"FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS"

The Inaugural Address of John C. Reynders

Delivered on Friday, April 7, 2000

Bishop Jordan, Cy and Nancy, past and present members of the Board, distinguished delegates and representatives, faculty, administration, staff, students, dear friends and family---

I stand before you honored and humbled to take my place as the twelfth president of this fine college. To all of you--my deep and sincere thanks for your presence, for I do not regard this as a ceremony for one person, but as the celebration of an ideal and a promise that were given to all of us long ago. Today as we join with each other, we are also joined by those whose presence cannot be seen but whose influence and aspirations are palpable--those students and teachers and tireless architects of our past. In this moment, we must be willing to feel the weight of their dreams as they press into our hands, for ours is an historical, collaborative enterprise.

I have chosen to base my remarks to you this day on a passage from the Book of Esther. At the beginning of this story from the Old Testament, Esther is like many of us. She assumes that her role in life has been determined by certain limitations of her background; she allows customs, habits, and the expectations of others to circumscribe her sense of herself and the power she possesses. But fate and circumstances awaken her. At a critical moment in the history of her people, Esther comes to realize that she has been placed on this earth to do a greater good than she ever imagined. The story of Esther teaches us that "for such a time as this" we have all been called upon to think and act beyond self-interest, to exceed our supposed limitations, and to attempt contributions that we never considered possible--because there is a neediness in this world that each one of us is capable of addressing in our own particular way.

"For such a time as this." Think for a moment about all that phrase suggests. A time such as the dawning of a new millennium. A time such as this instance in the history of a great college. A time such as this when each day holds infinite possibilities for work to be done in the world.

As many of you know, I am inspired by the history of this place. I revel in the pioneering spirit of people like Edwin C. Peters, who donated the very land we sit upon today. I can identify with Mr. Peters, another Pennsylvanian who came west to start a new life--but I would hope that he would not see me as one of those "stiff-necked...eastern people" he was trying to escape. I am moved by the memory of those board members who on April 8, 1890, 110 years ago almost to this very day, voted to lay the cornerstone of Charles City Hall. They dreamed of an institution where, in the words of Bishop Charles H. Fowler, "strong, eager students [would] fill its halls, where noble [people] with noble purposes [would] go out from its doors to do battle with ignorance, and error, and bigotry." They told us that building a college was not a "work for the day, to be completed and the laborers discharged, their responsibilities ended," but a work that was to be "continuous, stretching out through the years and the generations."

Back then, the Sioux City Journal praised the goals of these founding visionaries but cautioned them that "There will be periods of discouragement maybe; periods of financial stress no doubt." Yet the Journal felt assured that the institution would prevail because, as they put it, "these good Methodist brethren are strong in their faith, earnest in their work, and zealous in their good name."

And indeed, from its earliest days as the University of the Northwest, this college has lived through many periods of discouragement. But at each turn there have always been those who bore witness in action to that lesson from Esther--those who summoned the courage and possessed the conviction to lift above their own personal interests and hardships to serve a goal greater than themselves.  

For such difficult times as those in the past, the College was blessed with the likes of Lillian Dimmitt, beloved professor and Dean of students who served tirelessly at Morningside from 1893 until the 1960s, and G. W. Carr, first president of the College, who would say boldly about the founding of Morningside, "It ought to be done, and it shall be done." And they made it so. And Wilson Seeley Lewis, the second president, who could see that "a college in a cornfield" was actually fertile soil for an institution of higher learning. Through fires and wars, Morningsiders of all kinds--not just those of the presidential stripe--have always found the means by which Morningside would endure. We are an imaginative bunch. Imagination helped the College's seventh president, Earl Roadman, to successfully lead Morningside through the Great Depression. His famous "corn hunts" sent faculty, students, and clergymen into 165 surrounding communities to gather bushels that would eliminate the debt. Whether through corn hunts or through the evolution of a curriculum that holds firm to its traditional roots while adapting to the ever-changing needs of students, Morningside has always found the will and the means to go forward. That kind of initiative and tenaciousness comes only from those who fully understand the meaning of the phrase, "for such a time as this."       

Presently, however, people are less apt to appreciate what small schools like us have meant to students--and can still mean to them. And small private institutions find it difficult to articulate the value we know we possess. We all boast small student-to-faculty ratios, that we teach students not subjects, and that undergraduates prosper most when they work in close company with dedicated faculty. All these things and many more are as true and valuable as they were a century ago. Yet our public remains skeptical, reluctant to trust promises that cannot be readily quantified. The "non-commodity" of virtue is a very tough sell these days.

And so we small private colleges are left struggling to define what distinguishes us, what makes our form of education more compelling than that of our more sprawling counterparts.  We are vexed in our attempts to define ourselves to a world that ironically needs what we can do perhaps more than it ever did before.

