

Ariel Dickinson ’12 Madison, Wisconsin

The professors at Ripon taught me some amazing life lessons. The two that stick with me the most are “It’s OK to ask for help” and “Your ideas are not always crazy, just different. You’re going to change the world someday.” Professor Brian Smith taught me both of those lessons. I had him for many classes, and he has been very encouraging and helpful since I graduated as well.

Some of my favorite words to live by are: “Never stop being you.” In a world where we are told by others what or how to be, it’s important to remember who you are.

Hope Bell ’15 St. Cloud, Minnesota

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New approach, facilities shape modern exercise science programs Both the field of exercise science and the program at Ripon College are growing, and it’s expected that growth will continue in the years to come.

The health and wellness industry has exploded with 12.8 percent growth from 2015-17 and is now a $4.2 trillion global industry. One of Ripon’s most popular areas of study is well-positioned to meet increasing demand, thanks to the addition of two new faculty members, a new curriculum, and state-of-the-art facilities in Willmore Center.

This fall, the Department of Exercise Science rolled out a new curriculum designed to support four majors: athletic training, human performance, physical education and sports management; and

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four minors: adapted physical education, coaching, health, and strength and conditioning.

“By expanding our courses and course offerings, we have increased the rigor within the department and improved the skill sets that graduates possess,” explains Mark Cole, associate professor and chair of exercise science, who joined Ripon in spring 2016.

During the redesign process, faculty placed an emphasis on extending the rigor of coursework, aligning content and hands-on experiences with changing national standards, and mirroring the labor market and society’s increasing interest in the sub-disciplines within exercise science, Cole says.

Jessica Bykowski ’18 and Associate Professor of Exercise Science Mark Cole examine the body composition of Brock Woodman ’18, who sits in the department’s new BOD POD®. Bykowski majored in exercise science with an athletic training emphasis, and Woodman majored in recreation physical education.

“The exercise science faculty come from very different backgrounds, allowing us to collaborate and provide students with applicable experiences and knowledge in almost any career related to the broad field of exercise science,” says Brittany Followay, assistant professor of exercise science, who joined Ripon last fall. “Our focus is to prepare and educate students to become successful health and fitness professionals through the development of key skills such as effective communication, critical thinking, real-world application and community engagement.”

Willmore Center plays a big role in mixing the applied experiences with scholarly learning. Engaging classrooms, modern equipment and adjacent activity spaces are paramount. Students gain exceptional

The Department of Exercise Science is finding new ways to engage local public school students. Several events have been held with Ripon’s Journey Charter School, averaging 200 visitors per event.

hands-on and laboratory experiences through dedicated lab space for student research projects and state-of-the-art equipment like: • BOD POD®, assessing body composition • Electrocardiogram, detecting heart problems • VeloTron, assessing anaerobic power • Heart rate variability software • Diagnostic ultrasound Students learn about the methods for assessing health and wellness before walking across the hall or to the back of the room to practice these same tests on classmates. Whether it is cardiovascular stress, body composition, heart rate variability or other health and wellness assessments, students can “see one, do one” during the same class period.

“I hope that our students develop an appreciation for physical activity and sport as holistic experiences with significant psychological, social and physical components,” says Cole. “I also hope that our graduates use their understanding of physical activity and sport to positively impact not just an individual’s health, wellness and quality of life, but that they use their knowledge to improve society as a whole.”

Brock Woodman ’18 assists community member J.J. Curi with a dead lift as a member of the student athletic training staff.

Exercise Science Welcomes Two New Faculty Members Mark Cole Associate Professor and Chair of Exercise Science Cole began his career as an athletic trainer, working at all levels from clinic to high school to professional and Olympic. He later earned a doctorate in sport psychology and the sociology of sport.

Cole’s research focuses on the psychological aspects of injury and rehabilitation and how healthcare providers can better use their understanding of these psychological factors to improve the recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more about Cole at ripon.edu/faculty/colem.

Brittany Followay Assistant Professor of Exercise Science Followay joined the faculty in fall 2018 from Kent State in Ohio. She brings practical experience in various areas of exercise science, including cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, wellness consulting, personal training, and exercise testing and prescription. Her research emphasis is in neuromuscular physiology and injury/disease prevention in the aging population. Learn more about Followay at ripon.edu/faculty/followayb.

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SPORTS

Women’s tennis makes quick turnaround to higher standings Ripon College’s tennis program has ushered in a new era with the hiring of Head Coach Rob Oertel. He is the Red Hawks’ first fulltime men’s and women’s tennis coach since Hall of Famer Chuck Larson ’65 retired in 2005 after 39 years as head coach.

Oertel’s arrival immediately paid dividends as the women’s team finished the 2018 fall season with their best record in 12 years, going 8-4 as a team, including 5-4 in the Midwest Conference — as many conference wins as they had during the last three years combined.

“I was very happy with the progress that we made this season, and it showed in our results,” Oertel says. “I was hired with the expectation of turning this into a respectable program, and I informed the women from day one that moving up in the MWC 26

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standings and winning more matches than previous years is a high priority. It’s great that they bought into that philosophy and succeeded this fall.”

One reason for Ripon’s quick turnaround was the play of the first-year students, who make up exactly half of the team’s roster.

They include Brianna Bembenek and Hannah Ryback, who combined to go 10-8 in singles play at the number one and two flights, respectively. That duo also teamed up to go 5-4 at number one doubles.

“We have some very good building blocks for the future with our five first-year students,” Oertel says. “Brianna and Hannah handled playing at the top of the lineup with exceptional poise. They both have a lot of inner confidence.”

