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Thomas McKenna, Editor in Chief

Professor of Politics Joseph Postell is the GOAT. Like many other seniors, I find it difficult to pick a favorite class. Courses in history, theology, and literature deepened my understanding of first principles and my relationships with others. But I’m not sure any of them changed my mind like Postell’s Political Parties & Elections. His Parties course began with a provocative thesis: We don’t have a two-party system, we have a no-party system. But his class is not a vehicle for hot takes. Postell takes a serious look at the pillars of America’s political institutions and their later perversions. He encourages student questions and pushback, however half-baked. If he disagrees, he will always take the time to articulate your objection better than you and then reveal its weaknesses. This course, along with his Congress and Administrative Law classes, fundamentally altered the way I see politics.

Moira Gleason, Executive Editor

Almost daily, I think about Dean of Humanities Stephen Smith’s War and Peace seminar. In the novel, protagonist Pierre Bezukhov offers a spiritual insight that helped me process much of my experience at Hillsdale. At the culmination of Pierre’s moral education, Tolstoy writes: “He experienced the feeling of a man who has found what he was seeking under his own feet, while he had been straining his eyes looking far away from himself. All his life he had looked off somewhere, over the heads of the people around him, yet there was no need to strain his eyes, but only to look right in front of him.” Longing for greatness, Pierre had sought purpose for his life in the abstract, gazing through what Tolstoy calls a “mental spyglass.” But having suffered and found faith, he recognizes the access point for the divine in the world: the human person. I came to Hillsdale armed with a mental spyglass, ready to seek the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in arguments and abstractions. Like Pierre, I have instead found God in the mundane duties and details of everyday life and in striving to love others well. Thanks, Dr. Smith.

Anna Broussard, Design Editor

I will never forget Panthea breaking apart her jewels to adorn her beloved Abradatus’s armor as he went off to die in battle. In Assistant Professor of Politics Daniel O’Toole’s class War, Empire, and Tyranny, I learned about foreign policy and forms of ancient government. It began in Xenophon’s “Education of Cyrus” and the just tyrannical rule of Cyrus the Great. Panthea’s tale in Book VI is about sacrifice for a leader who is powerful and good, though it ends tragically. When we turned to Thucydides’ retelling of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles’ “Funeral Oration,” it was the height of idealism. But still the Athenians corrupted their own ideals. I still wonder at what aggressive foreign policy means in the ancient world and today, but the class lived up to its name, and because of it, I understand the sacrifice of those willing to fight in war as the most honorable of deeds. 

Catherine Maxwell, Senior Editor

To every upperclass history major who told me I had to take Associate Professor of History Matthew Gaetano’s The Reformation: Thank you. Gaetano — a Roman Catholic who loves Martin Luther — shows you the best Protestant and Catholic arguments for any given theological issue, along with some of the worst (and possibly heretical) arguments. The class is about conversation, not conversion. I was still a Protestant when I came out, but I had a far deeper understanding of and respect for religious thinkers across the theological spectrum. Did you know Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Luther hated each other? Or that the Catholic Church’s greatest theologian, Cardinal Thomas Cajetan, was so prolific he wrote detailed responses to almost every major Protestant figure? Forget whatever your denomination taught you about the Reformation. You can’t properly criticize Luther or the Council of Trent unless you’ve read them — and you’ll read them, and much more, in Gaetano’s Reformation.

Caroline Kurt, Opinions Editor

There are classes that give you new skills, and then there are classes that flip your life upside down and shake it. I’m grateful for classes in the former category — among them Director of the Dow Journalism Program John J. Miller’s Advanced Writing and Associate Athletic Director Nicole Walbright’s Women’s Health and Nutrition. But War and Peace with Dean of Humanities Stephen Smith stands out as the latter. It’s weird that some fictional Russians seared my heart indelibly.  But I think I knew all along that the point of the English major was to become, in a mysterious way, not a smarter person but a different person. War and Peace fulfilled that intuition. Dr. Smith is kind, hilarious, and a master teacher (this is a paid endorsement). Thanks to his enthusiasm and encouragement, the reading flew by. It means nothing unless you’ve read the book — and everyone should — but the Epilogue will stay with me forever. The Bible is the greatest story ever told. But “War and Peace” comes close.

Ty Ruddy, Culture Editor

I’m not one to shed a tear. But the last day of Assistant Professor of English Patrick Timmis’s C.S. Lewis class almost had me. Through narrative, Lewis makes an excellent argument for reclaiming a mythical view of the world. The empty spaces are full of light and wonderful mysteries, not darkness. Words matter. And men are characters in a divine drama, not passive observers. Seeing through the eyes of the ancient storytellers, as Lewis suggested, has, in some ways, made the world a more interesting, dramatic stage. I became, as Lewis called himself, “a dinosaur.” For the prose quality and the attention to underlying craft, Lewis’ scholarship can be as enjoyable to read as his fiction. Dr. Timmis challenges us to follow Lewis’ example. Mini essays every week toned down the scale and pressure of academic writing and I found it a useful exercise for developing a voice. Turns out, humor and wit are allowed in scholarship! The class ended on what I can confidently say is now my favorite novel by Lewis, “Till We Have Faces,” a beautiful story about sibling love and sacrifice. And to end his final lecture, Dr. Timmis recited 1 Corinthians 13.

