Of Mind & Heart Newsletter: September 1997

An update from Whitworth University President Bill Robinson

We're on our way! One of the fall traditions at Whitworth College finds us populating the Fieldhouse with students, faculty and staff to take care of final registration details and changes. I don't serve any useful purpose at this event, but I always like hanging around and welcoming back students I haven't seen for several months. This year, I barely recognized students whom I know well. Tanned, rested, and buoyant is not how we sent them home. But as I chat with students around campus, they become recognizable again...the familiar look is back. Somehow, I find that telltale "I'm tired, my profs are piling on too much work, food service is in a slump, my life is out of control" look reassuring. And after I see and hear the "whine list" and then ask, "So, how ya doing?" the invariable reply is "Great." I love these exchanges. We all live in the same paradox, overwhelmed but also excited and confident that this is where we belong. I hope this September finds you refreshed and ready.

Academic Affairs

This fall we are welcoming a wonderful group of new faculty. Some of these professors are completely new to the community, while others have been involved in past years on a part-time or adjunct basis. They are:

We had a great opening Convocation that featured the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Dr. Mel Cheatham, a neurosurgeon from California who has been extensively involved in providing medical services to many of the world's most needy people.

Our faculty has been involved in a wide range of scholarly activities. Three works in particular are stirring a good bit of interest. Religion Professor Jim Edwards published an article in Christianity Today titled "At the Crossroads: The Battle for a Denomination's Soul." Political Studies Professor Julia Stronks' article, Christians, Public Policy and Same-Sex Marriage: Framing the Questions Before We Shout Out the Answers, was published in the Christian Scholar's Review. And Jim Waller signed a contract with a New York publisher to write Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism in America, a trade book that will hit the shelves of bookstores all over the country in April.

Our students and faculty can now gain access to the library catalog through the campus network. This means our students can look through our electronic card catalog without leaving their dorm rooms. I guess we've come full circle. For years, college students have fallen asleep in libraries; now they can do library work where they're supposed to fall asleep.

School of Education professors Dennis Sterner and Barb Sanders have received approval for a grant that will enable their graduate students to help teachers at the new Mt. Spokane-Mead High School to integrate technology into their curricula. This new school is reported to have all of the latest technological firepower.

I would like to comment on the proliferation of magazines that publish college ratings. It is important to keep in mind that these publications are far more about selling magazines than they are about providing a service. The "Best Colleges" issue has been a financial motherlode for U.S. News and World Report. They now have added issues that include more "best" lists. And you may have noticed that dozens of other magazines have published various lists of "best colleges." I would be lying if I claimed that our perpetual presence in the U.S. News list of the best 15 regional universities in the western United States hasn't helped us. But I would also be lying if I tried to argue that these rankings "prove" anything. So we will pass along to you our various rankings, but I would discourage you from getting too excited when we go up, or from feeling too disappointed when we go down. No list will ever capture the best of what Whitworth College does in the lives of our students.

This year, Whitworth was ranked 11th on U.S. News & World Report's "Best Regional Colleges and Universities in the West" list, and also ranked 11th on the "Best Values" list. For about 30 seconds we thought we were ranked first on the best values list, but we realized immediately that the ranking was probably a mistake. After checking our data, we discovered that we had misinterpreted one of the questions and had submitted an overall average financial aid package number rather than just the need-based figure being requested on the survey. We immediately contacted U.S. News and World Report. It was too late for one of their publications but it was corrected in the others. So we and Clarkson University, which made this same mistake, are somewhat embarrassed. This probably won't be the last mistake we ever make, but I wouldn't mind if the rest were a little less public.

Admissions & Enrollment

Our undergraduate enrollment this fall is about as close to ideal as possible. We budgeted for 375 new freshmen and enrolled 398, so we have fewer than five empty beds out of the 870 available on campus. With as few as 10 more students, we would have had a bit of a housing problem, so we feel that our freshman enrollment is at an optimum level. We also welcome 100 new transfer students, which is right at what we expected. For the fourth consecutive year, our total full-time undergraduate enrollment is at our ideal level of roughly 1,500 students. Last year, we actually enrolled a lower-than-normal percentage of the new students we admitted, resulting in a freshman class of 320 students. So we are pleased that our "yield" is back to normal. Our graduate enrollment is down somewhat, and we are studying that situation.

Of the 2,000-plus total number of students enrolled this year, almost 1,700 are receiving some form of financial aid. Thanks to all of you and to many non-Whitworth-related agencies that help fund the education our students receive.

We are still compiling data on this year's freshman class, but its collective high school GPA is above 3.5; we have at least one fourth-generation Whitworthian; 14 percent of our students are non-Caucasian, 53 percent are women, and 54 percent are from Washington; and 77 percent rate the Pizza Pipeline delivery man (George) as one of their three best friends (a measurement based on frequency of contact, with a 2 percent margin for error).

Student Life

This year's orientation theme was "Welcome to the Neighborhood." It would have made Mr. Rogers proud. For those of you who have never witnessed the Saturday night orientation program, it is great fun. Using various themes (last year's was "Field of Dreams"), Assistant Dean of Students Dayna Coleman and her lieutenants transform the stage of Cowles Auditorium into a setting in which Dayna builds a skit that provides history and perspective on the Whitworth College mission. She does a great job of creating a very warm and enjoyable welcome (at the expense, of course, of those of us who shamelessly humiliate ourselves onstage).

