Of Mind & Heart Newsletter: February 1999
An update from Whitworth University President Bill Robinson
Greetings from the ground. It's so good to be home. Between Dec. 29 and Jan. 30, I found myself in Chicago, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Israel and Washington, D.C. We had some great family time this past weekend, and now I'm playing catch-up with my work. It's also really good to have the students back from Jan Term. On Saturday night, two different groups showed up on our doorstep. They seem to know intuitively when I need a student-fix. I hope you are feeling God's blessings as you move into 1999. We can so easily get preoccupied with fighting off the darts that we miss God's abundance. I've seen a good bit of suffering in the past six weeks, and my own soul suffered when my dear mother died just after Christmas. This Lenten season I'm going to think about the connections between suffering and blessing. I wish for you the rich blessings of Christ that abound in all seasons.
Academics
At Spring Convocation, English Professor Leonard Oakland gave a prayer in which he prayed for, and on behalf of, everyone at Whitworth College, but in a strikingly personal way. The prayer was at once majestic and touching. He praised, petitioned and thanked God, and I was caught by the symbolism of Leonard representing a faculty that, like his prayer, is lofty and intimate. So this month, I decided to give you a few snapshots of this wonderful faculty's recent professional highlights.
- Dennis Sterner, dean of the School of Education, just became president-elect of the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education, a national organization of about 250 colleges and universities. He takes office in February 2000.
- Tony Mega, assistant professor of chemistry, received two $20,000 awards - one from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and one from the Carl M. Hansen Foundation - to help buy an NMR spectrometer. The NMR produces the scientific equivalent of a medical MRI. This summer Tony plans to train area high school chemistry teachers in the use of the NMR. These teachers will then bring their classes to campus in the fall to test samples that they have created at school. The NMR is one of the most important instruments that chemists now use, and the acquisition of this equipment will help our students to be better prepared for the job market. Half of the $180,000 purchase will be funded by the National Science Foundation, and a portion of the balance will be covered by college funds. Academic Grant Writer Lynn Noland said the college is working hard on getting the final $20,000 commitment that's needed before Tony can go shopping.
- Psychology Professor Jim Waller has been accepted, as one of 18 scholars out of scores of applicants from around the world, to participate this summer in a three-week seminar at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Jim will be the only native English-speaking psychologist in the group. According to Jim, the selection committee was impressed with Whitworth's commitment, as a Christian institution, to offering a course on the Holocaust. Incidentally, if you go to D.C., don't miss the Holocaust Museum. It's very powerful.
- Five faculty members will receive internal funding for ongoing research and scholarship: Barbara Filo, associate professor of art, will hire an assistant and translator for her research at the National Museum in Bratislava, Slovakia; Richard Stevens, assistant professor of physics, will purchase optical supplies to augment equipment that was provided by funding from the Murdock Charitable Trust; Julia Stronks, associate professor of political science, will travel to the Netherlands to study social pluralism and its effect on government policies; Dan Sanford, director of the Graduate School of International Management, will use the funds to extend his research on internationally linked programs; and Jim Waller, professor of psychology, will purchase books and journals related to Holocaust studies and will conduct research at the Holocaust Center at Pacific University.
- Joining Whitworth's strong faculty this spring is Susan Mabry, assistant professor of computer science. Susan's story is inspiring. The untimely death of her husband left her in Jackson, Miss., with her children to raise and few marketable job skills. She decided to go to college, where she discovered her deep interest in computer science. She went to work and rose quickly in the ranks of industry, but also found while doing mission work that she loved to teach, so she kept going to school. Today, she brings to Whitworth a newly defended doctorate in her field, rich business experience from her senior position with the Northrop Grumman Corporation, and extensive church and missions involvement.
- Another new "doctor in the house" is 'BioDun Ogundayo, assistant professor of French in the Modern Languages Department. His is another story for another Mind and Heart. But like Susan Mabry, he offered a successful defense for his dissertation in January. We congratulate them both.
It's encouraging when faculty scholarship builds values in students that continue after life at Whitworth. Lisa Pearce, a 1994 sociology graduate, recently had an article ("Family religious life and the mother-child relationship") published in the American Sociological Review, the most selective and widely read journal in the discipline. Lisa is now a doctoral candidate in sociology at Penn State, specializing in family and demography. To be published in the ASR is very prestigious in itself, and "to publish an article in this journal as a grad student is simply amazing," says Sociology Department Chair Bob Clark. Congratulations, Lisa.
Enrollment
I'm not sure how to interpret the Feb. 1 admissions statistics. It appears that there is far more good news than bad. Deposits (our most accurate predictor of enrollment) are up a whopping 62 percent, while overall applications are down 6 percent. The latter is small enough that it may be attributable to timing. We have tried to be clearer about who we are, and have targeted the types of students we serve best. Maybe these numbers indicate that we're succeeding. It's too early for either handsprings or panic, but these directions are interesting. Behind the numbers lies the painful awareness that many students who list Whitworth as their first choice simply can't afford it.We continue to look for new sources of financial aid while also searching for ways to hold down our costs.
Resources
At last, Bunsen burners are raging and petri dishes are providing loving homes for bacteria in the newly renovated Eric Johnston Science Center. Special thanks go to Biology Professor Lee Anne Chaney, who served as project coordinator, and to the temporarily displaced science faculty. Providing enormous help in this project are two new pledges from Tom and Vida Delanty and Joe and Robin Zimmer. These friends have joined together to pledge $150,000 toward the renovation, and in honor of their generosity, the science library will be named the "Zimmer-Delanty Science Library." Our biggest individual contributors to this project are Bill and Harriet Fix, who just gave another $20,000 toward its completion. We are proud to have this building bear the name of Harriet's father, Eric Johnston. A formal dedication of the renovated building will occur in April at the time of our spring board meeting.
