“Here’s what I would advocate if elected to the student senate,” wrote Andrew Forrester ’11 during the campaign, “A Gentleman’s Rule Panel, comprised of students who would be responsible for taking action when a fellow student violates the Gentleman’s Rule.” As for the makeup of the panel, Forrester claimed that it would be comprised of “a select group of students – some appointed by the administration and others elected by the student senate.”

Billy Evans ’11 similarly proposed a “Judiciary Committee,” which would be comprised of “Students, Faculty, and Admin.,” to be used as “a learning process and for handing out rulings on whether students break the rule, or an appeals process from a judgment that has been handed out by the Deans.”

As part of his “5 point plan to reestablish student autonomy at Wabash College,” Anthony Tellez ’10 proposed “[t]he establishment of a Judicial Branch appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.” This new branch of student government, he claimed, would “be responsible for judging actions taken by students that are declared as ungentlemanly.” The reasoning behind such a panel, he claimed, was to allow “students to police themselves with recommendations from the Dean and define cases of when the Gentleman’s Rule is being broken,” adding the qualification that the panel “would cover minor issues and not take over the complete role of the Dean.”

Following the elections, and a full semester of committees looking into the proposals, we now have the final result: the Dean’s Presidents Council, a small group of club presidents that meets with Dean of Students Michael Raters on a regular basis to discuss various complexities with regards to the Dean’s decision-making. “It’s a discussion,” says Dean Raters of the Council. “It’s not an appellate court. It’s not a trial-level court. It’s a discussion. It’s a council. It’s a two-way council.”

So how, after all of the upheaval and rebellion on the part of students, did we end up with a “discussion” instead of a judiciary? This is the story of the Wabash College student judiciary – its conception, and its ultimate death.

The Breakdown of Trust

Delta Tau Delta freshman Johnny Dupree Smith died of acute alcohol poisoning early on the morning of October 5, 2008. Many, if not most, students at Wabash received the news of his passing as early as breakfast. Everyone was talking about the freshman Delt who had passed away after Homecoming—everyone, that is, except the Wabash College administration, who at least publicly kept quiet on the matter. The media apparently heard the news as well. By dusk, the Channel 8 News van was parked on the corner of Wabash and Grant. Some students received phone calls from media outlets, asking for confirmation of a death. The College was notified of these calls, and a brief “!everyone” email from President Patrick White concerning the death was sent to the Wabash community later that night.

Even in the first hours following Johnny Smith’s death, the seeds of distrust between Wabash students and their administration had been thoroughly sown. In the following weeks, the divisions would grow even deeper. Following a mandatory Chapel Talk, in which President White expressed his disappointment with the ungentlemanly, but still unidentified, actions which had been discovered in the Delt house leading up to Smith’s death, the decision was made to close the fraternity down entirely.

“I think that it’s not unfair to say that there was a breakdown in communication in a lot of ways,” says Dr. Rick Warner, who served as Associate Dean of Students at the time. Not only were the students—the Delts included—taken aback by the sudden closing, the faculty were also not notified until about four hours after the decision was made. “The ball was dropped,” Dr. Warner says with regards to communication with the faculty. As faculty members dealt with shocked and angry Delt students in their classes, without any knowledge of what was taking place, the divisions with the administration grew even deeper.

By the time Monon Bell season rolled around, the name of Dean Raters frequently replaced that of DePauw in the traditional “DePauw Swallows” chant. The Senior Council hosted a special “town hall” with Deans Raters and Warner, in which it became clear to students that they were not going to learn any details about why the administration was taking the actions it was taking. “I know what I know, and I can’t not know it,” was the most definitive information Dean Raters was willing to provide about the Delt closing. Both the students and Dean Raters were impassioned and raised their voices at the forum, and little common ground was found.

The breakdown of trust that semester was a two-way collapse. “Trust and confidence had been shaken,” says Dean Raters of those times. “Most of that discussion was from the students towards the administration, towards the Dean’s Office. I think that by the end of the semester, it was obvious that—I wouldn’t say ‘trust’ necessarily—I’d say confidence from me to students had been shaken. I still am really surprised and disappointed in what I found by some of the behaviors in our students, decision-making by our students, and the reactions by our students to things.”

Wabash was experiencing, as Dr. Warner puts it, a “cultural crisis.” It was within this context that discussions about a student judiciary began to take place.

The Raters Committee

In late October, Dean Raters called a “Gentleman’s Rule Summit” to begin to address the issues raised by Johnny Smith’s death and the tumultuous weeks that followed. The summit was an invitation-only event which consisted of administrators, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and students. Two separate committees were formed as a result of this summit. The first was the Health and Safety Committee, chaired by Dean Warner, to look into issues of safety with regards especially to alcohol. The second was the Judicial Committee, comprised of faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and students handpicked by Dean Raters.

The Raters Committee looked into three options: 1) creating a judicial branch of student government that would work as an appeals board, 2) creating an advisory board that would offer its advice to the Dean’s office in disciplinary decision making, or 3) keeping the system the way it is.

Details about the individual choices were never fully worked out. But broadly speaking, the appeals board was meant to function as a venue for students who were unhappy with the disciplinary decisions made by the Dean of Students. They would have the option to take their case before the Student Judiciary, which would then have the ability to consider and debate the decision, and express its approval or disapproval to the administration. The Dean of Students would then make the final decision.

The second option—the advisory board—would function as a supplement to the Dean of Student’s decision-making process. The student to be disciplined, in certain circumstances, would be able to first go before the student judiciary, which would be given information on the particular case. The Judiciary would then make a recommendation to send to the Dean of Students, who would make the final decision.
According to Dean Raters, the committee very quickly ran into complexities with the first two options. “A lot of questions came into play that we spent a lot of time on,” he says, “the most significant being, ‘So who will be on this board?’” The committee discussed the possibilities of creating an “honor board” of prominent Wabash students, an elected board, or an appointed board. “So there was a lot of discussion about the organization of such a thing,” says Dean Raters, “regardless of which way it went.”