Tayte Christensen, Features Editor

When I decided to go on WHIP the fall semester of my senior year, I was full of anxiety about missing time on the main campus. Little did I know it would be the best and most formative semester of my time at Hillsdale. While on WHIP, I took Narrative and Propaganda with Mollie Hemingway, and it changed the way I viewed the intersection of politics and media. We discussed egregiously biased articles from legacy outlets each student submitted, with topics ranging from the White House’s use of social media, to the media’s coverage of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, to a leaked Young Republicans group chat. Having these discussions while interning in D.C. politics was especially revealing as I saw the news unfold around me in real time. Even now, it has changed the way I read the news outside of the D.C. bubble.

Christina Lewis, Assistant Editor

When I signed up for The Gilded Age with Assistant Professor of History Miles Smith IV, I didn’t know what to expect. Dr. Smith began each class with a different banger — one day it was the theme song from “La La Land” and another it was a clip from “The American Tail.” While the class itself was enjoyable, Dr. Smith taught me that history is more than a series of heroes and villains. I learned that there is a danger in trying to simplify history to fit into neatly arranged boxes. Prior to taking the class, I knew very little about what happened during this time period. From the first day of class — when Dr. Smith argued that the Gilded Age started during the Civil War — my perspective on American history developed in that instead of seeing history merely as a series of effects, I realized the importance of understanding its causes. The class showed me that the birth pangs of modern-day progressivism started long before the 20th century. Now, every time I face the temptation of reducing events and time periods to straightforward narratives, I remind myself to embrace the complexity of the past. Life is complicated, and so is history.

Adriana Azarian, Assistant Editor

Advanced Writing with Director of the Dow Journalism Program John J. Miller helped me significantly improve my writing skills. Having been a journalism student, intern, and a writer for The Collegian, I felt pretty confident in my writing abilities. Mr. Miller’s comments in blood-red ink all over my papers quickly humbled me. Every other week, we wrote a paper and shared it with the class to be critiqued by our classmates and Mr. Miller. By the end of the class, we had accumulated a wealth of knowledge from Mr. Miller himself as well as other writers and journalists. I almost never do this, but I’ve kept my notes and handouts from that class to reference every once in a while. Biggest takeaways: You must be a good reader to be a good writer, and you must keep writing to be an excellent writer. 

Christian Papillon, Assistant Editor

I took Western Heritage Since 1600 with Professor of History Dave Stewart in the fall of my junior year. The course was a continuation of where Western Heritage had left off, picking up in 1600 and extending to the modern day, but it also served as a middle ground between an introductory history class and a full-on upper level. In addition to Stewart’s engaging lectures, some of my favorite assignments I completed came from that class. In one assignment, each member of the class got a different historical document which we were asked to transcribe, find out who wrote it, and write a brief introduction about the historical context for the document. In another assignment, the class was tasked with reading an account of a 17th-century murder and providing evidence with what we thought happened. The wide variety of assignments made the class more enjoyable and increased my interest in European history.

Jamie Parsons, Assistant Editor

If you wish to gain glutes of steel, Indoor Cycling is a lower-body-focused class taught by Associate Athletic Director Nicole Walbright that will whip you into shape while you pedal to upbeat remix tracks. As someone who loves finding new ways to work out, I found Hillsdale’s Spin class to be a fun way to incorporate both cardio and strength into my day. Although the first few classes left me sore, as the instructor warned on the first day, the class held me accountable for exercise and also added a break to my academic schedule to prioritize self-care. Students are given many opportunities to make up missed classes, which I appreciate, given that Spin is an elective. And having taken other exercise electives, Spin was the best at mimicking a professional class and was most focused on pushing me physically. I will forever cherish the times my friends and I listened to pop music at 8 a.m. while climbing on a bike at max effort, and I encourage students to take advantage of the school’s offering. 

Lewis Thune, D.C. Correspondent

“To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!” Even Solomon could not prepare for the class that came to surpass Associate Professor of Theology Cody Strecker’s History of Christian Thought I. Of all things, it was Logic and Rhetoric with Associate Professor of Education Jon Balsbaugh. I still don’t understand how he managed to consistently (and conversationally) astound me with material that half the class and I already knew. The best answer I can reckon is that I had always simply accepted that the literature, speeches, and poetry I studied at Hillsdale were “great.” That course taught me to actually grasp a small portion of the immeasurable artfulness, tact, and subtlety that made them that way.