Otterbein’s First Black Graduate William Henry Fouse ’1893 In His Own Words.

Otterbein University’s first Black graduate, William Henry Fouse, class of 1893, was a teacher, a principal, a lifelong learner, a musician, and an inspiration to students and educators in his 45 years of work in public education. On the 130th anniversary of his graduation from Otterbein, there is no one better to tell his story than Fouse himself.

In 1927, Fouse wrote to Mrs. George Alexander of Westerville, thanking her for an invitation to the Westerville High School Golden Anniversary. He wrote:

“I will not be garrulous but I must say that I was born in your beautiful town 59 years ago, son of two slaves who came to Ohio from bondage and never were able to read or write. They gave 27 years of their lives without recompense. I was born in a log cabin a mile or so from Westerville.”

Fouse’s family later purchased a house on Home Street, where William and his two brothers were raised. In 1889 his father, Squire, purchased a home that had been owned by William Hanby and had it moved to a plot of land on Home Street, where the Campus Center is today. In an article written for the Westerville Public Opinion in 1938, Fouse wrote:

“Three interests dominated the life of Squire Fouse. They were a home, the education of his children, and his church. If he could speak now, (he) would say that the spirit and literary gifts of Ben Hanby had been infused into his own son, and that he, though a slave for many years, had made the correct appraisal of the magic and power of education.”

Fouse was the first Black graduate of both Westerville High School and Otterbein University.

According to Otterbein historian Harold Hancock, “[Fouse] taught school in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, serving as principal of Dunbar School in Lexington, KY, for 24 years. In Kentucky he organized the Bluegrass Oratorical Association and Bluegrass Athletic Association, instituted the Penny Saving Bank Plan in schools, and guided the development of Dunbar School into a modern school. He became president of the Kentucky National Education Association [in 1937]. Just before he retired in 1937, he received an M.A. from the University of Cincinnati.”

That same year, Otterbein gave him the honorary degree, Doctor of Pedagogy.

William Henry Fouse died on June 1, 1944. His work continues to bear fruit today in the schools of Lexington, KY, where he worked for a quarter of a century, and in his hometown of Westerville, where an elementary school bears his name, and his alma mater hosts The William Henry Fouse House of Black Culture. In addition, he continues to inspire us over a century later through his writings.

Henry William Fouse wrote of his father, Squire Fouse:

“He, though a slave for many years, had made the correct appraisal of the magic and power of education.”

In a 2022 survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse, 85% of college students say it’s important for their campus to prioritize sustainability. At Otterbein, students are taking leadership roles in developing sustainability projects and educating others on topics from pollinators and recycling to food waste.

Student Organizations

In addition to the students profiled in this story, these student leaders are running programs to educate their peers about sustainability issues:

Academic Programs:

Students with an academic interest in sustainability and the environment can combine their interest in science with their passion for the planet in these programs:

• Environmental Chemistry >
• Sustainability Studies >
• Environmental Science >

The Journey of a Japanese student who finds his home-away-from-home at Otterbein.

HARUKI TADA ’24 chose Otterbein sight unseen, as barriers during the COVID- 19 pandemic forced the Japanese baseball player to make a college decision without ever stepping foot on campus. Once he was on campus, he found a supportive and welcoming community dedicated to his success.

A native of Tokyo, Tada began forming a unique relationship with head coach George Powell while attending IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL. Powell visited Tada three times during Otterbein’s 2020 spring break trip and became intrigued with the dual talent, who could play the infield and pitch.

“Coach Powell was such a big influence for me,” Tada said. “He made me feel really comfortable even though I had never been here. He made sure I met everyone and felt good about this new journey. I’ve never felt like I don’t fit in.”

Questions arose about Tada actually showing up when messages through WhatsApp went unanswered for most of that summer due to internet issues. But Powell received a message in August from the 5-foot-5 recruit, saying he would be in Westerville the following day.

Since that time, Powell has completed Japanese lessons on the Duolingo app and even suggested he would consider sponsoring Tada for dual citizenship down the line.

“It’s been a real pleasure watching him develop,” Powell said. “Seeing a young kid embrace our Otterbein culture and adjust to college is always rewarding for a coach, but especially Haruki’s acclimation. He brings such a positive energy and continues developing across all phases—athletics, academically, and socially.”

