Good morning! As we enter Black History Month, I want to share with you a passage from a piece by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that has stuck with me over the years:
“We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”
Students; Alumni; Staff; Faculty and Regents, both current and former; Former Presidents and First Spouses; Decorah neighbors; and friends, colleagues, and family, both in this space and watching online:
This moment in today’s program is called “The President’s Response.” Having grown up singing gospel music, I know that a response follows a call, and indeed I have been called to this high honor, to serve Luther College to the best of my ability as your 11th president. Thank you. Thank you, as well, to all who have worked to make this weekend possible.
HERE I STAND. I CAN DO NO OTHER. It seems fitting to start a state of the college—this college—a Lutheran college—with a declaration associated with our namesake, Martin Luther. On the other hand, I have not yet been asked to recant anything. So in the spirit of adaptation for a new time, let me repurpose the phrase to mean this: HERE I STAND—at a Lutheran college in 2019, with a brilliant past and a bright future. HERE I STAND—in Decorah, Iowa, in the driftless region of the midwest, in a place that depends on us, and on which we depend. HERE I STAND—chosen as your 11th president and choosing to yoke myself up to this people, pulling with you and pulling for you.
Dear Luther Community, I send you warm greetings from Louisiana, where—similar to you—I am in transition. Since the announcement of a new president for you (and the departure of a provost for Centenary College) comes several months before the actual date on which I will join you in an official capacity, we all live in a somewhat liminal space. Just as I am trying to wrap up important initiatives here, my heart and mind are both turning northward toward Decorah.
Dr. Jenifer K. Ward, provost and dean of the college for Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, Louisiana, has been unanimously elected Luther College’s 11th president, announced today by Luther’s Board of Regents.
