Our connections — even the surprise ones — unite us
Welcomed by senior class honorary SPHINX, Alumni Association leader Molly Ranz Calhoun shares how much it means to her.
What links Buckeyes through time and change? I would say it’s the firm friendships we build, the ties of tradition that connect us as members of the Ohio State family. SPHINX, the university’s very first honorary organization, embodies this idea.
In addition to inducting 24 students each year, this senior class organization annually bestows membership on three honorary members from the Ohio State community, including faculty and staff. At an Ohio Staters event in April, I was completely surprised and overwhelmed when I realized I was being “linked” into the 118th class of SPHINX. My dad, Norbert Ranz ’49, ’52 DDS, one of the honorary’s oldest living members, was there to make it official.
SPHINX members identified me as their “auspicious” link. This recognition of my efforts to enhance and promote our university is deeply meaningful. It captures what I have been striving for my whole career: to build on our promise of success, for our community and our Buckeyes, from our time as students, and now full “Oval” as alumni.
SPHINX connections stretch through generations of my own family: In addition to my dad, my uncle and cousin have been linked.
Another distinguished senior class honorary that unites Buckeyes is Mortar Board, the first national organization to honor senior college women. Ohio State participated in that group’s founding meeting in 1918.
Students tapped to join either of these organizations are remarkable in their academic excellence and commitment to paying forward and upholding the highest ideals of scholarship, leadership and service. Each graduating class passes this unmatched spirit and responsibility to lead to the rising seniors chosen to take their places, just as the first classes did more than a century ago.
This has me reflecting on the bonds among Buckeyes. You’ll see that illustrated in the stories from Ohio State Alumni Magazine’s summer 2024 issue, including how the pull of an annual tug-of-war competition among residence hall teams creates lasting ties between students and alumni across decades.
Certainly, just as good-natured rivalries forge links among members of our community, so does advocacy. If Professor Lou DiMauro hadn’t pushed to have Pierre Agostini join the faculty, Ohio State would have one fewer Nobel laureate, and the dozens of graduate students this esteemed pair has mentored may have missed out on a rare opportunity.
Who are your strongest links within our Buckeye family? Please share a story or two about the life-changing relationships you made because of our alma mater with an email to OSUAAPresident@osu.edu.
