Dear Luther Students, Faculty, and Staff,

I would like to provide the promised follow-up to yesterday’s message, which was composed in the early recognition of what was starting to happen in Washington, D.C., on a day that rocked our nation.

As an academic community, we are bound to analyze, investigate, and issue opinions in a dispassionate and objective manner. At times, though, we need to respond not as academicians, or from behind our titles, but as citizens. As a citizen, I was shaken by what I saw yesterday. What started as a protest quickly became a riotous insurrection. As a Southerner, seeing a white man defiantly and jubilantly parade the confederate flag through the Capitol building without consequence was a particular source of outrage, pain, and shame.

I received a message from a student this morning titled “Do Better, Luther”. It was clear in the message that it meant that I, President Ward, should do better and use different words to condemn the acts of yesterday. I have heard from those who think there is no role for me as President to speak to this moment and those who think I am the only one who bears responsibility for speaking. “Do better, Luther.” I want to take the title of this message seriously and wonder with you who “Luther” is as a community, who needs to do better, and what WORK we need to undertake together to re-learn what it means to care for and practice democracy--to begin to heal this violated body politic. Where better than Luther College in its entirety to model the hard work--not just say the easy words--necessary to move us forward on the path to a more perfect union?

Today a group of campus leaders met to plan the initial steps of the work that we will undertake together. These steps include:

• A meeting tomorrow for BIPOC students sponsored by the staff of the Center for Intercultural Engagement and Student Success. We invited BIPOC students to process the riots together in like community, with the support of faculty and staff.
• An interactive, virtual gathering for all students, faculty, and staff at 4pm on Monday, January 11. The gathering will be facilitated by faculty and staff, provide a context for the riots, and serve as a foundation for future conversations on campus.
• Joint planning by Robert Harri, Director of Campus Safety and Security; and David Smutzler, Chief of the Decorah Police Department, to support the safety of students on campus and in the local community. These plans will be communicated shortly in a joint letter.

I want to give the last word--both pained and hopeful--to the Black poet Jericho Brown as he responded in real time on Twitter last night to the television coverage of what was happening in Washington--I asked him for permission to do so, which he granted:

"Anyway, this is still my country as much as it is anyone else’s since my granddaddy died working the very land this is what we call American soil. He worked himself and his family to buy it and worked himself to death on it, but he didn’t die a sharecropper and that was his goal. I’m not crying anymore tonight about what’s been defiled because there is still some part of me, of my soul that can never be harmed, not by anybody, not by a nation, definitely not by my own nation dear God. I’m not minimizing or dismissing, but I can glory on the undoubtable fact of being on the right side of things and seeing the right side make some strides that clearly have the wrong side acting seditiously. I should not be surprised that people are so afraid of me, they’d tear down their own nation rather look directly into the light we come from. I am not surprised. This is not new. And no matter how I feel right now, there is a now beyond this moment that is forever and in that now, in real time, I am quite literally made of God stuff and descended from the most resilient people that have ever lived and loved, love enough to think of me and my needs long before I was born. Days are dark, yes, but I know enough about the people who came before me to know that no matter how dark my days may seem, they are always brighter than the ones people endured all so I could see."--Jericho Brown, 1/6/21

We are in an illuminated moment, Luther. Let us not squander the freedom to see.

Sincerely,

President Jenifer K. Ward