Presented on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Weaver Chapel
I cannot begin with anything other than expressing my deep, heartfelt thanks to everyone. It is such an honor to be selected to be Wittenberg’s President and then to have so many put so much time and effort into these amazing events of this week. I am sure you would wish that it would render me speechless, but alas, it has not. Again, thank you. I don’t want to leave anyone out, but thank you so much to those who have travelled so far to be here! Our friends from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, presidential colleagues; peers, mentors, and friends all. Thank you.
I want to particularly thank Ken and Nancy, Elizabeth’s parents and the best in-laws anyone could have hoped for; you are a blessing. Of course, most of all I am deeply grateful and thankful for Elizabeth and Izzy and their constant and consistent support. I would not and could not be here without Elizabeth.
When we first arrived on campus back on May 9th for the announcement of my appointment, I made the remark that Elizabeth and I felt the day was like a wedding; you know the schedule for the day, and you know the script, and you know that your life will be forever changed. The last five months have been an incredible time of activity, transition, joy, and hope. One might even call it a honeymoon period.
If that was the wedding day, today is much like a renewal of our vows – just as three weeks ago during Homecoming weekend, ten Wittenberg couples renewed their wedding vows on the Kissing Bridge, Elizabeth and I included. That morning, we all pledged, in the words of the service, “to remain faithful to one another, affirming again the covenant which [we] have made, [to] grow in forgiveness, loyalty, and love.” So, as Chair Edwards read in the Resolution a few minutes ago, we are here to renew our commitment to one another and to the mission of Wittenberg University, even as we ask for the grace to “move forward in hope and confidence of our future.”
The readings for this inauguration were selected because they speak of the importance of recognizing our past, even as we look to the future in hope. Most Christians only know this portion of Lamentations that we read, yet the book is actually five, excruciatingly powerful laments about the destruction of Jerusalem. (It also happens to have been the subject of my doctorate, many articles, and two of my books!) The fact is, we often forego lament and jump straight into the hope. This deprives us of the emotional need to reflect and even repent. Revelation 3, on the other hand, is all about hope and the future of all creation, the re-creation, where God will make “all things new.” Don’t worry! This will not be a sermon, although you are welcome to join me back here for services this Sunday morning at 11!
Yet this juxtaposition of readings helps us to consider the Wittenberg experience, reflecting honestly on our past, including hurts and griefs, while looking to the future in hope and promise. The choice isn’t between do we acknowledge the past OR move forward into the future. It is a “both/and” situation. We must acknowledge BOTH where we have come from, what we have come through, as individuals and communities, AND live forward into the hope of and building for the future.
At this year’s Convocation I spoke about the importance of hope and how it is a necessary initial position to maintain if we are to move forward. These first steps of trust, leaning into and accepting the grace of beginning, must be done in hope. We look forward and move into the future with the confidence and faith that it will be well. It may not be what we expect, but by planning and acting now, we will be ready to embrace what tomorrow brings. That is hope: the expectation that it will all work out, that what we do today matters for tomorrow and, that there is nothing that is irredeemable, that all things can and will be made new.
The Future as the Past – Rooted in the Liberal Arts
Now, on this Inauguration Day, as we move in hope and faith to chart the future of Wittenberg, we must be firmly grounded in our past, in our Mission to be and remain a “liberal arts university.” Yet what does that mean? Some have told me that we gave up on that mission when we allowed courses in business to be taught and practical majors to be put into the curriculum. So far as my research into Wittenberg’s history reveals, that happened nearly 100 years ago. One might even argue that preparing people for pastoral ministry was a sort of “practical major” and that was the very foundation of Wittenberg College.
Indeed, some would say that we left our roots, ripped them up out from the ground, when we merged Hamma Divinity School with Capital in 1978 to create Trinity Lutheran Seminary. The question is, how we define our Mission, what do we believe it means to be a “liberal arts university.” There are myriad definitions of a liberal arts education, let us define it for ourselves, define who we are and what path we will follow.
We might even call it, the Wittenberg Way.
Historically, the liberal arts, which comes from the sense of “liberal” to mean “free” – and it has nothing to do with any political or social connotation of liberal versus conservative – historically, going back to Ancient Greek philosophers, it was about how one became a “free person,” a person who had learned both knowledge and wisdom in order to be able to take an active part in civic life. This ancient notion was articulated in the medieval period as the “seven liberal arts,” made up of the trivium (so close to “trivial”) and the quadrivium: rhetoric, grammar, and logic; astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music.
My two-sentence summary of the history of the liberal arts is embarrassing to the the historian in me, but I am sure it is a relief to you! It is enough for us to see, that these seven pillars of the liberal arts – rhetoric, grammar, logic, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music – provide the foundation of all contemporary study. We do not have marketing and business without understanding rhetoric and mathematics; we do not have engineering without understanding mathematics, geometry, and logic.
Those of us in the fields of the humanities have, I think, done a grave disservice by allowing and fostering a distinction between what we call “professional” degrees and our often haughtily defined “academic” degrees. We have unnecessarily given the ground on the importance of foundational matters, as if being educated means one is not also capable of being a professional, of doing *gasp* work.
