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President Emeritus Bill Robinson

  1. Whitworth University
  2. President Emeritus Bill Robinson
  3. Of Mind & Heart Newsletter
  4. May 2009

Of Mind & Heart Newsletter: May 2009

An update from Whitworth University President Bill Robinson

Most of us who work at Whitworth get paid at the end of the month. Our big paycheck, however, comes at the end of the academic year. And it comes in a currency that is stronger, more stable and more satisfying than the U.S. dollar. Every Commencement Weekend we hit the mother lode. In greater abundance than we ever could have imagined, we receive the abiding satisfaction that the Whitworth experience has transformed students' lives, and that our calling has contributed to the transformation. That awareness has never been deeper for me than it was on Friday night at the graduating seniors' commissioning and communion service. The gathering consists of music, liturgy, communion, anointing and an exchange of reflections between two teams, each comprising one student and his or her faculty advisor. This year's pairs were Jeff Forsythe, '09, and Donna Pierce (Mathematics) and Caitlin Himmel, '09, and Mike Sardinia, '87 (Biology). In Mike's final statement, he made the paradoxical confession that it is painful to say goodbye to these students we love, but that it is time for them to leave. He then turned to his 16 biology majors and asked for a series of promises. Essentially, he was asking them to be faithful to themselves and to Christ's gospel. We know these 16 students. We know how differently they will hear and fulfill those promises. And we love that diversity. But there is one thing that they and every Whitworth graduate hold in common. They know that at commencement, they are not just being dropped off into the world. They are being sent. They are being sent to make this world a more compassionate and just place. And that they will do. Thank you so much for helping to send them.

Commencement Weekend highlights:

  • The best weather of 2009.
  • The ROTC commissioning of three guys who will make the world safer.
  • The mom who is so fond of Whitworth that she asked me to do something to stop the graduation of her youngest. (He didn't need my help. Just kidding, Mom. He did a great job.)
  • A great Graduate Commencement Ceremony with excellent student speeches by Rustam Abdurahmanov, Emily Jane Haxton and Trish Anne Nelson. (My address was on the demon possession in Mark 5:1-20. Not an easy subject for a commencement speech.) Listen to graduate commencement address 
  • A luncheon and dinner with the classes of 1949 and 1959, back for reunions. They are still going strong, looking good and cheering for the Pirates.
  • A great celebration of the Act Six Cadre 3 graduation. All eight of the grads were eloquent in their reflections. 
  • An inspirational Senior Reflections program at which Jasmine Linabary and Eric Brewer received Alumni Ideals awards; Brittany Gresset and Ross Nakamura were given the Dennis Spurlock Award; Kelly Baker and Caleb Barnhill were named Senior Athletes of the Year; Taryn Clark and Zachariah Mullen were honored with the Collegiate Achievement Award; and Donna Pierce (Mathematics) and Mike Sardinia, '87, (Biology) were voted Most Distinguished Professors of 2009 by the senior class.
  • A rich and moving baccalaureate service in which Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Kathy Storm urged students to love ideas and to let Christ's perfect love lift their fears. She and Leonard Oakland both paid tribute to legends Clem Simpson and Fenton Duvall, both of whom died this year (in their 90s!).
  • An undergrad ceremony that featured a moving and inspirational address by Ron White and great student speeches by Abby Horner and Bud Bareither. It was also announced that Glen Guenther and Kyle Navis won Servant Leadership awards, and the following students received the President's Cup for maintaining 4.0 GPAs throughout their Whitworth careers: Rachel Michelle Anderson, Eric Jacob Brewer, Melissa Joy Garner, Allison Rose Geeslin, Kathryn Jean (Katy) Hartung, Brent Alexander (Xander) Knight, Abraham James Spung, Kelly Marie Vincent, and Larissa Michelle Zeiler. Listen to undergraduate commencement address  
  • A great weekend in which it was my immense privilege to shake the hands of 96 graduate and 508 undergraduate students as they crossed the graduation stage and moved into lives of great possibilities.

Academics

For several weeks we have enjoyed hosting Sajida Tabbara, Ph.D., as part of the Direct Access to the Muslim World Grant. She chairs the linguistics section of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Bahrain. With enthusiasm and warmth, Dr. Tabbara entered into our campus life, addressing classes, faculty and community groups to promote understanding. 

We have two more Fulbright Scholars! Amy Whisenand, '09, a philosophy major, was admitted to Oxford University but instead decided to teach English for a year in Germany. Kendra Hamilton, '09, an economics and international business major, will teach English for a year in Malaysia. 