Tada spent his first two seasons as a backup/JV option but continues working for more opportunities on the diamond. In the classroom, he has a 3.55 cumulative GPA as a sport management major and finance minor.

Faculty Pairings Amplify The Power Of Collaboration

What happens when you make a smart pairing? At Otterbein, faculty collaborations are the norm but the outcomes these partnerships produce are anything but. From Integrative Studies collaborations, which bring seemingly disparate subjects together into one class, to research projects with multidisciplinary applications — faculty partnerships are inspiring knowledge, discovery, social change, and exciting studentlearning experiences. Art secrets unlocked. Global wellness initiatives. Injury prevention for senior citizens. Happiness and the good life. These collaborations highlight the expertise, passion, and purpose that double when Otterbein professors join forces.

For Department of Art and Art History instructor Janice Glowski and Professor and Chair of Chemistry Joan Esson, collaboration is a passion. In their Integrative Studies classes together, and in Otterbein’s museums and galleries, they teach that “an art project is a chemistry experiment in disguise.”

Glowski, as Otterbein’s director of museums and galleries and art historian, brings her degrees in Asian art history, comparative religious studies, and chemistry to the collaboration while Esson’s research and teaching focus includes technical art analysis and applications in environmental and clinical chemistry.

“Soon after I arrived on campus in 2014, I approached the Chemistry Department and talked about collaboration,” Glowski said. “Joan was the quickest to respond and we began a project looking at African masks in the Otterbein collection. My students recorded from where the masks originated, who used them, and the context in which they were used. Joan’s chemistry students took samples and used light fluorescence to discover what substances were found on the masks.”

The early collaboration previewed what the two departments could achieve together.

One such collaboration currently can be found in Otterbein’s Frank Museum, where art and chemistry students are working together on the C.Y. Woo Chinese painting art collection. A $98,000 Henry Luce Foundation grant procured by Glowski helps orchestrate student collaboration.

Glowski has earned National Endowment for the Arts and Ohio Arts Council grants in support of her efforts. She has managed projects supported by the Mellon and Kress foundations and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has curated more than 20 exhibitions.

Esson actively involves undergraduate students in her work, is the co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Cardinal Scholars Program and is the co-lead on the Choose Ohio First Cardinal STEMM Scholars Program. She also enjoys her faculty-led study abroad course to Italy to study preservation and restoration of art.

“In Milan we visit Castello Sforzesco built in the 15th century, where Napoleon’s troops later plastered over art by Da Vinci,” Esson said. “We observe the restoration work, then go see The Last Supper in town. It’s amazing.”

Another collaborative partnership involves extending Otterbein’s community to rural Ugandan communities. Since 2016, professors Diane Ross in Education and Heidi Ballard in Sociology, Criminology, and Social Justice have collaborated in communities and remote rural Ugandan schools to implement Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) and Sexual Reproductive Health Education (SRHE).

Assistant Professor of Engineering Elena Caruthers and Assistant Professor of Health and Sport Sciences Ashley Simons are using Otterbein’s Biomechanics Institute, created by the two departments, to study human movement. The lab is equipped with motion capture cameras and specialized software that allows Caruthers and Simons to record and analyze how people move.

Their latest work uses the lab’s camera system to focus on factors related to senior citizens’ risk of falls. Students are identifying best practices in senior citizens’ activities of daily living, including gait, rising from a chair, and stair climbing.

“We’re hoping to gather data to discover how people’s confidence levels affect their normal activities of daily living,” Caruthers said. “We have engineering and health science students working on the study, and we’re collaborating with the Lifelong Learning Community for study participants.”

Caruthers has had a passion for biomechanics ever since she was a dancer growing up but needed expertise on the clinical side. Simons is a doctorate-level physical therapist but realized she needed the biomechanical side. The collaboration was a natural fit.

The lab’s 10-camera Vicon Nexus system gives Caruthers and Simons the ability to study movement in three dimensions with great accuracy and precision. Once reflective markers are placed on various anatomical landmarks of the subject, the cameras track and recreate the subject’s three-dimensional movement. This data can then be further analyzed on a biomechanical level by examining variables like joint angles, velocities, and accelerations throughout the entire motion.

