Community Day

February 6, 2004

Good morning! I would like to welcome all of you to our Spring Community Day 2004, a time we set aside to exchange information with one another, renew friendships, cultivate new associations, and celebrate the activities we share together on Manitou Heights. First, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new members of the College community—their names are listed on the insert page of your program. Secondly, a hearty welcome home to all those who are returning to campus from sabbatical leave, or semester or interim abroad assignments. It is good to be back together as we embark on a new academic term.

Unlike communities that spring up through the happenstances of time and place, educational institutions like St. Olaf are intentional communities, formed to carry out a specific purpose. In just a few days, the relatively serene atmosphere that we have enjoyed here on campus this past week will be disrupted in an exciting and invigorating way, as nearly 3000 students return for spring semester. These students, along with more than 300 professors, will once again plunge into the enterprise of teaching and learning that is the central reason for the existence of this beautiful campus. But in order to fulfill the mission of St. Olaf College--to educate young people in mind, body, and spirit—an equal number of dedicated staff, who see to the support of the academic program, who tend to the spiritual and psychological needs of our students, who provide them with meaningful opportunities for recreation and socialization, who prepare their food, keep clean and repair their living quarters and classrooms, and care for the physical environment that surrounds them, will shift into high gear. Indeed, the college employs nearly 800 faculty and staff who are collectively dedicated to these tasks. As a College of the church, rooted in the Christian Gospel, St. Olaf seeks to foster a community of workers who consider their call to work as a vocation—or an answer to God’s call to be servant-leaders to our fellow human beings, thus modeling the kinds of lives of worth and service of which our mission statement speaks. Interestingly enough, college communities extend even beyond those who are immediately present on campus. St. Olaf, in over its nearly 130-year history, has graduated some 30,000 alumni, who are an important part of our life and our existence; and we likewise embrace others, such as the parents of our students and the many who have become friends and supporters of the College over the years.

One of the remarkable things that I have noticed about this community in my nearly three decades of service in it is its incredible knowledge of, and devotion to our mission. In fact, this dedication to mission has been noticed and remarked on by others from outside St. Olaf. For example, many of you will recall that last spring we underwent our ten-year re-accreditation visit by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. During my exit interview with the team of evaluators, the chair of that committee, who has conducted many such reviews over the years, commented to me that one of the most noteworthy features that his team had encountered at St. Olaf, a feature that they claimed was unique among colleges that they had evaluated, was the entire community’s impressive awareness of, and dedication to the mission of the place. In fact, they related that they had never encountered such an awareness of mission from ALL segments of the community, students, staff, administration, and faculty. Such dedication to our common cause is, of course, the bedrock upon which our community is built and the major key to any successes that we enjoy. At my first faculty meeting after taking office as Dean and Provost of the College, I asked my faculty colleagues to remember, in each and every contemplated action connected with St. Olaf, to ask themselves this one simple, but ultimately critical question before acting: “Will my action or decision work toward what is best for our students?” If this question remains foremost in all of our minds, no matter in what capacity we are involved in the work of the College, we will promote our mission, and ultimately the education of our students.

When I think of the St. Olaf community, the metaphor of the body that St. Paul invokes in connection with the church often comes to my mind. Most of you will recall this wonderful passage from his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 12):

The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you”…. God has so adjusted the body…that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Of course, because this community, like all other earthly communities, is subject to the frailties of human nature, we often fall short of the ideal. We neglect, ignore, or sometimes even cause the suffering of one of our members; and we all too often forget, or even purposely avoid rejoicing over the honor of another. Indeed, those who are most intimately involved with the process of teaching and learning must remember that teaching and learning could not proceed effectively without the good work of others who support it with daily, indefatigable, and oftentimes behind-the-scenes efforts; and those more distantly removed from the activities in the classroom must likewise remember that those activities of teaching and learning are indeed central, the reason for the College’s very existence, and that their actions are crucial for the support of such. Like the eye, the ear, the foot, and the hand, we as members of the community need constantly to remind ourselves that we must function as a whole, for the good of the whole.

When we do remember our interdependence, wonderful things happen. Certainly the chief reason for the great successes that St. Olaf has enjoyed for more than a century is the fact that members of this community have, more often than not, chosen to act as members of one body, rather than as separate entities. The most recent and most vivid example of such effective community interaction in my own life occurred this past summer, when I was privileged to participate with a cross section of the St. Olaf community in the construction of the Memorial Chime Tower. Later this morning, you will all have an opportunity to hear and see many of the details about that project. Let me simply say here that in many ways the project exemplified what is best about the St. Olaf community.

The impetus for the project came from the William Narum family, itself a kind of microcosm of the St. Olaf Community. Many of you certainly know the Narums well: Bill and Jeannie were both students at St. Olaf, then long-time employees. Bill taught philosophy, religion, and just about everything else at St. Olaf for nearly a half a century. The Narum children are alums of the college. After Bill’s passing a few years back, the family decided to give a gift to the college that was earmarked for fostering a greater sense of community among a contingent of faculty (especially young, tenure-track faculty), staff, and administrators. The creative thinking of the Narum family along with that of Pastor Benson, Greg Kneser, Pete Sandberg, Jim Fisher, other members of the grounds crew, a few faculty, staff, and others, devised a scheme that would not only provide an opportunity for community building among a cross-section of the current St. Olaf community, but would reach beyond to honor members of the community from the past, who had, in fact, passed away while enrolled as students at the College. Other alums and friends of the college donated the building materials, while the Narum gift was used to pay for lodging, food, and tuition for this group of 15 to learn the techniques of timber framing in order to construct the impressive Memorial Tower that you all just passed as you entered the chapel.

As we worked together up north, cutting the mortise and tenons and fitting those massive timbers, I can assure you that there was no glorification of the eye, the ear, the hand, or the foot at the expense of the body as a whole. Young faculty members and not-so-young faculty members, administrators, staff, members of grounds and facilities forgot their differences and their stations in life and remembered to rejoice together in honoring other members of this community, gone but not forgotten. Through our very actions, we formed a bond, not only among ourselves, but also with our instructors, with the people of Grand Marais, and more importantly with past and present generations of students and their parents and families. The result stands directly south of this building as a strong and permanent reminder of this community, and of the truth that stands at the foundation of any great community, past or present—namely that the body as a whole, the community, is a larger and more important thing than any one member or group of members of which it is comprised.

Taking that spirit as our paradigm for the future, I hope that we all will humbly remember our own roles and the important part that each of us contributes to the body as a whole. We have much here for which to be grateful, and much to anticipate as we enter this new academic semester. In December, the Board of Regents formally adopted the College’s new strategic plan, whose major planks include strengthening the academic program through the building of new science facilities; working hard to create a more inclusive community; and planning diligently and prudently to ensure a sustainable economic future for the College. In January, a new faculty task force was formed to evaluate our decade-old General Education program. In just a few short weeks, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum will return to St. Olaf, bringing with it an impressive array of speakers including Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland and former President Jimmy Carter. The music department will continue the gala celebration of its centennial with several extraordinary performances by extraordinary performers. Theatre productions, dance recitals, spring sports events, and exciting classes are in store as we anticipate the melting of this snow and the re-emergence of spring.

Dean Eida Berrio and those who have helped to plan this day have provided a full slate of various activities, many of which touch precisely upon these topics and themes that play such an important role in our lives together. I hope that all of you will spend the next several hours, garnering new information, talking with old friends, meeting and welcoming new ones, and just plain having fun—what else should a community of learners be doing on a cold Minnesota day in February?!