Eventually, the Raters Committee began to tend toward the advisory board model. This was a cause of concern for some students, but Jacob Moore ’11, who was involved with both the Raters Committee and the separate committee created by the Student Senate, claims that he favored the Raters approach. “I think personally—and I know that a fair amount of people disagree with this—that Dean Raters’ committee would work better because an appeal to a decision that has already been made, in my opinion–it’s a little bit harder to have something change,” he says. Providing student input before punishments are made, he claims, creates a greater opportunity to influence the decision. With the appellate board, the Dean would still make a decision completely independent of student opinion, and “99.999 percent of the time, that punishment is going to stick.”

The Nossett Committee

Following the disbandment of Delta Tau Delta, members of the fraternity were asked by the administration to resign from their leadership roles in clubs on campus. As rumors of forced resignations began to spread across campus, the Student Senate decided to respond. Invoking the Student Organization Leadership Act (SOLA), the Student Senate condemned the administration for tampering in student affairs. Also that night, they began work on a Student Judiciary panel.

“It was written the night of…the meeting where some of the Delts were asked to give up their roles and responsibilities in clubs on campus,” Class Representative Cody Stipes ’11 recalls, “That’s where the legislation came from originally.” At the next Student Senate session, former Phoenix Editor-in-Chief and then Senator Sean Clerget ’09 proposed a resolution calling for the assembly of an exploratory committee in the spring semester to look into creating a student judiciary. It was passed overwhelmingly.
Campaigning for the student government elections began shortly thereafter. Many candidates publicly advocated a Student Judiciary as a part of their campaigns, with the notable exception of Mark Thomas ’10, the representative who would ultimately be elected Student Body President. “Instead of creating more committees and councils,” Thomas wrote in his campaign platform, “I will use my power within Senior Council to address the issues that are in conflict with the Gentleman’s Rule.”

After becoming Student Body President in January, Thomas nonetheless appointed a committee as prescribed by the earlier resolution. He appointed Michael Nossett ’11 to chair the committee, which was comprised of members of the Student Senate. “Personally, I was at first fully against that idea because I did not want to expand our student government just to [create a new branch],” Thomas now says, “but through the thorough research done by our committee, I soon found myself looking at several possibilities.”

Nossett took a similarly cautious approach while investigating the possibilities of a judicial branch. His first goal with the committee, he claims, was to fix the problem of Wabash’s ambiguous disciplinary process. He wanted to make the process more clear, not necessarily to check the Dean’s authority. “We’re 950 students,” he says, “We’re only here seven to eight semesters, and so you can’t get that much experience. You can’t know everything at 18 to 22. And you shouldn’t be put in a position of authority over your peers. The Dean’s Office is the authority in charge.”

“The only thing that student government can rightfully do,” he says, is write a letter to the Dean in support of the student being disciplined. “In the end of the day, student government can only do so much.”

In the pursuit of creating a clearer disciplinary process, the Nossett Committee proposed a Student Disciplinary Bill of Rights, which included the right to appeal. It was approved nearly unanimously by the Student Senate. Morris Hall Senator Kyle Nagdeman ’10, was a lonely vote against the measure, claiming the bill was redundant and that it paved the way for an unnecessary judiciary. “The student has rights as it is,” he says, “Why have a bill or a law that states the same damn thing that they already know that they have?”

As the investigation went on, many students on the committee began to tend toward the appellate model. Cody Stipes believed it was a much better model than the one being formed by Dean Raters. “Basically, it seemed like the Dean’s committee would be more of a situation where Dean Raters would go to them with limited amounts of material in terms of what the decision he made was. It didn’t seem to me it was enough for anyone to make a full, critical assessment of the situation and then be able to make a decision off of that,” he says. “I felt like it was very limiting to the members involved and that it really wouldn’t do a lot of good, to be honest…I felt [the appellate model] would do more than the Dean’s committee would do because they would be able to gain as much information as the member was willing to share, and then from there make a decision based on the decision that was made by the Dean and say, ‘You know, I just don’t think that was the right decision.’”

The Mock Trials

Initially, the Dean’s Office was unaware of Nossett’s committee. “Shortly after the Gentleman’s Rule Summit, the Student Senate began, independent from us, and quite frankly, unbeknownst to us, a look at similar sorts of elements,” says Dean Raters. Dr. Warner agrees with that assessment of the situation. “I wasn’t aware of the Student Senate piece of this for quite a while,” he says. “They don’t report to the Dean’s Office.”
The Student Senate, however, was very aware of Dean Raters’ committee. Quoted in the April 17 issue of The Bachelor, Sean Clerget claimed that having two separate committees was “counterproductive to the process.”

“It is a clear conflict when the Dean handpicks a group of students to work on an idea that was meant, originally, to check the Dean’s power,” he said. “If the administration really wants student involvement, I urge Dean Raters to bring the different committees together under the leadership of the Senate committee to make a proposal. We need a fair process for students when disciplinary action is taken, and we get off on the wrong foot when the process for creating that process is hijacked.”

After learning of the Student Senate committee and the growing discontent, Dean Warner advocated bringing the groups together. “My own personal style about dealing with things like this is to bring people in,” he told Dean Raters, “so let’s join the two groups.” After thinking it over for a while, Dean Raters agreed.

So late in the semester, the two groups came together and began to hold mock trials. The committees held trials using both versions of the Student Judiciary, and they began to run into trouble with issues of privacy rights, small school politics, and the judiciary’s makeup.

Some students changed their position on the idea following these sessions. “I liked the idea of a Student Judiciary from the beginning,” says Class Representative Andrew Forrester ’11, “but the more that we’ve looked into it, I’ve realized that it’s not as feasible or clear-cut as it is at other schools.”

“I think that we learned what we liked and what we didn’t like if we were going to have one,” says Nossett of the mock trials, “but I don’t think that it convinced anyone that we needed one.”

