Season 2 Episode 1
Ben Binversie:
00:04
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Williams, Middlebury, Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Oberlin, Beloit, Pomona, 51²č¹Żapp. Can you guess what these schools have in common? I'll give you a sec to mull it over.
Ben Binversie:
00:31
This is all things 51²č¹Żapp, I'm your host Ben Binversie. Did you figure it out? All of those colleges were founded by Congregationalists, primarily to train future ministers. So what is it about these Congregationalists that they managed to create so many long lasting and heralded institutions of higher learning? Well, we're going to figure it out. That's coming up next after I remind you that the information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of 51²č¹Żapp College.
Ben Binversie:
01:06
You wouldn't know about walking around campus, but 51²č¹Żapp used to be a religious institution. The college severed its formal ties with the congregationalist church long ago, but that legacy remains. Long gone are the required church services, and although we have many students active in religious life on campus, it's easy to forget that 51²č¹Żapp was founded by a group of congregationalist ministers known as the Iowa Band. Many have heard the tale of the founding of 51²č¹Żapp college, or Iowa or Davenport College as it were, but fewer people know about the religious history of the college. So we brought in the big guns for this one.
Ben Binversie:
01:40
George Drake, alum from the Class of 1956, Professor and President Emeritus is going to walk us through the religious history of the college, and help us understand how congregationalist beginnings still influence the college today. But first, let's turn back the clocks to 1846 when a group of Congregationalist ministers known as the Iowa Band made their way West.
George Drake:
02:02
51²č¹Żapp was founded by a group that were called the Iowa Band, and it was 12 initially, and I think 11 actually came out here, graduates of Andover Seminary in Massachusetts. They were graduates of 1843 and it was not uncommon for seminary students in that period to decide that they would collectively go into missions. Some of them went into foreign missions, and some of them went into what was called home missions, which was along the frontiers of the United States, or at that time, the frontier really was the Mississippi River and then the immediate area just to the West of the Mississippi, the so called Trans Mississippi West.
George Drake:
02:47
So they decided that they would go into home missions, and it turns out that Iowa would be the appropriate place for them to go, partly because they were abolitionists and there was an effort to settle the West as free territory rather than slave territory, and Iowa was sort of marked out as one of those places that clearly could be as a free territory. So it was Iowa. There were already some home missionaries in this territory. One of them was named Asa Turner, and he was a graduate of Yale Theological Seminary, and so they were in touch with him about coming out. He was pretty skeptical about whether they would actually come because it was a pretty rough life and these were, you know, pretty "civilized Easterners" that were thinking of coming out here.
Ben Binversie:
03:36
What are the distinctive tenets of congregationalism that separate it from other popular denominations of Christianity at this time?
George Drake:
03:44
Well, this group were Congregationalists, and congregationalism was very prominent in New England at that time, particularly Massachusetts. Massachusetts had been settled by congregationalists. First of all, the so-called Pilgrim Band in 1620 that settled in Plymouth. And then, about 10 years later, a large number came and created what was called the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was Boston. This really involves going into a little bit of English history as well as Reformation history.
Ben Binversie:
04:17
And I'll take it from there. No disrespect to George, but I'll just give you the skinny on what you need to know about English Reformation history. George Drake's CliffsNotes, if you will. Let's start with Henry VIII. You've heard of him, despised and feared by many, loved by maybe a handful at most, some of whom he beheaded. He wants annul his first marriage, but Pope Clement says no, so Henry separates England from the Catholic Church and takes them into Protestantism. Then, mercifully, Henry dies and Edward moves England even more Protestant. He dies without marrying or having an heir, so his half-sister, Mary, comes to the throne.
George Drake:
04:56
She brought England back to Catholicism. Sort of like a tennis match, back and forth. She dies. She had married Philip of Spain, but she had no children. So her half-sister Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558.
