Of Mind & Heart Newsletter: January 2000

An update from Whitworth University President Bill Robinson

Happy New Year! I hope that you, like Whitworth, were unbitten by the Y2K bug. Actually, I'm pretty sure Whitworth was mainly responsible for averting world power outages. A couple of years ago, after Ice Storm '96, we bought a jumbo, industrial-strength generator. I believe it is a law of the universe that if you spend enough money on anything, you won't need it until it breaks. You're welcome. Jan Term is now upon us. Yesterday, Bonnie and I were in SeaTac Airport, where we saw students loading up on fast food before departing for London on the theatre/music tour. The many classes around the world will be great, but those of us on campus also enjoy the different rhythm of Jan Term. I hope you'll be able to find a few chunks of time during this new year in which you can break stride and still keep productive. It's healthy. I also hope the newness of this season will bring freshness to your soul. God bless you in 2000.

Academics

Speaking of Jan Term around the globe, I thought you might be interested in knowing where some of the off-campus courses are being offered. The largest class is in Hawaii (shocking, isn't it?), taking Core 350: The Scientific Tradition, with Lindaman Chair Susan Bratton. Forrest Baird (Philosophy Department) is again working his way through Core 250: The Rationalist Tradition, from Rome to London. Thirty more of our students will also be in London, studying with Rick Hornor (Theatre) and Debbie Hansen (Music). Raja Tanas (Sociology) has a group in the Holy Land, and Dean Jacobson (Biology) is introducing a group of his majors to the ecosystems of Baja, Mexico. Another group in Mexico includes Spanish majors benefiting from language and culture immersion in Guanajuato. In the U.S., Dick Evans (Music) has a group exploring the arts in San Francisco; a band of our more primitive students are doing a winter mountaineering course in chilly central Washington; and many are meeting their multicultural education requirement in Sitka, Alaska, and other settings away from Spokane. We did turn down a request from Mac Hall for a multicultural course titled Eating Our Way through the Menus at 12 Spokane Taco Bells: A Comparative Study.

You can now enjoy potato over the web. Our talented Laurie Lamon (English) has another poem, Potato, appearing in this month's Atlantic Monthly magazine; it's the third of her pieces to be included in this eminent publication in the past two years. Laurie says that the magazine also wanted an audio version of the poem for its website. So check out Atlantic Monthly's site and hear her reading the piece.

Margo Long (Education), whose legendary presentations on gifted and talented students have enriched educators around the world, has gone to video. Funded by Spokane's Educational Service District and with support from the Spokane business community, Margo assembled 16 hours of video programming that serves as the basis for an eight-week distance-learning course. While primarily targeted to teachers in our region who were taking Margo's course for credit or for clock hours, the programs were broadcast to 28 states.

In the last two weeks of December, Whitworth faculty members were quoted in stories in three major newspapers around the country. On Dec. 17, Pam Parker (English) was quoted in USA Today on the historical accuracy of the movie Anna and the King. Pam, who spent eight years in Thailand as a youngster, has done research on Anna Leonowens, the title character of the movie. On Dec. 24, Jim Edwards (Religion) was quoted in a story in the Boston Herald about the life of Jesus. And on Dec. 31, Dan Keberle (Music) was quoted in the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal in a story about the late jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown. These newspapers have a combined circulation of well over two million and provide a great vehicle for promoting the strength of Whitworth's faculty.

Congratulations to Dan Keberle for being named the 1999-2000 Outstanding Music Educator from the Spokane region of the Washington Music Educators Association. Dan will be one of the featured speakers at this year's All-State Music Festival. Carol Miyamoto, longtime staff pianist and accompanist at Whitworth, was also recognized with the 1999-2000 Friend of Music Award for WMEA's Spokane region.

Kent Jones (Computer Science) helped host the inaugural conference of the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges by lining up Bjarne Stroustrup - the inventor of the C++ programming language - as the meeting's keynote speaker. Stroustrup, who is head of AT&T's research operations, offered excellent ideas for how to teach C++ to beginning computer science students. (I didn't need to be taught how to get a C+.)

