The pathways of Wesleyan are busy places. People have walked them for nearly 128 years. People have come from all over the world. They have come from down the street. They walk in the sunshine, the rain, and the snow.
Admission tours are the ones where there is someone walking backwards and pointing out the sights to tour groups full of people who are walking slowly and looking around.
New students often look uncertain for a day or two, but soon they are striding confidently toward classes or the cafeteria or the library. They are on their way to their future.
After Commencement, the faculty lines the pathway to applaud the hard work and success of their students. Tears are sometimes shed.
These pathways are beautiful.
I am not the first to love and enjoy them — and I won’t be the last. There was a Dean named Arthur Allen Schoolcraft, who wrote a wonderful reflection about them for the yearbook in 1955. He tells about the students who have come, have walked these pathways, and who have gone out to change the world. He talks about the professors who helped to make that happen. It is not long, but once you read it you will never look at these pathways, or the people who walk them, in quite the same way again. Take a look at Pathways of Wesleyan.
It begins…….”The pathways of Wesleyan are as numerous as the ever-increasing host of students who come hither, over hill and dale, over land and sea, and over the long stretches of the years; who live, and labor, and learn together, on this campus beautiful, and wholesome, and enlightening; and then go hence to domiciles, and duties, and destinies as different as their points of origin, and as they themselves.”
For more stories and information about the people and events that are West Virginia Wesleyan, be sure to check out https://DreamersAndGiants.com.
Last week, I had an incredible opportunity to hear Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress, speak two days in a row. Both days, her talk was focused on Collections of treasures, and how we can use them to learn about ourselves and our heritage. Both days, she mentioned the importance of sharing them. Both days, she gave speeches that I have made myself over the years. It was very validating! And, I may have to confess to a few tears of joy in hearing her talking about the purpose of libraries and how they are even more important now than ever before.