Ben Binversie:
05:11
Not a deeply religious woman herself, Elizabeth really just wanted everybody to be happy. So she created a new church, the Church of England to encompass both Catholics and Protestants. But some staunch Protestants didn't like that. Still too much Catholicism for them, and a group of them wanted to purify the church of its Catholic elements. You guessed it, the Puritans, which was initially a pejorative term. There's lots of different Puritans, but ...
George Drake:
05:36
Almost the most radical group were the Congregationalists, the separatists who were pushing for actually separation from the Church of England as they began to get discouraged about whether Elizabeth would ever change. And they believed not only that you did not need an overall structure, but that each individual church was sovereign unto itself. Congregationalism, in other words, the focus is on the congregation or the individual church.
Ben Binversie:
06:03
Well, Elizabeth still wanted to have one big happy church, but after she dies, King James of Scotland takes the throne.
George Drake:
06:09
And he solidified the structure that Elizabeth had created. So they began to get really discouraged and decide they got to look to leave England.
Ben Binversie:
06:18
So they did. Congregationalists packed up and set sail aboard the Mayflower. And then another batch came over in 1630 to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
George Drake:
06:28
That's this particular group who had a lot to do with the foundations of this country and so on. And so initially, they were very strong. Actually, Ben, the last state church in America was the Congregational Church in Massachusetts, which was not disestablished until 1819. So it was a very, very strong denomination, at least in that area. Now today, in terms of numbers, it's not one of the big Protestant denominations. It's an important one, but not particularly large.
George Drake:
06:59
This group of congregational pastors, their congregationalism had a lot to do with their thinking about establishing a college, which is our college today. They called it Iowa College at that time, but it became 51²č¹Żapp.
Ben Binversie:
07:13
Yes. So the Iowa Band forms in 1830, and it takes a few years, but Iowa College does form in 1846 in Davenport. Students first enter in 1850. What was the mission of Iowa college at that point?
George Drake:
07:28
It was predominantly to create pastors. It may be an exaggeration, but not much, that they just didn't like all these Methodist and Baptist stump preachers who were not very well educated. They were going to create a highly educated pastorate. Education was important to be a congregationalist. They weren't in a Massachusetts Bay. They arrived in 1630, by 1636 they've created a college called Harvard, and so right away, the very first collegiate institution in America is a congregational foundation.
George Drake:
08:01
And Harvard had sort of the idea of creating more pastors as well. It's interesting that the curriculum was a very challenging curriculum. I'd have a tough time passing that curriculum because it was Greek language, Latin language and mathematics were almost two thirds of the courses that the students took, thinking that this was the solid foundation for a really intellectual group of ministers.
Ben Binversie:
08:27
So yeah, you mentioned Harvard, Yale, Oberlin, Carleton, Pomona, all of those prestigious institutions were, at one time, affiliated with congregationalism. So what is it about congregationalism that is maybe conducive to education?
George Drake:
08:43
John Milton was a congregationalist, and Milton believed, and most of the congregations believed that if you get out of the way with doctrine in theology, and just let intelligence and training work, you will find your way to God. The congregationalists were Calvinists, not Orthodox Calvinists, but Calvin was the precursor for the Reformation that they looked to, and Calvin believed strongly in the study of science because he felt that you'd find God through nature, as did these Congregationalists.
George Drake:
09:18
And it's interesting, pretty early on, even though we would think of them as pretty conservative Christians from our point of view today, they believed there was a difference between a church and a college, and there should be academic freedom, room to let the mind roam and challenge and so on in a collegiate institution. I think that has something to do with the quality of the institutions they created.
Ben Binversie:
09:43
So picking back up with Iowa College, we're in Davenport, and there's big trouble in River City, and they pack up and move to 51²č¹Żapp.
George Drake:
09:51
Yeah. The trouble was that the college and the Town of Davenport never did see eye to eye on a variety of things. But probably most importantly Davenport was a Mississippi River town, which traded with the South, and it was embarrassing to them to have this group of abolitionists in their midst. And so they treated the college in a cavalier fashion. They drove and established two streets on campus without consulting the college. And maybe we wouldn't, as a college, have moved, but for the fact that there was a place and some land that was hospitable to the college.