The distinction to be made is not by subject matter, business as opposed to, say, history, but by how one learns.
Is education learning or training? Is it sophia or techne, wisdom or practical knowledge? Is it study rather than apprenticeship? I would argue that one can best learn practical knowledge from a foundation of wisdom and learning. After all, only “fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
HOW we learn is what sets apart the Wittenberg experience.
All our students are and will be prepared for productive and successful careers precisely because they are shaped and formed by this fundamental principle of the liberal arts, which is: learning. That present continuous tense of “to learn.” We have not learned; we are learning; always.
It is the process of gaining knowledge, not only the rote repetition, which brings skill, but also the understanding of why not simply how.
It is the ability to reason and wrestle with problems that builds the ability to think critically, allowing our students not only to know how to answer ONE problem, but to understand the process by which they can address ANY problem.
It is the opening of the mind that enables self-reflection and personal growth, a deepening of faith that is only possible when partnered with reason.
It is the development of language, logic, and thought that enables our students to articulate why they believe something to be true.
It is the broad foundation and appreciation of what it means to be human, to not simply “do” but to “be.” And I might even note that God’s name, YHWH, is the verb “to be.” Being human, that is at the heart of the Wittenberg experience.
This is lovely idealism, but what of the “practical arts” of “workforce readiness”? How do we ensure that our students are ready for the world? For many, vocational training is exactly the right decision, yet being educated does not mean one is not capable.
Consider AI - Artificial Intelligence. There is no question that the seemingly sudden emergence of AI in our everyday lives is having a significant impact. And there will be for many the opportunity to build and develop these systems and their applications. But this is not new. My father did his master’s thesis on artificial intelligence all the way back in 1969! For most of us, AI is and will be like the internet, PowerPoint, or working with an “agency of record.” It is disruptive, yes, but simply another tool that our students need to understand, and we will ensure that they do. We will also ensure that they consider the ethical applications and implications of AI.
It is already becoming clear that the jobs that are most threatened by AI are precisely the ones that have been put forward over the last quarter of a century as the ideal careers for our students: computer programming, finance, accounting. These are all already being supplanted by AI. What can NOT be supplanted by AI is humanity. BEING human.
The liberal arts are the human arts. The knowledge and wisdom gained through a liberal arts educational experience prepares our students to engage with people, to listen and understand their needs, concerns, and goals. The liberal arts student learns how to ask the proper questions and consider the moral and ethical ramifications of their answers. Perhaps we should be known not only as a liberal arts university, but as a human university.
The liberal arts prepares leaders.
The CEOs, directors, leaders are the ones who understand the broader context, who can see not just the immediate problem in front of them, but the entire system that is at work and their ultimate goal. They are the coach who is not skilled in only one position but supports and deploys each individual player to achieve their best for the team’s goals.
It is broad-based, knowledge-imparting, wisdom-forming education that prepares and enables one to lead.
The Wittenberg Way
This is all in keeping with the foundation of Wittenberg, even when forming Christian ministers was at the heart of Wittenberg’s mission. Samuel Sprecher, our second President reminded the Board of Directors at his inaugural address of Luther’s phrase, “to pray well is to study well.” The study of the world, in all its facets, is an act of prayer and worship. In other words, it is what engages us fully, heart, mind, body, and soul.
Sprecher also said in that same address, that it is “proper…especially at Wittenberg College…to let the student inquire at the oracles of nature as well as those of revelation, to teach [them] to love all true knowledge.” The love of all true knowledge. That is the liberal arts.
In the pursuit of true knowledge, we find our calling – a distinctive and vital, life-giving element of the Wittenberg experience, finding that place where your deepest joy, meets the world’s deepest need, to paraphrase Frederick Buechner.
The Wittenberg Way then, is the both/and of learning and life.
The Wittenberg Way of learning develops in our students the wisdom and knowledge of deep thinking. along with the skills and traits needed for practical application. Through the love of ALL true knowledge, they come to know themselves, discerning their calling and purpose in life.
The Wittenberg Way of learning prepares nurses not simply to provide the service a patient needs; they are also able to relate to them as people with lives and experiences that have shaped and formed them.
The Wittenberg Way of learning enables business majors to become business leaders, entrepreneurs, and humanists who understand the humanity of economics, who recognize that finances impact families, and who are successful and conscientious.
The Wittenberg Way of learning equips majors of English, History, Political Science, Education, Theatre, Sociology…students in any subject to be leaders in their chosen field, to be mayors and senators, to be coaches, pastors, governors, CEOs, and presidents.
The Wittenberg Way of learning broadens students’ perspectives to consider not only themselves and their community, but to understand that we are a part of a “cloud of witnesses,” a part of all humanity and as such have moral and ethical responsibilities.
The Wittenberg Way of learning engages students holistically, through athletics, community leadership, and spiritual formation.
To put it in a sentence: “On the Wittenberg Way, our students discern their calling, develop the knowledge and skills needed for successful careers, and prepare for purposeful and fulfilling lives.”
Thank you for allowing me to join you on the Wittenberg Way.