2009 National Christian Multicultural
Student Leaders Conference

October 29-31, 2009

February 12, 2009

Welcome to the 2009 NCMSLC at Houghton College!

We are honored to be invited to host the 2009 National Christian Multicultural Student Leaders Conference!  What a privilege to be part of the important conversations and commitments that will come of this time together.   As a Christian liberal arts college in the Wesleyan tradition, Houghton has been committed to both ethnic diversity and global engagement from its very beginning in the late 19th century.  We know that it is not enough to evoke a heritage of multicultural commitment, however.  A heritage must continually be renewed to be vital in the midst of new circumstances!

At Houghton, we are committed to engaging students in the multicultural issues of the 21st century.  More than any other stage in life, college is a crossroads of cultures. Students from many nationalities, ethnicities, denominations, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds come together in the same time and place.  This framework is an invitation to learn and grow together.  As a Christian college, we seek to be part of the larger Body of Christ—bringing together brothers and sisters in Christ, each with gifts and talents—and together becoming more effective than we ever could be in isolation.

It is in this spirit that we have chosen the 2009 NCMSLC theme, “My Culture, Your Culture, Our World.”  Only by learning about each other and learning to value each other in the spirit of Jesus Christ can we become the people that God intended us to be.  As we celebrate our differences around the common identity in Christ, we are transformed ourselves and become the agents of God’s redemptive and reconciling activity in our culture, in the church, and in our world.   

We are eager to welcome you to our campus this fall and look forward to all that God will do among us during NCMSLC 2009.

Shirley A. Mullen
President