For my family, Wesley College was not just where we went to school. It was our home.
My older brother, Matt (class of 1991), and my sister, Becky (‘95), are Wesley alumni, as am I (’98). I followed in their footsteps to earn my bachelor’s degree in environmental science, but because our dad, Terry Higgins, was also a biology professor for 40 years after joining the faculty in 1963, we all literally grew up roaming the corridors and classrooms of Cannon Hall. By the time I graduated from Caesar Rodney High School in 1994, there wasn’t really much question where I would go to college.
Having your dad as your professor in many classes may either seem interesting or downright daunting, but our family rule was to be as inconspicuous as we could about the connection. He was such a gifted and beloved teacher, however, that even when other students tumbled onto our family secret after the first week or so of classes, it didn’t cause problems. Of course, I could never cut classes or turn in an assignment late, even for other professors. Wesley was such a small community that I knew Dad would find out about it before dinner.
As I look back, our days as students were remarkably full. I worked for the college as a tutor, lab assistant and teaching assistant for several chemistry courses. I was also a member of a sorority, Phi Theta Kappa, Alpha Chi, as well as Team Cannon, and sang in the Wesley Choir. Often, if there wasn’t a game to see, we’d spend the weekends just hanging out — it was the world’s most intimate campus, where everyone knew and accepted everyone else.
Some memories stand out, like singing the Lord’s Prayer at graduation. But if somebody asked me to condense my Wesley College experience into a single moment, it would have to be watching Dad carrying the ceremonial mace to lead the faculty to commencement, and then standing there, arms wide, for the same bear hug he’d given my brother and sister, as I left the stage, diploma in hand.
Wesley College was justly renowned over 147 years for teaching character, citizenship and spirituality, but I think we should also celebrate and remember the academic quality of that education. The idea that humans are here, in no small measure, to be good environmental stewards of God’s Earth is something I learned at the dinner table long before my freshman year. It was also the foundation of everything taught by all the science faculty — that responsibility went along with knowledge.
In late 1999, after a short time in the Office of Drinking Water and the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, I joined Tidewater Utilities, beginning in capital project management and later moving into administration. I feel very blessed to have been able to use the first-rate technical education that Wesley College provided me within an industry that delivers safe, clean and reliable drinking water in an environmentally responsible manner to so many people. I feel equally blessed to have been in a position to support my alma mater financially throughout the years, as so many of us have.
Now, the Wesley College that so completely shaped my family for decades is on the brink of becoming only a memory. None of my four nieces will have the opportunity to understand firsthand the particular magic that once existed on that compact urban campus. While I am pleased to know that Delaware State University will continue using the campus for educational purposes and that none of my old hangouts will be bulldozed for condominiums or retail stores, there’s still a yawning gap deep in my soul for what was and what will never be again.
We all have lost memories of childhood and adolescence — places, people and events that now exist solely in our common recollection — and that’s just how the world works. The difference with Wesley College, however, is that the common recollection is shared so fervently by so many people who are still having a positive impact on our state and nation. All of us have spoken of that Wesley College legacy at one point or another, and it is with both considerable pride and deep sorrow that we are all realizing today that our lives and work must forever stand as that legacy because there’s nothing else.
And because that’s what my dad and all his fellow faculty members would have insisted on.
Kirsten Higgins is vice president of development and contract administration at Tidewater Utilities. She is a 1994 graduate of Caesar Rodney High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Wesley College in 1998 and an MBA from Wilmington University in 2006.
