Of Mind & Heart Newsletter: September 2005
An update from Whitworth University President Bill Robinson
Classes started yesterday. This is my 20th "morning after" as a college president, but I've never been through a start like this year's. Some things never change over the eight days it takes to get things off the ground -- the energy and hope of new students; the spectacular, spontaneous reunions of returning students; and my annual certainty by the third or fourth day that I do not have one more thing to say to students or parents or anyone else, followed by Bonnie's steadfast lies that I'm doing fine. But hovering over this year's opening was the horror and heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina. Although very few of our students were directly affected, my best hug of the week was from Ashley Johnson,'08, whose home got caught in the eye of the storm. The other deep disquiet of the past month ended yesterday: After more than three weeks of trial and thousands of hours of preparation, a jury found Whitworth not guilty in a wrongful-dismissal suit. The incalculable consumption of time, combined with an ever-present low-grade anxiety, delivered a pretty big hit to us all, but the confirmation that we acted justly renews us. I don't mind if we never go through another month like this one, but in it all we rest in God's gracious providence, and rest feels very good.
Academics
We are pleased to report that our student graduation rate has reached a new high.This year we exceeded 76 percent, based on the six-year time frame that colleges use in calculating this statistic. We are really proud of our students. Our faculty members reject the image of students showing up to study at the feet of stone-cold professors who dispense information and tell students, "It's entirely up to you." True, it is up to each student -- but we are totally committed to their success. We invest our resources and our lives in them. Our job is to make great alumni.
We have 21 students studying in the British Isles. Keith Beebe (Theology) just returned and left the group with Scott Kolbo (Art). Before returning to America, Keith sent this e-mail: "So far in York we have been to the Minster and to a service at St. Michael-le-Belfrey Church and have taken a day trip to the coastal village of Whitby. This is a GREAT group of students, and everything has gone quite well." Tammy Reid, '60, (English) and Rick Hornor, '70, (Theatre) will join the study program later this fall.
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust continues to enrich life at Whitworth. We congratulate Richard Stevens (Physics), project director, and faculty members Kerry Breno (Chemistry), John Larkin (Physics), Kamesh Sankaran (Physics), and Michael Sardinia (Biology). They received a $109,000 new-faculty startup research grant from the trust. This grant will fund two summers of science research for four faculty-student teams. Sixteen students will be able to participate in this research over the two years. Not only am I grateful for The Murdock Trust, but I am also very impressed with the way they steward their resources. They are good people doing good work.
Two faculty members defended their dissertations over the summer. Pete Tucker, '91, (Computer Science) defended his dissertation, Punctuated Data Streams, at Oregon Health & Science University (after which he punctuated his life streams with some serious golf!). And Bendi Benson Schrambach (French) defended her dissertation, Storytelling Transformations: Narrative, Rhetoric and Community in Marguerite de Navarre's L'Heptaméron and Charles Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris, at UCLA. Congratulations to both!
O.J. Cotes (Education) has been appointed by the governor to serve on the new Washington State K-12 Advisory Education Committee. This committee will work toward the development of recommendations to improve educational opportunities for all Washington citizens.
Associate Professor of English Laurie Lamon, '78, recently published her poetry collection, The Fork Without Hunger (CavanKerryPress, 2005). Laurie's poem Pain Thinks of the Beautiful Table received the Pushcart Prize (for which a number of her poems have been nominated) in 2001 and was published in the Pushcart Prize 2002anthology. Laurie's Praise appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and was then selected by former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins for the anthology 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Random House, 2005). Donald Hall, one of America's most revered poets, describes Laurie's poems as "rare in their perfection of epithet, their delicacy of design.... Page after page, line after line, Lamon's language retains its purity, its chastity, its precision."
