I was therefore gratified to see our students rise to defend the liberal arts in a recent article in the student newspaper. Our institutional passion has been passed to next generation and that means that the current generation is doing its job.

I must admit that initially I was surprised by the newspaper’s bold headline, “Taking ‘Liberal Arts’ Out of MC?”  In my view, Monmouth has never been more committed to the liberal arts than it is today.  Why would anyone suggest it is being removed from the college?  Then I thought about that intriguing question mark at the end of the headline.

Declarations of what has already happened don’t end with a question mark. The student paper was not reporting that the liberal arts had been removed from Monmouth College.  Instead, it seems to me that the question mark was there to remind us that an important question for today, tomorrow, and always is whether we are doing all we can to protect and promote the liberal arts at Monmouth College.

Why do our students rise so passionately in defense of a liberal arts education?  The answer is simple:  They understand the power of the liberal arts and are committed to the belief that the future of this country depends on the success of a handful of liberal arts colleges and their small band of graduates.  Private, residential, liberal arts colleges are often referred to as the distinctively American component of our higher education system.  Their focus on civil discourse, active citizenship, creative problem solving, and sympathetic imagination has been and will be crucial to our democratic society.  If we thrive, as a sector and as an individual College, so will America; if we fail, then it is hard to be optimistic.

My response to the question that our students posed is an unequivocal “no.”  Just the opposite: the liberal arts have a bright future at Monmouth College.

Allow me to provide some assurances beyond my own. In the College’s Vision Statement we pledge to become a national example for those who want to provide excellent liberal arts education.  The four guiding principles of our Strategic Plan could be used as an outline for the most important elements of a liberal arts education.  The College’s signature course is “Introduction to the Liberal Arts” and our capstone course is “Active Citizenship.”

When I ask our first-year students to describe what they are learning in the first semester, they talk about critical thinking, close reading, effective communicating, sympathetic imagining, integrating knowledge from all their courses, becoming open-minded, and discovering how to learn from those who disagree with them.   It is readily apparent that liberal arts education is thriving at Monmouth College and no one articulates that point better than our students.

Every time our faculty members are faced with an opportunity to choose, they come down on the side of liberal arts education.  The most recent example was a year ago when they opted for the arduous task of restructuring our curriculum to privilege deep learning over content exposure.  While both of these elements of learning are important, the very best liberal arts colleges privilege deep learning. So did our faculty.

Why then, did the question of the College’s commitment to the liberal arts recently come up?  What was it that made our students sufficiently nervous to write the story with the provocative headline? Perhaps the quotation marks around the term “liberal arts” provides a clue.  The question being posed, I think, is do we use the term “liberal arts” enough and, if not, does downplaying the term mean that we are not committed to the concept that it defines?

Clearly it is a term we use regularly.  I am told that it appears more than 700 times on our website!  But, our student reporters are accurate; we have made a conscious effort to replace the term with a description of the concept in some of our admission mailings.  Does the absence of the term in some of our materials indicate a secret desire to hide or even eliminate the liberal arts focus of our education?  Or is it an attempt at greater clarity and more effective promotion of the liberal arts?

I have on my desk a postcard that shows Professor Haq teaching in our outdoor classroom. Seated or stretched out on the ground, paying careful attention, are 18 of our students.  Across the top of the picture is the phrase “What the world needs now…”   On the back of the card, that thought is completed with the sentence:  “Now, more than ever, the world needs strong, creative, critical thinkers and problem solvers.”  The phrase “liberal arts” does not appear anywhere on the card. Clearly, that could easily have been done.  After all, what the world needs is liberal arts education. What we decided to do instead was list characteristics of those who have benefited from a liberal arts education rather than simply using the phrase itself.

From this example that is about a year old, one might argue that we were promoting liberal arts education as a concept rather than as a phrase.  Were we rejecting or hiding our liberal arts character?  I think not. We knew that some readers would read “liberal arts education” and think “strong, creative, critical thinkers and problem solvers” but we worried that others outside our community would not make that connection.