Dan Sanford (Graduate School of International Management) has been honored by the Inland Northwest World Trade Council as its individual of the year for 1999. The award is given to the person who has made a significant contribution to furthering international business in the Spokane community. Congratulations, Dan.

We also have a trio of faculty/staff headed to Europe during Jan Term. Jo Ann Nielsen (International Management) is taking along John Falvey (MIM), Ken Pecka (Information Resources) and Fredrick Peterson, director of academic affairs at WSU Spokane. The purpose of this trip is to establish computer-based course linkups between students at Whitworth, WSU and five European universities. Amazing, isn't it? "Distance" is becoming a thing of the past.

I've been hearing good things about our '99 graduates. History major Andy Rock has been awarded a prestigious $23,000 Rotary Fellowship that will fund a year of post-graduate studies at Trinity College at the University of Dublin. Our "remote" grads are also doing well. Columbia University, a popular choice for Whitworth dual-degree engineering students, graduated three of our 3+2 students in its 1999 class of 266 engineers. Peter Little received Columbia's Moles' Student Award in Civil Engineering, which goes to "the student whose academic achievement and enthusiastic application show outstanding promise.." Two other Whitworth students, Randy Larsen and Sheldon Smith, also received their Whitworth BA's upon completion of their engineering degrees at Columbia. And Tim Mitrovich was the only student from a Washington state college or university to be named a 1999 finalist for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Tim, a 4.0 political science major, was one of only 12 students from the seven-state western district to reach the final round of interviews.

Enrollment

For those of you who actually read this newsletter, you probably know that for the past several years we have been in the good position of having a bit more demand than supply. It looks like this year we will again have a waiting list. Our Early Action admission applications are up 12 percent. Fortunately, we've managed to keep our student-to-faculty ratio strong; it currently stands at 15.2 to 1. In serving our students, we are trying to think beyond being "personalized" to being "individualized." So parents, keep helping us with this. We appreciate it when you contact us with ideas on how we can do a better job with your students.

Campus Close-up, for high school seniors and parents, is Feb. 20-21. This visitation program gives prospective students and their parents an unembellished inside look at Whitworth's academic programs, student life and campus activities. Students interested in attending Whitworth next year are welcome. Please contact the Admissions Office at 800-533-4668 or admissions@whitworth.edu for more info. Don't forget, our freshman admission application deadline is March 1. So I'm sure you'll want to have your application done or well in progress before Campus Close-up.

Student Life

January is always a fun month at Whitworth. The modular approach to classes raises the intensity level in coursework, studying and playing. And back this year by popular demand will be Wacky Wednesdays. At 9:45 p.m. in the HUB, students will enjoy "entertainment" such as the disgusting (my adjective) Trash for Cash Tournament, karaoke (which it would be redundant to call disgusting), and the opportunity to get $5 haircuts (which I will fund joyfully if the residents on the west side of the second floor of Baldwin go en masse.it's all or nothing, men). Our women's and men's basketball teams have several home games this month, one of which will be followed by an ice cream social and another by an opportunity to hear Comedy Central's Don Barnhard. Rounding out the month will be Arend's traditional "Green With Envy" dance (for which students set up their roommates with the "date of their dreams"), sledding, a ski trip to Canada, open gym times, and intramural dodgeball and ping pong. And, amazingly, students will study really hard amidst all these "opportunities for social development."

Resources

As I mentioned earlier, Y2K was a non-event on the Whitworth campus. I looked across the street at midnight and saw no evidence of bugs, aliens or terrorists. Using a slightly more scientific approach, our staff checked all our systems Jan. 1 and confirmed that the college was in good order and still able to function as normal. Thanks to all of our students who will experience a shorter Jan Term (after a longer vacation!) as a result of our efforts to avoid potential Y2K problems.

Thanks to the nearly 1,000 alumni, friends, parents, churches and businesses that made year-end contributions to further the success of Whitworth students. After several non-Y2K computer belches, our gift office is steadfastly processing receipts. Fear not; they're coming soon.