In other applications, Otterbein athletes use the lab to study, for example, their baseball pitching motions, and pinpoint specific biomechanical patterns that could be worked on to improve their delivery. But Caruthers and Simons are taking the technology to a different generation.

“By allowing us to evaluate body movement in senior citizens — to see how their joints are moving, how they use space, their velocity of movement,” Simons said, “we can correlate what we see in the physical world with the biomechanical measures in the data and perhaps help improve their movement during daily living activities to reduce the risk of falls.”

Caruthers and Simons hope to present their findings at conferences and in research journals.

Students are identifying best practices in senior citizens’ activities of daily living, including gait, rising from a chair, and stair climbing.

English Professor Jeremy Smith realized a few years ago his teaching and research interest in comparative literature would pair well with Associate Professor of History Richard Yntema’s focus on European economic and social histor y. Smith approached Yntema to teach an Integrative Studies course together, and that’s how INST 2204: Happiness and the Good Life was born.

In their course, Smith and Yntema lead students to discover how Western societies have defined “the good life” and the critical social challenges each society faced. They examine beliefs, culture, and conflicts over four eras: classical Athens, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, and post-World War II Europe.

“We have a lot of common interests,” Smith said. “I always thought it would be a true integrative course to teach the great works of Western literature in tandem with Western civilization concepts. That’s what we do.”

Smith and Yntema use the texts of classic literature and history to examine ancient concepts and compare them to contemporary topics. The class integrates the study of social, political, and economic history with the close reading of works by Sophocles, Dante, Mars, and Camus.

“Raising questions with students about concepts such as virtue and justice provides them with more of an openness to the past by looking at it in a multidimensional way,” Yntema said. “Examining the past and relating it to the present highlights juxtapositions and inequalities students may not have realized before or allows them to see current issues in new ways.”

Smith has pursued his research interests in religion, philosophy, and literature throughout his career. He is the author of The Staircase of a Patron, a book chronicling the United Brethren in Christ’s presence in Sierra Leone, with a special focus on the missionary work of Otterbein graduate Lloyd Mignerey ’1917.

Yntema’s research focuses on European economic and social history. He explores the development of capitalism in Holland before 1800 in a global framework. In 2010, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Utrecht. In his courses he explores the Renaissance and Reformation, revolutions in early modern Europe, and global capitalism, among other eras.

The collaboration contributes a humanistic capstone to Otterbein’s Integrative Studies program and is a prime example of how Otterbein’s faculty community maintains Otterbein’s commitment to the contemporary significance of a liberal arts education.

​Dear Friends,

We all have our little favorite memories, moments, and places at Otterbein. One of mine is at the back of Towers Hall, on the southwest corner of the building. In the mulch by the building are daylilies and I have noticed these particular daylilies are Otterbein’s first sign of spring. Their green shoots are the first to appear in February and their flowers the first to bloom in March. Seeing those green shoots appear is a better predictor than any groundhog that spring is coming.

And now it is here! Spring on campus is a frantic schedule of celebrations, performances, honorary inductions, and countless other events designed to mark the end of another school year, and for the Class of 2023 the culmination of their Otterbein education. It is exhilarating and all builds up to graduation day.

You will find some of that same energy in the pages of this magazine. Otterbein has so much going on, it can seem a little dizzying at times. But, it is all an expansion and celebration of what has always made this place so special. You can read more about the remarkable Class of 2023 — those whose first year on campus was cut short by a pandemic.

You will learn about how our great faculty are working across departments and disciplines to create dynamic student learning experiences. And, of course, there are always campus leaders to highlight — past and present — who have transformed Otterbein and all the lives we touch.

Leadership has always mattered. Otterbein is leading again in higher education. We are meeting the full cost of tuition for lower income students — without loans. While other schools talk about affordability, we are walking the walk.

Our formation of an independent university system is also garnering a great deal of attention. I have been asked to speak at several higher education conferences and find colleagues across the country that know of Otterbein, know of our innovative spirit, and want to learn more. We have a growing list of other institutions interested in joining the effort to expand access for adult learners and so far, the Higher Learning Commission and other regulatory bodies have been supportive.

There is a lot going on and it can feel a little overwhelming at times. But, we can each do our part — starting with my favorite daylily telling me spring is coming. And nothing can stop Otterbein when we are all pulling together.

Sincerely,

John L. Comerford, Ph.D.