For Such a Time as This ...

Houghton is prepared for the beginning of the 21st century by its history, its traditions, and by its commitments.

As a historian, I have been in many discussions about whether people make their times, or whether times make a 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? These are complicated questions, and the answer is that individuals and their circumstances serve to make each other. We sometimes speak of people having been "ahead of their time" or "behind the times." But when the individual and the time seem perfectly matched for each other—the impact is powerful and unmistakable.

I believe that Houghton has been prepared by its history, by its traditions, and by its commitments for just such a time as the beginning of the 21st century. There are so many things about Houghton's story that have prepared it to maximize its impact in this time. Let me name just a few of these things.

First, Houghton is about inviting students to be whole people in a fragmented world—people who bring their thinking, their feeling, and their doing together—all within the context of their spiritual and moral commitments.

Second, Houghton is about inviting students to hold convictions—to stand for something 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.

Third, Houghton is about preparing students to be highly effective in business, medicine, law, education, social work in both the "science" and the "art" of the profession. 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 "calling" rather than simply as "career."

Fourth, we want 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 building communities that 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 learn to be a guest in places that are not one's own—to be sufficiently "at home" in any situation to be able to make an impact for good.

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 with the skills that will enable them not just for their first job—but for their last one as well.

The one thing that has not changed at Houghton in our 124 year history is 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 first established by our founder Willard J. Houghton who often signed his letters, "Yours for fixing up the world." And that commitment is as fresh today—For Such a Time as This—as it was in 1883.

Speeches & Talks Index

October 5, 2007: Inaugural Address; For Such a Time as This...