The bulls seem to be devouring the bears in the Northwest. I just found out that twice as many donors gave stock this December as did a year ago. It's a great way to avoid a gains tax. These gifts support our Faith in the Future Campaign, so our thanks go out to all of you who so generously contribute to the campaign's scholarship funds and academic initiatives.

Let me tell you one more anecdote about smart, helpful giving, and then I'll be quiet about money. This month The Whitworth Foundation is transferring to the college more than $500,000 from the matured trust of longtime friends of the college. In 1980 these friends established a 20-year trust with appreciated property valued at approximately $250,000. Over the last 20 years the foundation has made annual payments that add up to more $500,000 to these donors. Now, the corpus of the gift, more than doubled in size, will be added to Whitworth's endowment for student scholarships. So here's how I read the benefits: The donors lowered both capital gains and income taxes while significantly increasing their income. And Whitworth benefited by a $500,000+ addition to its endowment. Wow!

Athletics

Our women's basketball team is 7-3 overall and 1-1 in conference (tied for third with George Fox & Willamette) after a 55-50 loss to PLU at Tacoma last week. The women lead the NWC in three-point percentage at 40.8 percent, with Myra Slwooko, Star Olson, Erica Ewart and Emily Stuenkel ranking among the top 12 three-point shooters. Jamie Wakefield is playing great on both ends of the floor, and Jennifer Bennett is coming off her best game (12 points, 16 boards), against PLU. Pacific and Linfield, both conference contenders, are in town this weekend.

The men's team has rebounded to 6-6, 2-2 in the NWC. They have battled back from a 1-4 start and are playing well, in spite of injuries reducing the team to nine guys. This weekend they play at home against Pacific and Linfield, both conference powers. The Bucs also lead the conference in three-point shooting (41.9 percent), and they're getting solid play from Kevin McDaniel, who leads the NWC in rebounding with 9.4 rpg, and Ryan Nelson, the NWC's free-throw leader at 93.1 percent.

Both the men's and the women's swim teams stand at 4-2 overall, 3-0 in conference.Their schedule picks up this week with a killer road trip to a meet at PLU in Tacoma, one at Simon Fraser in Burnaby, B.C., and another at CWU in Ellensburg. The Bucs just returned from a training trip to California, where Katie King paced the women with two wins against UC Santa Cruz in the 100 and 200 freestyles, and Mindy Galbraith added a win in the 1,650 freestyle. On the men's side, Troy Schuknecht was the double winner at Santa Cruz, taking the 100 and 200 breaststrokes. Ryan Freeman won the 200 fly, and Brian Rice took the 400 IM.

Alumni

Save the date now for reunions in 2000. Members of the Class of 1940 will celebrate their 60th reunion along with other members of the 50+ Club on Saturday, May 13, during Commencement Weekend. On June 23-25, reunions will be held on campus for the Class of 1950 and the 20-year, 30-year and 40-year clusters ('79-'81, '69-'71, and '59-'61). Contact the Alumni Office (509-777-3799, 800-532-4668 or fyoung@whitworth.edu) for all of the details, or visit our Reunion 2000 webpage at www.whitworth.edu/alumni/reunion2000.htm.

Closing Thoughts

I've been fussing lately about modesty. I'm not seeing too many St. Francis posters gracing the dorm-room walls of today's college students. Our culture's motto could be "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess." The 21st-century American dream can be a voracious one. Certainly, we want our students to be assertive, risk-taking citizens, ready to conquer the new millennium. But Jesus exalts modesty (as do all major world religions) when he lifts up humility and self-denial as cardinal virtues. This year I'd love to sort out when to stand tall and when to bow. We and our students need to develop and value this discernment. The millennium issue of Time magazine reminded me that most of the true heroes in the past 1,000 years walked confidently, but without a swagger. I think our world needs again to see leaders with strength that is born of meekness. I hope that in the 21st century, Whitworth will mark her graduates with the kinds of modest attitudes and muscular convictions that will make them moral exemplars rather than servants of excess. Unless Jesus was misquoted repeatedly, it's what he wants in his kingdom. May the same Jesus grant you clarity, peace and joy in this new year. Thanks for the countless ways in which you bless Whitworth College.