Dean Raters claims that both committees eventually found common ground. “Going through those hearings, I think, both groups had an eye-opening experience—that situations are more complex than they might appear, that there is a reason that we’ve had the system that we’ve had as long as we’ve had it,” he says. “My sense was that both groups agreed that we weren’t at a place at that point to have a specific, well-designed ‘X,’ and if you don’t have a specific, well-designed ‘X,’ then to tinker with something is not a good idea.” By the end of the semester, the two groups had stopped meeting.

Dean Raters says that he was able to draw good ideas from the efforts. There was “a whole lot of hard work, good thought, really pushing the envelope, thinking outside the box, a lot of creativity,” he says. And from those ideas, he claims, he decided to create a “Dean’s Presidents Council,” which consists of the presidents of the Student Body, the IFC, the IMA, the Sphinx Club, and the MXI. He claims that the council is all about “keeping one’s cool, taking one’s time, dealing with the facts, rather than reacting to opinion.” Dean Raters intends to meet with the council every other week, in a manner similar to his meetings with fraternity presidents.

Our Take

It might seem odd that we are writing an article on the student judiciary issue after its timely demise. The powers that be in the Student Senate recognized that having a student judiciary panel would be problematic, as was earlier detailed. However, it is fitting that we discuss some of the basic reasons why, in hindsight, the concept of a student judiciary panel as it arose out of last year’s events should be doomed to the ash-heap of history.

We do not deny that there are legitimate concerns rising out of the events of last year. As Dr. Warner acknowledged, there were serious lapses of communication between the administration and the student body (and the Wabash community in general). While actions were condemned, no one was informed as to what those depraved actions were. A fraternity house was closed without much prior knowledge on the part of the fraternity brothers. Rumors were allowed to fly across the campus with little done by the administration to provide contrary information. All of these were failures on the part of the administration with regards to the death of Johnny D. Smith and the closing of Delta Tau Delta.

That being said, those problems require a look at how the administration acted – not a student judiciary panel which will stand in judgment over their peers. In relation to the events of last year, it is doubtful that things could have been handled differently had there been a student judiciary panel. Legal matters were undoubtedly in play throughout the situation. Such matters are responsibility of the administration – not the student body or some elite gathering of student judges. While we students are an integral part of Wabash, we must remember that we alone do not make Wabash. The administration – including the Deans – maintains Wabash and her traditions by acting as guardians. Whether we students recognize this or not, this is undeniably true. This does not mean that we need to agree with their every decision. However, this does mean that a certain deference is owed to the administration. Even if we do not agree with the administration’s decision, we should not question their dedication to the College or the students.

It was through such questioning that the recent manifestation of the student judiciary panel came into being. The unspoken premise behind the panel was that the Deans wronged the student body through their punishment of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and so there needed to some basic check on the power of the deans. This is not to say that the members of the Student Senate who supported the concept at its various stages held this premise themselves. However, it is safe to say that much of the general support for the panel was due to this questioning of the intentions of the administration.

To some extent, the concept of the student judiciary panel was based upon some doctrine of the deserved omniscience of the students. Students should know everything that happens at every level at the College, and students can make rational decisions that are inevitably best for the College. Michael Nossett said it best when he said that we as students cannot know everything at the ages of 18-22. We do not know what the best courses of action are. Some of us may be quite mature and seemingly wise beyond our years, but that doesn’t mean that we have the absolute right to have an authoritative say at every level of decision making at Wabash College.

Let us take a quick look at the mission statement of our college: “Wabash College educates men to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.” Note the verb; it’s active. Wabash “educates” us. Over our four years here, we learn to do those four things through both personal devotion to the ideals of the Gentleman’s Rule and the careful, occasional prodding of our faculty and administration. We are still works in progress, and are therefore liable to err. While it is one thing to give a peer advice, it is another to lay down a punishment that could have uncertain ramifications and consequences.

The idea of the student judiciary panel has come and gone. May the good Lord have mercy on its soul in the next life and prevent its ugly resurrection here at Wabash. Insofar as the concept of the panel was to create student ownership over our college, it was positive. However, there were dangers that lurked in the background of this. At its heart, it forgot that we are students. We are young and prone to err, and it might behoove us to remember that. This does not mean that we should blindly accept the administration and not occasionally challenge them. However, that should be done with respect and with the recognition of who we are. If we remember the Gentleman’s Rule, and if we remember that we are students, we will find that the student judiciary panel is unnecessary.

Related posts:

1. New Phoenix: The Death of the Student Judiciary
2. The Dreaded “W”: A Story of Tradition and Lost Trust
3. The Ides of March: A Story of Death and Rebirth

Sax has an M.D. and Ph. D. in psychology. He has written two books on single sex education, and he is a family health doctor. He came to Wabash College to speak about single sex education, or at least that was what he was supposed to speak about. “I thought he was going to be helping us explain to ourselves why we should be a men’s college,” said Dr. Mark Brouwer. “I think he utterly failed.”

Instead, Sax lectured on biological differences between the learning styles of males and females. Those differences are the reasons that he supports single sex education. He does not at all favor one sex over the other but instead wants what he thinks is best for education. He did not take seriously the reasons why Wabash College is an all male institution and has remained that way for over 175 years. There is obviously something special about the College, and Sax overlooked that during his visit to Wabash College. Instead, he spent his time relaying his biological reasoning for single sex classrooms and preached that education should embrace gender differences.

The student body of Wabash College was invited to attend a student reading group that met weekly. Led by senior Josh Bellis, the group read a chapter out of either of Sax’s books on a weekly basis and met to discuss how Sax’s books relate to Wabash College. The group met leading up to Sax’s arrival on campus, and then had the opportunity to have lunch with Sax when he was on campus. After Dr. Sax’s visit, they met one last time and came to one basic conclusion. Sax brought information with him, but in terms of reaching the group’s goal of relating his work to Wabash College, Dr. Sax’s visit was useless.