The Speakers and Artists Series this year is getting off to a great start. A new federal law requires all educational institutions that receive federal funding to provide an educational program each September about the U.S. Constitution. We are fortunate to have our own Julia Stronks (Political Studies), speaking on The Constitution, Freedom of Religion and the Future Supreme Court. This summer, Julia published editorials in Spokane's Spokesman-Review and in The Seattle Times. This month we will also welcome Kyle Orwig, Ph.D., '90, to deliver a public lecture on stem-cell research and to speak to science classes. Kyle, who'll also accept our 2005 Recent Alumni Award, is a professor at a top stem-cell research center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
We'll host a faculty art exhibit Sept. 12-Oct. 14. The exhibit features works by associate professors Gordon Wilson, painting and drawing; Barbara Filo, mixed media; and Scott Kolbo, drawing; by adjunct art instructors Greg Roth, photography; Bradd Skubinna, drawing/installation; Carl Stejer, glass; Jeff Harris, ceramics; and Esme Guenther, printmaking; and by visiting instructor Lance Sinnema, sculpture/installation.
Topping my "Best Letters of the Month" pile was the one that announced the recognition of the Whitworth Communication Studies Department as the 2005 Rex Mix Program of Excellence. This prestigious award, given by the National Communication Association, honors the department's overall excellence in comparison with other small-college programs across the country. The department's emphasis on ethics instruction and its strong internship program drew admiration from peers. Kudos to this superb faculty!
Whitworth ranks sixth among 123 master's-level universities in the 15-state Western region in U.S. News & World Report's 2006 America's Best Colleges guide. The best-colleges rankings are based on various indicators of an institution's quality, including academic reputation, student selectivity, freshman retention, graduation rate, financial resources and alumni giving. We also ranked sixth in their "best value" list. We take pride in our quality and we're pleased by this affirmation.
For you local folks, two of our faculty members will soon be reading from their recent publications at Auntie's Bookstore. A poetry reading by Nadine Chapman (English), author of the poetry chapbook On Solitude (Finishing Line Press, 2005), will take place Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. Nadine will also read her chapter from the book At Work in Life's Garden: Writers on the Spiritual Adventure of Parenting (EWU Press, 2005), on Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m. And on Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m., Theology Professor James Edwards, '67, will read from his new book, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Eerdmans, 2005).
There's more great stuff happening this month and next. Dan Keberle (Music) reports that the music department will present a free concert, Whitworth at the Fox, to celebrate the impending renovation of Spokane's historic Fox Theatre. On Sept. 23 at 6 p.m., our jazz ensemble, wind symphony, choir and string quartet will perform at the Fox, one of Spokane's most remarkable performance venues. And alums and parents of current students can also enjoy an evening of dessert and drama when Whitworth presents the American classic Our Town, on Saturday, Oct. 15. Cost for dessert (at 6:45 p.m.) and the play is $10; call 509.777.3799 for details.
Enrollment
We'll have our final numbers from the 10-day report soon. This year's freshman-class profile shows an average SAT of 1204 and an average GPA of 3.67. Both are new highs. More important, the freshman and transfer students seem to be great people. Our student-life staff picks up an early feel for the general character of a new group of students; I think I do as well, and I'm very impressed.
Student Life
You can't believe what happens in the first 36 hours of a student's life at Whitworth.Welcomed by student leaders and our great parents'-council volunteers, students roll in with enough junk to fill Rhode Island. After they miraculously cram it all into their rooms, we should just award them degrees in engineering and send them on their way. But we don't, so then they "plug in." They crank up their sound systems to decibels that kindly take into consideration those in Deer Park who might like the song they're playing, and they like to fire up their 500,000-BTU hot plates, just in case they need to melt down an engine block or something. But mostly, they're nervous. They don't really know what they've gotten into, and they're not sure they'll make friends. Because we seem to attract uncommonly warm students, and because our student-life staff and student leaders skillfully build community, by the time new students are done with their formal dinner on Sunday night they'd take a sword for each other. The display of camaraderie at Yell-Off and Mock Rock borders on crazed. I'm absolutely astonished by the fast friendships.
Resources
The pedestrian pathway from the HUB to the aquatics center, which used to be an ugly one-lane mix of asphalt and concrete, is now a beautiful two-lane sidewalk with attractive landscaping, decorative light poles with flower baskets, and flowering trees in the boulevard in between. We deeply appreciate the gifts of John, '51, and Judy Scotford, and the late Ed Stirm, '52, and his wife, Beverly, who made this new version of the Hello Walk possible.
The Scotford Tennis Center and Ross Cutter Courts are almost done, and it's a beautiful site and sight. The six new courts, just to the east of the aquatics center, will be dedicated as part of the Homecoming festivities, and our tennis teams will be playing on them by the end of September.