The fall success will help the program in the

future, as they hope to see an even bigger influx of talent in the coming years after finishing fifth in the MWC standings, just one game shy of qualifying for the MWC Team Tournament. That is a place the Red Hawks haven’t been since 2003.

“I hope we can continue to build on this momentum so that we will consistently qualify for the MWC Team Tournament, which means that we’ll need to finish in the top four in the conference standings. That is the goal,” Oertel says.

Another aspect that has helped is the team’s facilities. Although the team plays many of its matches outside on Larson Courts, they also play some matches inside the newly renovated Willmore Center. “As cold as it gets late in the season, having Willmore Center really helped us get some quality

Sport Highlights Doehling-Heselton Trophy // The Red Hawks defeated Lawrence University 52-0 to retain the Doehling-Heselton Trophy, awarded annually to the winner of this rivalry game, for the 19th consecutive season. Ripon has won 21 of the last 22 meetings against the Vikings in what is the oldest college football rivalry in the state of Wisconsin, dating back to the 1893 season.

Naomi Jiter ’19 // Women’s soccer student-athlete Naomi Jiter ’19 of Kenosha, Wisconsin, received this year’s Midwest Conference Women’s Soccer Elite 20 Award, given for the highest cumulative grade-point average while participating in a culminating championship or tournament event. Jiter, a biology major, is a two-time Academic All-Conference performer. One of Ripon’s top defenders, she has appeared in 47 career games for the Red Hawks, making 36 starts. Ripon advanced to the Midwest Conference Tournament.

Lane Barnes ’19 // Defensive back Lane Barnes ’19 of Clovis, California, finished the football season leading all of NCAA Division III in forced fumbles, while also being tied for eighth in the Midwest Conference in interceptions (3), and finishing in the top 20 in the conference in tackles (78), tackles for loss (12) and passes defended (8).

practice and preparation time,” Oertel says. “Good tennis players want to play, so I think Willmore Center will help us tremendously with recruiting because our players know that they can play on any day they want at any time, no matter what the weather conditions may be.”

Oertel’s challenge now is to conduct a similar turnaround with the Ripon men’s tennis team this spring. The men’s team once was the crown jewel of the MWC, with 21 conference championships, the most of any sport in Ripon College history; but they haven’t qualified for the MWC Team Tournament since 2007.

“The men’s team could be a little more of a challenge because we won’t have as many players on the roster as the women’s team. But I hope to see just as much progress throughout the season, with our goals being very much the same,” Oertel says.

MIKE WESTEMEIER DIRECTOR OF ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

Cormac Madigan ’22 // Cormac Madigan ’22 of Rosendale, Wisconsin, was named the Midwest Conference North Division Football Newcomer of the Year. He is a chemistry-biology major and led the conference in rushing yards with 1,109, which ranks seventh in school history for a single season. He also scored 13 rushing touchdowns, which tied for the most in the MWC and is tied for ninth in Ripon history. Also named to the MWC’s All Conference First Team, Madigan averaged 7.4 yards per carry, while also throwing for 318 yards and three touchdowns.

Maggie Oimoen ’19 // Maggie Oimoen ’19 became just the ninth player in Ripon College women’s basketball history to score more than 1,000 career points during the Red Hawks’ 61-52 win against Illinois College on Dec. 1.

Coach Ryan Kane // Head men’s basketball coach Ryan Kane earned his 100th career victory in a win over Illinois College on Dec. 1. In his seventh season at the helm of the Red Hawks, Kane now holds a 106-56 career record (.654 winning pct.) as of Jan. 15, 2019, making him the third-winningest coach in program history. The Red Hawks, in early December, were at 51-15 at home during Kane’s tenure (.773), including 4-0 at the beginning of this season.

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AROUND THE CLOCKTOWER 1

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1. Ripon leads state in graduate earnings, social mobility, economics, innovation

2. New leadership announced in Office of Advancement

5. Michael Milburn ’97, Ann Rawding ’83 are new Trustees

Ripon College produces the highest-earning graduates in the state of Wisconsin, according to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard. The website Zippia used scorecard data to determine the school in each state whose graduates earned the most in mean wages 10 years after graduation. The report has been shared by news media across the country.

Shawn Karsten ’09 is the new vice president for advancement, and Lisa Ellis is the new associate vice president for advancement. Karsten, a Ripon native, served as the College’s interim associate vice president for advancement for the previous year. Ellis, previously the director of advancement services, has moved into a newly created role to serve as the division’s primary tactical, administrative and management officer.

Michael J. Milburn ’97 of Chicago and Ann M. Rawding ’83 of Grandview, New York, have been elected to the Ripon College Board of Trustees. Their terms began with the fall meeting in October.

Ripon College also has been ranked the top liberal arts school in Wisconsin and eighth in the nation for colleges that promote social mobility, according to U.S. News & World Report. The ranking for social mobility measures schools’ success at supporting their students from low-income families and rates them based on the graduation rates of those students.

Ripon College is ranked first in the state of Wisconsin and 15th in the nation among all colleges and universities offering economics programs, as published by Study.com.

Economics programs were considered based on outcomes data as reported by the Department of Education, academic and career resources for economics students, the quality of education in economics, faculty and other factors.

College Consensus ranks Ripon College on its Top 50 list of Most Innovative Colleges. Ripon is recognized for its 20-credit applied innovation Catalyst curriculum and its dedication to bringing Career and Professional Development resources into all four years of a student’s time on campus. Ripon is just one of three schools in Wisconsin to make the list.

