Opinion
The first building erected on the University of Wyoming campus is called Old Main. It was built in 1886 — four years before the Wyoming Territory joined the Union. As you enter through its west doors, you pass beneath a stained-glass window that has watched over UW since its founding. The Latin phrase at its center is easy to miss, but its meaning is anything but subtle:
Cedant arma togae. “Let arms yield to the toga.”
The phrase comes from classical Rome and is often attributed to Cicero. “Arms” represent force and conflict. The “toga” symbolizes civil life — governance, law, learning, citizenship and reasoned debate. Together, the message is clear: In a healthy society, knowledge and civic responsibility must come before violence or force.
That this phrase was chosen and literally set in glass in the original building of Wyoming’s only public university, founded by the same generation that built the state itself, is no accident.
It tells us something essential about Wyoming.
Thriving in Wyoming has always required a particular kind of strength. Ours is a state shaped by distance, neighborly values, unpredictable weather, hard work and self-reliance. But from the beginning, Wyoming’s founders also understood something else: Strength without restraint, and independence without responsibility, are not enough. Knowledge and civic responsibility are essential, and education is fundamental to all.
UW was created not merely to train workers, but to educate citizens.
Old Main’s stained glass window, quietly watching over us like Providence, reinforces that mission. Below the Latin motto are images of agriculture, labor and the land — honest work done with tools, not weapons. Above it, a rising sun over the mountains. The story it tells is not one of conquest, but of stewardship. Not domination, but cultivation. Not force, but foresight. The window symbolizes the seal of the Territory of Wyoming. These are Wyoming values made visible in a beautiful yet often overlooked piece of art.
One of our colleagues recently reminded us that the stained glass inside Old Main is not the only message Wyoming’s founders left behind. Just outside the west entrance, etched into Old Main’s cornerstone, is another Latin phrase: Domi habuit unde discerēt.
Loosely translated, it means “He need not go away from home to learn,” or “He had a home where he could be educated.”
When Wyoming’s founders laid that cornerstone in 1886, they were making a bold and practical declaration: People of this state should not have to leave Wyoming to pursue knowledge, opportunity or civic preparation. Higher education would not be a luxury imported from elsewhere, but a shared public good rooted here, shaped by this place and its people.
One can imagine the pride of that moment — the confidence that Wyoming could educate its own, right here at home. It’s a pride that we continue to share today.
Taken together, these two inscriptions -— one in glass, one in stone — tell a coherent story about who we are and who we have long aspired to be. Wyoming believed that learning should prevail over force and that learning should be accessible at home.
These were not abstract ideals. They were deliberate choices, embedded in the very foundations of the university.
Today, universities across the country are often pulled into loud, polarized debates about what higher education is — or should be. In that noise, it can be tempting to forget that UW’s role has always been quieter, more tailored to our people and our place, more enduring.
We are here to prepare teachers, engineers, nurses, ranchers, entrepreneurs, scientists and public servants. We are here to produce knowledge that helps communities make better decisions. We are here to train people not just to have opinions, but to weigh them and test them — to test ideas against evidence, to listen, to disagree while still being neighbors and friends.
That work is not partisan. It is civic and enduring.
And it is demanding. Reasoned debate takes more discipline than shouting. Learning takes more patience than certainty. Civil life takes more courage than force.
The phrase “Cedant arma togae” is our own version of Wyoming’s toughness and independence. It is its refinement, making it ours — uniquely Wyoming. It reminds us that the highest form of strength is self-governance. The most durable societies are those that choose learning over fear, institutions over impulse, and responsibility over gut reactions.
And “Domi habuit unde discerēt” reminds us that Wyoming chose from the beginning to build that strength at home — to invest in an institution that would serve its people generation after generation.
These messages, installed by Wyoming’s founders and preserved by generations since, remind us that UW was not an afterthought and that it belongs to all of us. It belongs to the students who will carry those messages and their values forward into a future none of us can fully predict; to faculty who challenge and inspire; to leaders entrusted with stewardship; and to the people of Wyoming who chose to build a home for learning.
We’d like to think that our state’s founders left us these messages to keep us on the right track. “You are here for Wyoming. Your responsibility is to light the torch of knowledge for our people and our place.” And in doing so, it should remind us daily of who we are and what Wyoming has always aspired to be.