But, clearly, some of our students believe the issue is a bit more complex.  And, I am persuaded that they are right.  One can make a strong argument that the liberal arts are so important to our country’s future that we should take every opportunity to clarify and promote our commitment.  That might be true even, or especially, when our message is directed at those who have no perception or even a misperception of what it means to pursue a liberal arts education.  After all, words are important symbols and we use them even when we are not certain what they mean.  Many of us recited the pledge of allegiance to the flag in kindergarten before we knew the meaning of allegiance or indivisible.  Some of us recite various creeds on Sunday morning even if many around us do not know the meaning of some of the mysterious words we are using.

Although many in the academic community cringe when marketing terminology like “branding” is applied to colleges, the student newspaper reporter and editor appreciate the importance of establishing a brand.  They remind us that using the term “liberal arts” will cause some to associate us with an impressive group of colleges. Even if those individuals don’t know the meaning of the term they know that it describes a good brand.

As always, we show wisdom when we listen to what our students are saying. In this case, our students are telling us that there is value in taking every opportunity to highlight both the liberal arts education we provide and the terms we use to describe it. Being able to accurately describe what makes a Monmouth College education special is important.  Equally important is promoting the ancient term that will help others verbalize what they see happening at Monmouth College.

As we look forward to achieving our Vision, we can imagine a day in which the general public will value a liberal arts education because they associate “liberal arts” with the achievements of our graduates.  Indeed, there is value in knowing both what we do and what to call it.

Months earlier the major highway in the region had closed for repairs to a railroad overpass.  The detour added many miles for north-south traffic through the county.  Eventually, regular commuters and long-distance truckers got word of a small local road that bypassed the construction.  It didn’t take long for heavy traffic to destroy the road’s thin layer of asphalt.  The local authorities responded by plowing up what remained of the paved road, returning it temporarily to a gravel surface.  The expectation, I presume, was that the rough surface and the clouds of dust would force traffic back to the official detour.  It didn’t.  And throughout a long, dry and very hot summer, the local residents lived in a haze of road dust.  Those in poor health struggled and families worried about long-term harm to their children.

As one might expect, the dust settling in the houses was rich in chemical composition. It wasn’t difficult to trace the organic compounds to the pulverized asphalt and road oils. These were mixed with a strong dose of the inorganic compound that had been sprayed in a futile attempt to settle the dust. I decided to return to my old neighborhood to personally explain the results of my analysis.

The community meeting called to discuss the issue went as expected. Local TV reporters showed up with cameras. Voices were raised and people yelled at the county official who had the courage to show up.  There was talk of petitions and protests. All of it was justified after weeks of frustrating inattention.  About the time things reached a fevered pitch, two farmers joined the meeting, standing quietly at the back of the room. They had been cultivating fields under the hot sun all day and it showed.  After about five minutes the two farmers whispered to each other, shrugged their shoulders, and walked out of the room.  I could scarcely contain my anger. There was a community problem, children were at danger, and these two neighbors didn’t seem to care.

As it turned out, I was much too quick in my condemning judgment.  Soon I heard the roar of diesel farm tractors on the road. Behind those tractors, which were large enough to cover both lanes, were large tanks of water and a fine mist of water being applied to the gravel road. The water settled the dust and the slow-moving, wide tractors, which appeared regularly in the coming days, made the narrow road a very inconvenient if not impossible detour. Soon word was out and through-traffic returned to the officially sanctioned route.

While some of us demanded action, others took action. The experience reminded me that on some days we can win an argument and on other days we can solve a problem.  But rarely can we do both at the same time.

