Student organizations are an integral part of campus life, and participation often creates meaningful opportunities to build a culture of belonging. Leaders in several of the largest and longest-running clubs on campus share their thoughts on community and how Wabash can continue to bring people together.
Brownsburg, Indiana
PPE Major | Business Minor | Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (Mxibs) | Student Body Vice President
Community means togetherness. A group of people who might not necessarily have the same beliefs come together and treat each other fairly and equally.
My introduction to Wabash was so fun. Everyone was always out doing stuff on campus. Come to events—once you go to one, you want to keep going to more. At first, I thought, “Why would I want to go to these things?” I just didn’t think it was worth my time. I made so many more friends and created such a sense of community here for myself.
I went to a TGIF (Sphinx Club’s weekly social event) and it was just the vibes. The music was playing. There were a bunch of people talking, the sun was shining, and I was feeling good. That was the first moment I thought, “I don’t know why I don’t do this more often.” It just feels good to be out with everyone, meeting new people.
Indianapolis
Psychology Major | Classics Minor | Track and Field Team | Asian Culture Club | Phi Gamma Delta | Sphinx Club | Wabash Acts Responsibly (War) Council | Psychology 101 Supplemental Instructor | Volleyball Team Bookkeeper | Psi Chi
Through community, it is possible to cultivate meaningful, long-lasting friendships and feel that you belong. It motivates me to better myself and to improve the lives of those around me. I build community by being grounded in gratitude. I am deeply grateful for the lessons I have learned at Wabash College. Within this community, I have discovered myself and grown in ways I never could have imagined.
It is important that Wabash’s brotherhood remains united. To build community, Wabash men need to focus on building each other up. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 cannot let our differences divide us. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 must actively choose to celebrate our differences. Making one Little Giant better improves our whole community.
McKinnon and Edinburgh, Texas
Spanish Major | Education Studies and Computer Science Double Minor | La Alianza
In high school, I didn’t think about college much. I knew it was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t know if I wanted to leave the state. I related to Wabash because my high school was small. The only thing that bothered me was it is so far away from home. It was hard for me to be able to justify going so far away from my family. It was something I had to battle with a lot.
My parents were protective of me and my siblings. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 never went to after-school activities in the areas that we lived in because it just wasn’t safe. I’m a first-generation college student. They work so hard, and my sisters give money to help me either go home or pay for my school.
I got a better sense of what community means when I came to Wabash and joined La Alianza. La Alianza tries to be a club that is more about empowering people and the culture we strive to represent, but not in an exclusive sense. I’m excited to see what kind of projects we can come up with for the Latino Community Center. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 want to make an impact in any way we can.
Indianapolis
Psychology Major | Asian Studies Minor | MXIBS
Community is more than just a network of people in the same place. It’s also largely about whether those people feel as if they belong. A good community is when people feel like they belong.
Until I joined the MXIBS, I wasn’t sure if Wabash was for me.
Part of the “Brother to Be” program through the MXIBS is setting up a tailgate for one of the football games. When it was my turn, I felt like the pressure to perform a certain way just lifted off. I thought, “This is awesome.” I was super excited at that point.
I recognize that a lot of students at Wabash feel like a place like the Malcolm X Institute is not theirs—that they would be intruding if they enter that building. And there are students within the MXIBS that don’t feel comfortable outside of the MXIBS. Why is that?
There’s a lot of mental gymnastics we do when we’re in uncomfortable situations, particularly regarding identities. There’s not exactly an easy solution, but one thing that would really help is if we were to say, “168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 know the Institute is perhaps intimidating, and we know the ideas we talk about and the conversations we have are perhaps intimidating.” 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网’re not trying to shut you out. It’s a learning experience, a genuine exchange. You need to be willing, ready, and eager to learn as much as you are willing and eager to communicate.
Hidalgo, Texas
English Major | Rhetoric Minor | La Alianza | Sphinx Club | Crawfordsville Middle School Soccer Coach
I left my home and my childhood dream of playing soccer to come to Wabash for financial reasons. It’s come to be the best decision I could have made. I got super involved right away and learned that my passion is in community work.
I don’t think community is a physical thing. I don’t think it’s a metaphorical thing. It’s what you make it. I’m part of the Wabash community because I live and study here. I’ve now become more a part of the Crawfordsville community because I also live in Crawfordsville. But I still have my community back home that I stay in touch with virtually. You have to work together as a community to make it the best you can make it.
Coaching middle school soccer last year showed me how much I can impact the kids. People have taken me in and given me home-cooked meals just because I’m able to help their kids in soccer. I want to show the kids they can go to college too. It doesn’t matter what your background is.
