"For Such a Time as This"

On October 5, 2007, Shirley A. Mullen '76 was inaugurated as the fifth president of Houghton College, capping a time of activities and ceremonies welcoming her to the position. She chose the theme "For Such a Time as This" for the inaugural season and for the title of her inaugural address. Following are some excerpts from that speech:

I've spent a lot of my life thinking about time—and timing. Historians do that. We argue about why the Russian Revolution came in 1917 rather than in 1905. We speculate about what might have happened if Abraham Lincoln had been too tired to go the Ford Theater on that fateful evening in the spring of 1865. What if? We also celebrate those moments when the gifts and genius of a particular person or institution exactly match the needs of a particular moment.

It is this contingency and timeliness that climaxes in the book of Esther with Mordecai's words: "Who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

That same word came to Willard J. Houghton, a farmer and Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School agent in 1883: "It's your time." Houghton saw around him a world torn apart. He believed that things could be different and that education was part of the key. He believed that God wanted an institution of learning in western New York—one specifically committed to the task of "fixing up the world"—of preparing young people to be agents of "light" in the dark and painful places of that time. And so, Houghton Seminary was born. Now there are over 16,000 Houghton alumni around the world, all shaped by their Houghton education to be agents of wholeness and social transformation.

But the world is still not "fixed up." Our planet is ailing as never before. Our world is fragmented. Technology has outstripped moral strictures. It is a world yearning for beauty—in nature, in the arts, in relationships. It is a world uncertain about where to turn for hope.

It is just the right moment for Houghton College, the very circumstances for which a Christian liberal arts college in the Wesleyan tradition was called into being. We do not have easy answers to the challenges facing our planet. We do, however, have a well-proven strategy for meeting this moment in time.

We are in the business of producing the kind of people who will meet these issues in thousands of specific situations around the world each day—in the professions, in business, in community development, in ministry. They will speak to these issues not with words alone, but with their lives. They will be agents of truthfulness, peacemaking and hope in the dark places of our time.

They know how to speak across the religion-science divide in our culture. They know how to speak across the religious-secular divide. They have the tools to adapt to changing circumstances. They know how to learn, how to analyze arguments, how to evaluate information, how to write with clarity and grace, how to work in situations where there is no instruction manual.

The needs of our time are very great. Houghton has a demonstrated record of being able to meet those needs. So, what's the challenge? What's the contingency? What's the risk? The risk for our community is three-fold:

First, we risk hiding away, like Esther in her palace. We cannot simply celebrate a heritage of those who met the tough issues of their time. We honor them most by daring to meet the tough issues of our time. Second, we risk taking our record as a Christian liberal arts college for granted. We need to do the hard work of compelling a truly integrated education to happen. Finally, we risk not explaining ourselves to the world and to the church of our time.

We are a people called to "fix up the world." For the sake of our students, for the sake of the church, for the sake of our culture and, above all, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, may God make us worthy of this call, make us adequate for our time...for such a time as this.

To read the full text of President Mullen's address, visit http://www.houghton.edu/president/inaugural_address.htm.