I applied this life lesson in my response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  My in-box was filled with notes endorsing a letter by a colleague demanding that President Obama take immediate action to limit the availability of assault weapons.  Almost lost among the endorsements for this strong note was a second letter that urged college presidents to mobilize their campuses to find solutions to the many and complex issues that contribute to gun violence.  Signatories of the first letter demanded action by the President of the United States.  Signatories of the second letter pledged personal action.  Both are good letters.  I am glad that so many of my colleagues are offering their support.  I am sure that President Obama will read carefully the request from so many of my good colleagues who are urging him to action.  Personally, I have opted for the second letter that pledges personal responsibility for engaging the Monmouth College community in finding ways to make our children safer.

The letter I signed was drafted by President Lee Pelton of Emerson College.  In it he wrote:  “Our nation looks to colleges and universities to solve its most pressing problems and these are issues on which we stand ready to provide a way forward.  We, therefore, pledge to do that which we do best in our communities:  engage thought leaders, faculty, students, staff, trustees and friends in meaningful debate and dialogue, which in turn, might lead to positive action.”  This pledge has been transmitted to President Obama.  As important as it is that he knows we plan to take action, it is even more important that all members of the Monmouth community know that I have pledged our action.

Like the residents of Newtown, Connecticut, we live in a small town that seems isolated from the day-to-day impact of gun violence.  Yet we have once again been reminded that none of us, wherever we live, can or should ignore the potential for unexpected and devastating impact.  We must also not forget that many of our students are spending their Christmas break in areas where homicide is a regular—if not daily—concern.   There have been more than 500 homicides in Chicago this year, the majority of which involved firearms and, in far too many cases, children as victims.  As a national liberal arts college we should contribute to the resolution of gun violence because it is an issue of vital, national concern.  As a community that cares deeply for all who study here, we have a special responsibility to address this issue that is close to home for students we love.

I spent last weekend trying to remember the origin of an old bit of advice regarding the joining of clubs.  I vaguely remembered reading or hearing something like: “Don’t join many clubs, few if any. Join the church and join the family but not much in between, except perhaps a college.”

My first thought was that this must be something I read in 1973 as part of a course on famous American orators. Daniel Webster was my best guess as the speaker to first utter something similar to this phrase. But, a check of famous quotations from this legendary orator did not turn up what I was looking for. Perhaps my memory was fooled by Webster’s memorable line in arguing a case for Dartmouth College in front of the Supreme Court in which he proclaimed, “It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those of us who love it!”

I typed my remembered quotation into a search engine and found no match. Not only had I misremembered the speaker, but clearly I didn’t have the wording quite right. So, I turned to Jeff, who edits much of what I write and asked if he could track down the correct wording and the speaker. His search came up blank, but he suggested that maybe I had the wrong Webster; perhaps it was Noah instead of Daniel. Certainly Jeff’s was a solid suggestion—Noah Webster had many positive things to say about colleges and churches and was probably a proponent of families. But, no match came up among the famous statements of Noah Webster.

When all else fails, turn to a librarian. I sent Rick the request, “find me the source of a quotation that I can’t remember.” After a quick try with search engines, he went to the shelves and pulled out the hard copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (1980), checked the index under “join” and found both the source and the wording that I was searching.  There it was:

Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any.
Join the United States and join the family-
But not much in between unless a college.

It wasn’t from a 19th-century orator. No, it was from Robert Frost’s 1932 poem Build Soil. No wonder it took a while to find: I was in the wrong century and the wrong genre.  And, somewhere in the 40 years since first seeing this work, I had replaced “gangs” with “clubs” and “the United States” with “the church.”

Far be it from me to ever suggest that I might turn a phrase better than Robert Frost, but in this case I like my garbled version better than the original. Of course, when he used the word gang it did not likely imply all we mean by it today and almost certainly had a more positive connotation.  And, for my purposes last weekend, it made as much sense to suggest that one join a church as to join the United States. When the phrase came to mind, I was in a church, winding my way through the visitation line for a Monmouth College student named Tommy, who had died in a tragic accident. In fact, it was the longest visitation line I had ever experienced. How could someone so young, I wondered, have touched so many people? As I looked around, the answer was apparent. He had been associated with a caring church, a close-knit college community, and a large, loving family. With apologies to Robert Frost, the situation shouted out the message:  Join a church, join a family and join a college, and you can find great joy in life.