Bloomingdale, Illinois
Economics Major | Business Minor | Sphinx Club | Interfraternity Council | Tau Kappa Epsilon | Golf Team
Community means a sense of camaraderie. It’s a sense of everybody striving for one goal, and that one goal could be anything from bettering the world to bettering the environment or winning the Monon Bell.
McAllen, Texas
Computer Science and Rhetoric Double Major | Music Minor | La Alianza | Phi Gamma Delta | Mariachi Pequeños Gigantes (also starting a high school Mariachi band)
Community is a support network that can help on a variety of levels.
In the sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” the main character, Leslie, asks for a favor, and the police chief says yes without even thinking about it because she’s always working to help. She always gets it done. I strive for that anytime someone asks a favor of me. I try to do it to the best of my ability, hoping that they feel that support from me. I hope in turn that builds a sense of trust which will eventually transform into a community.
When people would lend my grandpa stuff, he would say, “You need to give it back better than the way it was.” He also said, “Always leave your footprint wherever you go.” So that’s what I’m hoping to do here—leave Wabash better than it was when I got here.
Building community at Wabash includes forgiveness and being there for one another. In Crawfordsville, it’s putting yourself out there and making connections. Both are needed to build a network of people that support one another.
Indianapolis
English Major | Education Studies and Black Studies Double Minor | College Mentors for Kids | Writing Center Fellow | Tau Kappa Epsilon | Sphinx Club | Indoor Soccer Club
Community is a bond you share with others that gives your life meaning, purpose, and a sense of connection. Before Wabash, I often did not feel as though I belonged to a community outside of the clubs and sports I participated in sporadically.
Community building starts with how you carry yourself and how you interact with others. Communities only function well when everyone feels they belong and they matter. Mutual respect, empathy, and honesty are needed for living a moral life and for building a strong community.
Wabash is a place where if you put yourself out there, you’ll typically find a club or an organization you feel like you belong to. Wabash is as much about the relationships you build and the organizations you involve yourself in as it is about academics.
Indianapolis
German and Economics Double Major | Independent Men’s Association | Track and Field | German Club | RA | Center for Innovation, Business and Entrepreneurship (CIBE) | The Bachelor
Community was the first thing I noticed at Wabash. I visited lots of colleges, and that sense of community didn’t really exist like it existed here. You’re never afraid to go out and talk to someone. That’s what it’s about for me, being able to get to know different people. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 need to listen to different people’s viewpoints and be open. It’s not all about your intelligence. It’s just as valuable to look at situations through a different perspective.
As an RA and as president of the Independent Men’s Association, I asked myself, “What are the best ways to get guys out of their rooms to mingle with each other and to find new friends.”
Gary, Indiana
Economics Major | Education Studies Minor | College Mentors for Kids | Tau Kappa Epsilon | Mxibs | La Alianza | Lead Studio Carpenter in the Fine Arts Center
Community is the ability to support the people around you and help them grow. Community is picking each other up in the places where somebody may not be thriving and helping in any way we can to make each other.
Community is built of different people. For a community as a whole to be better, we have to better those people individually.
I’ve been interested in the education studies classes even though I don’t want to teach. They relate well to my life in general, with College Mentors for Kids (CMFK), and for when I have my own my kids. Adolescent Literacy Development (Education 370) has shaped the way I’ve thought about the kids in CMFK and how they communicate, read, and express themselves. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网’re learning about different demographics and how that can affect their learning, understanding that each kid is different and unique.
College Mentors for Kids has been a great way to put myself out there. It is also a great way to relieve my own stress and have a fun break where I get to be a mentor and hang out with fourth and fifth graders.
Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Computer Science Major | Economics and Art Double Minor | International Students Association (Isa) | Indoor Soccer Club | Senate Representative for Class of ’26 | RA | Computer Science Club | Intramural Activities Committee | Qualitative Skills Center Tutor | Videographer for the Wrestling Team | Mxibs | Stephenson Institute for Classical Liberalism
Community manifests as this weird alchemy where individual lives start bleeding into each other—not in the kumbaya way people expect, but in the way my homework sessions at 3 a.m. somehow turn into this impromptu support group where exhausted computer science majors, or international students, or the brothers of the MXIBS, trade energy drinks and debugging tips with equal desperation. It’s less about planned togetherness and more about the accidental intimacy that comes from repeatedly occupying the same spaces, making the same mistakes, and finding yourself tangled in other people’s solutions.
