"Ohio Wesleyan! Sweetly and strong

"Rises our hymn of praise for thee alone …"

For thee alone?

That's fine for students who have never attended another college or university, but what of faculty and staff members who have sung the alma maters of other institutions? What of those whose alma maters' alma maters (are you following us here?) include such lines as – dare we sing them? – "To Denison, we raise our song/Fair college on the hill," and "Our loyal hearts avow no other … The love of Kenyon, our mother"?

Those whose college educations prepare them to pursue careers on other college campuses may feel lingering loyalties toward the institution they leave behind. Or do they? We asked several OWU faculty and staff members, including alumni of North Coast Athletic Conference schools, how it is to face their former schools across the field, the court, the track … you get the idea.

Professor of physical education and women's basketball coach Nan Carney-DeBord, a 1980 Denison University graduate, remembers Denison fondly.

"My Denison things are on that wall," Carney-DeBord said in her Branch Rickey Arena office. She meant the wall dedicated to her 1998 induction into Denison's athletic hall of fame, for field hockey and basketball.

A six-time NCAC Coach of the Year selection and the winningest coach in OWU history, Carney-DeBord said her Denison experience was based on "incredible mentorship."

"I think what was the greatest part about Denison was faculty and friends," Carney-DeBord said. 

Originally a pre-med major, she changed her focus to physical education during her junior year after serving as the assistant girls basketball coach at Granville High School. She took the position as a "January term" project but continued to coach through her senior year.

After earning her master's at Kent State University, Carney-DeBord coached several sports at Bethany College before interviewing at OWU. A similar position was opening at Denison at the same time, but she accepted then-athletic director Dick Gordin's offer of a faculty position and two coaching opportunities without so much as interviewing at her alma mater. 

"I love the teaching component of my job," Carney-DeBord said. "I take a great amount of pride in my faculty appointment; I take it very seriously."

As an alumna, Carney-DeBord said, she's pleased to see Denison succeed. And she doesn't forget that Denison was where she met her husband, Jack. "I'd be neglect if I didn't mention him," she said. 

But her college years were, she said, "an isolated four-year experience." 

"I've had an incredible, amazingly terrific experience at Ohio Wesleyan," Carney-DeBord said. "It's been my life work. There's no question about loyalty." 

OWU chemistry professor Kim Lance, a 1982 College of Wooster graduate who earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State, continues to support the Fighting Scots – most of the time.  

"I root for Wooster every time they play. Except for OWU," Lance said.

And, Lance said, except when he's working his other job, umpiring NCAC baseball games.

A college umpire for 15 years, Lance said he officiates games because "it's the only time in my life when no matter what I say I'm right."

More seriously, he said, he plain loves baseball.

"To be a good umpire, you really have to enjoy the game," he said. He doesn't officiate OWU games except in emergencies, but when those emergencies arise, instinct and integrity take over.

"Integrity is everything. It is absolutely everything," Lance said.

Besides, he joked, he couldn't favor one team over another even if he wanted to.

"I tell people I'm not good enough to do that," he said.

But about those college loyalties. Lance, an 18-year member of the OWU faculty and the winner of the 1994 Sherwood Dodge Shankland Award, said he supports the Battling Bishops, particularly when his own students are playing.

"That's who I have the relationship with now," he said. "Those are my students. I'm genuinely interested in their health and well-being." 

Education professor Connie Zitlow, a Wittenberg University graduate who came to OWU in 1989, laughed when asked to describe the state of her loyalty.

"I will tell you that I will not cheer against one of my students," Zitlow said. 

That said, she recalled last October's OWU/Wittenberg football matchup at Wittenberg. Zitlow, who was attending a reunion, was sitting with friends. None of her students was on the team. So when Wittenberg defeated OWU, she was free to cheer.

Athletic rivalries exist. But, Zitlow said, OWU, Wittenberg and other small liberal arts universities have in common many strengths and values: academic excellence, respect for differences, atmospheres of inclusivity.

"It's that whole idea of caring about others, service … diversity in the broadest sense," she said.

Zitlow, who earned her graduate degrees at Ohio State, said small liberal arts programs allow both faculty and students to learn about each other and develop a mutual respect. She loves knowing her students well, Zitlow said. 

"We want this kind of school to succeed, for people to realize what it means to go to a place like OWU and Wittenberg," she said.

Zitlow, who will retire this year, received the 2005 Herbert Welch Meritorious Teaching Award. Her husband and their daughter are Wittenberg graduates; their son earned his undergraduate degree at DePauw University. Different institutions, similar philosophies.

"I love this kind of school," Zitlow said.

Professor of modern foreign languages Helmut Kremling, a graduate of John Carroll University, doesn't consider himself a college fan.

"I think the last time I really rooted for a team was in high school," Kremling said.

But he often turns up at OWU athletic events, particularly when his students are playing. He's supported students at tennis matches, volleyball games and basketball games, and he comes to OWU soccer games because he loves OWU soccer.

"It's as good as if not better than the Crew," Kremling said. "No other spectator sport comes close to soccer."

Kremling has three alma maters – John Carroll, Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his master's, and Ohio State University, where he earned his doctorate – and all of them send out those familiar requests for support. Kremling said he's more inclined to give to OWU than to any of them.

"I think more highly of Ohio Wesleyan," he said.

Tom Burns, English professor and Perkins Observatory director, is another College of Wooster graduate.

"COW, we used to call it," Burns said. 

Wooster, he said, was and is an excellent school, but he doesn't have to think twice about where his heart lies. 

"Wooster gave me a great education and four years of fun times. Ohio Wesleyan gave meaning and purpose in my life. … So my loyalties are here," Burns said.

As director of the observatory on U.S. 23S, Burns increased programs from one a month to 30 a month, raised an endowment that continues to grow, and presents events and activities that are almost always sold out.

 In the classroom, Burns said, he urges his students to stay in touch forever.

"I consider this a contract for life," he tells them. And students with questions about business writing or anything else remember those words.

"I get calls," he said, sometimes as long as 10 years later.

When his calls are from fundraisers at Wooster or Ohio State, where he earned his post-graduate degree, Burns politely explains that his money and his support must go "to the place that has given my life meaning since I started in 1983."

"Every morning you get up and there's just a small possibility you'll change somebody's life," he said. "I can't think of anywhere else where I could have gotten that opportunity."

OWU athletic director Roger Ingles both attended Ohio State and coached there. He might be expected to wear scarlet and gray at least some of the time, right? 

Wrong. Ingles likes red and black. 

Most people involved with OWU, he said – faculty, staff and alumni – are those who attended and who appreciate small liberal arts universities.

"It's that personal connection that draws most people," he said. 

Ingles, an assistant baseball coach at OSU from 1982 through 1984, said exposure to the OSU hype "burned me out." 

"Ohio State is all about big business," he said.

OWU, he said, is about the love of the game, about playing at Branch Rickey arena, about seeing alumni returning to campus.

"Their eyes just light up and their faces glow," he said.

OWU students, he said, strive to live up to their predecessors' examples. Because no athletic scholarships are offered at Division III schools, because academics trumps sports, OWU students, including athletes, tend to have their priorities straight.

"They're here for the right reasons," Ingles said. " … It's definitely a place where people mature and they grow up and they become who they're going to be. There's a fondness there. … I think it stays with you your entire life."

Our conclusion?  Fond memories of one's alma mater may and often do linger, but OWU faculty and staff members are Battling Bishops all the way.

Ohio Wesleyan: Loud let it ring.