For the past year, I have facilitated conversations as a part of the series of Community Dinners Wabash has made available to students. Each dinner begins with a monologue explaining why these dinners exist: young men are increasingly lonely and disconnected from each other. These dinners recognize that Wabash, despite its lively campus culture and small campus, is not immune to the trends regarding connectedness and belonging. But maybe implicit in the existence of these dinners, is the recognition that Wabash men are estranged from each other because of Wabash itself, not just the national trends. Let me explain!
During a dinner two participants seemed to disagree with a particular design in our Wabash experience: the incredible speed that freshmen were sorted into groups like fraternities and sports teams. One participant believed that freshmen shouldn’t necessarily rush the first semester, and that more time spent with their cohort of fellow freshmen would be beneficial to belonging. Another participant believed the opposite; they believed that the quickness of freshman year and the sorting that occurs leads to a sense of belonging. I was uncertain of my feelings on the topic. I experienced the sense of belonging that can come from rushing early, but I was skeptical of how this process occurred for others; part of promoting belonging is realizing that your own experiences are not universal.
I thought of many hypothetical students during this conversation: the gay athlete surrounded by locker room talk during his sport’s preseason camp, the fraternity pledge who doesn’t feel that he belongs in his pledge class, the independent student who struggles to connect with his roommates. The groups we are initially thrusted in at Wabash aren’t always conducive to belonging partially because belonging is a fluid and personalized sensation, not a statistic or static trait. Recognizing that the design of the Wabash experience can lead to estrangement isn’t saying that our experience should be overhauled; instead, we should be open to adjusting what we believe belonging looks like at Wabash.
Community Dinners look to mend the gaps across the student body, but of course, one night of sharing food and talking with someone won’t always create friendship and understanding. The design of Wabash, that often corrals students into a particular group, will not be amended by attending a singular event, Community Dinner or any other. It’s difficult to chart a path towards a more harmonious community, but I’ve learned at least this: for a fulfilling sense of connection with the campus, we all need to be willing to devote time to new experiences and new people, beyond an hour or two.
Belonging is an abstract concept and the popularity of the term has made it a buzzword of sorts, making it lose its meaning at times. I view belonging as a comfortability with who you are within the context and same space as others in your community. Belonging isn’t just about being with people like you because our communities are diverse; belonging is about establishing comfortability and cohesion with people like and unlike you.
I also think it’s worth noting how important belonging appears to be to students on campus. As moderator of the past student body cabinet debates, I noticed that practically every candidate answered the question, “what would you change about Wabash?” answered along the lines of promoting more brotherhood — brotherhood being the male brand of belonging.
I thank my fraternity, TKE, for how it has given me meaningful relationships with people like and unlike me. My pledge brother Ryan Frazier ’26 and I have some similarities in background including big families, coming from communities talked about because of poverty and crime (Gary for Ryan and east Indianapolis for me), both of us had lost our mothers at a young age and we had shared hobbies like basketball. Relationships like these, that flow seamlessly because of similar experiences, are integral to belonging. But I also roomed with Dimitri Didimanidze ’23 and Mustasin Rahman Ashfi ’23 my second semester, and I learned about their home countries, Georgia and Bangladesh. I still recall all the fresh fruit Ashfi kept around because he missed being able to go to the market so easily and comfortably as he could back home; I think I’ve prioritized buying and eating fruit even more so after rooming with Ashfi.
A philosophy I’ve learned from my education classes posits that we should look at teaching as giving students a mirror and a window: the mirror is lessons that reflect who the student is, and the window is lessons that allow the student to learn about the lives of others. I find that belonging and healthy relationships stem from this principle as well; belonging often comes from relationships that reflect who you are and teach you about experiences outside of your perspective. In particular I think of my friendships with Alex Ngaba ’24 and Jesus Monroy ’24. They always expressed interest in my hobbies and interests, and in turn I showed interest in theirs. Alex taught me how to play soccer in the TKE courtyard, and Jesus showed me his recipe for spanish rice. Alex brought me along to an indoor soccer club meeting, and Jesus took me to La Fiesta market in town to get tamales. In my friendships with these two TKE alumni, I saw myself in our similarities in temperament and lifestyle, but I also had a window into new experiences.
As I’ve gone through my Wabash life though, people graduate, friendships change and commitments evolve; ultimately, we should all evolve too. When I think of the times I didn’t feel like I belonged at Wabash it’s a mix of outside pressure and internal strife. I think of the incidents of homophobia on campus that reminded me of where my identity stands with some people. And I think about the sophomore slump I fell into as responsibilities and anxieties grew. But being open to new possibilities and experiences brought me out of those rough patches. Going with Alex to play soccer with people across campus distracted me from my fear of the homophobia around me. Going to sh’OUT meetings gives me a space where I feel comfortable sharing all of myself. College Mentors for Kids gives me purpose, a piece of belonging some forget, as I see my mentee grow and appreciate me. And the countless community dinners I’ve participated in have built connections across campus.
These days I look forward to the hours spent in The Bachelor working next to Nathan Ellenberger ’26 and Tobin Seiple ’29. Tobin on some levels is very much like me; we’re both nerdy white dudes who love music. But Tobin and I are walking stereotypes of our majors (financial economics for Tobin and English for me) as seen by our favorite books, Steve Job’s autobiography and “Ulysses” by James Joyce (I think you know whose favorite is whose). With some shared interests alongside different values, my friendship with Tobin offers a mirror and window. But also I still play basketball after classes with my pledge brothers just as I did 4 years ago. I encourage you to still cherish the bonds that were built day one at Wabash, but don’t be too cool, or too closed off, to build something new each year and each semester.
Engaging in those dinner conversations and hearing about such different experiences with belonging at Wabash has shown me that people experience belonging in their own ways. Sometimes we find our mirror and window in our dorms, and sometimes we find it in our involvement in a club. Be open to adjusting how you belong at Wabash.
The conversation mentioned earlier about the freshman experience and early commitments to organizations was really about how early investment in an organization hinders other relationships. Students get too comfortable in their selected group stopping them from connecting and learning from others. And it’s possible that acts of hate on campus could be less frequent if this isolation wasn’t so common. But at the very least, engaging in something new consistently like an athlete writing for The Bachelor, the pre-law guy joining the disc golf club or anyone going to a community dinner will cultivate a deeper sense of belonging for all.
It goes beyond the old advice of “try new things!” Be willing to have your schedule shifted, to build a new hobby, to put time into new people. Be willing to let new people, like and unlike you, occupy a place in your heart. The design of Wabash with a quick rush process, strong commitments to athletics and weighty workloads from school and jobs, can get in the way of connecting with people across Wabash; be a part of the change that makes disconnection across campus less frequent. No matter what year you are going into, I encourage you to not just try something new, but throw yourself into something new and truly live in it.