Tag: Legacy

Tradition…….and traditions

Tradition

Derived from the Latin word traditio (to hand over, or give for safekeeping)

Our Tradition (That which we value and believe is important enough to protect for safekeeping and to share with others in the future.)

  • Provides us with a source of identity
  • Reinforces our values
  • Creates connection with each other, including past and future members the community
  • Provides us with lasting memories
  • Provides comfort and security, especially during times when there is a lot of change happening

For the purpose of this writing, I am making a bit of a distinction between the overarching Tradition and the traditions (specific activities, items, or groups) which help with that transmission to new generations. They amplify and exemplify the Tradition that we value.

Some Examples:

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was this week. The overarching value of this holiday is Thankfulness.  Thankfulness is the tradition.

Traditions of Pilgrims and Indians, turkey and Indian Corn have a very different connotation in modern days. We still give them a nod, but are much more focused on the Thankfulness. That tends to be illustrated by fall leaves, pumpkins, turkeys, parades, football, food, feasts, and family.

Facebook was full of photos of families and friends celebrating this holiday. They were all very different, and yet all focused on the Tradition of Thankfulness.

  • Norman Rockwell-like tables and family gathered around
  • Groups of two or three all the way up to twenty or thirty gathered at buffets, tables at Grandma’s house, or restaurants at the beach.
  • Many families missing the members who were out hunting
  • Tables decorated with pilgrims, pumpkins, and turkeys
  • Some of those tables with full-on Christmas decorations in the background
Christmas

Christmas has an overarching Tradition of Giving.

A celebration of the gift given by God. His very own son. We give gifts to each other as a way of remembering that gift. Even though the holiday is based on the Christian celebration of God’s Gift, it turns out that society in general also wanted to celebrate the Tradition of Giving. Secular images now compete with the religious symbols of this holiday. We tend to mix and match them in our decorating.

Angels, Shepherds, Wise Men, Stars, Baby Jesus in a Manger, Mary and Joseph are joined by Santa Claus, Reindeer, Snowmen, Elves, Gingerbread Houses, Candy Canes, Snowflakes, Trees, Ornaments (even ornaments based on every possible popular culture icon).

And yet, Giving is at the core of it all.

Hmmmm…..Thankfulness leads to Giving. No wonder some families have a hard time separating the two!  🙂

West Virginia Wesleyan College Tradition

Thomas W. Haught wrote an article in the Sundial in 1936 entitled, Some Observations on College Traditions.  It is a good read!

West Virginia Wesleyan has a long heritage, based on tradition.

John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church. These are the things that he believed to be important. These are the things that he passed down to those who would become the founders of WVWC.

When the Methodist Church in West Virginia wanted to pass on Sound Learning and Christian Character to a new generation, they founded the West Virginia Conference Seminary. The Trustees at that time made it clear that they wanted the school to be non-sectarian (in other words welcoming to all students regardless of their faith) and they wanted both male and female students and faculty to be included.  [Welcoming]

Thomas W. Haught enrolled just months later, during the second term of the school’s existence. He learned much from the early faculty, and was educated in this school that valued Sound Learning and Christian Character. That character included many things, among them a dedication to both service and compassion as well as an expectation of personal integrity.  [Christian Character]

As the school was not yet a college level institution, he then went to WVU to earn his undergraduate degree and on to Harvard University. In 1904 the school did grow and adapt into a college level institution. In fact, as the needs of the students and the society have changed, the school has grown and adapted to meet those needs time and time again. [Growth and Adaptation] [Sound Learning]

Returning to WVWC to teach for over 45 years, and to be involved with administration in the offices of Dean and Registrar as well as serving three times as the acting president, Thomas W. Haught continued passing down the values and traditions of the college to new generations. 

Looking at the WVWC of today, we still see them.

Using the Thomas W. Haught list, and adding a few of my own, I have come up with the following categories of values making up WVWC Tradition:

  • Christian Character (Service, Compassion, Personal Integrity)
  • Community
  • Growth and Adaptation
  • Sound Learning
  • Welcoming

Some WVWC Examples

I had planned to choose a few as examples here, but there are just too many. Many of them fit into one of these categories. Many could be considered in multiple categories. Most have something to do with Community. Instead, I will list some (certainly not all!) and you can attempt to see where they fit in and why these represent the values that we want to hand down to future generations for safekeeping.

So many traditions. Some have evolved. Some have disappeared over time. That, in itself, shows the value of Growth and Adaptation.