Ben Binversie:
10:29
Yeah. So they found 51²č¹Żapp, the open, welcoming arms of J.B. 51²č¹Żapp, just a little more than 100 miles to the West, and they don't bring with them much from the college besides some books. All the professors stayed in Davenport. So it's almost as if it was more the idea of the college that was transplanted, more so than the college itself. But I imagine J.B. 51²č¹Żapp had his own plans for what the college would be, and indeed you mentioned that he had a prospectus written up for his future college before there was even talk of Iowa College coming to 51²č¹Żapp. So how much of the college's mission from Davenport remained when it came to 51²č¹Żapp?
George Drake:
11:08
Well, I would say most of it, because a 51²č¹Żapp was a very hospitable location for them. The Town of 51²č¹Żapp had been created in 1854 by J.B. 51²č¹Żapp, who had decided that he wanted to establish an abolitionist colony somewhere in the Trans Mississippi West. We've got a place called Saints Rest in 51²č¹Żapp now, a coffee shop, and it really is because the town was sort of known as a group of saints who had established this place.
George Drake:
11:40
51²č¹Żapp himself was a congregational pastor, and a staunch abolitionist, and a very entrepreneurial type of person. So it wasn't unusual to establish abolitionist colonies, but it wasn't common on the other hand either. And our location here, I'll go into this just very quickly, but it was because 51²č¹Żapp had been on a railway train, and I think he's in Illinois when it happened, and he had accosted a Missouri slave holder who actually had his slave with him, and it was getting to be very heated, almost coming to fisticuffs. And a very well dressed man named Henry Farnam came through the car and separated them, and then after some discussion with 51²č¹Żapp, invited him to his private car at the end of the train.
George Drake:
12:30
He was, it turns out, was a Director of the Rock Island. 51²č¹Żapp explained what he was about, and Farnam quickly said, "Well, I have just the right spot for you. Contact the chief engineer, and he'll give you the coordinates. There's a flag pole out in central Iowa, it's a central territory, and our line, the Rock Island line is going to go through there, and there's probably going to be a North-South line that will intersect with it that we have. There's a flagpole right at that spot."
George Drake:
12:59
Anyway, that's how a 51²č¹Żapp found 51²č¹Żapp, and almost as soon as he established a town, created the town, he set aside 160 acres for his university, and that's now where the 51²č¹Żapp College campus is.
Ben Binversie:
13:16
So you mentioned that 51²č¹Żapp's religious beliefs were very prominent in the Town of 51²č¹Żapp itself, particularly his stance as a staunch abolitionist, and also as a teetotaler. Were those tenets of congregationalism or were those more specific to 51²č¹Żapp himself?
George Drake:
13:34
Because it was so centered in New England, which didn't depend on slavery, it was fairly easy for Congregationalists to be early-on abolitionists, and it fit their moral principles and so on. With respect to drink, I think, not particularly, in fact I think certainly today there are many denominations who are more anti-alcohol than Congregationalists, but certainly 51²č¹Żapp was, and a covenant was created along with the town that no alcohol could be served in the community.
George Drake:
14:07
I can recall when I was President that ... no, it was when I was a trustee of the college, just before I was President, that the college decided to establish a pub on campus, which was actually in the main basement under quad. At that time, the drinking age was 19, so it could fit with most of the age of the 51²č¹Żapp College undergraduates. But in order to do that, the college had to petition for an exception to this covenant, which in fact the city council gave the college as a result of the petition.
Ben Binversie:
14:44
Does that covenant still exist today?
George Drake:
14:46
In the community? No, it does not. But it wasn't such a hard covenant to keep in those days because the only liquor sold in the state was in state liquor stores. The state had a monopoly on at least the pass through of liquor, and the closest state liquor store was Newton. When I was a student, there were guys with cars would do the Newton run, and take orders for liquor, and go to Newton and get it.
