"Yours for Fixing up the World"

by Shirley A. Mullen '76

As a historian, I have been in many discussions about whether people make their times or the times make the person. Did World War II make Winston Churchill? Or did Winston Churchill make World War II? Did interwar Europe create an Adolf Hitler? Or did Adolf Hitler create the reality of his time? We sometimes speak of people having been "ahead of their time" or "behind the times." When the individual and the time seem perfectly matched for each other, though, the impact is powerful and unmistakable.

Houghton has been prepared by its history, by its traditions and by its commitments for the beginning of the 21st century. There are so many things about Houghton's story that have prepared it to have a maximum impact in this time. In the stories that follow, we want to show you just a few:

First, Houghton is about inviting students to be whole people—people who bring their thinking, their feeling and their doing together, all within the context of their spiritual and moral commitments—in a fragmented world. Houghton is spiritually invested. It encourages students to hold convictions— to stand firm in an age of relativism—but to speak those convictions with graciousness and civility, and to be ready to learn from others who might disagree.

Second, Houghton is about preparing students to be highly effective in both the "science" and the "art" of a profession, whether it be in business, medicine, law, education, social work or others. In an age that exalts efficiency and the "bottom line," we want our students to do all of their work with care and love, to see work as a "calling" rather than simply as a "career." The 21st century is a time of non-stop change, more than any other time in history. To be educated today, one must have the skills to learn for a lifetime. Houghton prepares students not just for their first job, but for their last one as well. Houghton graduates are academically prepared.

Third, Houghton is about equipping our students to be good community builders, both locally and globally. In an age that emphasizes what is "mine, by right," we are carrying on the Wesleyan tradition of cultivating people who care about justice: for women, for ethnic minorities, for the poor and disenfranchised and for those who are imprisoned by addictions of any kind. In an age where most of the world's population does not live in the West, we want our students to be gracious guests in places that are not their own and to be sufficiently "at home" in any situation to be able to make an impact for good. Houghton is globally engaged.

Throughout Houghton's history one characteristic has not changed: our commitment to leave the world more the way that God intended it to be than when we found it. We are carrying on the tradition established by our founder, Willard J. Houghton, who often signed his letters "yours for fixing up the world." That commitment is as fresh today as it was in 1883.