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Christopher M. Thomforde installed as St. Olaf Colleges 10th president

mjc
April 29, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. (Sunday, April 29) ? Christopher Meredith Thomforde was inaugurated as St. Olaf College?s 10th president in an historic and colorful academic ceremony today at the college.

Thomforde, 54, bowed his head as a four-inch silver medallion on a silver chain was placed around his neck by Martin E. Marty of Chicago, Ill., chair of the St. Olaf Board of Regents, and Jerrol M. Tostrud of Eagan, Minn., vice chair of the board of regents. The presentation was witnessed by more than 3,000 people, including former Ambassador to Norway Sidney Rand, one of three St. Olaf presidents emeriti who participated, and the Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Thomforde emphasized to the audience that the college?s mission statement and strategic plan "express our commitment to diversity. Our financial aid program is need-blind. Our curriculum has always featured study of foreign languages and diverse cultures. We are the leader in international studies, sending two-thirds of our students overseas for direct international, multicultural experience.

"We currently have 2,000 students working through 40 student volunteer organizations to make the community a better and more humane place," Thomforde added. "We have much to celebrate." But he said St. Olaf should seek "to sharpen our commitment to the vocation of service: service to the poor, to the forgotten, to those on the fringes of society. I would like to direct this mighty river of good work (St. Olaf College) with all of its creative and energetic tributaries toward social justice."

Thomforde?s inauguration started and ended with a procession of 350 faculty members from 75 other colleges and universities ? all garbed in robes with the distinctive colors of their institutions and academic disciplines. It was punctuated with music by the renowned St. Olaf Choir and the St. Olaf Orchestra, and included choreography created for the inauguration by St. Olaf dance faculty member Janice Roberts and music composed for the event by music faculty member Peter Hamlin.

The inauguration was the highlight of four days of gala events that started Thursday, April 26, and included five concerts, two worship services, two performances of a Roman comedy, an art exhibit, a dance festival, a community celebration and a spectacular fireworks display.

Guest speaker for the event was librarian of Congress James Billington, a personal friend and former Princeton professor of Thomforde?s. As librarian of Congress, Billington oversees the world?s largest repository of knowledge ? more than 28 million printed items and 119 million items in all formats. As librarian of Congress he follows in the footsteps of poet and writer Archibald MacLeish and author and historian Daniel Boorstin.

Thomforde was named president of the 126-year-old St. Olaf College last September following an extensive national search. He began work as the college?s president on Jan. 15. The college, an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is nationally recognized for its quality liberal arts curriculum and its international studies programs.

Thomforde summarized his view of the college by saying: "The mission of St. Olaf College is characterized by intellectual curiosity, creative expression and sacred passion. We celebrate and affirm this mission today. For well over a century the light of curiosity has been beaming from this hilltop. Let it shine brightly into a world which is too easily satisfied with the glib answer, the slick phrase and hollow moralism. Let curiosity light our way so that we might face life with clarity, with hope and with honesty.

"I call upon us to become faithful stewards of privilege," Thomforde added, "committing ourselves to be an institution of higher education and a community of the gospel which inspires its students, educates them and then launches them into lives, careers, vocations of service, and service to the poor. The many, many voices are calling to us, saying: Remember us, shelter us, comfort us, teach us and feed us. These are the voices of the poor! We dare not turn our faces away in fear. We dare not believe that the situation is too grave, too complex for us to make a difference. We dare not succumb to indifference, ignoring the cries and the signs of injustice all around us. We dare not believe cynically that the present state of affairs serves our economic and social ends. A global society built upon such extremes ? rich and poor, healthy and diseased, well-fed and malnourished, literate and uneducated ? cannot endure its own internal contradictions."

Thomforde graduated from Princeton in 1969 with a bachelor?s degree in medieval and Russian history. He earned a master?s of divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School (with concentrations in biblical studies, church history and philosophy), and he completed a doctor of ministry degree at Princeton Theological Seminary.

From 1996 until this year he was president of Bethany College, another ELCA college, in Lindsborg, Kan. Before that he served for 10 years as chaplain of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa. He also served as a parish pastor in Dansville, N.Y., where he did work at Attica prison and was named Citizen of the Year; served as assistant chaplain at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y.; and, after learning Mandarin Chinese, taught western languages and medieval European history for two years at Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Thomforde grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and graduated from Long Island Lutheran High School. He is married to Christine Stone Thomforde, a registered nurse and accomplished cellist. They have three grown children.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.