Ben Binversie:
15:15
Another thing thing I was curious about is how did education for women fit into congregationalism and their understanding and philosophy of education?
George Drake:
15:26
They were certainly on the cutting edge. They weren't to the absolute cutting edge, I think the Quakers were closer to the real cutting edge in allowing women leadership within the church. But congregationalism was fairly open to leadership from women, certainly not being pastors at that point, an ordination wasn't extended to women, that was really quite recent. But they were open to the education of women. And in 1856, before the college moved in 1858, Iowa College established a women's course, which was not the Greek Latin math course, but it was more what we would think of today as humanities, modern languages, music and so on.
George Drake:
16:09
And luckily they had done that, because the move in 1858 to 51²č¹Żapp, the Civil War begins in 1861, three years later, most of the men go off to war, and so the only reason the college stayed alive at all during the Civil War was because they had this women's course. It kept the institution viable.
Ben Binversie:
16:28
Yeah. So as we move along in 51²č¹Żapp's history, is its relationship to the church primarily dictated by the presidents of the college at the time, or the trustees, or just the times?
George Drake:
16:42
Well, certainly the relationship was initially, and forever I'd say, in the hands ... I mean, any major decision about relationships is a trustee decision. Now, it may be, a lot of times it's a matter of being led by the administration, but ultimately it's the trustees who decide. On something like this, they would have a keen interest because initially the college didn't have a president, the trustees were running the college, and they were definitely all on board with congregationalism and the religious nature of the institution. That gradually changed over time.
George Drake:
17:21
When I was a student, that's where we bring ourselves up to 1950s, the college had just ceased requiring attendance at a weekly chapel service, which was a religious service during the week. It was still a pretty strong religious presence. We would, I remember Tuesday evening vespers and Herrick Chapel were very highly attended by students. There was always a chapel service on Sunday. I sang in the choir, so I was always there on Sunday in a religious service. So it definitely was present on campus.
George Drake:
17:56
But the college was gradually easing away from the church, and by the 60s with student radicalism and so on, and also congregationalism went through a merger then with the Evangelical Reform Church, a German Protestant tradition. And there always had been a congregational pastor on the board, but when the United Church of Christ was created in 1950s that ceased to be an obligation. And what was called the State Conference of the Congregational Church of Iowa was at 51²č¹Żapp, but after the merger took place, it moved to Des Moines. Just about that time, the late 50s, early 60s then the college began to almost formally separate itself from the church, though the formal separation was not complete until my time as president.
George Drake:
18:48
The college presidents of the congregational churches had met yearly in a group called the Council for Higher Education of the Church. But no 51²č¹Żapp president for several presidencies had gone to that meeting. I started going. My dad was a congregational minister, and my grandfather was, so I'm a sort of dyed in the wool congregationalist, and I started going. Well just at that time, the former Evangelical Reform colleges, which had come together with the congregational colleges, were getting less money from the church than they had before because they had to share the money with the congregational colleges. Well here's Carleton and 51²č¹Żapp getting an equal share of that money, and being the "rich colleges" in the mix, and they were getting less than they got before. They resented that neither Carleton nor 51²č¹Żapp would openly recognize their affiliation with the church.
George Drake:
19:46
So I was on a commission that was creating a so called covenantal statement that would define the nature of church relationship. And the Carleton president, a man named Bob Edwards and myself suggested, because the requirement was to take this covenantal statement to the faculty and to the board of trustees to get approval. And what we've all said, "No way our board of trustees or our faculty would approve this, so let's change the nature of our relationship. Let's just create a group called historically related colleges. We'll get no money, but still acknowledge that they were created by this denomination."