Since my career has been spent in relatively small colleges, I haven’t attended a lot of funerals for students, but even one every year or so is too many. Each time it seems that the student was one of the most active on campus.  Maybe all college students lead exciting, busy, full lives, yet we don’t think about how special they are until a tragedy occurs.

It is particularly sad when a young person with so many adventures on the horizon is killed. When that occurs close to graduation our first thought is to think that the years in college preparing for a career and a busy life were wasted.  But, of course, those years weren’t wasted. College isn’t simply a preparation for what lies ahead. It is in a very real sense what life is all about. Being a friend, inspiring others, enjoying ideas, growing intellectually and spiritually, enriching a community—these are the riches of life and not just the preparation for some future life.

Robert Frost’s admonition wasn’t “attend college” or “go to class” or “study hard” or “prepare for a job.”  Instead he called on us to join a college in the same way one should join a family or join a country.  Joining a college is far more than taking advantage of a degree, just as joining a family is far more than taking advantage of parents and siblings. Given the exalted status of colleges, on par with family and country (and not much else), Frost certainly imagined that each of us would immerse ourselves in the full range of activities and take on both responsibilities and joys of membership in a special college community.

It was clear, as I looked at those in the visitation line, that Tommy had fully immersed himself in the gang that is Monmouth College. His professors spoke of the joy of having him in class. His football teammates carried themselves with class, seemingly trying to elevate their friend by mustering every bit of stoic dignity possible. A tearful group of volleyball players reminded us that college students don’t live in silos. Countless classmates affirmed that they had been enriched by conversations with Tommy.

College was more than a holding pattern for Tommy. It had been about much more than earning a credential. It wasn’t just preparation for life; it was life itself. And regardless of how long he or any of his classmates live, it will have included some of the best parts of life.  Indeed, a college should be joined, not just attended.

Frost was wise when he compared a college with one’s country and family. With each of these three institutions it is possible to go through life taking more than giving. Some people have no qualms avoiding taxes and dodging drafts while enjoying liberties and services. Others enjoy the family Thanksgiving dinner without offering to bring a dish or wash the dishes. Still others go to college to acquire a credential, but don’t contribute to the rich community life that does so much to change so many lives. While all of these individuals may think they are clever, in the end they miss the incredible joy of belonging to a country, a family, and a college. Belonging does require effort and sacrifice, but those who have made the sacrifice know that it is an experience like no other.

Frost’s line about gangs (or in my mind, Webster’s line about clubs) came to me while encountering members of Tommy’s “gangs.”  Clearly, Tommy had taken the effort and made the sacrifices necessary to find the rewards of full immersion within his communities. I was saddened by the death of this much-loved student. But I was happy that he spent his last three years as a member of our gang. There is no better place to live the best years of one’s life.

Students from all majors are eligible to sign up for an archaeology laboratory, in which they learn to record, characterize and identify the various stone points that range in origin from 10,000 years to a few hundred years ago. The professor explained that undergraduate students often try to identify an artifact by matching its general appearance to pictures in a database. The process is slow, tedious and ineffective. It’s akin to finding the proverbial “needle in a haystack.”

In time, the students discover that identification is more efficient if they employ a well-designed decision tree. They ask very specific questions designed to rule out many possibilities with each question. By carefully selecting the questions (e.g., does it have flutes, is the base concave, do the chips all orient in the same direction?) and asking them in the proper order they can often make an identification through a half-dozen or so rather simple questions.

What a wonderful critical-thinking exercise! Most students in the archaeology laboratory will never again identify and catalog artifacts, but by learning how to simplify a complex problem through a series of logical, well-ordered steps they have acquired a valuable lifelong skill. It’s an excellent example of the value proposition that we at Monmouth College term “integrated learning.”

