Presidential Perspectives on Houghton

Fall 2007

This is the time of year when Seniors start thinking—in earnest—about life after Houghton. For some of them, this thinking focuses on how to earn a living while also paying back their college loans.

For others, it is a question of where to live, whether to "go home" or seek their fortune in a new part of the world. For others, it is more a question of which other people will go with them—either as a spouse, or as a group of good friends—or whether they will go it alone for the time being.

In the midst of all these practical, and very important, questions, students often ask about recommendations for reading after graduation. It is beginning to dawn on them that they have already received their last undergraduate syllabus. They are about to take their last examination and to write their last paper. On the one hand, this is a great relief. (I can always get applause when I remind them in chapel of the number of days until graduation!)On the other hand, they are facing the awesome truth that they are now in charge of their own learning. There will be no more grades. Very shortly, no one in the world will care about their G.P.A.

It is here that the real test of a Christian liberal arts education comes. For "success" at Houghton is not just about getting good grades—as important as that can be. It is about coming to love learning, coming to truly enjoy living in a larger world, making connections between disciplines, seeing how our theology and learning relate to each other, and how both relate to being an effective agent of God's transforming Grace in the world. It is about enjoying the process of learning in the company of good friends—of realizing that, for ever after, learning is not just something you do by yourself in the classroom to "pass the test." It is a way of doing life!

You have become a certain kind of person in the world as a result of your Houghton education. You will often have questions that others don't You will have insights that would not occur to others. You will be able to "translate" across the many cross-cultural situations in which we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century. I mean here moving between cultures of ethnicity, class, politics, understanding of faith, and the list could go on. The is the call of the Christian liberal arts graduate in the world. This is the call to be a certain kind of "salt" and "light" for the sake of Gospel.

I will begin a book list in this first of these "perspectives" on Houghton. Each month I will add to the list. Perhaps you will have books that you would like to recommend to me—as we seek together to be stewards for life of the irresistible invitations that were extended to us at Houghton.

Shirley Mullen, Class of 1976

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