3. Julia Meyers-Manor’s research earns widespread recognition “Lending a helping paw: Dogs will aid their crying human,” a research article co-written by Julia Meyers-Manor, Ripon College assistant professor of psychology, garnered widespread attention nationally and internationally, including coverage from Time, NBC News, The New York Times, Inside Edition, Daily Mail, The Conversation, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and numerous other print and broadcast outlets.

4. Faculty members take on new duties in administration While President Zach Messitte is on sabbatical during spring 2019, several staff and faculty members have taken on new positions.

Ed Wingenbach, vice president and dean of faculty, is serving as acting president.

Andrea Young is serving as acting vice president and dean of faculty. She continues to serve as special assistant to the president and liaison to the Board of Trustees.

Rebecca Matzke, professor of history, has taken on a new permanent position as dean of faculty development.

(Photo: Ed Wingenbach)

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Milburn is chief customer officer for the service cloud at Salesforce. At Ripon College, he majored in politics and government and minored in philosophy. He excelled at tennis and earned All-American honors as a senior.

Rawding is the senior director of public sector government practices at Salesforce. At Ripon College, she majored in history and minored in philosophy and was involved in WRPN, Student Senate and the history honor society.

6. Politics and government students publish opinion pieces Recent graduate Jimmy Amedeo ’18 of Orland Park, Illinois, had an article published in East Asia Forum June 17, 2018.

“Ambiguity the only certainty as the dust settles on the Singapore summit” was co-written with John Hemming, director of the Henry Jackson Society in London Amedeo and Nathan Faucett ’19 of Marinette, Wisconsin, published “Exercise Trident Juncture is a response to Russian aggression” in The Hill on Oct. 22, 2018, explaining the significance of NATO’s recent military exercise in Norway which tested the readiness and joint operability of NATO nations.

Amedeo is a researcher at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. He majored in politics and government with minors in national security studies and law and society at Ripon College. Faucett was involved in NATO’s Operation Joint Guardian. He is majoring in politics and government with a minor in national security studies.

(Photo: Jimmy Amedeo ’18, left and Nathan Faucett ’19)

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7. Seniors attend conference in Israel on world terrorism

10. It’s a small world with Ripon College connections

13. Paul Jeffries presents at international conference

Jacob Kramer ’19 of Ripon, Wisconsin, and Nathan Faucett ’19 of Marinette, Wisconsin, members of the Ripon College International Relations Club, attended the International Institute of Counter-Terrorism’s World Summit in Herzliya, Israel, in September. There were 30 lecturers from around the world and more than 1,500 participants from 60 countries.

The International Relations Club supplied partial funding for the trip.

Tom Hugdahl ’62 and Jackie Blodgett Hugdahl ’63 of Hudson, Wisconsin, took a Columbia and Snake River cruise, highlighting stories of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

“A lady sitting next to me at dinner, knowing we were from Wisconsin, said she went to a small college in Wisconsin and wondered if I’d heard of it — Ripon College. Well, Tom and I both looked at her and said, ‘Oh, yes — class of ’62 and ’63 here.’ She said, ‘Class of ’64 here.’ It was nice to meet Pat Ostrom Kohnen ’64 (of Pleasanton, California). We reminisced about Ripon during our trip.”

(Photo: Tom Hugdahl ’62, left, Pat Ostrom Kohnen ’64, Jackie Blodgett Hugdahl ’63 and the naturalist/storyteller on board)

Associate Professor of Philosophy Paul Jeffries attended the 12th annual conference of the International Society of MacIntyrean Enquiry held at St. John’s College at Durham University in Durham, England, in July 2018. The four-day conference focused on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most distinguished moral philosophers of the late 20th and 21st centuries. Jeffries gave a presentation, “A Conceptual Swiss Army Knife: MacIntyrean Enquiry in the Liberal Arts College.”

Kramer is majoring in politics and government with minors in national security studies and business management.

Faucett is majoring in politics and government with a minor in national security studies.

(Photo: Nathan Faucett ’19, left, and Jacob Kramer ’19)

8. 9/11 commemorated with flags, flag retirement ceremony Student members of Young Americans for Freedom and others placed small American flags on the lawn in front of Harwood Memorial Union to honor the 2,977 people who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Students at Ripon College have been marking the anniversary of that horrific day in this manner since 2009.

Also, a coordinated flag retirement ceremony was held with local veterans prior to the placement of the flags on the lawn.

9. Mark Krause ’19 receives award from regional classical association Mark Krause ’19 of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, is one of six recipients of the 2018 Manson Stewart Award, granted by the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. Krause is a double major in classical studies (self-designed) and history.

11. Sociology professor Marc Eaton co-edits book on supernatural The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, a book co-edited by Associate Professor of Sociology Marc Eaton, has been published by Temple University Press. The book demonstrates the value of serious academic inquiry into supernatural beliefs and practices through pieces written by several contributors who address encounters with ghosts and the supernatural that have persisted and flourished.

12. Assistant professor of English wins award for recent essay Mary Unger, assistant professor of English, received an award for an essay she published at the end of last year. She received the Katharine Newman Best Essay honor, given annually to the best essay published in the peer-reviewed journal, MultiEthnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), for her essay “Literary Justice in the Post-Ferguson Classroom,” published in MELUS, vol. 42, issue 4 (Winter 2017).

14. Students win honors at regional theatre festival Several Ripon College students were honored at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Region 3, held Jan. 8-13 in Madison, Wisconsin. DeShawn Thomas ’20 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Dakota Marlega ’21 of Waupaca, Wisconsin, advanced to the semi-final round of the Irene Ryan Scholarship Auditions. Crystal Fercy ’19 of Appleton, Wisconsin, advanced to the finals of the Design, Technology and Management (DTM) competition and won an honorable mention for her scenic design for the play “Paragon Springs.”

