Presidential Reflections

Words of Welcome for Every New Student

  1. Opportunity: An open door to the best education;
  2. Duty: Daily service, devoted to noblest purposes;
  3. Friendships: New, lasting as long as life;
  4. Visions: Truth, and of finest character for oneself;
  5. Wisdom: Precious, effective for highest uses.

President Charles F. Thwing

This text appeared in The Reserve Handbook for 1914-15. Thwing was president of Western Reserve University from 1890 to 1921 and was also a minister.

Thoughts on the University

"To me, the university will always be a special place, an ideal place, a shining city on a hill, devoted to the life of the mind, the search for truth, guided by reason, protective of free speech, tolerant of differences, a place where ideas are the coin of the realm, a community of research, scholarship, teaching, learning and service."

President Agnar Pytte

This text is taken from President Pytte's inauguration speech on October 4, 1987. Pytte was president of Case Western Reserve University from 1987 to 1999.

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony."

William Henry Channing

This quote is carved in stone in the entranceway of Haydn Hall. Channing was a nineteenth-century minister and scholar who is known principally for this text, which was popularized in an editorial, "William Henry Channing's Symphony," written by Arthur Brisbane for the Hearst Newspapers in about 1920.