The Hillsdale College president’s office revealed March 2 that Clint Westbrook and Brittany Baldwin were voted outstanding senior man and woman by the college faculty, after being nominated by the senior class.
“I was really honored just by the fact that my peers and professors would see that in me and also humbled by the responsibility of always being an example to those that are around me,” Baldwin said.
Westbrook said that reading the letter from the president’s office and realizing he was selected for the honor was surreal.
“It was exciting and odd at the same time, being in the position that I had looked up to for the last three years,” Westbrook said. “It was exciting and humbling, especially given the other guys who were nominated.”
Both Baldwin and Westbrook hold their predecessors in high regard.
“I just remember that Betsy Peters (outstanding senior woman of 2010) was almost superhuman because she did so many things, but all so well, including having three majors,” Baldwin said. “I still don’t compare to her, but to be able to serve in my own way and to be able to have the same honor as her is probably the most honoring aspect of being nominated.”
Baldwin — an American studies major — said that some of her favorite activities on campus have been attending the same Bible study for four years, learning from her sisters in Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, participating in the American studies honorary, and being the vice president of the senior class.
Baldwin is also a member of the George Washington Fellowship, the Lamplighter Fellowship, and Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honorary. She served on Student Federation and now serves as a resident assistant.
Throughout her time at Hillsdale, some of her fondest memories have been trekking to Mecosta (home of Russell Kirk) with the American studies honorary for the best apple pie, watching “Lives of Others” while eating pizza and drinking beer at college President Larry Arnn’s house with her Aristotle class, and visiting Monticello last spring with the rest of the Washington-Hillsdale Internship program members.
“The biggest thing that I have learned while I have been at Hillsdale is not to over-commit and to make sure that I am always able to have enough time to be at peace so I can serve the people around me and do my best in school,” she said. “Sophomore year I realized I did not want to hold up a flag that said I had achieved all these things. I wanted to be able to say that I lived to love people and to love learning.”
Westbrook said he has appreciated the diversity of perspective offered by his politics, philosophy, and French majors.
“I have really enjoyed getting all of these big questions from different perspectives, and the conversations that stem from those different perspectives has really shaped the way I think about the different questions that Hillsdale poses,” he said.
Westbrook is the president of ODK, the senior class ambassador, a member of both the French and philosophy honoraries, and a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity.
The key to his experience of college?
“Do what you don’t want to do now, so you can do what you want to do in the future,” he said. “That advice from my dad has served me well, because sometimes you don’t want to go to a certain meeting or do an assignment. Not only will it build your work ethic and study habits, but it will prepare and allow you to do what you want to do in the future.”
Westbrook wants to go to law school, but has also applied for a position in southern France to teach English.
Baldwin is less certain about her future plans, but she would like to eventually move back home to Texas.
She said she is keeping her eye out for a position that incorporates writing, working with people, and public speaking.
“They are of course young people of high character,” Arnn said. “They take the purposes of the college to heart and see them as the purposes of good living itself. They try to get to the bottom of things. They want to know things of value well enough to retain and use them, to live by them, to admire and enjoy them.”
Arnn also attested to their charming and fun characters.
“Brittany upset me once by giving a better speech than I at freshman convocation. I have forgiven her only because she is in so many ways funny and delightful. Clint once explained to me the purposes of his fraternity in better terms than I could do. I have forgiven him for the same reason.”
Baldwin and Westbrook will speak at the parents’ luncheon on Saturday. Baldwin said she plans to speak on “the good,” while Westbrook hopes to give the parents a better glimpse of the educational process at Hillsdale.
“I think that parents who are visiting the college may only get a cursory understanding of what we do and how the learning process works,” Westbrook commented. “I would like to outline that Hillsdale both presents you with ideas and then teaches you how to question the very ideas it has presented [to] you. It is a very unique thing, and I think it is something that parents should feel very encouraged by.”