During the lunch, Sax made a comment on how many of the students at Wabash College wore their school’s t-shirts and the students seemed focused on their academics, or at least more so at Wabash that at other institutions. This was the only sign that I saw that Sax was trying to see what Wabash College is about. This is not to say that Sax’s visit was entirely useless, but it certainly was with regards to reaching the student reading group’s goal. Of course he probably sold a couple of his books and succeeded as a salesman, but he did not sell the group as a whole on his material.

Soon after Sax departed from Wabash College, he was interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio. The interview in its entirety can be heard at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/11/28/midmorning2/. By skipping ahead to 26 minutes and 30 seconds, one will hear the words that many students at Wabash College have claimed to be offensive.

“I was at Wabash College in Crawfordsvill,e Indiana, two weeks ago and asked the young men there what does the word ‘gentlemen’ means to you… mean to you? And the first answer, the most overwhelmingly common answer was ‘a gentlemen is someone who goes to gentlemen’s clubs and watches women take off their clothes.’ And they’re not joking that’s what… that’s the most common way that word is used. Forty years ago if you said to a boy ‘be a man’ he knew what that meant.”

After another typical Wabash College e-mail discussion, I felt it was time to think Sax’s comments through. I believe that something to his research has truth to it, and I felt it was wrong for Sax to lose all credibility from Wabash College over one comment he made over public radio. I e-mailed Sax and asked if he would please explain himself. He did not respond which might be another sign of his failure to associate with Wabash. Regardless, there is something to Sax’s comment that needs to be examined whether he will address it or not.

The first time someone hears these words from Sax, it sounds like he is attacking men at Wabash College as being a bad representative of a gentleman. After many discussions with students at Wabash College about the definition of a gentleman, I have realized that it is very unlikely that this comment was truly quoted from a Wabash student. I had to give Sax the benefit of the doubt and submit to the fact that a student at Wabash College could have made the comment that, “a gentleman is someone who goes to gentlemen’s clubs and watches women take off their clothes.” After all, I would hope that he would follow the principle behind the Gentleman’s Rule and not make a false quote.

Under this assumption, of course, I hoped that this was in a joking manner. In looking at the rest of Sax’s comment, one will see that he does not mention that he was at an all male institution. He also, if one takes the time to listen to more of the radio show, spends time leading up to this comment that popular culture shows men as slackers and thugs. Here is the real problem with Sax’s comment. As mentioned earlier, Sax supports single sex education. If this is the case, then why would he mention that Wabash men, an all male school, have fallen down to the level of popular culture?

Whether he meant it or not, it is obvious that Wabash College does not fall into the abyss of popular culture, where Sax could arguably be falling towards. After all, Sax loosely used the word gentleman in trying to make a point for himself. Not only was it selfish and thoughtless, but it demonstrates that he does not understand the meaning that the word “gentleman” holds. It is obvious that the residents of Wabash College value the word “gentleman” more than Sax simply by observing their reaction to Sax’s interview. The students obviously know what it means to be a gentleman, even if they do not always show it on and off campus.

Sax’s comment is a true comment if the words Wabash College are taken out and a co-ed college of choice is inserted. Wabash men know how to describe a gentleman. Since we are all gentlemen, I think we should act like it when talking about Sax.

Of course Sax’s comment makes Wabash College look poorly. Knowing that it had to be a mistake, unless Sax really does not believe in single sex education in which case he is wasting time and money, I urge every student at Wabash College to keep their minds open to Sax’s research. He might just be days away from proving to the country that Wabash men are not antiquated fools for choosing a college without girls. However, if your reputation has been ruined by a comment by one man, then prove him wrong and show the world the type of gentlemen that attends Wabash College.

It becomes very difficult to stand up against Sax and claim that Wabash men know what it means to be a gentleman when my inbox is clogged with emails about obscene vandalisms or I see holes kicked into someone’s artwork. It is time for Wabash men to stop talking about being gentlemen and to start showing that they are gentlemen. Remember, actions speak louder than words. It is possible Sax saw this schools actions rather than listening to their words.

Related posts:

1. To Be a Wabash Man: Five Words of Wisdom for the Class of 2014
2. Paul Kengor: A Truthful Gentleman
3. What do we Mean by a College? Words of Wisdom from the Past

Responsibility, in its truest sense, is not limited to the dictionary definition of “being accountable or to blame for something”. No, it is much, much more than that. It is a moral duty, a practicable “obligation” to ourselves, our families, and our communities, to be people of character and good judgment. But this is a duty that we all tend to neglect in some fashion or another. “Boys will be boys,” as we say, and “that’s what college is for,” state the best of us following a major gaffe – and it truly would be foolish of us to not expect ourselves to fall prey to the natural human tendency towards, well… stupidity. But the tragedies of the past have made a point very clear, one that is both completely obvious and, at the same time, largely neglected: the actions of but a few have a far-reaching impact upon an untold many, either for good or for harm.

By no means do I intend to accuse or point a hypocritical finger in blame, but one cannot help but wonder what the state of this College would now be had other decisions been made in the months of October 2007 and October 2008. Two broken families, a divided College, a displaced fraternity, nationwide scorn, ridicule, and scrutiny: all of these because of poor, fateful decisions– ones we all have the opportunity to make, but must swear to never again allow. These demonstrate with shocking clarity that choices made in the privacy of our most secluded settings can result in the most public of outcomes.

While consequences such as these are thankfully uncommon, it is only by Providence that more of the decisions that you and I make do not end in such horrible finality. Yet regardless of the severity of our worst errors, each of our actions will always bring with it some sort of consequence. Even the things which we do not often consider to be of concern – things like self-centeredness, poorly chosen words, spiteful conduct, a lack of concern for others– the fulfilling or neglecting of our obligation toward responsibility will impact those around us. Family members, fraternity brothers, dorm residents, and classmates are most often the recipients of these sorts of behaviors, and can be greatly harmed by our errors in judgment. Furthermore, our actions may influence them to make irresponsible and destructive decisions of their own. Thus, when any one of us disregards our obligation, we are not only at risk of harm personally, but we will always drag others into the fray as well.

