Douglas Dowland
Professor of English, Sara A. Ridenour Endowed Professor of the Humanities, and Chair of the
Department of English, Philosophy & Religion
Honors Day is a day of many emotions. There’s the enthusiasm of watching students present their
critical and creative research. There’s the pleasure of witnessing students being inducted into a
panoply of honors societies. And there’s the melancholy feeling of saying the first of many farewells
to students about to graduate.
One emotion in particular struck me intensely this year. As department chair of English, Philosophy
& Religion, I take pride in the work of my colleagues and our students. Ohio Northern has always
had a strong humanities presence. But this year, my pride has been especially profound. In addition
to our many activities on campus, Ohio Northern’s humanities students have showcased their
strengths in national competitions. This year, they performed outstandingly.
In Washington D.C., Polaris, our literary magazine, received two Pinnacle awards from the College
Media Association: second place for Literary Magazine of the Year and third place for Literary
Magazine Cover. By doing so, ONU beat out liberal arts powerhouses like UNC-Charlotte,
Appalachian State, and Virginia Commonwealth. It’s the work of a dedicated student staff who are
able to combine passion with professionalism. Indeed, at this year’s Association of Writing and
Writing Programs conference, several noted authors stopped by the Polaris table to tell us that we
were, early in their careers, the first to publish them.
In St. Louis, our Ethics Bowl team came in ninth at nationals. To give you a sense of how awesome
this is: there are over two-hundred Ethics Bowl teams at colleges across the United States, and only
thirty-six are invited to compete in nationals. Ours at ONU is the highest ranked in Ohio,
outperforming Bowling Green and Youngstown State, and we outperformed elite institutions
including the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. All proof that at ONU, the humanities are an
intellectual powerhouse.
Like how a good parent loves each of their children, I love all the work our humanities students do. I
must admit that there is a special place in my heart for the English honorary, Sigma Tau Delta, which
I advised for several years. In New Orleans, this year they continued a six-year tradition of having
the most students accepted to the conference from Ohio. It’s a highly competitive process—less than
half nationally are accepted—and yet our acceptance rate in the past seven years has never been
below sixty-six percent. Moral of the story: the papers and poems that emerge from our humanities
courses are just as good, if not better, than the work of students at other universities.
It’s easy for me to take pride in the humanities on our campus. But it’s easy due to the work of our
students and our faculty, and due to the investment in both that ONU’s leadership commits to. And
importantly, it’s a pride worth sharing for our entire campus, for the humanities are open to every
student at Ohio Northern. A minor in the humanities can be built into any major, and every student is
welcome to join our student clubs. Indeed, it’s the diversity of majors and minors who participate in
our events that make them all the stronger. In these ways, our successes are the embodiment of the
university motto, “Ex diversitate vires.” “Out of diversity, strength”: the humanities show this, time
and time again, in the work of every ONU student, in every competition win across the humanities
spectrum, and in our university’s national presence.