James Balistreri ’19 of Plymouth, Wisconsin, advanced to the finals in the DTM competition and won the Stage Management Fellowship. He will attend the national festival in Washington, D.C., later this year.

Ken Hill, professor of theatre and the Doreen L. ‘73 and David I. Chemerow Chair in Theatre, is the mentor to the Irene Ryan Scholarship nominees from Ripon. John Dalziel, associate professor of theatre, is the mentor for the DTM project.

(Photo: James Balistreri ’19)

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The newly renovated Lane Library

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Updates make Lane Library even more welcoming T

he entrance to Ripon College’s historic Lane Library received a major upgrade last summer, making it ADA accessible for all visitors. The new portico includes an extended front porch, two ramps and new steps.

Modern LED sconce lighting provides greater visibility at night. The addition of three rectangular flower boxes, featuring perennial varieties and lots of Ripon red, welcome visitors and have quickly become a favorite spot for selfies.

Critical improvements to Ripon’s historic campus spaces like this one at Lane Library are made possible by annual gifts to the Ripon Fund. In addition to Lane Library, upgrades were made to lounges, entranceways and classrooms. Thanks to all our Ripon Fund supporters, who help us make immediate impact every day.

For more information about how Ripon Fund gifts impacted campus last year, visit ripon.edu/ripon-fund.

Lane Library prior to the portico renovation.

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SAVE THE DATE FOR THE FIRST

The first-ever Applied Innovation Seminar, Catalyst 300, of the new Catalyst curriculum is in full swing this spring, with seven faculty members from across the College serving as mentors for 24 interdisciplinary teams of juniors. The teams are working to address significant problems and translate their visions to a viable framework of solutions. The seminar culminates in a series of public presentations of the solutions proposed by each team during Catalyst Day, Wednesday, April 24.

As part of the seminar, student teams are working collaboratively to integrate knowledge and address one of five problems situated within the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals framework: food for all, mental health systems, climate change mitigation, water pollution and reducing inequalities.

Teams will be challenged to propose an applied innovation, an improvement over existing solutions, to help solve their problem.

Students have the freedom to choose geographical scale and location. Some will work locally while others are likely to expand their visions to other states and countries.

The details of the course, structure of projects and faculty development resources needed for success were developed in the fall by a team of faculty and administrators, thanks to ongoing support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

All classes are canceled April 24 to allow members of the campus and broader community to attend the presentations. For more details, visit Ripon.edu/Catalyst.

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In memoriam MARCIA RUSSELL BESELER ’45 of Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin, died Dec. 2, 2016. At Ripon College, she majored in English and biology and participated in Kappa Sigma Chi. She taught high school English and biology. She established the Medical Reference Library at Howard Young and helped establish the library at Our Lady Queen of the Universe Catholic Church.

She enjoyed playing bridge, traveling, sewing, embroidery and ceramics. Survivors include one son and one daughter.

JOHN “JACK” GOODRICH ’46 of Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, died Sept. 22, 2018. He enrolled at Ripon College but enlisted Dec. 7, 1942. He served in the Army Air Corps as a B-17 co-pilot in England. He remained in the Air Force Reserve until 1962. He worked in the family business, Goodrich Furniture and Funeral Service, and graduated from Stout State University (now University of Wisconsin-Stout) in 1948. He worked for Employers Insurance of Wausau for 32 years in Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Kansas City. He enjoyed fixing things, outdoor activities, tennis and swimming.

After retiring, he lived in Lander, Wyoming, and Fort Collins, Colorado, and traveled extensively. Survivors include his wife, Mary; three sons and two daughters; and a sister PATRICIA GOODRICH CHRISTENSEN ’54.

DONALD “BILL” BESELER ’47 of Woodruff, Wisconsin, died Oct. 27, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in biology and participated in ROTC and Alpha Phi Omega. He served in the Army during World War II. He taught for several years before receiving a graduate degree in administration and policy from Central Washington University. He then served as a school administrator, principal and school superintendent.

He enjoyed outdoor activities, gardening and woodworking.

He was a member of the Lions, Rotary Club, American Legion and Veterans of Battle of the Bulge. He served on the Nicolet College Board for 10 years and the Tri-County Health and Human Services Board. Survivors include one son and one daughter.

KATHRYN J. PHILIPP ’47 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died Oct. 30, 2018. At Ripon College, she majored in English and history and participated in Ver Adest and Pi Tau Pi. She received a master’s degree in educational studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked for Menomonee Falls Public Schools as a curriculum coordinator.

LAWRENCE E. BRAY ’48 of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, died Nov. 14, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in mathematics and participated in Ver Adest and athletics. He received a degree in architecture from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II. He founded Bray Associates Architects in 1962 and designed and built more than 900 buildings all over the Midwest, specializing in schools. His book, Historic Elkhart Lake, included his own watercolor paintings. He enjoyed journaling and traveling. Survivors include two sons and four daughters.

RONALD GRAHAM ALBURY ’51 of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, died Oct. 24, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in philosophy and participated in football, Ver Adest and Merriman/Phi Kappa Pi. He received degrees from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, received his Diaconal Ordination May 8, 1954, and

his Priesthood Ordination Nov. 20, 1954. He was rector of the Church of the Holy Cross in North Plainfield for more than 25 years and associate priest at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Medford since 2003. He was a member of Rotary and a train enthusiast, and he was involved with migrant workers and anti-racism training. Survivors include two sons and five daughters.

