1,400+ Alumni Return to DePauw, A Place "That Changed You So Deeply"

June 11, 2016

"We were the ground-breakers," Sally Smerz Grooms Cowal said to fellow members of DePauw University's Class of 1966. Speaking at this morning's convocation as part of Alumni Reunion Weekend, she noted, "The world around us shifted dramatically during our four years here. We were not innocent standbys to that shifting ground. Because of the intense debates and intellectual discourse that went on in classrooms and living units at DePauw, we shaped the world to come, even as it shaped us. I would venture to say that few periods in modern history were as tumultuous as 1962-1966."

Cowal is senior vice president in charge of global health programs for the American Cancer Society. She recalled the Cuban Missile Crisis, the blossoming civil rights movement and the March on Washington, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the invasion of The Beatles as events that informed campus discusslons and still reverberate today.

"There are some who believe that everything they know they Learned in kindergarten. I know everything I know, I learned at DePauw," Cowal stated. "From DePauw came the lofty ideals and the intellectual curiosity and the wanderlust ... From experiences on this campus also came emotional intelligence and leadership skills as well as the ability to sleep anywhere and eat anything. Classroom presentations and debates honed skills to synthesize information and present it logically and persuasively and to argue and defend positions with male professors and male students. Sorority life meant communal living with women and practicing democratic governance when at any given moment 10% of the population was suffering from PMS or the break-up of a romance."

The former senior vice president and chief liaison officer for Population Services International, and the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin America and the Caribbean, Cowal was also U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. "Running an embassy is simple by comparison. And sleeping on the top bunk in the cold dorm and eating some of the concoctions prepared by Indiana farm women and served at the Tri Delt house made sleeping on overnight flights and eating sheep’s eyes in a Druze village in Israel because to do otherwise would have brought shame to the hosts, a piece of cake. From Sally Gifford I learned that a handbag has to be big enough to hold a jar of peanut butter, just in case."

A member of DePauw's Board of Trustees, Cowal headed the initiative to being greater numbers of international students to campus. She conckluded, "We owe a lot to this place. So let’s keep on keeping on! There’s still a lot to be done."

Jay Bennett, vice president of human resources for Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, spoke on behalf of the 25th reunion class.

"I challenge each of us to leverage our individual diversity and our potential to effect change as we reflect on our lives twenty-five years after DePauw, and what things might look like 25 years from now. I challenge you to affect the future by mentoring a young person; we've benefited from formal and informal mentors during, after and before our time at DePauw ... I challenge you to affect the present by being models of civil discourse. We can disagree without being disagreeable.

"Political awareness and an informed perspective on current issues are just a few of the foundations of our liberal arts education. We are leaders who serve others in every field of endeavor, so use your leadership to challenge others to think, grow and contribute."

The past chair of the DePauw Board of Visitors, Bennett was previously vice president, human resources for the global defense business at Rolls-Royce in Reston, Virginia.

"Welcome back," offered D. Mark McCoy, who will officially become DePauw's twentieth president on July 1. The world, and the campus, have changed since the attendees received their diplomas, but "those friendships forged so long ago are still strong," said Dr. McCoy. "That magical feeling -- the wave of nostalgia that rushes over you when you first see East College again -- it's still here. Though you might not remember Occam's razor, or the importance of physostigmine, or the order of the Tudor monarchs, you know that what you learned at DePauw changed you so deeply that you can no longer remember what you knew before, or without, DePauw."

Nadia T. Mitchem '98, program director for client relations at the American Red Cross, was presented with DePauw's Young Alumni Award today.

During today's program, members of the the Class of 1966 unfurled a long banner to unveil the total of their 50th reunion gift. For their golden anniversary, the class raised $403,228.66 for The Fund for DePauw, with 45% of its members making a contribution. Since their 45th reunion, the Class of '66 has given more than $6.2 million to DePauw.