Men of Wabash, the choice, as well as the duty, belongs to each of us. We may fulfill our obligation, and in so doing reap the reward. We may disregard that obligation, and thus reap a different reward. But we would be fools to say that nothing will come of our actions. We have been through far too much to believe that.

When the sun rises this late August morn’ and we all return to our studies, let us not forget that responsibility is more than just an idea. Rather, let us remember that it is a character, an identity, and a solemn duty that we must henceforth live out.

Related posts:

1. Seniors Offer Reflections in the Last Phoenix of the Semesters
2. Strength from Struggle and Sweat: Reflections on a Tough Semester
3. Confessions and Reflections of a Graduating Senior

Dean Will Oprisko

Over the summer, as Dean Will Oprisko was settling in to his new job as the Associate Dean of Students, he graciously accepted the invitation to be interviewed by The Phoenix.

Q: Could you please tell me about your personal background.

A: I grew up in Terre Haute, IN. I went to Taylor University in Fort Wayne. I went there for my undergraduate degree. I entered as a pastoral ministries major. I then decided to look into a crosscultural studies major, so for a while I was a double major, but then I dropped it, just because I was no longer planning on being a missionary…. It was during my fifth year that I decided to pursue student affairs administration…. I got into the position, and I loved working with the men on my floor. I loved being apart of the community and helping to acclimate new students, help build community with the new freshmen, sophomores, and even the juniors and seniors on the floor and trying turn ourselves into a family. They did an amazing job, and taught me just as much if not more about myself as I hopefully taught them about anything. During those interactions I realized that my pastoral and psychology studies and who I am as a person fit well with working with those students. I talked with my hall director at the time and he said that you could do this as a career, that there are degrees in this area…. I decided to go to graduate school in 2003. I graduated in 2005, and then decided to go to John Carroll, which is a Jesuit Catholic institution on the east side of Cleveland. I started dating my now wife in 2003 and we got married in 2006, had our first child (a daughter) in 2007, and a son in 2008. I started looking at options, and one of those that popped out was this great one at Wabash. I applied and felt that it would be a good fit, and it’d be nice to return to Indiana – I still have family in Indiana (Lafayette, West Lafayette, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute). I had a friend to attended here back in 1997/1998, and he spoke kindly of the College.

Q: So what particularly attracted you to Wabash as opposed to other schools?

A: It’s in Indiana. I love Indiana. My wife could tell you how much I love Indiana, because I usually say that at the expense of Ohio. Being close to my family is very important to me. The main thing for me at Wabash is that I went to a small school. We had 250-300 people on campus. Going to college at a very small institution, [we were like] a very close family…. The close knit community allowed for the opportunity to get to know people. I think that, because it was small, there was an attitude that not only do I want to get to know the students and the professors but also the staff, the administrators, the President and Vice-President. All of those people were part of the community. And from my knowledge of Wabash at the time it’s a smaller institution – that’s what the feeling is. The students do want to have interaction, they do want to have relationship that’s not so formal…there’s that personal connection. It’s intriguing to me that we still have an all-male school, and this is a reputable all-men’s institution, liberal arts, highly emphasizing and focused upon academics. And I feel that those are really great things, and I would like to be a part of it and see how this works. How can I get into the sphere in which I am interacting meaningfully with students? I didn’t get into the profession to focus on emails, to focus on paperwork and policy, but to focus on people. I thought that Wabash would be a great opportunity to do that, which, I’ve found out so far, it is.

Q: So do you think about the all-male atmosphere here? Is it really a big factor or difference?

A: It’ll be easier to tell when I get into the school year. I can tell you that it’s certainly going to be different from John Carroll. A lot of the students at John Carroll are very individualistic, almost isolated at times. Because they’re isolated, there’s a lack of community – at least it’s not the same quality of community that I’ve seen so far here. My understanding here is that in independent housing or fraternity housing doors are left open and people are pretty accessible and so there’s a lot of coming and going and conversation at this place. I get the sense that the men here at Wabash want to become men. They are men, and they want to own it, explore it, understand it, and live it. I think that that’s a unique quality of an all-men campus. I think that there are some conversations that could be difficult at a coed institution, mainly because sometimes when you have people around you – and this isn’t to put women down – but there are conversations that men can have together that they can’t necessarily have in mixed company, and vice versa. And those conversations can take place, they flourish, and they can be developed upon.

Q: Have you already gotten a sense of the role that tradition plays at the College?

A: Yes, I already have. I really appreciate it because the tradition here at Wabash seems to be part of the heart and soul of the College and also of the people who attend the College. Here at Wabash, you almost can’t ignore it – you’d have to really try. I think that it’s a good thing.

Q: So what do you think that the Gentleman’s Rule means?

A: I think that the Gentleman’s Rule in its essence really is reminding people to make mature, good decisions. I think that another part of it is that it recognizes that even if we would create a list of rules with everything you weren’t supposed to do, it wouldn’t prevent people from breaking them or finding loopholes, as we can see in the world around us. I think that it’s trying to cover why we have rules, why we have regulations, and try to create a community where we’re able to live it out, to explore, you know, what does it mean to be a responsible citizen, what does it mean to be a gentleman at all times, because the reality is that we all come from different experiences, even across the nation, different regions have different traditions – small “t” or capital “T” – exemplified, and then we have different nationalities represented with our international students. So we have different interactions in history and education. I think that the hope of the Gentleman’s Rule is that there is an underlying core and principle that trickles out and touches on all of those things. It expects for men to come to the Wabash campus – not boys, but men – and to find and develop themselves; not just as men of 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, but to ask what is this going to be for me, as a man, graduating from Wabash College, interacting with…society, or within whatever vocation I choose? What does that look like? Those, I think are good questions. My concern, I think, would be if the Gentleman’s Rule was defined any more than what it is, it might stifle those conversations.

