Thoughts on Missouri Western

Commencement Address
Bridget Janssen

Senior Bridget Janssen, of Scandia, Kan., who will graduate this month with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, was selected to give the commencement address in December. “At first I was surprised at being chosen and wondered how in the world I would get everything done,” Bridget said. “After thinking about it for a couple of days, I became really excited at the opportunity to share with fellow classmates and work personally with Dr. Perález and Dr. Vartabedian. I knew that it might make the last few weeks stressful, but that I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity for anything.” Below are excerpts from her address:

As students, we have  had to contend with small problems every day, probably multiple times a day! We have all lost our student ID cards and been late to class, forgot about assignments, and failed that HUGE test! I thought I was going to die the semester I took genetics, physics, and organic chemistry, but each morning I woke up and pushed through the day, even though I was not always happy about it. Each of you continued to push through those rough days.

The proof that you can’t keep a Griffon down is in the band and choral kids who spend countless hours in practice rooms to perfect a piece of music. The proof that you can’t keep a Griffon down is in the football team who rose up to beat Northwest for the first time in eight years. The proof that you can’t keep a Griffon down is in the nontraditional students who are brave enough to take a risk and come back to school. If you could keep a Griffon down, I would be speaking to a bunch of empty chairs today. Instead, all of you acted just as a Griffon should, fighting through the hard times and early mornings to not only protect your knowledge, but to gain more.

Missouri Western is the home of the Griffons. It is here that we have spent many hours studying in the library, hanging out in the residence halls, and cheering on our athletic teams as they take on rival opponents. “This is where Griffons live.” Not on Missouri Western the campus, but in the spirit, enthusiasm, and excitement that we exhibit in our daily life. Is all of this about to change as you move away from Missouri Western and the St. Joseph area? No, a Griffon lives inside each and every one of us. We can take everything that a Griffon stands for: service, quality, enthusiasm, freedom, respect, and courage into our new lives.

It is a GREAT day to be a Griffon! So go out, be strong, and get your Griff on!

What it Means to Say Missouri Western 
Dr. William Church, assistant professor of English

Below are excerpts from a draft of which Bill says, “I’ve been composing in my head for years and on paper for several months. My essay explores all the rich and complicated meanings of what it means to say Missouri Western. As you know, my veins bleed black and gold. I can’t imagine my life without Western.”

I am an assistant professor of English. This is my 22nd year of teaching at Missouri Western.  By most measures, I ought not be here. My odds of being imprisoned were likely higher than my odds of becoming a professor. I was born to hard-working, hardscrabble parents of the Great Depression. Like the families of so many students I teach, my parents understood college only in the most abstract of mantras – “To get a good job, get a good education” – which offered no definition of either “job” or “education” and no idea of how one was to accomplish either.

I am far from unique. In so many ways, my story is the story of generations of MWSC/MWSU students. We weren’t necessarily the ones celebrated in high school for our academic prowess and dedication. We had no one to pave our entrance into college. We had no role models with college experience (or I should say who understood how the college experience can change lives) to mentor or counsel us. Working class kids, we’d been taught to think that union jobs, farming, government jobs, and the military were good enough. They’d been good enough for our parents. By Jove, they were good enough for us.

As a student who learned the power of this institution to change my own life, I try daily to foster that same knowledge in all those who come here for that very reason, whether or not they realize that is why they are here. 

Our top students, and even our mid-ability students, have access as freshman to professors and academic opportunities that would be denied to them until their junior or senior years at major universities. Our freshmen are welcomed on the staffs of our newspaper, yearbook, and literary magazine. They engage in creative and scholarly projects all across campus, from business to art to the sciences and legal studies. Our Foundation provides travel money to conferences and other support for their efforts. Our top profs mentor them from the start.

 There is a sense of family at Western. I felt it from my earliest days, fairly dark days in the time of divorce and an agricultural bankruptcy. My profs made time to read my work, mediocre though it was. They loaned me books and negotiated deadlines, not because they were softies, but because they realized they were teaching an individual student, not merely a curriculum. Even in larger classes, my profs learned my name and took an interest in my learning. I was given a voice in the Griffon News and a space for my creative works in Icarus. Our Financial Aid people helped me find grants without which I simply could not have attended.

From my skeptical initial enrollment to my graduation with honors, I was made to feel that no matter what kind of high school student I’d been, no matter which of life’s forces had driven or led me to the campus after years out of school, no matter how empty my pockets were, I mattered. It is that quality more than all others – that undying dedication to making students of all ages and levels of preparation feel that they matter – is what it means to say Missouri Western.

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