Convocation begins 154th academic year at Wooster
New College of Wooster President Anne E. McCall gave the convocation address to the campus community on Aug. 17.
The College of Wooster officially launched its 154th academic year with an annual convocation on Aug. 17, celebrating the start of the new year and the final leg of the Wooster journey for members of the Class of 2024. President Anne E. McCall, beginning her term this year as Wooster’s 13th president, invited the community to come together for a year of new beginnings.
“Our purpose at the college is time-honored across millennia and continents: learning, being and becoming,” McCall said. “For those of you who have just arrived, you have inserted yourselves here at The College of Wooster into a storied and ongoing history of transmission and challenging, a process of acquiring time-honored knowledge, honing skills and developing habits of the mind.
“In equal measure and whether you know it already or not, you are becoming part of a history of challenging the very knowledge we teach, of complicating and contradicting what may pass for truth, of questioning what you may think is true today but perhaps not tomorrow. The gowns that we wear are largely medieval in design. Don’t confuse their age with nostalgia or complacency; rather, they unite us with each other and bind us with those before us who sought to know, to imagine, to create, to become.”
Unity was a theme continued throughout remarks from the event speakers, who represented many voices of the college community. Faculty representative, Wooster alumnus and associate professor Matt Mariola, who recently attended his 25-year reunion, encouraged students to build relationships and cultivate community.
“Generations of college graduates reminisce about, remember and are impacted by their relationships, their community,” Mariola said.
Krista Martin, assistant director of academic advising and co-chair of the college’s staff committee, said, “Every interaction matters. The big learning outcomes are built every day, mostly from very small moments of teaching and learning together.”
Senior speakers Jaylin Hudson, president of Scot Council, and Carrie Buckwalter, president of Model United Nations, shared words of encouragement with their class and fellow students, offering their advice from experience.
“Embrace it all. Make the effort. Go to the new club. Talk to the person sitting next to you,” Buckwalter said.
“Adapt, become hardworking, listen and have fun along the way,” Hudson said.
Faculty who achieved tenure and promotion this year were recognized as part of the ceremony. The following faculty were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Nicholas Brandley, biology; Jennifer Faust, chemistry; Melanie Long, economics; and Kate Beutner, English (who is on leave). Those promoted to professor include Shelley Judge, earth sciences, and John Rudisill, philosophy.
The fall semester classes began at the college on Wednesday, Aug. 16 for approximately 1,900 Wooster students.
“Identifying as a student at The College of Wooster means you have accepted an inheritance that is a challenge, a challenge to continue a tradition of unflinching intellectual and artistic inquiry, a history of risk-taking through the detailed process of research, discovery, disagreement and debate, correction, revision, and dissemination,” McCall said in closing. “We do this individually, working together. Faculty, staff, fellow students and alumni are all here to support you, as you do for others.”