Q: How does the Gentleman’s Rule apply to underage drinking?

A: I think that, at its heart, if a person wants to find out if he’s abiding by the Gentleman’s Rule, they would follow the laws of the state and the laws of the country. Now, is that the only way to find out if you’re being a gentleman? No. I think that underage drinking is a tricky situation, especially if you look at the history behind it. I’d say that if a freshman decides to drink under the age of 21, they probably need to understand why. I don’t think that it should be for the social pressure. I don’t think that it should be an act of rebellion. I don’t think that it should be for the sake of living out what mass media says what the college experience is. I think that it needs to be for reasons that represent who they are as a person, and then, at the same time, if those reasons aren’t good enough to deal with the consequences and accountability as they come forth then they probably shouldn’t drink, because even if it’s decided that somehow that the Gentleman’s Rule was upheld in some sense, that doesn’t mean that the government is going to see it that way. The accountability on campus might be different than the accountability in the city, and so everyone needs to make a good decision hopefully based upon their own freedom. I would hate for someone under the age of 21 to decide to drink or whatever because that’s what everyone around them is doing, because they feel like to get the most out of the college experience that’s what they need to do. It’d be a more mature decision to do it because there’s something that resonates more with who they are as a person than doing it to get drunk or just to do it to do it.

Q: What rights do students have here at the College?

A: I think that students have a right to be treated fairly. They have the right to be treated with respect and dignity. They have the right, as men, to be held accountable when they don’t act as men and be held responsible for their decisions. Rights, in the one sense, equal freedom, but on the other hand they equal obligation and accountability.

Q: What should be expected of students as members of the Wabash community?

A: My hope is that they will become active members of the community. I hope that they can find something wonderful about the heart and soul of Wabash that resonates with them – even if it’s not everything – just something that they can grab hold of and say that this is why [they’re] a Wabash man. My hope is that they really think about their first year and that they use it as a tool to really set the tone for their entire experience. I think that students have the tendency with new freedom and experience to not make best decisions, whether that’s socially or academically. From personal experience, my first year at college I got a 2.7 GPA, and that was lower than my high school GPA, and that took a lot of work to haul that back up to a 3.4. My hope is that the students, when they arrive, understand why they’re here. It is for academics, it is for social life, but both of those things need to be in balance, in moderation. They’re not doing themselves any credit when their grades suffer at the expense of hanging out or participating in social gatherings, because not only are they losing money, which in this economy is such a huge commodity, and putting a huge burden upon themselves or their families, but it’s also a waste of time. It doesn’t make sense to me to fail at learning your first semester when this is a unique opportunity that most people in the world don’t have, especially because it seems to be decreasing for people in the United States because of the economic crisis, especially because of the level of education that you can get here at Wabash. My hope too is that they have fun, that they challenge each other, challenge the community, think about things in new ways, [and] bring freshness of life and tradition to the campus.

Q: Do you have any practical advice for the incoming class?

A: Try to make your first semester count academically and socially, but don’t forget your academics because 1) it sets the tone for how you will succeed or not succeed for the remainder of your time, and 2) how you do your first semester determines how hard you have to work your subsequent semesters to make up for it. On top of that, choosing a major is a difficult thing. I realize that the major itself is not the most important thing, but the learning that takes place within the major. I think that’s why Wabash has a liberal arts core curriculum, so that you can get a sense of the vast wealth of knowledge in multiple disciplines and learning how to apply that in certain circumstances. I would hate for a student to feel like if they pick the wrong major they will be somehow limited for the rest of their life and their career and vocation is forever tainted and one-directional, and I know that’s not true from personal experience. At the same time, I hope that they will be able to socialize and have fun and engage in meaningful, thoughtful conversation, to learn how to debate but also how to listen, to learn how to stand on their own two feet but also how to pick themselves up and other people as well. And I feel that even though we may disagree there’s no reason to be hateful or spiteful or disrespectful. I think that some of the best discussions are based upon mutual respect, and the ability to come to a table or room and talk heatedly about something and then walk away realizing that it’s OK [to disagree].

Related posts:

1. Meet Dean Oprisko
2. Dean Raters on Chapel Sing
3. In Times Like These: Dean Warner on Faith and Tragedy

Three days later, a noticeably tired Dean Warner attended the Wednesday night meeting of the Wabash Christian Men. He thanked the students present for the opportunity to attend and worship with them, and he told them that in the days ahead, the campus would need moral leadership. He had personal as well as professional reasons for attending the meeting. On the professional side, he wanted to reach out to the student leaders to engage them in the oft spoken of “grand conversation.”

“I wanted to make an early connection with guys who I knew would prove to be leaders in the days to come,” he told me in a recent interview. “And it became pretty clear right away—since the president’s Chapel Talk even more—that we’re going to be depending on students to step up and all become leaders…I knew that the Wabash Christian Men was a fairly sizable group of students who I think understand the idea of having a solid moral center.”

But he goes on to explain that his other reason for attending was a bit more personal. “[The death] was pretty hard on me and everyone around who dealt with it,” he tells me. “I actually responded as I was getting ready to go to church on Sunday…I went, perhaps from a selfish perspective, just to be in an environment that would be spiritually supportive.”

Spirituality can take on a special resonance during times of tragedy. American church attendance shot through the roof in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, as it has in other tragedies, only to wane after the sense of urgency had diminished and things seem to return to normal. For many at Wabash too, the initial reaction upon hearing the news of another young freshman’s death was to turn to prayer—for Smith’s family, for the Wabash family, and for their own peace of mind. It is when events prove to be beyond our poor control that the religious impulse is most powerful and pertinent. Much has passed since the initial shock of that Sunday morning—a memorial service, an investigation, a mandatory presidential Chapel Talk—but Wabash men of faith would be remiss in their duties if they let allowed their desire to help the community through this time to pass as well.