I build community in ways that probably wouldn’t make sense on a resume—like turning ISA meetings into hybrid therapy-cooking sessions where we’re simultaneously stress-eating homemade biryani and helping each other decode American social cues. Or how our indoor soccer matches evolved into this cultural symposium where we’re not just playing, but accidentally creating this universal language of competitive trash talk that somehow works across seven different native tongues. Even my RA duties in Martindale Hall become less about enforcing quiet hours and more about creating these micromoments where a guy from rural Indiana and another from urban Bangladesh can find common ground over their shared confusion about Professor Eric Dunaway’s microeconomics exam at midnight.
What Wabash and Crawfordsville need most (and here I’m painfully aware of my status as both insider and outsider) is more bridges—the metaphorical ones that connect College and town, international and domestic, traditional and progressive. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 need more spaces where different worlds can collide in productive ways, more moments where the guy who’s lived here his whole life can share a conversation with the kid who just flew in from halfway across the planet.
Community building morphs based on context. Post-Wabash, I want to re-create these peculiar spaces of belonging I’ve stumbled into here—not through grand initiatives or corporate diversity programs, but through the kind of organic relationship building that happens when you’re the guy who knows what it’s like to be simultaneously from somewhere else and somehow exactly where you need to be. I want to take what I’ve learned from straddling multiple worlds at Wabash and turn that into something practical in a “here’s how you navigate being perpetually foreign while making everywhere feel like home” kind of way.
Indianapolis
Rhetoric Major | Business and Economics Double Minor | Student Body President | Basketball Club | Student Life Committee | Lambda Pi Eta | Pickleball Club | Neurodiversity Club | DJ and Producer Club | Ping Pong Club | Intramural Sports | Soccer Team Social Media Manager
Community embodies creating environments where individuals feel a strong sense of belonging, shared purpose, and mutual support. It is about bringing people together to share experiences, foster growth, and cultivate respect. Community is the space where we find companionship, encouragement, and motivation to become the best versions of ourselves.
As Student Body president, my mission is to foster a sense of unity by amplifying the voices of students from all backgrounds and ensuring that everyone feels valued and heard. I am committed to increasing engagement across campus, organizing events that appeal to a broad segment of the student body, and encouraging cultural and ethnic organizations to do the same. By bringing people together—often through shared experiences, food, or music—we strengthen connections among individuals whose paths might not otherwise cross.
Indianapolis
Art Major | Economics Minor | MXIBS | Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Student Representative | Student Athlete Advisory Committee | Wabash Christian Men | Leadership Academy | Sphinx Club | CIBE | Football | Track and Field
Your community makes you who you are.
I like to build community by showing a smile. Every day when I walk across campus, no matter what I’m going through, I just keep a smile on my face. I feel like it helps people realize they are welcome at Wabash and specifically within the MXIBS. There are no stipulations on who’s allowed into the MXIBS. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 are brothers. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 don’t see Black brothers, white brothers, Indian, Mexican. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网’re just brothers. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 have also gotten outside of the Wabash bubble and expanded into Crawfordsville with our community service. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网’ve volunteered at churches, food pantries, trunk-or-treats—we’re getting our faces and our name out there. That has helped us realize there’s more to Crawfordsville than Wabash.
Another thing I figured out being chairman of the MXIBS is that Black people flock to Black people. So that’s why a lot of Black students on campus come straight to the MXIBS because they see people like them. So, we expanded the Brother to Be (initiation process) for the MXIBS. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 require two hours of community service, attendance at two Coffees and Careers (hosted by Career Services), at least one Chapel Talk, and outreach to at least 50 alumni through LinkedIn. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网’re trying to show guys there’s more to Wabash than just the MXIBS.
Brownsburg, Indiana
English Major | Psychology Minor | ’shOUT | Writing Center Consultant | 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 Climate and Culture Committee Student Representative | Academic Policy Committee | La Alianza
Community is where you feel free to be the unabridged version of yourself.
On campus, I have built a community for myself out of my friendships with like-minded people. I tried to be selective in the bonds I made and distance myself from those who I believed to jeopardize my sense of self. It was grueling and took practice and patience as I navigated those tougher conversations when I felt like my identities weren’t being respected. From those conversations, I have noticed the support and love I got in return was far more precious.
Wabash needs a more diverse campus that celebrates differences rather than embracing the things that make us similar. Differences in race, sexuality, or culture are naturally occurring things, and the more we treat our differences like “taboo” topics, the less educated about each other we become. 168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 need to embrace uncomfortable conversations and accept the differences that make each person unique without the lingering pressure of conformity.
I hope to continue the work I do at Wabash through challenging myself to bring an unapologetically queer and Black voice to every conversation. I have realized throughout my short time at Wabash that people are willing to listen and be challenged on their ideas, but those ideas can never be challenged when you are quiet. Finding my voice and being authentic or vulnerable about my experience as a Black queer person has allowed me to create a space where people can share those experiences with me.