As I thought about the process of integrating knowledge across disciplines, it occurred to me that there are similarities between the archaeology lab and my discipline, chemistry. Specifically, I thought about the sophomore chemistry student who must learn to identify an organic molecule from its two-dimensional representation. Like the archaeology student, she soon discovers there is a more efficient means of identification than comparing it to thousands of pictures of known molecules.

If the sophomore chemistry student had previously spent a semester in the archaeology lab, shouldn’t she find organic nomenclature a snap?  After all, the intellectual basis of the process is very similar. Perhaps, but in my experience, students tend to treat each course and each exercise as a unique challenge. I know that as a student I missed some obvious connections.  For me, the process of identifying molecules was not unlike the process of identifying trees from leaf shapes, a skill that I had learned as a kid studying forestry in 4-H.  Unfortunately, that connection did not occur to me until years after college.

Transferring ideas and skills from one course to another or from one field to another is clearly not easy, but it is a crucial skill for those who want to solve complex problems. Unless we can transfer or—as we say at Monmouth—integrate that knowledge, we will always be limited by our inability to take every possible course and study every conceivable topic.

The integration of knowledge doesn’t just happen.  Students rarely discover it themselves, nor are most faculty members adept at it, having trained as specialists. So students go through colleges and universities putting knowledge into silos. Some claim to have interdisciplinary skills because the knowledge silos they use straddle several disciplines, but few have the ability to discern the connections between those silos. Consequently, they are not prepared to solve the complex problems that arise daily.

When faced with solving a difficult problem or performing an unfamiliar task, our natural tendency is to shy away from the challenge or plead ignorance. At Monmouth we believe we can diminish that all-too-human trait through the remarkable tool known as integrated learning. The heart of our curriculum is a series of courses that is called the Integrated Studies Sequence. In our Strategic Plan, we pledge to prepare students to solve complex problems by preparing them to integrate knowledge.

It may be the hardest thing for us to teach, since many of us were never taught it ourselves. It is certainly one of the hardest things our students accomplish, but, like so many other challenges, it is worth the effort for a college that believes that its graduates can and should change the world.

What will this do to the business model for colleges and universities? Some worry that the residential college experience will become obsolete, replaced by online courses and digital technologies. Others dismiss the supposed threat, likening it to the correspondence courses that seemed on the verge of becoming the dominant mode of delivery at the beginning of the 20th century. I disagree with both points of view. I think MOOCs will continue to develop and will enjoy widespread popularity in coming years. I also think that colleges like ours will find ways to import and integrate these massive, online courses into our personalized, face-to-face education. Rather than competing with MOOCs, we will find ways to take advantage of those things that they are well-suited to accomplish, freeing us to focus more time on the critical work that defines our value proposition.

When colleges describe their educational vision they tend to focus on attributes that make them unique.  At Monmouth we talk about active learning and the integration of knowledge. We also talk about creating good citizens who have found a purpose for life. What is left unstated, because it is assumed, is that our lofty goals rely on a series of elementary processes that are associated with learning. Students at all levels and in all types of institutions must acquire routine knowledge; they must memorize facts, understand theories and develop proficiency with fundamental skills such as writing, speaking, and critical thinking as well as fundamental tools such as lab equipment and computers. Much of this basic knowledge is and long has been available in textbooks, worksheets, film strips, LP records, instructional videos, public access TV programs, recorded lectures and now in the digital media. What distinguishes the very best colleges, it seems to me, is their ability to accomplish the routine aspects of learning efficiently and they often do that by taking advantage of tools to assist in transmitting routine knowledge. In doing so, they enable students and faculty to devote a greater portion of their time to higher order learning.

