We’re still here: Jessica Luhman ’20

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed employment plans for Jessica Luhman ’20 of Barneveld, Wisconsin.

“After graduation, I had a full-time job lined up with an art gallery, Levee Contemporary, in Princeton, Wisconsin,” she says. “With our uncertain circumstances recently, I lost the job, but I am hoping to return once this all gets better.”

She is majoring in studio art with minors in philosophy and art history.

She says her education at Ripon has taught her many things. “For example, I learned about friendship, community and what it means to have Ripon Pride,” she says. “I fell in love with this College when I took my first steps out of the car during a high school visit. I knew I belonged here, and throughout the past four years Ripon has been home.

“Ripon has changed me so much since freshman year and has allowed me the opportunity to find myself and grow. I have gained leadership skills working for the art department in the Caestecker Gallery in tC.J. Rodman Center for the Arts. I loved working in the gallery and I miss it dearly. I miss inspiring my workers to fall in love with art and the processes that go unseen when we open our art shows.”

She says that during the off-campus end to the semester, “I miss being at school, in the studio with my peers and professors. I have been trying to stay creative and hopeful. It is heartbreaking that we do not get to celebrate our graduation the way we had all been intending, but I am hopeful we will still find ways to celebrate all we have been working for with Ripon spirit.”