A Letter from the President

Ciao, Presidente!

President Zach Messitte

According 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 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 Messitte

President