George Drake:
20:23
So 51²č¹Żapp and Carleton, it turned out, Beloit also was another congregational college, and Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, which an ER college, voluntarily entered that, the Ripon president, and Ripon was a congregational college too, thought he could get it through his faculty. He got shot down. So ultimately those were the five colleges that became historically related, 51²č¹Żapp, Carlton, Beloit, Ripon, and Franklin and Marshall.
Ben Binversie:
20:53
Huh. So terminating the financial relationship, was that kind of the last straw of like the relationship in its formal nature?
George Drake:
21:03
I'd say so. The only thing that we agreed to do, and we still do, I think, is we acknowledge our connection, historical connection in our catalog.
Ben Binversie:
21:13
Okay.
George Drake:
21:14
You can find it there, but who pays any attention to it?
Ben Binversie:
21:18
Yeah. So let's backtrack a little bit and talk about the Social Gospel movement, which I think is largely occurring during the time, and was kind of pioneered by, at least at 51²č¹Żapp, the presidency of George Gates.
George Drake:
21:33
Yeah.
Ben Binversie:
21:33
So can you talk a little bit about what the Social Gospel movement was and how it influenced 51²č¹Żapp during that time?
George Drake:
21:40
Sure. And I'll go back even further, that if you or I were to sit down and talk with the trustees or faculty or students from the 1870s or 80s, we would think of them as a bunch of by new old Southern Baptists or something, very strong doctrines focused around the notion that Christ is the Son of God, is divine and human, and His death is He dies for our sins, and it's through His death that we achieve salvation in our faith, a faith in Christ and so on.
George Drake:
22:23
Well, that doesn't sound very much like any theology you would hear on the 51²č¹Żapp campus today. You hear it, but not predominantly. Well, all of this religious energy that created the college begins to transform in the 1890s, and it's a national movement, but 51²č¹Żapp happens to be one of the leaders of that national movement, the Social Gospel movement where the focus becomes not so much Christ the man God who died for our sins, but rather Christ the great leader, teacher, moral example. So the living human being Christ as a model for human behavior as our teacher. And so, put it in very simple terms, and simplistic terms, I'd have to admit, it would be sort of as though you were faced with a moral or ethical decision, and your first thought is, "What would Jesus have done?" So we're talking not so much about Christ but Jesus. "What would that man, Jesus, who taught and modeled human behavior, what would He have done? I will follow that direction."
George Drake:
23:29
So it becomes social amelioration, it becomes justice surrounded by Christianity and the Christian Church and the congregational church. And there were two major leaders of that movement besides Gates himself who was, he was a congregational pastor who had come directly from the pastor to New Jersey to the presidency of 51²č¹Żapp, and was president mostly during the 1890s, and became president in 1887. I think 1901 was when he left the college, went to Fisk University, the African American school in Tennessee, and then ultimately ended up as president of Pomona. So he's president of three colleges, though in fact is buried out in our cemetery here at 51²č¹Żapp. I remember taking a group of students out there and they said the dormitories are buried right out there cause Main is buried out there as well.
George Drake:
24:26
Anyway, a man named George Herron, and a post was created, a faculty position, endowed position called applied Christianity. And Herron was the first holder of that. As I mentioned last week, I doubt it was much on campus teaching students because he was always on the floor, it was called the Chautauqua Circuit, giving lectures in a Social Gospel vein. And he was dramatically radical because he didn't believe in private property, and it was a real threat to the college and the trustees that there was this guy out there saying, "Jesus and the disciples didn't have private property, why should we have private property?"
George Drake:
25:11
He was, in that sense, an embarrassment. The trustees were all over Gates to get rid of this guy, and Gates wouldn't do it. Academic freedom. But just before Gates left the college Herron left earlier, ran off. He was a family man, had a wife and children, but ran off to Europe with the Dean of women's daughter, and so he abandoned his position at 51²č¹Żapp.
George Drake:
25:33
And at 1903, I think it was, that they discovered Edward Steiner, who was a congregational pastor, had begun as a Jew and then converted to congregationalism, and I think he'd had four different parishes, and came from one in Ohio, Sandusky, Ohio to become the professor of applied Christianity, and was a great authority on immigration.