Our great crew from facilities services just wrapped up another summer of behind-the-scenes repairs, renovations and improvements to our residence halls and academic buildings. Each year they take on projects that improve things like heating, ventilation, lighting and carpet without a lot of fanfare, but these annual improvements to our living and learning environments make a huge difference for Whitworth's students.
Athletics
(I'm making a habit of relying on our sports information director for news in athletics, but he does a great job. Here's this month's report from Steve Flegel, '89.)
The cross-country teams got out of the gate quickly in their first meet, the Whitman Invitational. Kristi Dickey and Elaine Heinemann finished first and second, respectively, to lead Whitworth's women to a team victory over NCAA Division II Northwest Nazarene and host Whitman. Doug Blackburn won the men's race, while Jacob Dietz finished third. The Pirate men finished second as a team, losing to NNU by just one point.
The volleyball team competed well at the Washington University Classic, in St. Louis.The Pirates finished 3-1 to take second place in the event, losing only to the hosts, who are ranked No. 1 in the preseason Division III volleyball poll. Along the way the Bucs defeated Illinois Wesleyan, Dominican (Ill.), and Rhodes (Tenn.), all by 3-0 scores. Julie Marsh and Natalie Danielson were named to the all-tournament team.
The men's soccer team was impressive in its first matches of the season. Competing at the Linfield Wildcat Classic, Whitworth defeated Redlands and Corban (formerly Western Baptist) by 3-1 scores. Redlands is the defending SCIAC champion, while Corban is a favorite in the NAIA Cascade Conference. Niko Varlamos and Todd Sabrowski, the leading scorers in the NWC last season, each scored a goal in both matches. Ali Seyedali was named the tournament's MVP.
The women's soccer team had a bit rougher start at its own Whitworth Soccer Invitational. The Pirates dropped their season opener 1-0 to Cal State East Bay (formerly Cal State Hayward) in overtime. The Pirates had plenty of chances to score in regulation, but could not quite finish. In the second match of the tournament, Whitworth tied Chapman, a 2004 NCAA tournament participant, 1-1. Marissa Williams' scored for the Bucs.
Whitworth's golf teams open the fall schedule this week with a dual match at Whitman. The men, with a new lineup, will be out to defend the conference title they won last fall. The women are still working hard to complete their squad.
The football team opens the 2005 season on Saturday against Redlands in the Pine Bowl. With 14 returning starters among the 75 players on this year's roster, optimism is high for another good season following a 7-2 finish in 2004.
On Sept. 17, as part of Whitworth's Homecoming festivities, the Whitworth Heritage Gallery Hall of Fame will induct its Class of 2005. The 1996 men's swim team, which finished as NAIA national runners-up, will be inducted as a group. And the ceremony will feature the Rice family and its lasting impact on the Whitworth men's swim team. Twins Jeff and Jerry Rice, both '97, along with younger brothers Brian, '00, and Brent, '02, were all All-America swimmers who led Whitworth to its current level of prominence in the sport. The team and the brothers (Brent's honor is posthumous) will be inducted during a morning brunch and then be recognized at halftime of the football game against La Verne.
Alumni
If you ordered the print version of the 2005 alumni directory, you will soon get 430 pages of alumni information. The CD-ROM version is in the final stages of production and should be shipped soon. If you purchased a printed directory and have not yet received it, please e-mail Alumni Director Tad Wisenor, '89, at twisenor@whitworth.edu.
Join Southern California alumni, parents and friends for a unique look at one of L.A.'s architectural treasures, the Gilmore Adobe at the Farmer's Market, and enjoy time with Theology Professor Jerry Sittser and me, on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 2-5 p.m. Cost for food and fun is only $10, and you can sign up on the alumni website.
Closing Thoughts
We're off to a good start. Yesterday, at Convocation, I referred to the story of Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, James and John to leave their boats and follow him. I think God calls ordinary people, in the midst of their ordinary lives, to follow. That includes students and alums. I marvel at the amazing contributions our alumni are making all over the world. Many of them first heard the voice when they were students here. I pray that voice will be heard here again this year. Thank you so much for your part in the Whitworth community.