Congratulations to Karen Petersen Finch (Theology), who received her Ph.D. from Gonzaga University last week. She was selected the outstanding graduate student in her program. 

Whitworth business students received an award at the annual Inland Northwest Business Plan Competition. In the student-generated category, the team of Kaylyn Plumb, Ben Rotert, both '09, and Justin Holloway, '10, took second place. The trio's business plan, Missing Mom Laundry Services, would provide dropoff and pickup laundry services to on-campus college students, and also would provide a similar service to the Whitworth Athletics Department.

Trumpet instructor Eric Moe, '95, was selected from musicians nationwide to play in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra April 15 at Carnegie Hall. Eric was interviewed for a feature story on the NBC National News with Brian Williams and quoted extensively in Timemagazine. Follow these links for more details: www.tinyurl.com/db6rgcand www.tinyurl.com/dano3s.

Here's a short sample of news we heard from a few departments: 

  • Physics: Three 2009 graduates are going to graduate schools with full scholarships and stipends for living expenses: Carissa Humrickhouse to Texas A&M to study nuclear engineering, John Hauck to Notre Dame to study physical chemistry, and Andra Shaughnessy to Oregon State to study nuclear engineering. Also, Jennifer Johnston is off to WSU in environmental engineering, and Mahyo Seyedali is headed to the University of Washington in mechanical engineering. 
  • English: Jessica Benscoter was accepted by the Japan Exchange Teaching Program, and Amy Schroeder will teach English in Payap, Thailand. Eight students presented papers at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference, including seniors Joy Bacon, Adeline Estes, Nathaniel Orwiler, Joshua Swayne, Angela Forney, Mary Rump, and juniors Claire Swinford and Kathryn Pridgen. 
  • Psychology:  Two students are headed to doctoral programs next fall. Timothy Day will study clinical psychology with one of Noelle Wiersma's, '90, mentors at UNLV, while Melissa Garner will study at Seattle Pacific University, with an emphasis in health psychology and working with children with cancer.  

The Whitworthian has been named a finalist for the Associate Collegiate Press Online Pacemaker Award. Pacemaker awards are considered the most esteemed honors in student journalism. Jasmine Linabary, '09, did a great job of building our online version.

Roughly 12 hours after singing at graduation, members of the choir got out of bed to leave for a two-week tour of Uruguay and Argentina! This once-in-a-lifetime tour will include shared performances with school, university and adult choirs. The choir had a good year. In addition to its regular performance schedule, the group received a prestigious invitation to perform at the 2009 Music Educators National Conference Northwest Convention. Ours was one of two mixed university choirs from six Northwest states to present a concert session. 

The winner of this year's Tsutakawa Scholarship is Janna Wix DeFelice. Janna will graduate in July with an MBA in international management. As part of her studies and commitment to global education, Janna competed in an international case study competition in Canada and applied for a critical languages scholarship to continue her Arabic language studies in Dubai.

Last fall, Dan Raible, '09, and Daniel Repsold, '10, conducted research on the effects of exercise on stroke victims' brains. Their findings are critical, because strokes are a leading cause of long-term disability. The Dans are two of more than 120 Whitworth and Gonzaga students who presented their original research April 25 during the Spokane Intercollegiate Research Conference. David Adams, '89, now a staff clinician at the National Human Genome Research Institute, presented the keynote lecture at the conference.

Whitworth was honored to host 2009 Simpson-Duvall Lecturer Peter Storey, a champion of nonviolence who served as chaplain to Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, when he was in prison. Storey presented "The Role of the Church in Peacemaking and Reconciliation in South Africa" to a rapt audience. During the 1980s, he helped lead the call for international pressure to end apartheid. In 1994, Mandela appointed Storey to help select South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has been key in helping the country deal with the tragedies of its past. We were all deeply inspired by his redemptive story. Listen to Storey's lecture

Enrollment

We received more than 5,800 applications for this fall's entering class. Our deposits are right where they should be, which is about 50 above the 525 students we plan to enroll. We're hoping the economy doesn't knock out a higher percentage of deposited students than in years past. As usual, we enter the summer with a limited number of spaces still available for transfer students.