In the case of Morningside, I believe that one significant characteristic that distinguishes us is the way this college instills in its students those lessons from Esther. The proof is in our graduates. Over the decades their lives have been testimony to how higher education can be connected with the "real world," knowledge with action, the acquisition of a degree with the ethical commitment to making a meaningful life not just a living. It's not that students who go other places cannot achieve these goals, but at this place the outcome is never serendipitous; the methods are modeled every day in every corner of this institution. It is not chance but choice--on our part and theirs--that leads our graduates to these conclusions.

Morningside produces people like Jim Walker, president and CEO at Old Northwest Agents, Inc., in Minneapolis; Jerry Chicoine, president of Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Des Moines; and Norm Waitt, chairman of the board and CEO, Gold Circle Entertainment, Inc., Omaha --notable not only for their virtuoso performances in business and industry, but even more notable because they support student exchange ventures, build theatres and performing arts programs, lead civic organizations, and take active roles in their local churches. Or a Dr. Terry Roberts, who by day discovers drug therapies to combat viruses like AIDS and in his off hours charters and coaches youth sports programs. Or the numerous graduates who have embraced education for its nobility as a profession:  Clarence VerSteeg, who after his days at Columbia went on to give 36 years of service to the students of Northwestern University; Craig Wansink, our keynote speaker for this morning's symposium, whose days as an economics major at Morningside led him to Yale and then to his present post as an innovative professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Weslyan; and Jim Graeber, recently featured in our alumni magazine. This elementary school teacher and principal viewed the poverty and low achievement levels of an inner city school in Des Moines as the very best place for an educator who truly wanted to transform the lives of those who "didn't get a fair break in life"--and did exactly that.

I have a story for you that I think crystallizes Morningside's belief that being truly educated means being fully prepared to do whatever life asks of us. It is the story of United Airlines Flight #232.  For those of you who have only seen the record of this air disaster in the now-famous film footage, Sioux City is where it all happened, and Morningside played a role that I doubt you ever heard about. On that day in 1989, when Sioux Gateway Airport became the emergency destination of the crippled jetliner, an entire town mobilized. In that instance, Morningside and our good neighbor Briar Cliff became more than colleges of classrooms and dormitories, and its people were became more than teachers, students, administrators, and staff. Everyday skills and talents were to be put into critical operation as this site became "command central" for the FAA, the Red Cross, the NTSB.

Students and professionals from the nursing department took their posts in hospital emergency rooms and burn units. Our public affairs department fielded media requests and frantic phone calls from D.C. to Oslo and answered the grim need for photographers at the makeshift morgue.

The administration instantly transformed Dimmitt Hall into an emergency hotel. Students, administration, and staff changed beds; scheduled wake-up calls; and shuttled investigators and families to and from the crash site, hospitals, and hotels. Students and Marriott employees coordinated the regular donations of food. Student affairs counselors stood constant vigil with the emotional victims of this disaster. Clergy and lay alike offered silent prayers and assuring words. As President Miles Tommeraason was to say in the aftermath, "Never in my life have I seen a coming together of people, not only the Siouxland community but particularly at Morningside College. The staff, faculty, students, and area alumni worked extremely hard and from the heart." For such a time as this, Morningside's response was able, collaborative, compassionate, and absolutely reflexive.  

This is what a place like Morningside teaches:  that when the rituals of your everyday existence are suddenly superseded by a larger calling, you answer that call; that when the education you thought you'd apply in one way provides the opportunity to serve in another, you seize that opportunity; that when circumstances set requirements you never set for yourself, you rise to the occasion, lock arms with your neighbor, and do what must be done--willingly, selflessly, and with gratitude that you were blessed with the ability and preparation to do so.

As we gather today, in the 105th year of this institution, the message seems so abundantly clear to me:  for such a time as this, the world needs Morningside College. This is our calling:   to preserve and protect our heritage; to refine and improve what we have always done so well; to ensure the fiscal life of this good and sturdy college; and to be an agent of transformation through every person--every teacher, doctor, businessperson, minister, artist, researcher, counselor, community leader, volunteer, and parent that claims Morningside as alma mater.

Even if we never consider ourselves to be Lillian Dimmitts or Earl Roadmans, we must follow in their footsteps and become visionaries--all of us, locked arm in arm, recalling what President A. E. Craig said in 1911:  a vision "should impart the insight to penetrate the rough exterior of things and view the radiant reality that is never seen by the eye of the senses. Many will see only the surface, the temporary . . .; they miss entirely the abiding, the invisible, the essential."