ROBERT OTTO LIEBER ’52 of Neenah, Wisconsin, died Sept. 18, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in economics and participated in athletics and Lambda Delta Alpha. He was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Korea in 1953.

He worked in the family business, Lieber Lumber Co. He enjoyed traveling, the Green Bay Packers, photography, food, wine, golfing, swimming and taking Sunday drives.

He participated in the Neenah Club and volunteered at his church. Survivors include his wife, WILMA HEIM LIEBER ’52; one son and two daughters.

JAMES L. ATKINSON ’53 of Fullerton, California, died Sept.

17, 2017. At Ripon College, he majored in mathematics and participated in Omega Sigma Chi. He studied electrical engineering at Purdue University.

GERALD R. BARRICK ’53 of Oakland, California, died Sept.

29, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in economics and participated in ROTC. He received a degree in economics and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army from 1953-55, then practiced law in San Francisco and San Bruno, California.

He was an avid collector of antiques and art and enjoyed fly fishing, backpacking, camping and skiing. Survivors include his wife, Lynda Cook Barrick; one daughter and one stepson.

MARTHA ANN FIEDLER MORRIS ’53 of Ripon, Wisconsin, died Nov. 23, 2018. At Ripon College, she participated in Alpha Gamma Theta. She was a teacher and office aide at Ripon Middle School for 24 years. She was a longtime member of Ripon Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, and was a volunteer and associate member at Ripon Medical Center for 20 years. She belonged to Ripon Study Club and the Red Hat Society and enjoyed playing cards, reading, knitting, music and theater. Survivors include one son and two daughters; and a sister, JANET M. BOTTIGLIA ’57.

MARTIN JAMES DWYER ’54 of Garden Valley, Idaho, died Oct. 22, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in philosophy and participated in Ver Adest and Theta Sigma Tau. He attended seminary at Berkeley Divinity School and earned a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Northern Iowa.

He served in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserves, attaining the rank of commander. As an Episcopal priest, he served in several states, retiring as dean of St. Michael Episcopal Cathedral in Boise. He enjoyed woodworking and stein collecting.

Survivors include one son, two stepsons and a stepdaughter.

WALTER S. HOFMAN ’54 of Glenview, Illinois, died Nov. 16, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in biology, chemistry and German, and he participated in athletics, ROTC and Omega Sigma Chi. He earned a degree in dentistry from Marquette University and was a dentist in Streamwood and Hoffman Estates, Illinois, for more than 57 years. Survivors include

his wife, Ellen; and two daughters.

JAMES THAYER ’54 of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, died July 3, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in economics and participated in ROTC, Ver Adest, student government, College Days, athletics and Delta Sigma Psi. He entered the Army as a second lieutenant and served in Germany before retiring as a first lieutenant in 1957. He then worked for Speed Queen in Ripon, serving in several roles including vice president of field sales. He retired to Arizona and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His passion for history and aviation led him to become a docent at the EAA museum in 2000, where he led guided tours for 15 years. Survivors include his wife, Phyllis Thayer; three sons, including STUART THAYER, maintenance and carpentry worker at Ripon College, and one daughter.

RICHARD A. “DICK” JOHNSON ’55 of Falls Church, Virginia, died Oct. 21, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in physics and participated in ROTC and Merriman/Phi Kappa Pi. He attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, serving around the world for 20 years before retiring in 1976 as a lieutenant colonel. He earned a master’s degree in Russian studies from American University and worked as an independent AMSOIL dealer until his death. He enjoyed the Green Bay Packers, traveling/cruising, reading and working on crossword puzzles. Survivors include his wife, Betsy Holbrook Johnson of Falls Church, Virginia; three daughters; and a brother STEVEN J. JOHNSON ’58.

RICHARD HENRY “DICK” SCHUSTER ’55 of Shawano, Wisconsin, died Sept. 13, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in economics and was a member of Sigma Nu. In the mid-1960s, he bought his father’s business, Schuster’s Electric City, which became Schuster’s Home Appliance.

He operated it until his retirement in 1998. He loved the outdoors, was a member of Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited, and enjoyed hunting pheasant in South Dakota and elk and mule deer in Wyoming and Montana. He was an accomplished carpenter, golfer and skier, and he enjoyed Shawano history. Survivors include his wife, Susan; one son and two daughters.

JOHN STILES ’56 of Findlay, Ohio, died Nov. 15, 2018.

At Ripon College, he majored in economics. He graduated from the University of Wyoming and was in the U.S. Army for two years, stationed mostly in West Germany. He was an accountant for the Ohio Oil Company (now Marathon Oil Co.) in Casper, Wyoming, and Findlay, Ohio, until retiring in 1995. He was a member of St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church and a member and volunteer with the Gideons of Hancock County. He enjoyed American history, Wyoming history, reading and traveling. Survivors include one son and one daughter.

DOROTHY WALSH AYLWARD ’57 of Wheaton, Illinois, died Nov. 2, 2018. At Ripon College, she majored in English and participated in drama, musicals and Delta Phi Sigma. She received a master’s degree in English from Northern Illinois University. She taught and directed plays at several schools, and also served as a counselor and chair of the English department.

She volunteered at St. John’s Winfield, was president of the school board and parish council, and helped with the family

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restaurants, Tally Ho and Round-Up. Survivors include her husband, John “Jack” Aylward.

LORENZO DOSS ’59 of Las Vegas, Nevada, died Feb. 10, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in physical education and participated in football and Merriman/Phi Kappa Pi. Survivors include his wife, Barbara Doss; one son and one daughter; and a brother, ULYSSES S. DOSS ’57.

