To Our University Community,
Last week was my first Board of Directors meeting, and this past Sunday, September 28th, 180 years ago, Ezra Keller wrote in his journal about preparing for his first Board of Directors meeting. You have heard me regularly cite the final line before, but I wanted to share the full entry with you.
“Much sickness and mortality have prevailed in our community. My time has been consumed, in superintending the building of my church, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. Glad will I be when I shall be released from the secular business which necessity now imposes upon me. Yesterday I prepared my annual report for the Board of Directors, to whose meeting, at Wooster, I expect to start tomorrow. During the year I traveled three thousand two hundred miles, not including short distances: I preached one hundred and seventy-two sermons, and delivered a number of addresses; organized one congregation; put two churches in progress of erection; collected for college six thousand dollars, for churches one thousand dollars; instructed four theological students two hours each day, during the summer. For strength to perform this labor, I render my thanks to God. The more toil, the more grace.”
The world has changed much in 180 years. There have been wars — including a Civil War — massive economic shifts, up and down, and even the size of the United States has changed dramatically since 1845. When Keller wrote the above, Florida had just joined the Union and Texas would join before the end of the year, bringing the total states to two dozen plus two.
Wittenberg has changed dramatically as well. We have seen periods of expansion and contraction, shifts from a primary purpose of training men for Christian ministry, to (more than 75 years ago) career preparation, and even the introduction of athletics beyond the felling of trees and construction of what would become Myers Hall. Wittenberg (and our country) are still here, changed, transformed, and yet still rooted in our mission and values.
While I have little doubt that Ezra Keller would be shocked and perhaps even appalled at the nature of our institution today and likely with its new president (an Episcopalian? absurd), I resonate with his journal entry, even his opening comments about the ministrations needed in the community in the year prior. There has been much sorrow in the past year in our community. Already in my first three months, there has been the need to tend and care for those who grieve. There is much healing to be done and, I, too, render my thanks to God, as I believe that much healing has begun.
As you know, Elizabeth and I have had occasion for real, personal grief and mourning in our lives, and even before that deep loss, my academic research sought to understand how Jews and Christians respond to catastrophe and upheaval. One key element of health and healing in such times is honest lament, to look at the past with a critical eye – able to celebrate and rejoice in the beauty and joy experienced, while also acknowledging the hardships and difficulties, and then to lift up our eyes to the joys of the present and to plan for the future – and that is exactly what we will do at Wittenberg.
On Monday, October 6, we will join together to consider the strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results that our SOAR team has generated during this first phase of our strategic planning process, which will eventually set our future course. I offer my sincerest thanks to the SOAR team for its tremendous work to date, and I am hopeful that our discussion will be honest and fruitful.
As we plan for the future, we also must celebrate the joys of the present, and what a joy it was to see so many alumni, families, and friends smiling, laughing, and engaging during Homecoming, Reunion, and Family Weekend — another first for Elizabeth and me. Throughout the four days of events, multiple alumni and families shared with us how much more hopeful they were for Wittenberg’s future and how excited they were to be back.
I am fully aware that putting together an event of this size and scope is a heavy lift, but doing so during a Board meeting requires an extra measure of endurance. As such, I want to thank our Office of Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement, and all those who helped create an experience that touched many hearts.
With regard to the Board, the meetings went well, with the Board receiving various brief updates from Senior Staff members. Highlights include:
- The upcoming Week for Witt fundraising campaign, Oct. 18-24.
- Current academic restructuring conversations aimed at increasing integration and generating more efficiencies.
- The increased engagement among all student groups in campus events and the exploration of a new Wittenberg Chorale.
- Investments in residence life, including a new partnership with the management of our Witten'Burbs' properties and enhanced security features thanks to a recent grant.
- Increases in campus visits and in the admittance of students, along with plans to get financial aid awards out before the holidays commence.
- The renewed energy and sense of hope being felt on campus, which, when combined with all the new things happening, are helping to fuel increased positive engagement with Wittenberg.
Additionally, I discussed the current personal mission seminar I am teaching as part of our FYS program, the Ness family's generous funding of our strategic planning process, and the importance of showing (not telling) how the broad-based approach of the liberal arts enables us to understand and address complex issues. I also shared my initial thoughts around infusing more ethical leadership programming into our educational delivery model.
While we enter autumn with more hope and optimism, I know that there is much more work to be done. Just as Ezra Keller walked these weedy, muddy hills praying for God’s vision with “faith to believe, that in after years it will be an academic grove,” we, too, must continue to progress forward with confidence and faith.
I have been asked why I look back so often, and my response is this: I look back to the broad, proud, and not uncomplicated history of Wittenberg not with nostalgia (often a toxic impulse), but to get our bearings, to understand fully how we arrived at this moment in time and place. I look back so that we may critically assess the past and prepare us for our future, and I am encouraged by what I see.
There are no financial, cultural, political, or social challenges which Wittenberg has not already faced and overcome. We can and will do the same.
Yours,
Christian M. M. Brady, DPhil (Oxon.)
President