Student activity plans for September include a mountain-biking trip down the slopes of a ski resort, a whitewater rafting trip, the annual overnight at Wild Walls climbing wall, and "The Weekend," a time of spiritual renewal at Camp Spalding. September is also the month in which Community-Building Day finds faculty, staff and students taking the day off to work all over Spokane doing community service projects, then gathering for a barbecue and a chance to reflect on the day's activities.

More than 400 students packed themselves into the Chapel for our first Hosanna, and attendance has also been great at our Wednesday morning Community Chapel. I have been very impressed with how well our students move from the joyful praise at a Tuesday night Hosanna to the contemplation and confession that are appropriate for Wednesday morning communion.

Resources

Thanks again to all who contributed to make 1996-97 a solid year financially. The Whitworth Fund (unrestricted gifts) reached new heights.

Last fiscal year our endowment grew by 23 percent, and it is now almost $35 million in total assets. We must continue to work hard on building the endowment if we are to remain financially accessible to a broad economic cross-section of students. Through careful spending, no short-term debt, and your generous contributions to the Whitworth Fund, we are able to offer a top-quality education in spite of not having a huge endowment. But we would love to increase financial aid and hold down tuition increases, which a larger endowment would enable us to do.

The huge hole in the ground on the east side of our new Campus Center reminds us daily that Leavitt Dining Hall's days are numbered. We are on schedule to open Phase II of the Campus Center next fall. It will be a beautiful structure that will benefit every member of the Whitworth College community.

I hope you were able to visit campus this summer. We received scores of comments about the beauty of our flowers. Each year Janet Wright and her crew find new places to dot the campus with floral beauty. As I look across the street at our campus, it simply glows with radiant colors. Right now, I'm looking at yellow, red, orange, white, purple and pink flowers making Hawthorne Road a gauntlet of color. We've also been busy this month planting trees, replacing those lost in last winter's ice storm. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to that project.

Alumni, we need your continued support. Increasingly, one of the criteria deemed very important in measuring a college's strength is the percentage of its alumni who support the college. Foundations are particularly interested in this indicator. So over the next several years, we will be working to increase our alumni support participation rate. To that end, the 1997-98 Whitworth Fund Phonathon got under way last Sunday. This year's student calling team, led by senior Kathiryn Schreyer (Phoenix, Ariz.), and sophomore Alicia Favreau (Titusville, Penn.), has set for itself an ambitious goal of $150,000 in pledges over a 40-day period. The team will be contacting alumni, friends and parents of Whitworth. So when the phone rings, we would appreciate your receptiveness to these students who are working so hard on behalf of their college.

Athletics

We are just getting started with our fall schedules and I will have far more to report next month. It looks as though we are going to be stronger in every sport, so this fall should be an exciting one in Whitworth's athletics arenas.

In tribute to the late Jim Lounsberry, whose lifetime record as Whitworth's football coach was 32-9-1 and whose teams achieved a record-setting 22-game win streak from 1953-56, a reunion of coaches, players, trainers and cheerleaders from the Lounsberry years will convene in conjunction with the induction of the '53-'56 teams into the Heritage Hall of Fame on September 27.

Joining "Grinnin' Jim" Lounsberry and his teams in the Heritage Hall of Fame will be Professor Emeritus of History (1955-81) Homer Cunningham, longtime faculty athletics representative who gave generously of his time and talents to support Whitworth Athletics; Tara Flugel, '92, who scored 2,040 points during her stellar basketball career at Whitworth and holds the title as the Bucs' most prolific all-time hoops scorer; and Barbara (Lashinski) Winkle, '90, who as a freshman in 1987 threw the javelin farther than any woman in the NAIA had before - or has since. Barb was Whitworth's first female National Champion. We're proud to welcome these athletics legends into the Heritage Hall of Fame.

Our fourth annual Pirate Night is coming up. Thanks to all who have contributed items, and to those who will bid with abandon at the auction. One of this year's items is the recently retired basketball hoop from our backyard - the friendliest rim in the western United States. Gordy Toyama, who hadn't made a jump shot anywhere since 1992, became a veritable John Stockton when introduced to this circular shock absorber. He is willing to sell everything he owns (except, of course, his CD collection) to bring this hoop back to Mac Hall.

If you would like to see our weekly sports information press release, you can find it at our website, www.whitworth.edu. Thanks to Sports Information Director Steve Flegel for keeping us up to date on the Bucs' exploits.

Miscellaneous

This year's Homecoming, with the theme "Whitworth Goes Hollywood," is coming up October 11. The weekend will be bracketed by two film-related Forums: On Friday, October 10, Spence Bovee, '84, will share stories and clips from the production of the recent CD-ROM Batman and Robin: The Cyber Experience. On Monday the 13th, Lisa Berglund, '89, recipient of the National Press Photography Association's Television News Photographer of the Year award, will share video clips and stories. During the weekend, there will be reunions, picnics and a big football victory. Contact our Alumni Office at 777-3799 or 800-532-4668 for more information.

Next May's Alumni Core 250 trip to Europe has only four openings left. If you want a rich educational experience as Forrest Baird leads the group from Rome to London, contact the Alumni Office right away at 777-3799 or 800-532-4668.

Dates to Remember

Closing Thoughts

Over the weekend I spoke to a couple of people (outside my immediate family) who claim to read this newsletter. So thanks to Bryan and Curtis for the inspiration, and thanks to all the rest of you who are interested in this great college. May God bless you richly this fall.