Let us not miss what is essential. We must begin with an affirmation that the central enterprise of this institution is teaching and learning. On the surface that sounds rather simplistic or self-evident. But remember President Craig's admonition about seeing only the surface of things. If we delve deeper into that assertion it reveals that the goal of producing truly educated graduates--and I mean that in the fullest sense of the phrase--is the yardstick by which everything we do or consider doing should be measured. Implicitly that statement clarifies the role and responsibilities of every constituency that is connected with this college--every faculty member, every administrator, every staff person, every alum, every director, every president.

As for our faculty, they are the lifeblood of this institution. In 1964, a survey conducted by the University Senate of the Methodist Church stated, "The loyalty of its teachers is one of Morningside's richest assets"--an observation of astounding consistency throughout our history. That loyalty is demonstrated daily in the high degree of dedication this faculty shows toward the students they mentor. We must recognize their loyalty and the indispensable role they play as intellectual models for students. We must devise the ways to support and promote the professional development that will sustain them as scholars and energize them as educators. Ultimately, it is the sole province of faculty to set the mark to which our students will aspire; we must insist that they set that mark high. Our students deserve no less.

As for our staff and administration, we must never forget the essential roles they play in the lives of students. As friends, providers, and supervisors, they have enormous potential to affect student satisfaction. They must work every day to make Morningside a more effective and caring environment.  

Our students deserve no less. If we are to be guided by the centrality of teaching and learning, that will dictate the hard decisions we must make about the allocation of resources--both human and monetary. We must admit that where we dedicate our resources shows who we really are, and no amount of rhetoric will obscure the truth from the public we serve. Our focus on teaching and learning must establish the very contours of the culture we wish to create and maintain--a culture where there is no clear line that separates the curricular and co-curricular aspects of a student's life; where a residence hall can just as easily be a place to learn as a laboratory; where the high school student's dichotomy between academics and entertainment gives way to the realization that one can become the other--a culture that gives no berth to narrowness or mediocrity or anti-intellectual attitudes.  

The centrality of teaching and learning also suggests that we must constantly be gauging the needs of teachers and learners--asking ourselves how we can best connect with a student population that presents escalating diversity in learning styles, secondary preparation, and professional objectives. We must constantly assess our effectiveness in responding to these diverse needs. For instance, we must aggressively explore the developing tools of technology, not because technology is fashionable, but because technology is pedagogically powerful; it holds enormous potential to expand our regional boundaries through virtual connections with scholars and institutions worldwide.

We must grow ever more inventive in creating the synergistic relationships we have unleashed between our traditional programs in the liberal arts and those in the pre-professional disciplines. Morningside can congratulate itself on having taken such an early lead in modernizing the definition of the liberal arts in this manner. The core program is clear evidence of our belief that study in one area cannot and should not be divorced from the other. As our symposium sessions so ably demonstrated this morning, what businessperson is not better served when her professional decisions are informed by ethical questions and her personal life enriched by an enjoyment in the arts? What biologist is not stronger for an understanding of the marketplace forces that will come to bear on his research findings? Morningside must capitalize on the way in which it fuses the traditional and the pre-professional and step forth as a model for other institutions that are just now realizing what our insights and common sense taught us decades ago.

Finally, we must acknowledge the essential need for abiding support and belief in our mission from those living and working beyond our walls--from our Board of Directors, our many faithful and generous alumni, our good friends in the region and beyond. They too must help us craft our vision for the future and help us enhance our reputation among those prospective students and their families who thirst for the kind of education we can provide. They are the ones who can persuade others that the critical human dimension of small private colleges can never be supplanted in the large universities or through an Internet connection.

And here is perhaps the most essential idea of all, there is no magic formula to ensure the life and vigor of an institution, no silver bullet to solve all its problems. The vision of a college should never be the product of one person. It cannot be centered on a single issue. Every person who is connected to Morningside must do more than simply hope good things will happen. We must make them happen.

Once we understand the essentials, we must be willing to act. Be assured, schools like Morningside will be besieged by unprecedented challenges in the next decade, and the challenges will demand change. And change will demand courage:   the courage to accept that alterations are necessary if we want to succeed in the 21st century; the courage to decide prudently what course will ensure our success--even if that course differs from what we knew as former students or professors or administrators; and finally the courage to act upon what we know is right, not just for ourselves but for Morningside. As Bishop Lewis instructed us so long ago, "the difficult work of building a college is a work that is never done." All of us must be bold and selfless in lending our hands in the construction.  

As we celebrate this moment in the life of this great college, I am reminded of the words of Walt Whitman: "the powerful play goes on, and you can contribute a verse." As you leave this assembly today, decide what your verse will be. Be guided in your choice by the motto emblazoned on the seal of this institution:  "Kala Kagatha"; the beautiful, the good. Be inspired by the history of Morningside to see "the abiding, the invisible, the essential." Be instructed by the lessons from Esther and know, that for such a time as this, we have all been summoned, each in his or her own way, to answer a calling. In the spirit of Morningside, be ready and willing to answer.