President's Message

If my recollections are correct, Faculty Newsletter submissions by the president have typically fallen into two camps – either a mostly personal, sort of, “What I did this summer” report, or more generally about the missional work we do and the impacts made. I’ll dip my toes into both camps.

In late May and early June, Janice and I had a 12-day stretch of homecomings with our fathers. With my dad, it was to Cleveland and the interring of my mother’s ashes. She now rests in a cemetery just two blocks from where she grew up, buried adjacent to her parents, a brother and others of the Matthei family tree. I was a third grader when my father’s job required us to uproot and move across the country, four moves in nine years, all told. I was old enough to understand, and not forget, how the adults grieved that February 1971 day at Hopkins Airport. An aspect of my mother’s dementia over the past several years was her longing to go home. “Daryl, I want to go home!” It was not in her lifetime, but Dad got her home. The burden he carried lifted, at least a bit, as we stood at the gravesite with my siblings and several of his grandchildren.

Janice’s father came through Ellis Island as a 13-year-old, having grown up in a tiny village on a Norwegian fjord. Nappane, accessible only by boat, was remote. The family ate what they caught, hunted or farmed. Tom “never knew an idle moment,” he told me. That explains his work ethic and why he’s probably on a tractor as I write this. Alone, his parents constructed a brick home they could then sell for moorage to America with their six children. With Janice’s mom’s passing a year ago, Tom began to long for one final visit to his childhood home. And so, we did. “This is the stone wall where we hid the radio during the Nazi occupation.” “This is the stream in which my mom washed our clothes.” “This is where the traveling schoolteacher gave us lessons every other week.” All to say, we had a special opportunity to see the places that shaped our parents, to better understand who they became and what they value. In some cascading form or fashion, we were subsequently shaped. The notion of “home” landed in tangible ways, particularly as I think about how Whitworth, its mission and people, has been my adult home, and more than just an occupational one. Getting shaped by university colleagues and events has been a gift, which also includes the growth only made possible through struggle and reflection. I hold immense appreciation for your partnership in the transformative equipping of students, at this place that shapes graduates for a world that needs them.

My summer readings have fallen into two distinct piles: One, the myriad issues confronting higher education, and two, preparation for guests we will host and I will interview this fall – Anne Snyder, David French, Liz Cheney and Alexandra Hudson (Erica Salkin has those interviewing honors). In The Fabric of Character, Snyder presents the results of her study on character-forming institutions. What are the features of what she calls “truly formative institutions,” ones that tend to be “thick” organizations – thick with history and customs, webs of relationships, and a cherished story that they tell and retell, places that have something “sticky” about them where folks want to belong? Among the 16 categories of these laudable organizations are “Exemplars” – teachers and role models who personify excellence and inspire emulation; professors who demonstrate what it means to be honest, courageous and compassionate, and how to pursue those things intentionally; mentors who establish standards for and habits of good conduct; people who invite students to freely “come and see,” to fall in love with learning and the moral life. There’s just something sorely needed about ecosystems like that. In my observations, that’s who you are, and that’s what you do. In just a few weeks, another batch of new students will be invited to “come and see.” They are in such great hands.

At the State of the University Address, which I hope you will attend, I’ll take the time to share about a host of items central to addressing this challenging season in higher education, confronting and overcoming those things that face us and will certainly not evaporate overnight – the recruitment marketplace and strategies to be a school of choice for many; work on our brand positioning and communication; movement on the student retention front; and, of course, a report on the many exceptional achievements made in the academic year just concluded. The list of accomplishments is a long one.

With gratitude for you,

Scott