Student Life

April might have been the busiest month of the year. All of the concerts, sports and club activities occurred as usual, and there were special events that raised money for MS research, cancer research, the YWCA's domestic violence work and global hunger relief work. April also included the Hawaiian Club's 39th annual lu'au. This year's theme, "Mana: Spirit of the Islands,"was reflected in the food I consumed as if it were my last meal and in a variety of dances that originated in Hawai'i, Samoa, Tahiti and New Zealand. Students concluded the semester with year-end barbecues, the Senior Boat Cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene, Springfest and countless graduation events.

Resources

I just looked over the giving reports from April. First, thank you so much for your generosity in very challenging economic times. We're amazed by your faithfulness. Second, we are a couple percentage points behind where we need to be in our 2009 budget, with our fiscal year ending on June 30. Yesterday's graduation of so many amazing students gives me courage to ask for your support. It's a great investment in the countless lives our graduates will enrich.

In 1959, about 130 students received diplomas from Whitworth, and many of them were back for this year's graduation and their 50-year reunion. After addressing the reunion classes, it occurred to me that we operate a bit of a reverse Social Security system in which "retirees" help fund young people's educations. Of course, our current growth diffuses the per-student impact of alumni giving, and this is one of the quality indicators used to judge universities. As we add 400+ new undergraduate alumni every year, it's challenging to keep that percentage from falling. We are enormously grateful for our young alumni who support Whitworth while paying off loans, but we still battle a declining percentage of supporters in the face of a rising number of students. Right now, we're about 850 alumni shy of our participation goal. If you're an alumnus, any gift you can give before June 30 will get us closer to our goal. If you're interested in how we're doing, check the progress on a special site created for Whitworth alumni –www.whitworth.edu/whitworthfriends.

Athletics

Whitworth won its second straight Northwest Conference McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports Trophy, signifying excellence across an entire athletics department. Whitworth won or shared five NWC titles in 2008-09 (men's cross-country, men's soccer, men's swimming, women's tennis and women's golf).

The Whitworth women's tennis team won its first NWC title since 1997, ending Linfield's run of seven straight titles by defeating the Wildcats 6-3 in the championship match of the conference tournament. Jo Wagstaff is NWC Coach of the Year, while Rachel Burns and Alli Marshall are First Team All-NWC honorees. The Pirates enjoyed their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III tournament. Men's tennis finished fifth at the NWC tournament. Michael Shelton was selected First Team All-NWC.

Women's golf earned a share of its first NWC championship after finishing third at the year-end tournament. Liz Martin led the Pirates with an eighth-place finish. This is an amazing accomplishment for a young program. Men's golf finished sixth at the 2009 NWC tournament to end up fifth in the conference standings.

Both men's and women's track & field finished second at the 2009 NWC championships. Dusty Caseria (800), Nick Gallagher (10,000), Cody Stelzer (HJ), Ron Whitley (Discus) and Jeff Kintner (SP) won events for the men. Elizabeth Mattila (400h) and Kelly Bradley (Discus) won events for the women. Dana Misterek also broke a 19-year-old school record in the 1,500.

Lacey Kerr had one of the best offensive seasons in school history while leading the Pirate softball team. She batted .457 and set a school record with a slugging average of .804 for the Bucs, who finished the year 15-21.

Chad Flett and Brent Flyberg, the only senior pitchers on Whitworth's baseball team, tossed complete-game victories in a double-header sweep of Whitman on the final day of the season.

Alumni

The classes of 2004, 1999 and 1989 will celebrate 5-, 10- and 20-year reunions with a wide variety of events and activities on campus. All alumni are invited back to campus to reconnect with faculty and old friends. Homecoming information is available atwww.whitworth.edu/homecoming.

Several affinity reunions are scheduled this summer. The School of Global Commerce & Management will host the first-ever reunion for MIM and MBA grads July 31-Aug. 1. Additionally, reunions of the 10- and 30-year Central America Study Program will take place this summer. Ten-year CASP alumni will gather in Spokane the weekend of July 24-26, and 30-year alums will gather Aug. 7-9. For more information, visit www.whitworth.edu/alumni.

Closing Thoughts

I just returned from the annual Monday morning Dean's Brunch. I would characterize the faculty's collective mood as one of joyful exhaustion. In my summer Mind & Heart I'll give you a list of the faculty award winners announced this morning by Dean Michael Le Roy, '89. This academic year held challenges we never could have predicted, but, we always felt your support. Thank you. It means more than you can know. I hope your summer is good, and that even in the most challenging days ahead you feel Christ's parting promise to the disciples, "Surely, I am with you always." Thanks for your partnership.