Our next big project is the construction of a women's softball field and a soccer field next to the Pine Bowl. Not only will our many varsity student-athletes benefit from these new fields, but the student body will use them for intramurals and informal play. The project will open up the campus all the way to Waikiki Road and create a beautiful expansion of our athletics facilities. The construction of the new fields will require a significant amount of site-preparation work this spring, and we apologize in advance to the students we'll have to relocate. We will demolish one house and move another, and we'll have to clear the land of the existing trees. This part of the project will be done in April, and will make the area appear pretty barren and stark. To compensate for the trees that we'll have to remove, we will plant 200 new ones. About 100 trees will be part of the landscaping of the new field project; an additional 25 will blend into a new parking area; and the final 75 will grace various parts of the campus. These projects are pretty time- and labor-intensive, but we believe that they are essential. The softball field is required as a part of our Title IX gender-equity compliance, and the science building must be able to accommodate our growing number of science majors and the technical demands of the fields they enter. Other projects on the drawing board include a total renovation of Dixon Hall (largely a classroom building), retooling of the old Whitworth Elementary School, and a remodel of the vacated student life building, which housed temporary science labs last semester. I'll report on all of these projects as they come up.
Thanks for your support of the Whitworth Fund. We're just shy of $1 million, so we need your continued support to meet our annual gift-income budget. I should also mention that whenever alumni give, it strengthens our position with the foundations we solicit.
Student Life
Whatever happened to Valentine's Day, to romance? February in ASWC started with the "Green with Envy" dance sponsored by Arend Hall. Pre-dance protocol dictates that each student set up his/her roommate with the roomie's dream date. I would consider this noble, even romantic, had I not heard the dance referred to as "roommate payback." Inspired by married couples' frequently voiced claim, "I couldn't stand him/her when we first met," sinister roommates explain their matchmaking as "bringing together unlikely couples for certain marital bliss."
Continuing the "What Happened to Romance?" theme, next weekend we have a hip-hop, soul, rap-type group coming to campus. The ensemble's name, which surely required great thought, is " Most Chill Slack Mob." Evidently, their music is great - even better than their cool name, if you can believe that.
Other events this month include "New York Jimmy and the Jive 5" playing for a swing dance on campus, preceded by lessons from our dance club, Jubilation; a rock-climbing night at Wild Walls; a ski trip to Canada; and the famed Mac Hall in Concert (goldfish and all).
Students enjoy these chances to have fun, but you should also know that we enter Lent with scores of students experiencing deepened relationships with Christ. Through our many campus ministry programs and the close relationships our students share with faculty, students embrace both the benefits and the obligations of the cross. As I was typing this note, my e-mail prompt led me to a message from a student saying he "feels called to share the Gospel and learn the culture in Japan." Pretty exciting stuff.
Athletics
Sports Information Director Steve Flegel reports, "Almost unbelievably, the Whitworth men's basketball team is still in the race for the Northwest Conference title." Steve says that after their 1-4 conference start, "the Pirates trail Linfield by only two games with five to play. The Bucs put themselves in this position by pushing their winning streak to five games, including three straight on the road, with an Oregon sweep at Linfield, George Fox and Pacific." Way to go, Bucs!
The women stand at 13-7 overall and 9-4 in the conference. They have played superbly this year, with great leadership coming from Jamie Wakefield, this week's Northwest Conference Player of the Week. Having handed PLU its only loss in the conference, the women have an excellent chance of finishing in the top three teams in the NWC. Both the men and the women play Whitman Saturday in Walla Walla. Our alumni gathering there, hosted by Tom Cronin (Whitman's president and a very good friend), should supply a small but enthusiastic Whitworth crowd for these important games.
The swim teams wrapped up the season with identical 8-3 records (the women were 6-1 in conference, while the men finished 5-2), and they're now preparing for the NWC championship meet. Ben Swinehart and those swimmin' Rice brothers (Brent and Brian) posted season-best efforts as they won their races at the Bucs' last dual meets at Seattle Univ. and UPS. Mindy Galbraith, Erin Kay and Marta Holsinger finished first for the women. The NWC championship meet, co-hosted by Whitworth and Whitman, will take place at Central Washington University Feb. 18-20.
Dates to Remember
| Feb. 26 | Alumni basketball event at Lewis & Clark (Portland) |
| Feb. 27 | Alumni basketball event at University of Puget Sound (Tacoma) |
| Through March 4 | Gordon Wilson's "Family Puzzles" Exhibit in the Koehler Gallery |
| March 20-28 | Whitworth Choir spring tour to Southern California |
| April 11 | Whitworth Choir spring concert in Spokane |
| April 20 | Whitworth Wind Ensemble spring concert in Spokane |
| April 27 | Whitworth Jazz Ensemble spring concert in Spokane |
Closing Thoughts
I enjoyed writing this letter. Part of the pleasure came from being home and hearing Bonnie's "How goes it?" rather than some stranger's "The captain has turned off the seat belt sign." Thanks to all of you who care about Whitworth and about those of us who work and study here. Just as I appreciated hearing from so many of you when my mom died, I know that English Professor Doug Sugano, Associate Director of Admissions Debbie Harvey, and Religion Professor Jerry Sittser were grateful for your support in the recent loss of their fathers. This is a good place. Thanks for helping to make it so.