George Drake:
25:57
Now, then the next step is what is 51²č¹Żapp today? It's an institution that believes in service, that preaches and believes in service, draws students who have these inclinations, justice, openness, et cetera. And I see this, it went in more or less an almost entirely secular framework. So it's a progression through Social Gospel to today, so secular humanism that I think is a pronounced feature of 51²č¹Żapp.
Ben Binversie:
26:28
Yeah, you mentioned that 51²č¹Żapp isn't quite number one for many things, but we are number one for the number of graduates that we send into public service, other than the Army and the services.
George Drake:
26:37
Yeah, almost 42%. So you know, only half of what the service academies produce, but pretty good for the next highest of the non-service academies is 37%, in that particular poll.
Ben Binversie:
26:50
Yeah. And that seems like a pretty strong thread that you can tie from the Social Gospel movement to today.
George Drake:
26:57
I think so, yeah.
Ben Binversie:
26:59
What other values do you see carrying through from, you know, whether it's the Social Gospel movement or the beginnings of the college, and maybe 51²č¹Żapp's vision for the college, or Gates' vision for the college, some of the stronger kind of influencers on the mission of the college? How did that carry through? And what are the lasting elements of that that you see today?
George Drake:
27:20
Well, I think academic excellence is part of that because anytime you establish an institution where the core curriculum is Greek, Latin, and mathematics, you have a fairly high standard of academic challenge and accomplishment in order to gain a degree. So that's there, for sure. And I'd say academic freedom. Very early on, the Presbyterians, who didn't have at that time a college in Iowa, were willing to establish a position or now professorship in theology, but they wanted to make the appointment and they wanted to ensure that the theology that particular person taught was Orthodox. And the trustees turned down that, they needed money, they needed professors, but they turned down that opportunity because it limited the academic freedom of the faculty and the institution. So I'd say that's another very important sort of goal of the college that I think has carried out over the years.
George Drake:
28:28
Openness to all kinds of students, early on for women. That's a big step. Oberlin college in Ohio had preceded 51²č¹Żapp, they're an older college, but there weren't very many institutions that were trying to educate or thought it was important to educate women. We were fairly early, though by no means a pioneer, in admitting African American students. During World War II, or during the later phases of the World War II, as they began to release Japanese Americans, Nisei, from the camps, 51²č¹Żapp took quite a number into the institution with opportunities to get a collegiate education.
George Drake:
29:12
And making education available regardless of financial resources. Now, that was limited because the college's financial resources were hugely limited until fairly recently. But as we know, I mean 51²č¹Żapp today is probably the most accessible of all of the top colleges in the country with respect to Pell Grant eligibility and so on. And we do not saddle students with huge debt. We do saddle with debt, but not ... We have the least debt of any college in Iowa among our graduates. So that's been a goal fairly early on, as it's not an institution just for the elite, but it's an institution for everyone who is capable of doing the work if we can possibly make that the case through financial aid and so on.
George Drake:
30:05
Now early on ... I mean, financial aid is a relatively recent phenomenon. But when I was president ... Now remember, the graduates of the 30s, late 30s and into the 40s, who were depression students, depression families, person after person said, "I don't know how I got through 51²č¹Żapp, but somehow 51²č¹Żapp made it possible." And there was a treasurer named Louis Phelps, and they'd go see Louis, and he'd find them a job in town, this sort of thing, somehow. And they all talked about Louis Phelps, that, you know, "We had no money, but somehow I got through 51²č¹Żapp." And these were usually pretty wealthy people. I tended to focus my visits on people of wealth who could contribute to the college, who were enormously grateful. They never thought they'd make it in the way that they had, and the college somehow made that possible. So access, I'd say is another element that's pretty much in the 51²č¹Żapp DNA.