And what can they do to help? In my discussion with Dean Warner, he repeatedly urged students to look inward. In his view, the way forward is linked to personal responsibility, which in turn is linked to the Gentleman’s Rule. “All of us need to take a step back and do as President White suggested, and weigh what our personal responsibility might be,” he says.

And there should be no doubt that Dean Warner is committed to the Gentleman’s Rule. He speaks of it almost religiously itself. “The Wabash community, in a sense, operates under a covenant,” he tells me. “It’s a different covenant than perhaps you may read about in the Good Book, or that the pilgrims signed, but we have a covenantal relationship with each other, and that’s something that makes us a little different than a much huger place. But I have a level of responsibility as a member of the community to other members of the community. And most of the time, this really works quite well here. I think we need to relax a minute, and see that it really does work quite well.”

He speaks often of “relaxing a minute” or “taking a step back” and “speaking up for the Gentleman’s Rule.” There has been some pressure since the tragedy last month to rethink the Rule and its implications. Do students at Wabash have too much freedom? Did the Gentleman’s Rule enable this tragedy? Dean Warner says the critics who believe this miss the point. “President White pointed [this] out during the Chapel and has taken some shots against the side,” he says, “because there are a lot of people in this world that don’t understand what it means to hold young men responsible and therefore allow freedom as a result of that.” In his view, President White’s defense of the Gentleman’s Rule was the right one.

For him, the Gentleman’s Rule is not up for negotiation. Any response, he says, “needs to be done in a way that’s respectful to students because that’s who we are. One of the reasons that the Gentleman’s Rule is not on the table—because there are plenty of people that I imagine would like to see it there—is that that is the real basis of our identity. That is who we are.”

When I mention that the public perception of Wabash College among many in Crawfordsville is not that of a particularly pious community, Dean Warner returns to the same theme of taking a step back and looking inward. “Perceptions are important,” he says, “Our standing in the polls may have been shaken…I think, though, that many of us are now thinking that we should perhaps be a little bit less concerned with the perception that the outside world has, and move inside, and think about what we should do, and what’s right.” He then returns to the idea of individual responsibility and suggests that that is where the solution lies: “I think that the perceptions will improve if we can become stronger inside with our own ethical behavior.” This is not to say that outside views should be ignored completely, he is quick to add. “It’s easy to overreact to public perceptions,” he explains, “but I think that they need to be listened to also, because there’s often an element of truth to them.”

He quickly brings the discussion back to the Gentleman’s Rule and explains the folly of getting rid of it. “I know that if we are patient, and if we look within to where we need to work, that the Gentleman’s Rule, in the end, will be a stronger response to this than hiring, say, a bunch of rental cops, for example, to travel in and out of living units. If that happens, you just push the problem underground.”

Dean Warner is able to make parallels between administration policy and his own personal faith. He explains that as a Quaker, he sees a need to “stop the banter of business and mediate upon what right action might be—meditate upon where God may take me, and is asking me—calling me—to behave in a more righteous way.” When I ask him how his personal faith helped him respond to the tragedy, he explains in more detail:

“In my own tradition, we have a term called ‘seasoning,’” he explains, “which means that if you have an idea, rather than acting on it right away, in an impetuous way, maybe it’s better to let it season a little bit, and in the end, if you get some of your other concerns out of the way—your ego, or your desires that may not be as pure…and allow and wait on my God to help me think through a problem, in the end, it always works better. So that’s a principle that I’ve applied because I had to be very patient with all this investigation. And there’s all sorts of things and lots of people to tell us to act now fast, and some of you may think that you’re dragging your feet.” But thoughtful consideration can often be mistaken for feet-dragging, he says. It is better to focus not so much on the loud complaining created by outside perceptions, but on the still, small, inward voice, and then act upon it. “Point of fact, patience can be a real virtue,” he says, and action should take place “when you have the strength and courage” to act in the right way.

Just as Dean Warner relies on his faith to guide him through these tough times, Wabash men of faith should take the time to step back and seek God’s guidance in order to act responsibly. Inherent in the Gentleman’s Rule is the idea that the students are capable of taking care of themselves—capable of making responsible decisions. For Dean Warner, that faith in the student body has not been shaken. He is confident that the students will come together to make Wabash a better place. “I have great faith in the Wabash community in this regard,” he says, “and that is I have seen Wabash students unite when they needed to on many different occasions, and come together…That’s enormously exciting to me as a person of faith because I see people engaging the Eternal Spirit, and I really believe in human potential. I think that we see that powerfully on our campus.”

“I’m very bullish on the future,” he concludes, “mostly because of who our students are.”

Related posts:

1. Meet Dean Oprisko
2. First Impressions: A Conversation with Dean Will Oprisko
3. Don’t Forget Your Faith: Student Religious Organizations on Campus