They are listed in alphabetical order…….(Once A Librarian Always A Librarian)

  • A source of identity
  • Reinforcing our values
  • Creates connection with each other, including past and future members the community
  • Provides us with lasting memories
  • Provides comfort and security, especially during times when there is a lot of change happening

What Did I Miss?

Click here to let me know what I missed!

Cloud of Witnesses

Faculty and Student Body in 1928
WVWC Faculty and Student Body in 1928

In the making of the DreamersAndGiants.com website, and in teaching WVWC History, I spend a good bit of time reading about the people who have taught here through the years. Occasionally I come across photographs of these people in places that are very familiar to me!

WVWC Faculty 1954-55
WVWC Faculty 1954-55

The 1954-1955 faculty is seen here in the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library where I have spent so much time. As a Library Science student, many of my classes were here as well as my work-study.  Having worked in this building as a professional librarian from 2001-2017, it is safe to say that I know this building very well. To see a photograph of people like Dr. Ralph Brown, President Scarborough, Professor David Reemsnyder, and Professor Nellie Wilson sitting in that space is quite fascinating for me.

Faculty of WVWC ca Late 1950s
Faculty of WVWC ca Late 1950s

This group of people has always been of the highest academic stock, as a look at any of the college catalogs can attest. Here is the catalog for this particular year as an example. They have taught thousands of students and provided guidance and helped to shape the college as well as those students. They have served on countless committees, developed many new programs, and advised student groups of all kinds. They have hosted students in their homes and taken them on trips that have opened the world. Their teaching was not all done in a classroom.

Faculty in Atkinson Chapel
Faculty in Atkinson Chapel, 1958

 

President Stanley H. Martin poses on the front steps of the Annie Merner Pfeiffer with the faculty in the early 1960s. Another place that I have passed several thousand times myself, not knowing that this photograph existed. This cloud of witnesses has been here before me.

WVWC Faculty 1971
WVWC Faculty 1971

This 1971 photograph in front of John Wesley, a familiar landmark today, includes some of those very iconic names and some more recent ones like William Mallory, who just retired last year. This is the group that I remember from my college years, and many of these people played a major role in my education and prepared me for my career.

WVWC Faculty Procession ca mid-late 1970s
WVWC Faculty Procession ca mid-late 1970s

Time marches on. But the work that they have done is not a thing of the past. It lives on in the hearts and memories of their students. And, sometimes, if you listen closely, they still have much to teach us.

Related Articles: Academics at WVWC

 

Planting Seeds

Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.

These words, from Hamilton (The World Was Wide Enough) ring very true for many of the Dreamers and the Giants. Conversations with Lincoln, a two-day event last weekend, is a great example. They were brought to the attention of the gathered crowd by speaker, Beth Wasson.

Charles Aubrey Jones yearbook photo 1904

Charles Aubrey Jones, graduated from the West Virginia Conference Seminary in 1904. Although this was a preparatory course, I think most of us would find it pretty daunting.  Latin and Greek, Geometry, Botany, History, and Literature, and more. Click here to see what courses Charles Aubrey Jones had to master!

His path then took him to Ohio Wesleyan and beyond. Along the way, he served as the personal secretary to U.S. Senator Frank B. Willis and later to Governor Myers Y. Cooper of Ohio. While spending time in Washington, D.C., he became acquainted with Colonel O.H. Oldroyd — a person who was an avid collector of all things Lincoln. In fact, Jones and Oldroyd were active participants in saving the house where Lincoln died from becoming a parking lot!

Charles Aubrey Jones began collecting Lincolniana as well, and amassed a very fine collection of books, pamphlets, handbills, signatures, framed portraits, and one of only 33 bronzed copies of a rare Life Mask. All of these things (at the time the third largest such private collection east of the Mississippi), he willed to his Alma Mater, West Virginia Wesleyan. He wanted to promote scholarship about Lincoln, and to spark the interest of future students.

Last year, on Valentine’s Day, the funds that he had provided along with the collection made it possible to bring in a world-renowned Lincoln scholar, Ronald C. White. On that cold winter evening, the garden planted by Charles Aubrey Jones was sprouting.

Lincolns visit AMPL
Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln visit with Brett Miller in the Upshur Reading Room

The speakers and events of last weekend’s Conversations with Lincoln were organized in large part by students. They were supported by History faculty as well, and by Trustee Kevin Spear – himself a 1976 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan.  Events were held at Buckhannon-Upshur High School, and 4th and 5th grade students had a chance to visit with Mr. Lincoln at the Upshur County Public Library.

Charles Aubrey Jones must have been beaming with pride to see others singing his song. And, quite possibly, the song of Lincoln as well.