JUNE KATHLEEN EGGERT SCHUETT ’59 of Oregon, Wisconsin, died Sept. 30, 2018. At Ripon College, she majored in English and was a member of Pi Tau Pi. She earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. She worked for the Oregon School District as a substitute teacher and then as the librarian for the Oregon Junior High and Oregon Middle School, retiring in 2004 after 25 years of service. She enjoyed shopping, playing cards, bridge with the Oregon Heights Bridge Club and casino gambling. Survivors include one son and two daughters.

GREGORY THOMPSON ’65 of Normandy Park, Washington, died Nov. 15, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in history and participated in Sigma Nu. He enlisted in the Navy, completed Officer Candidate School and was assigned to a salvage and rescue ship where he was a diver. He then obtained a master of business administration degree in transportation from the University of Washington. He founded and was president and director of operations at Airpac Airlines, a contract cargo operator based out of Seattle’s Boeing Field since 1976. He enjoyed history and traveling. Survivors include his wife, Michele; one son and one daughter.

JOHN A. LENZ ’66 of Wausau, Wisconsin, died Dec. 2, 2018.

At Ripon College, he majored in speech communications and was a member of Beta Sigma Pi. For several years, he was a director at WSAW-TV, Channel 7, Wausau. At Foto News in Merrill, he wrote his own column among other roles. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church, Wausau, where he served a term as a deacon; was a founding member of the RS&W Model Train Club in Rothschild; and enjoyed fishing, reading, old movies and documentaries on TV. Survivors include his wife, Cheryl Lenz, of Colby, Wisconsin; and sisters, including ROSALIE LENZ MOSHER ’69.

KAREN REIMER STURTEVANT ’66 of Oak Forest, Illinois, died March 15, 2018. At Ripon College, she majored in history and minored in English, and participated in WRPN, music, student government and athletics. She received a master’s degree in special education from Chicago State University and studied education at St. Xavier University.

TERRAYANE O’BRIEN JONES ’71 of Palm Coast, Florida, died Sept. 8, 2018. She loved to read and started to volunteer at the local library at the age of 13. After attending Ripon College, she worked for Northwestern Bell in Minnesota for 25 years, transferring from Minnesota to New Jersey with AT&T. She retired with her husband to Palm Coast in 1998. She volunteered at the local library, was president of the Friends of the Library of Flagler County for 14 years and participated in numerous activities. She also enjoyed sailing.

Survivors include her husband, Kenneth Jones.

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KENNETH MAGRATH ’73 of Richmond, Virginia, died Dec. 15, 2018. At Ripon College, he majored in psychology and participated in student government, athletics and Delta Upsilon.

He earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Syracuse University and completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He had an independent practice in clinical psychology/neuropsychology and served on the faculties of Cornell University Medical College and New York Medical School. He published work in the areas of assessment, coaching and counseling in professional literature.

Survivors include his wife, JULIE FENWICK MAGRATH ’73; and children.

FACULTY AND STAFF JAMES W. BEATTY, professor of chemistry emeritus, of Sierra Vista, Arizona, died Dec. 15, 2018. He earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1960. He taught at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and at Ripon College from 1963 until retiring in 2002. He was an active tennis player, both in Ripon and Sierra Vista. He also enjoyed bicycling, reading and gardening. Survivors include his wife, Catherine Beatty; two sons and one daughter.

STANLEY GEHLER, formerly assistant professor of military science, died April 2, 2017. He served in the U.S. Army for 20 years, including time in Vietnam and Korea, and retired as a major. He received numerous medals and commendations, including a Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster and Vietnam Service Medal with one Silver Service Star. After retiring from the military, he worked for the director of logistics at Fort Hood, Texas. He enjoyed sports, gardening and handwork. Survivors include one son and one daughter.

BRONZE STATUES RESTORED Two bronze statues, created by 1877 Ripon College alumnus Clarence Addison Shaler, received facelifts during the summer of 2018.

The restoration of “Lincoln the Dreamer,” outside of Farr Hall of Science, and “Genesis,” between Smith and West halls, was funded by the Department of Art and Art History and carried out by August Peter, preparator and exhibit designer at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.

Peter used both heat and mechanical processes to remove corrosion and oxidation and then added a wax that gives the bronze sculptures a leathery finish that also will inhibit corrosion and oxidation.

“The sculptures will need to have regular maintenance to remain in good condition,” says Rafael Francisco Salas, associate professor of art. “To that end, the Ripon College Republicans and the Ripon College Democrats have agreed to do this maintenance together once a year.”

Letters to the editor

TOUGALOO COLLEGE

EDITOR’S NOTE We are grateful that we have an active and loyal group of readers of Ripon Magazine.

When we ask for comments and opinions on a variety of topics, we always receive abundant replies. Also, we often receive thoughtful letters commenting on various topics addressed in the magazine.

You sometimes catch our mistakes, as well! A headline in the Summer 2018 issue contained an unfortunate spelling error. In an analysis article, Ken Kaliher ’67 addressed the situation on the Korean peninsula after having lived for many years in South Korea as a civilian analyst for the U.S. military.

The headline for that analysis should have read “Thoughts on Korea by an expatriate.”

Please continue to let us know your thoughts.

We will publish what we can depending on available space; as well as selections which comply with our editorial policy: no vulgarity, no overtly politically charged material and nothing that doesn’t apply directly to the topic at hand.

