PRESIDENT
2012
Roads Go Ever Ever On Twelve and a half. David Joyce was 12th. Zach Messitte is 13th. I am, and will remain, 12½. There is a lot of joy in that. Here’s a little of it. At Commencement, more than 200 students shook my right hand and took the Ripon College diploma in their left. Sam Mutschelknaus walked across the stage and hugged me. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that hugging the President is against Ripon ceremonial protocol. But it was a good thing at the right moment. Sometimes people and circumstances truly are exceptional. That day, I wore the chain of office over my robes, and it was heavy. But it was an honor. When President Messitte wears it next year, I will feel that honor even more deeply. Ripon has every reason to be proud of its past leadership and confident about its future with Zach. I look forward to the adventure. Spud Hannaford told stories. I cannot do them justice. The most memorable for me was about the student who, many decades ago, said something like, “I didn’t come here to ask questions. I came here to learn.” Spud, as you know, taught (and still teaches) philosophy. The student changed. Judith Shapiro, our Commencement speaker, observed that the real world seems sadly fact-deprived. We need to change that. I need to change that. You need to change that. Ripon College and colleges generally need to remember that our fundamental
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RIPON College
Gerald Seaman, Interim President
purpose is not to teach you slogans or to make false promises. It is to do our part to prepare you for citizenship and a life of choices that are real and hard, consequential and enduring. The National Forensics Honorary Society Pi Kappa Delta honored me with the E.R. Nichols Campus Communicator Award. I had the pleasure to receive this prize from Robert Kirkland, chair of the board of trustees, at the Awards Convocation. This is always a special evening for me; this year was the best of all, and I am grateful. Is there anything better than being surprised by joy? Little things may surprise us. Like the sight of Commencement from the stage. Like the view of campus from the prairie. Like music in Rodman, cheers in Storzer, the silence of
snowfall and the crack of billiard balls in the Pub. “Walking on Sunshine” (http://ow.ly/bPITQ) really did make me feel good. What else does this for me? I like the quiet beauty of the renovated Heritage Room. I am thrilled by its resonance. I love the photographs. It is a place of memories where more memories will be made. I like stories, especially those that remind us of how important Ripon has been in so many people’s lives. And, along with their stories, I really like the people. “Roads go ever ever on” is the first line of Bilbo’s walking song, which he chants upon his return to the Shire at the end of “The Hobbit.” He reprises the song, in slightly modified form, when he leaves home for the last time, at the beginning of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Just before singing, Bilbo says: “Don’t you worry about me! I am as happy now as I have ever been, and that is saying a great deal.” We should all have such joy in leaving and in returning, in going, as Bilbo did, there and back again: Roads go ever ever on Under cloud and under star Yet feet that wandering have gone Turn at last to home afar. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” Enjoy Ripon Magazine and everywhere it leads you. n