Ben Binversie:
31:05
So as students come in here, first year to the college, you know, it's not really evident that we have this religious institution, as you talked about. It's a side note, it's a footnote in the catalog. But you could go through your four years as a student here now, and have no inkling that 51²č¹Żapp was once affiliated with the congregationalism. So why should a new first year student learn about this religious history? And why do you think it matters to the current students?
George Drake:
31:36
Well, it depends, of course, it depends on your attitude. Now, Ben, you're a history major so it's probably you think-
Ben Binversie:
31:44
Yeah, you don't have to convince me!
George Drake:
31:45
... history is important. But we are products of our past. My inaugural speech as president was titled, Our Future in Our Past. Let's look at our past and see what our future should ... how past should influence the future. I'm a historian, as you well know, and so I think that in order to understand what we are today and where we hope to go, it's important to know something about that past, but also quite existentially. I think the percentage of congregational students, or United church of Christ students is lower than 3% at the college. I remember that was a figure when I was president, and it's probably even lower.
Ben Binversie:
32:28
I would imagine.
George Drake:
32:29
And Roman Catholic students are the largest percentage, at that time it was 25%, it's probably maybe a little less than that, partly because we're so international.
George Drake:
32:39
But this is a campus where you can find, let's say, assistance with respect to any religious tradition that you're interested in or from. So our international students are given guidance from our chaplain's office, Muslim students, Hindu students, obviously Jewish students. We've had a rabbi on the campus. So some of that openness about religion that Congregationalists represented, I think is still there. There's a lot more, in a sense, there's a lot more religion on campus than ever because it used to be exclusively Protestant Christian. And in fact our admissions, in a study of Joe Rosenfield I've done, when he was a student, our admissions was hugely in the hands of congregational pastors. We had no admissions office. But we had events on campus every year that invited all the congregational pastors in the state to come. And of course that was partly an admissions effort, as well as it was playing our role as a congregational institution.
George Drake:
33:47
It's so broad now, so broad, and all of that is encouraged and fostered on campus. And the campus is sensitive to the fact that there are these different religious traditions. And we've already gotten it for this semester from the Dean's office, the Jewish holidays, "Expect that many of your students, Jewish students, will not be in class on that day, and give them an excused absence," that sort of thing. A sensitivity to this multiplicity of religious traditions, I think is part of that tradition.
Ben Binversie:
34:25
Well, George, thank you so much for sharing your wealth of knowledge on the religious history of the college. It's certainly a fascinating and worthwhile theme, and I look forward to talking to you maybe next time about Joe Rosenfield and his influence on the college.
George Drake:
34:39
I'll be glad to do that, Ben! Thank you, Ben.
Ben Binversie:
34:43
George Drake has been a student, professor, and president of the college during his time here, and he's still teaching tutorial this fall. If you're around town, you can see George making his way around, and you can catch him riding his bike to work, even when the weather gets nasty. He does it all, and for me and many others really embodies the spirit of 51²č¹Żapp. George was my tutorial advisor, and really still is my advisor for life. He'll be back on the show before long to talk about his new book, about the life of Joe Rosenfieldā25, another 51²č¹Żappian who profoundly influenced the college.
Ben Binversie:
35:17
And that's all folks. That wraps up the first episode of this new season. I'm looking forward to sharing more of these stories with you throughout the year. Next time we're going to talk to the winner of the 51²č¹Żapp College Innovator for Social Justice prize, Shafiq Khan, the CEO of Empower People, an organization in Northern India that works to eradicate bride trafficking and empower independence, agency, and leadership of girls and women who have been affected by it. That's next time on All Things 51²č¹Żapp.
Ben Binversie:
35:45
Music for today's show comes from Brett Newski, Podington Bear, Seth Hanson '17, and Will Bennett '13. If you'd like to contact the show, email us at podcast@grinnell.edu, or check out our website, grinnell.edu/podcast for more information about the guests from today's show. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen. I'm your host, Ben Binversie. Stay weird, 51²č¹Żappians.