I was shocked to see my 1967 HS yearbook photo looking out at me from page 43 of your summer 2018 Ripon Magazine. Obviously, I eagerly read it to find out why I was mentioned in your article about the exchange that happened between Ripon and Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. But I was even more shocked to realize that you did not mention the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed at the very time that our Tougaloo exchange students were visiting us on our Ripon campus on April 4, 1968. It broke my heart to see their devastated grief. That trip and the aftershock of his assassination followed by others wakened me in a way that nothing had until then in my 18-year-old life. Being from a very white, very small Midwestern town, I felt my world reeling from inside and out. Your article did not really convey how awful this was for all of us.

I do thank Ripon for helping me to befriend students of color on our campus and in Mississippi, and students from all kinds of backgrounds, as we tried to learn and to comprehend the history we lived. As I tried to explain to my son recently, it was very hard growing into adulthood at a time when all of our leaders were being killed along with many of our young in Vietnam.

And then he asked me, “When did it start getting better, Mom?” And it struck me. I hope and pray that it is better now. But sometimes I’m not sure that it really is. I am grateful for that eye-opening experience years ago at Tougaloo and at Ripon. I wish you could have included more about what happened after we visited Mississippi when our Tougaloo visitors came to our campus, and a little of what it was like to be young and living then.

Jennifer Cox Johnson ’71 Northfield, Minnesota

I have never been motivated to email regarding a publication I have received from Ripon, however I could not resist sending a WOW after reading the summer “Lifting Our Voices” magazine. It was interesting, informative, beautifully presented and I enjoyed every article and every photo. It made me remember all the things about Ripon that are meaningful and reawakened a sense of pride and fondness for my experiences there. Kudos to the creators of the magazine. WELL-DONE! Nina Bade Sparks ’55 Madison, Wisconsin

LIFTING OUR VOICES I enjoy Ripon Magazine, and, due to my age, I tend to always review “In Memoriam” as I see a few classmates and friends that have passed away.

The “Lifting Our Voices” section was interesting. The front picture was the student anti-war demonstrations and a Vietnam moratorium parade in 1969. Not that I am against demonstrations and such, but there is another side to the story. I was in Vietnam in 1969, along with a number my of ROTC classmates fighting for those at home. I left a wife and 6-month-old daughter at home. I, of course, made it back safely, but we lost 58,000 people of my generation. Vietnam veterans are finally getting their due respect. I had my own opinion of the war, but I had a duty and responsibility to serve my country.

I know Ripon is a very liberal institution like many colleges, but I would like to see you view the “other side of the story” at times.

Mike Miller ’67 Ringgold, Georgia

SUMMER ISSUE Today I received and read the latest edition of Ripon Magazine. I wanted to just send this note to commend you and your staff. I read the magazine regularly, but I must say that I thought this edition was outstanding.

Thanks to you and your staff for your efforts!

Nancy Wadley Keough ’67 Pebble Beach, California

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Kurt Dietrich, professor of music and Barbara • • An article about research directed by Associate Baldwin DeFrees Chair in the Performing Arts, and his new book Wisconsin Riffs: Jazz Profiles from the Heartland were featured in several media outlets, including Wisconsin State Journal in Madison and Ripon Commonwealth Press on June 7, 2018. He made a guest appearance Thursday, May 17, on “Central Time” on Wisconsin Public Radio.

• Numerous newspapers throughout Wisconsin reported the attendance of their local students at the 77th year of Badger Boys State, held June 9-16 at Ripon College.

•

John Hughes, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities, was featured in several print media and on Wisconsin Public Radio on June 12, 2018, in relation to his role as conductor of Composer Residency for the Green Lake Festival of Music. He spoke about the 2018 residency of Norwegian-born composer Ola Gjeilo.

• An article by Mary Williams-Norton, professor of physics emerita, was published in Radiations, the official publication of the Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society. She wrote about her philosophy that “every child should be able to have fun with physics.”

Maggie Wolf ’15 of Madison, Wisconsin, was • featured June 19, 2018, in the Portage (Wisconsin) Daily Register. She is a quality assurance tester for Raven Software in Middleton.

Timothy Haney ’03, sociology professor and • director of the Centre for Community Disaster Research at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and his wife, Sara Wichlacz Haney ’04, were featured June 19, 2018, in the Calgary Herald. “Disaster chose Prof. Haney, not the other way around” includes how his wedding at Ripon College was disrupted by a tornado.

•

Allyson Fleck, former adjunct instructor of music, is associated with the Midsummer’s Music festival in Door County, Wisconsin. In an article published June 23, 2018, in the Green Bay Press Gazette, she recalled fond memories of Ripon College of herself and her alumni parents, Bob Fleck ’65 and Ruth Ann Potts Fleck ’66.

• “Mexican-American Artist Brings Unique Perspective of Rural Experience,” about Associate Professor of Art Rafael Francisco Salas, was posted by Wisconsin Life July 9 and aired on Wisconsin Public Television Sept. 20.

Professor of Psychology Kristine KovackLesh was published July 18, 2018, in the Ripon Commonwealth Press. The research is focused on how attention spans develop from childhood into adulthood.

Katherine Zech Kioshi ’86 of Milwaukie, Oregon, • was profiled July 20, 2018, in the Omaha WorldHerald. Kioshi is an intensive care unit nurse with the VA Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.

Memuna Khan, associate professor of biology • and chair of the department, was featured in “Eastern bluebirds find a home at UW-Oshkosh,” published July 26, 2018, in UW-Oshkosh Today.

Khan studies Eastern bluebirds with her students at Ripon College.

Larry Miller, retired professor of education, and • his wife, Betsey, were highlighted July 26, 2018, in the Ripon Commonwealth Press. For 26 years, the Millers have offered use of their 170-acre property near Green Lake for area third-graders to learn about a variety of ecosystems.

