Fall 2016

Dear Member of the 1940 Class,

Luther College Homecoming was early this year, which presented a challenge to our many music groups to be ready for performance. They were up to it, however: Five choirs participated in the Sunday morning worship service, plus a brass ensemble and a jazz combo. The Symphony Orchestra and Concert Band are well on their way to a good year with long-standing conductors. Nordic Choir has an unusual situation this academic year—following the resignation of Allen Hightower late in the spring, too late for a proper replacement search—and there will be a succession of three conductors in the course of the year. Ann Howard Jones, professor emerita of music at Boston University, is the conductor for the fall semester. She is impressive; the choir sounded amazing at its Homecoming concert.

Two student awards were presented at the Sunday afternoon Homecoming Concert: the Theodore Presser Award, to an outstanding senior student majoring in music, and the Hemp Family Prize for Orchestral Performance. The Presser Award went to Pablo Gomez Estevez of the Dominican Republic; the Hemp Prize to Namuun Tsend-Ayush of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Luigi Enriquez of Racine, Wis., was announced the winner of the annual Alan R. and Sally J. Brudos Family Prize for Opera Performance. Our students represent all parts of the globe.

On the academic front, the Board of Regents has approved the addition of two new majors—data science and neuroscience—drawing on existing faculty strengths and linking up with the growing demand for qualified graduates in these burgeoning fields.

Special attention is being paid to the college’s enrollment and related budgetary issues. Two years ago there was a decline in enrollment, followed last year by a partial recovery, but then another decline this fall. Currently the total student body numbers around 2,150 (vs. a peak of 2,500 or so). The number of new students this semester is 552, 525 of them first-year students. Interestingly, the decline of new students has been focused in Iowa, where pressure from the state’s regents has pushed the University of Iowa and Iowa State University to intensify their recruiting of in-state students. With leadership from the president, academic dean, and major committees, a careful process is now underway to meet this challenge: reassessing the appropriate size of the faculty and staff relative to the number of students, confronting the decline in prospective students who identify as Lutheran, developing a “Next Steps for Sophomores” program to help students focus sooner and more effectively on their vocational direction, and dealing with the concern of parents about college debt. Fortunately, the college finished the most recent fiscal year in good financial shape, comfortably in the black, and had one of its best fundraising years ever. So the foundation for moving ahead is solid.

Your continuing support for the college is as important as ever, even more so given the challenges now facing private higher education in general and Luther in particular. Thank you for your past gifts!

I’ll write again in the spring,

Sue (Franzen) Drilling ’78
Director of Special Programs
[email protected]