|
For all that has been – THANKS!
For all that will be – YES!
–Dag
Hammarskjöld
Members of the
Board of Trustees, delegates, friends, faculty, and especially
students – thank you for being here for this wonderful celebration.
Special thanks to my husband, Dave, and our children – Sarah, John,
Matt, and Nikki – and grandchildren Emily and Elijah; and to my
sisters, Carol and Barb. I have had one of the deepest blessings a
person can have – a supportive, loving home in which to grow. It is
a gift for which I am thankful every single day, and I do not take
it for granted.
The United States
offers students – both from the United States and around the world –
the opportunity to study in a dizzying array of colleges and
universities – tribal colleges, community colleges, Ivy League
schools, state universities. We are fortunate to have these choices
because not all students need the same kind of school. They do,
however, all deserve a good school. Today, I would like to reflect
on good schools that change lives. I believe that Manchester
College is one of those schools.
First, colleges
that change lives grab students’ attention. We learn after we focus
our attention on something. Sometimes that means someone needs to
grab our attention!
The terrorist
attacks on 9-11 grabbed the attention of the country and caused us
to consider the gap between our perceptions of our nation and
others’ perceptions of it. Hurricane Katrina focused our eyes on
uncoordinated relief efforts, anger, pain, and also the strength of
the human character. These national tragedies grabbed our
attention, and we have learned.
My own mother
grabbed the attention of my sisters and me when we were in
elementary school. Mother was driving us home from an afternoon swim
at a lake near Plymouth, Indiana. My younger sister noticed migrant
workers in the tomato fields and made the big mistake of describing
them as “dirty.” My mother, raised in the Church of the Brethren by
very gentle parents, become enraged. For the rest of the trip home,
we sat in cowed silence as she spoke – quite loudly – about the
inequities faced by migrants who had poor housing, poor pay, and
poor education. When we arrived home, her lecture continued. She
told us of the privilege that we experienced when we didn’t even
know it and for which we were obviously not appreciative. She was
loud, and she was clear. She got even clearer the next morning when
she woke us at daybreak and gave us the opportunity to pick tomatoes
with the migrants. Who was dirty now? Who understood the work
now? Whose perspectives on migrants were forever changed? She got
our attention, and we learned.
Manchester
College professors have grabbed students’ attention over the decades
and have not let go –
Professors Holl
and Kintner
Prexy Winger
Sadie Wampler
President Helman
Gladdys Muir
Tim Rieman (“Life
is good!”)
Andrew Cordier
Doris Garey
Don Colburn
Karen Doudt
Harry Weimer
Gary Deavel
Clyde Holsinger
David Waas
Onita Johnson
Dorothy Johnson
Ed
Miller
Rowan Daggett
Art
Gilbert
Wilson Lutz
Janina Traxler
Jim
Adams
Paul
Keller
Bob
and Dee Keller
Bill Day
Ken Brown
Marcia Benjamin
Parker Marden
Bob
Bowman
Tom
Jarman
John Planer, and
so many more
These teachers
got our attention, and then we learned. The mark of a good college.
Second, colleges
that change lives create an environment where questions are at the
center. As every teacher knows, the better the questions we ask on
an exam, the better the answers. The better the question at the
beginning of a discussion, the better the discussion. What happens
at Manchester to create a climate of healthy questions?
·
Faculty members get students to think about good questions.
Questions like: How do cultures determine what is beautiful and what
is ugly? How do people decide what is truth? Which looters are
stealing to meet their basic survival needs and which ones are
breaking the social contract? How do we know?
·
Faculty members also teach students to design original research,
carry it out, write it up, and submit it for scholarly review. All
good research starts with a good question.
·
Faculty members ask students “what makes you say that?” They
respond like Doc Niswander to Jane Henney in the late 60s, when she
was considering applying to medical school in a time when not many
women became physicians. Professor Niswander said to her: “Why
not?” And health care in this country has been better since he
asked that question.
·
What happens to
students who spend four years in an environment of good questions?
·
They leave quite different than they arrive. When they arrive,
Manchester students’ SAT scores are just slightly above the Indiana
average. Twenty-four percent of them are the first in their
families to attend college. When they leave, they pass the CPA exam
at a rate more than double the national average. Manchester College
has had 18 students win Fulbrights in 10 years. Job placement
rates for graduates have averaged more than 96 percent over the past
five years. Applicants to medical school have a five-year 84
percent acceptance rate; and acceptance to law school has been 100
percent over the past five years.
Impressive
results from a college that creates an intense environment of
questioning.
Third, colleges
that change lives prepare their students for responsible citizenship
in a world where differences strain relationships but also
strengthen community. One of my favorite poems is Gerard Manley
Hopkins’ Pied Beauty, which celebrates variations – in color,
texture, light, pace. Listen to his words about variations:
Glory be
to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim . . .
. . . All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
Manchester
College is a multi-colored, multi-talented, multi-faithed community.
We have rich diversity on campus – religious, political,
socioeconomic, racial, ethnic. Three years ago, one of our students
competed in NCAA wrestling nationals and performed with the A
Cappella Choir in Carnegie Hall in the same month. We have a
French professor who majored in mathematics as an undergraduate and
a plumber who returned to college and graduated with a physics
degree. We have Downs Syndrome workers in our food service, and an
84-year-old carpenter who repairs residence hall shelves for
students’ CD players that blast music like funk. We are a place
with differences as dramatic as the colorful scales on the rainbow
trout that swim in sunny waters. And we work hard to prepare
students to live responsibly in this increasingly complex and dappled
world.
In 2005, nearly 40 percent of our graduating seniors had
studied abroad, for a semester, a year, or a January Session class.
Manchester College students inspire us with their courtesies. They
pick up litter when they see it on campus. They act like adults at
meals. They interact respectfully with students who have
disabilities. Several years ago, a student enrolled here with
multiple disabilities – he was very small, and he had an unusual,
contorted appearance. He was mobility impaired and hearing
impaired. He was also a student who did not know a stranger. He
hitched rides on the carpenter’s golf cart to get to Monday
convocation and always had a circle of friends at his lunch table.
He died while he was a student here, and his parents told us,
“Tony’s days at Manchester College were the happiest days of his
life.” It was because of our students that his time here was so
good. Good schools introduce students to diversity and educate them
about the gifts and the challenges it brings to a community.
Colleges that
change lives grab students’ attention, create a space where
questions flourish, and celebrate differences. But all colleges and
universities in 2005 face serious challenges. The federal budget
shortfalls threaten student financial aid. Lobbyists for the
for-profit universities pressure politicians for laws to create more
profit for their stockholders rather than more learning for all
students. Gas prices, steel prices, health insurance costs, unfunded
mandates – all vying for money that we need for financial aid,
facilities, and faculty salaries.
In the face of
these very real challenges, Manchester College will continue to be a
school that prepares graduates whose lives reflect ability and
conviction. We have done this since 1889, when our students arrived
on campus in horse-drawn buggies. We do it now when students arrive
with U-Hauls filled to overflowing.
Our 117 years
have been possible only because of the generosity of those who care
about this good College. I am only the current president of a long
history of presidents who have been entrusted with this precious
legacy. I will do my best for Manchester College.
·
With integrity based in the values of the Church of the Brethren
·
With high expectations for our students
·
With well-credentialed faculty who have brains and compassion
·
With support from alums and friends
·
With sufficient budget and growing endowment to continue and
strengthen these rare and important traditions
·
With my hard work – freely given
For all that has been – THANKS!
For all that will be – YES! |