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Meghann Morrissey Jarchow ’03 of Vermillion, • South Dakota, was profiled Aug. 29, 2018, in the student newspaper, The Volante, at the University of South Dakota. She is chair of the sustainability and environment department at the university.

Matthew D. Dacy ’79 of Rochester, Minnesota, • is featured in Ken Burns’ latest documentary, “The Mayo Clinic: Faith-Hope-Science,” which debuted on PBS in September.

President Zach Messitte was featured in the • Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle Sept. 27, 2018. He talked about how he has seen enrollment jump by 10 percent this year, without adjusting admissions standards, because of Willmore Center. He also was a co-author of “The man who pioneered Trumpism,” an opinion piece published Nov. 15

by The Washington Post.

Adam Sonntag ’08, city administrator for the city • of Hillsboro, Wisconsin, since 2011, was featured Oct. 16, 2018, in the LaCrosse Tribune.

AthleticBusiness published an online article in • Todd Johnson ’94 appears in an NBC documentary • August about the immediate success of Willmore Center. “Ripon College’s Willmore Center is Proving its Power as a Recruiting Tool” highlights several powerful achievements: 28 percent more student athletes making deposits, 40 percent more student athletes taking tours of campus, nearly double the number of football recruits in one year’s time, 305 alumni and community residents who have purchased memberships and nearly 50 outside organizations that have held events in the facility.

Austin Van Treeck ’14 of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, • was featured Aug. 17, 2018, in the Sheboygan Press about networking to expand careers. Van Treeck majored in economics and minored in leadership studies at Ripon College. He is a customer insights analyst for Johnsonville Sausage.

• An opinion piece by Brian Smith, professor of religion, the Charles and Joan Van Zoeren Chair in Religion, Ethics and Values, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and co-director of the Center for Politics and the People, was published Aug. 20, 2018, by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and later by several other Gannett newspapers. The title was “To heal from latest priest sex abuse revelations, Catholic Church will need secular help.”

Mara Evans ’07 of Madison, Wisconsin, wrote • • University of South Dakota football coach “A Breakthrough in Care for Women Affected

by Female Genital Cutting” for Johns Hopkins Nursing, published July 18, 2018.

1989-1991, at Ripon College as associate professor of physical education and head football coach.

Bob Nielson was profiled Aug. 23, 2018, in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Nielson spent two years, from

released Nov. 12, 2018. The video profiles United States military veterans who now work for the National Park Service. Johnson is a park guide in the Interpretive Division at Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Montana.

Bill Quistorf ’80 of Everett, Washington, chief pilot • with the Snohomish County Helicopter Rescue Team, was a recipient of the German-American Friendship Award presented in November. A rescue in which he was involved gained national and international news attention.

• A feature story about volunteer work leading to a career for Mike Romagnoli ’04 was published Dec. 3, 2018, by Illinois State University, where he received a master’s degree in Spanish.

• “Cyber Attacks Should Be Treated as an Act of War,” a peer-reviewed, long academic essay by Lamont Colucci, associate professor of politics and government, was published by Praeger Security International. Colucci also regularly publishes opinion pieces in major national media publications such as AMI Newswire, Washington Times, InHomelandSecurity.com from American Military University and Sage Journals. In November, he debuted a new column, “From the Heartland,” with the online news organization Newsmax Media.

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WILLIAM CHESTER JORDAN ’69

Renowned scholar teaches students to look at the present through the eyes of the past in 1973, where he currently serves as the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History.

Ripon College’s multifaceted approach allowed William Chester Jordan ’69 to study in numerous areas and ultimately major in history, Russian and mathematics. The determination to become an educator was paramount. “The truth is that the life of the mind that had always intrigued me and appealed to me — the idea of becoming a professor, trying to create new knowledge and impart it to young and supple minds in an academic atmosphere” was appealing, he says.

He received a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and joined the faculty

“Bill Jordan is a towering figure in

Jordan is highly regarded in his field, and he specializes in medieval studies of the sixth through 14th centuries in Europe. He has published extensively on such topics as the Great Famine of northern Europe, the reign of Louis IX of France and the Crusades.

international medieval studies, not

His work has been awarded the Haskins Medal by the Medieval Academy of America.

criticism, subtlety of argument,

Leadership roles include serving as a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, American Philosophical Society and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and as president of the American Catholic Historical Association.

and grace of exposition. His

At Ripon College, he is a member of the Board of Trustees and has received the Distinguished Alumni Citation.

Jordan says his position at Princeton is a perfect fit for him. He enjoys teaching, doing research and publishing to leave his work for future generations. Dozens of his former Ph.D. students serve as researchers at eminent colleges and universities around the world.

“I love what I do, and that’s the bottom line,” he says.

just in the U.S. His research has been characterized by its range of subjects, originality of enquiry, forensic intensity of source objectivity of interpretation scholarship has redefined whole areas of our understanding of high medieval politics, culture and society, especially in France, including interfaith relations. Throughout, his work is marked by quiet intellectual integrity, generosity of spirit and unsentimental human sympathy.

He is one of the most admired historians of his generation.”

CHRISTOPHER TYERMAN PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, OXFORD, ENGLAND

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Flash BACK 1941

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At left is a chemistry experiment ca. 1937-41 from the Ann Ewing Photograph Collection, taken by Ann Ewing ’41. At right, Randal Scroggins ’17 works in the lab in 2017 with Colleen Byron, professor of chemistry and the L. Leone Oyster 1919 Chair in Chemistry. Scroggins now is in the master of science in nursing program at Rush University School of Nursing in Chicago, with which Ripon College is affiliated.

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