Oh the Gentleman’s Rule, how
often art thou referenced. Much is
made of the rule, especially for freshmen,
who hear a great deal about it
during orientation. Lauded by many,
yet inevitably criticized at least once a
semester as being “dead”, the Gentleman’s
Rule creates at Wabash a kind of
experiment, an environment of constant
learning. Such an experiment,
however, has both risks and rewards.
We as a college community have
much to lose when it comes to the
Gentleman’s Rule. It provides us with
a large amount of freedom, probably
more than almost every other college
in the nation, but such freedom comes
with problems. The difficulty is in its
ambiguity. How do we define being
the word “gentleman”? What behavior
violates the rule and what doesn’t?
What happens when my interpretation
of the rule conflicts with someone
else’s interpretation? When should the
administration get involved? Doesn’t
it just mean we can do whatever we
want? The list goes on and on and on.
In a system with so many questions,
there are bound to be disputes, but
the important issue is how we handle
them.
The greatest risk to the Gentleman’s
rule is not necessarily its removal, but
instead it’s re-interpretation. This is
why the selection of the Dean of Students
is so important. I should mention
here that over my four years I think
Dean Bambrey and now Deans Raters
and Warner have, barring a few criticisms,
done a great job of maintaining
the spirit of the Gentleman’s rule. The
point though, is that it would simply
take one aggressive Dean of Students
to change everything. “That will never
happen” you might say. It will most
certainly happen, though, if as Wabash
students we fail consistently to live up
to our part of the bargain. If we don’t
hold each other accountable and deal
with problems amongst ourselves, and
behavioral problems grow and grow
over the years the College may be
forced to re-interpret the rule.
We could easily have all the restrictions
of major universities that
include massive rule books without
writing any of them down. It would
simply take a change in the way the
Gentleman’s Rule is interpreted. What
is considered a violation? Allow me
to digress for a moment into some
of the unbelievable things that have
happened on other college campuses
around the country, most of them
violating the free speech of students,
in order to demonstrate the possible
risks of the Gentleman’s Rule.
At Valdosta State University, a student
named Hayden Barnes criticized
the university president for building
a large and expensive parking garage
on campus. Barnes felt the parking
garage was an unnecessary expense
($30 million) designed to establish
the President’s legacy on campus. He
began a public campaign against the
project including newspaper articles
and small protests. Later Barnes posted
a collage on his face book page critical
of the President and his project. The
President responded by having Barnes
“administratively removed” from
school, or in other words kicked out.
At Johns Hopkins University a
student was suspended for an entire
year for “an offensive Halloween invitation.”
This case hits close to home
for those of us that were here when
a visiting professor wrote a letter to
The Bachelor signed by many faculty
members accusing the student body of
sexism and referencing, among other
things, a party hosted by a fraternity
called “CEOs and Office Hoes.” The
party in this case was called “Halloween
in the Hood.” While personally I
think these are dumb ideas for party
themes, I don’t think that a college
should be able to suspend you based
on what kind of party you have. The
student was charged by the University
for violating the rights of others,
harassment, and intimidation. The
Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education (FIRE) took the case, and
the FIRE Director of Legal and Public
Advocacy Samantha Harris had this to
say: “Hopkins should teach its students
that the way we deal with speech we
dislike in a free society is with more
speech, not with severe and life-altering
punishment.”
In another situation just 45 minutes
away at IUPUI, a man named
Keith Sampson who worked for and
attended the university, was charged
with racial harassment for reading
a book in his break room. The book
was called Notre Dame vs. the Klan:
How the Fighting Irish Defeated the
Ku Klux Klan, which details how
Notre Dame Students fought the KKK
in 1924 in order to battle prejudice
against Catholics and others. One of
his coworkers suggested that bringing
a book like this to work was equivalent
to bringing pornography, and another
coworker told him that she found the
KKK to be offensive. Sampson tried
to explain to both of them what the
book was about, but they wouldn’t
listen. A few days later he was told by
the school’s Affirmative Action Officer
that a co-worker had filed racial
harassment charges against him. The
school ordered him not to read the
book in front of coworkers.
In each of these cases, as I men-tioned in the Hopkins case, The
Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education intervened on behalf of the
accused. FIRE won the Valdosta State
and IUPUI cases when the rulings
were overturned and is still hard at
work on the Johns Hopkins case. These
cases seem extreme at first, but as you
browse FIRE’s website you begin to
see that they are all too common in
American higher education. Surely
this would never happen at Wabash
though, right? I pray that it does not,
but it would simply take an overly
active administration with a broad interpretation
of the Gentleman’s Rule.
Imagine being suspended for having
a party someone finds offensive or for
reading a book that others find offensive
regardless of its actual content.
I am grateful that these things have
not happened at Wabash College. I
know that if they did this publication,
The Bachelor, and many others
would be liable for criticizing the administration.
Some may be liable for
certain parties and various other possible
violations of a rather subjective
rule. Clearly our freedom would be
severely limited under the same rule
that currently extends said freedom.
I have been lucky these four years to
have enjoyed such great freedom. This
article, and these examples, is meant
as a caution about what could happen
if we aren’t careful. We must keep an
eye on the administration, be mindful
of who is chosen to lead this college,
and be active in what is going on in
administrative policy. These things are
all important, but the real responsibility
to maintain the Gentleman’s Rule
though, lies with the students.
The greatest benefit of the Gentleman’s
Rule is that it provides an
opportunity for self-governance. The
encouragement and the motivation
to hold each other accountable for
actions are implicit in the rule and
must not be forgotten by the student
body. This freedom is an incredible
opportunity to learn from one another.
Some of the best learning moments are
the most difficult ones. I remember a
few of them from the past few years
because they are difficult. They usually
involve someone telling you that
you are wrong, to which the natural
response is resistance and resentment.
People don’t like being told they are
wrong, but we all need to understand
that we aren’t always right. I’ve been
corrected many times throughout my
Wabash career by professors, upperclassman,
and even already this year
by Wabash men younger than me, but
it hasn’t been easy. I don’t intend to be
“preachy”, by no means am I the expert
on this subject, nor have I been all that
good at taking criticism from others
over the years. Instead it is something
I have recognized over the last four
years and something that I hope to
improve upon throughout my life, and
I think it is vital to the maintenance
of the Gentleman’s Rule.
Everyone in our community has
something unique to offer, we just
have to be willing to see it and learn
from them. Good fortune and wise
leadership have prevented abuses by
the administration in the past, but
the risk is very real. I hope that the
examples above have demonstrated
the importance of preserving the
Gentleman’s Rule and the freedom we
are lucky enough to enjoy, but I also
hope that everyone realizes that the
responsibility lies with us more than it
does with the administration. A major
change in the way the rule is enforced
or interpreted will come only as a reaction
to our failure to hold each other
accountable. If we want to maintain
the freedom we have, we must do so
by holding each other accountable,
because if we don’t do it ourselves,
eventually, the administration will.

Related posts:

1. A Wink and a Nod: How Do We Sell the Gentlemen’s Rule
2. Tradition at Wabash: Moral Idiocy, Piety, and the Gentleman’s Rule
3. Being a Gentleman: A Critique of Sax’s Words on Wabash