DEFINING MEMORIES OF COLLEGE LIFE
JIM GRAHAM
A M a r ie t t a M o ment
Josh Green W R ITER REALIZES I T ’ S NE VE R T OO LAT E T O T HA N K T H O SE WH O M ADE COLLE G E E X PER I EN C E SP EC I A L B I OGR A P HY Josh Green ’05 majored in English, and after earning a Master of Arts from Case Western Reserve, has been working as a staff writer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
A standard day marching up and down Marietta College’s Christy Mall was (and still is, I’d wager) a curious thing — often a 16-hour affair stuffed with deadlines, meetings and work, but still well-marbled with procrastination and fun. The one thing we too often lacked was sleep. The power nap replaced the nightlong snooze, and we thought nothing of the fact that weekday breakfast at Gilman became an almost mythological rarity, experienced only by those poor folks who heroically battled through early morning crew practices or 8 a.m. classes (or, terrible to imagine, both). When I skipped across the pond and spent spring 2004 studying in the United Kingdom, the lack of sleep persisted. (The fact that every dorm housed its own pub did nothing to perpetuate this problem, I’m certain.) But what a trip! Who needs sleep when a short bus ride can put you in the heart of London, on the steps of Canterbury Cathedral, by the steaming waters at Bath, or squarely in front of the brew taps at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem? While there, I received a letter from Marietta that announced I had been selected by the English department to receive the Beatrice A. Kremer Memorial Scholarship. I promptly visited Ye Olde Trip to celebrate the good news. After I returned stateside, the College kindly offered me the chance to write a thank-you letter to the family that had made the Beatrice A. Kremer award possible. Being a terribly busy, incredibly worldly, and thoroughly sleep-
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SPRING 2011
less senior, I set aside and forgot the chance to say thank you. You see, I overlooked something crucially important, something that started with the award and extended beyond to my entire College experience — I overlooked the fact that generous people, people who have the foresight and charitable spirit to make a difference for others, were responsible for what I had received. I’m sad to say that I did not fully wake up to this fact until very recently, despite the intervening years in graduate school at Case Western Reserve University followed by large-scale assessment work in Missouri. In a funny turn like something out of a Dickens novel, I now work on, among other things, reaching out to students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and getting their help in thanking their scholarship donors. My team prepared many scholarship stewardship reports this year, with hundreds of busy students to track down and their thank-you letters to edit. Let’s just say that, like Jacob Marley (but with decidedly less misery and no chains to speak of), my work has taught me all sorts of lessons about gratitude, philanthropy and due diligence. In the process of hounding those students, my mind dug up the memory of the Beatrice A. Kremer award and my own lapse in sharing my appreciation for the Kremer family’s generosity. So I set about contacting Marietta College’s Advancement Office, and those folks helped me hand my long, long overdue letter to the Kremers. Having a ball at Marietta isn’t difficult. Getting the education of a lifetime through fellow Marietta students, talented faculty and hardworking staff is practically guaranteed. Snagging an entire night’s sleep after a full day about campus is less than likely. And it is never too late to reach out and thank the folks who make it possible in many ways, who make every day at Marietta College rich and full of opportunity. There’s just not much of an opportunity to catch some shuteye. JOSH GREEN ’05
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