None of us can predict the future with certainty, but I expect that very soon this country’s best colleges will be tapping into massive, open, online courses, to assist our students and faculty as they look for ways to move quickly through basic knowledge in order to concentrate on higher-order learning.  Initially, it will seem unusual for professors to assign a portion of a lecture being presented at a distant institution as part of an on-campus, face-to-face course. But over time (and perhaps not very much time) it will become as accepted as having students purchase a text written at another college or read an essay written by a distant professor.

As I think about my earlier career as a chemistry professor, I wonder how much of my time was spent teaching basic concepts, even as I wonder how much better I might have served my students if I could have jumped right to the questioning, and hinting, and guiding, and mentoring that provided the unique value of the residential liberal arts college where I taught. More broadly, I wonder how much of the time and effort of college educators was and still is devoted to replicating material that is in a textbook.  What if those lectures that explicated, explained, and reiterated the textbook could come to life in a digital version of the professor?  Would the work of a professor become irrelevant?  Or, would the virtual professor free the real professor to focus on the human interactions that make our approach an educational best value?

I find it instructive to reflect on the impact of some of the early examples of digital technology. It hasn’t been all that long since digital balances replaced the analog versions in general chemistry laboratories.  I still remember the sequence of emotions that accompanied my realization that this leading-edge technology would create a paradigm change in the introductory laboratory. One or two digital balances would certainly replace a whole room filled with those green, Mettler mechanical balances that were in vogue when I began my career in academics. Existing three-hour laboratory exercises could be shortened to two hours and the opportunities for careless errors (and the associated means for distinguishing the A student from the C student) were about to disappear.  My special skill at training students to use a traditional tool was about to become obsolete. Wisely, my generation quickly redesigned (and enriched) the laboratory exercises to take advantage of the time savings. Faculty members redirected their efforts toward critical thinking and problem solving rather than demonstrating manual skills.

In the years that followed, new, mostly digital, technologies continued the transformation of my work as a chemistry instructor. New software and hardware made it possible for students to collect, share and analyze more information in a few hours than they previously could have in a semester. Laboratory courses that previously focused on confirming material that students were taught in lectures became opportunities for students to ask and answer interesting questions and discover for themselves fundamental principles.

In less than a decade new technologies transformed the laboratory teaching and learning environment; most of what I had been doing as a professor was no longer necessary and the nature of student work was fundamentally different. In theory, we might have kept our learning goals the same and accomplished them with much less time invested by both the professor and the student. Instead, we embraced the new technologies to both transform and improve the teaching and learning process. My work as a professor became at once more meaningful and more challenging. I hope the same was true for my students.

Will MOOCs have the same impact on teaching as did those digital balances? I hope they replace elements of our teaching that, while important, are routine. In some courses professors spend the majority of their time doing that which is routine in order to spend a few hours of high-quality teaching and learning. If we are wise we will find ways to use MOOCs to redirect our time and effort to those special activities that set our courses and our colleges apart.

Those institutions that have not identified a unique institutional purpose may be tempted to replace existing courses with their own versions of massive, online courses. And, perhaps they won’t lose much.   Maybe they don’t have that much to lose. Colleges that know what they want to do, particularly if what they want to do trends toward a unique mission, will benefit as they find ways to use MOOCs and related digital opportunities to unmask the excellence of their faculty and staff. Keep an eye on MOOCs and keep an eye on Monmouth College.

I recommend Conroy’s The Water is Wide, to anyone planning a career in secondary education. It not only has much to say about pedagogical theory, but also about the inspirational and pivotal role a teacher can play in society. For those of us who work at the postsecondary level, Lords of Discipline—perhaps Conroy’s signature work—provides a commentary on the residential college experience carried to extremes. In his more recent book, My Losing Season, the tie to educational theory is less obvious, but for me it is his most intriguing work.

Conroy’s memoir about playing on an unsuccessful college basketball team explores the various ways that losing can affect a student athlete. He speculates whether that experience, as painful as it felt at the time, was actually a worthwhile learning opportunity. While championship teams regularly have reunions and revisit their character-building victories, unsuccessful teams rarely come together to reflect on the impact of losing. Conroy leads the reader on his journey to find and interview players from the college team he captained to more losses than wins.

I must admit that it took me nearly a year to work my way through the book. It seemed to present an endless progression of chapters, each describing a valiant effort that fell a few points short.  As I valiantly slogged through, I wondered if this drudgery was Conroy’s way of making the reader experience what it’s like to try to stay focused through a long losing streak. Eventually, since Conroy’s writing has an irresistible (if unexplainable) attraction for me, I found my way to the last chapter. And there, in the last few pages, was a powerful and entirely unexpected conclusion that made my countless hours of reading Conroy seem worthwhile. It won’t spoil the surprise ending to reveal that none of Conroy’s teammates agreed with his hypothesis that losing so many games had built lifelong character.

I reflected on Conroy’s question about losing seasons this weekend as I watched our men’s basketball team play its season finale against perennial rival Knox. Regardless of the outcome of the always-ballyhooed contest, our team was going to end the season with more losses than wins. I have never bought into the argument that beating an arch rival makes any season a winning one. I like to watch our student athletes compete and when I do I expect to see them striving for excellence. I don’t believe that it is appropriate to ask students to pursue excellence in some college activities and accept mediocrity in others.

Sometimes there is an imbalance between curricular and co-curricular activities. Sometimes the imbalance is between courses in the major and the general education curriculum.  (I cringe when students say “if it’s G.E., take the C.”) Most of us can’t achieve excellence in everything we do. In fact, some of us rarely achieve excellence in anything we do. But a great college will develop a culture in which students regularly strive for excellence.

Striving for excellence doesn’t necessarily mean achieving it, but it does demonstrate that working harder and smarter than anyone expects will, from time to time, produce an exceptional outcome. A two-semester sequence in Physical Chemistry proved that to me, as I was forced to struggle with the rigor of those two courses and overcome their seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Despite the fact that I have rarely applied the content of Physical Chemistry I and II over the succeeding decades, I often identify those courses as the defining portion of my educational experience. Clearly, I used elements of those courses when I taught General Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry, but these concepts were at a level well below the sophistication of the junior-level course that had such an impact.  In the end, it wasn’t the content that made the course special—it was instead the relentless intellectual and physical challenge of trying to wrap my mind around the relationship between physical reality and the equations that represent our attempts to describe that reality. I think Conroy got it right in speculating that the trials of enduring a grueling basketball season build character. I can at least attest to that being the case with physical chemistry.

While staying focused as a member of a winning team certainly has value, what lessons can be learned from playing on a losing team? That depends, I suppose, on the character of the team leaders and the coach. Pursuing and then achieving excellence—even if for only a few moments—when failure is probable may provide a greater opportunity for building character and resiliency than excelling when success is certain. Moreover, momentary excellence can lead to sustained excellence just as excellence in one area of the college experience can promote broad-based excellence.

The Fighting Scots wrapped up their season with a two-game winning streak and a total of seven victories. In a 23-game schedule, that isn’t a lot of wins and it could be considered a losing season. Yet it was also an opportunity for building character. This was to be a building year for the team with a new coach and after winning only a single conference game in the previous season. Throughout the recently completed season there would be spurts of success that produced excitement, but time and again those moments of promise would be dashed by injuries to key players. With a half dozen games to go and four promising players out for the year, I couldn’t find reason to even hope for a strong finish.

Still, with the season winding down, the team held on for a hard-fought victory over Illinois College and headed into the final game—the rivalry game—with a bit of momentum. The first half of that final game was the closest the team had been to excellence all year; the 52 points and 20-point lead at intermission was a thing of beauty. Despite the challenges and adversity, all the hard work and dedication was finally paying off and the season was coming to a rewarding close. Then, as so often happens in sports, the wheels inexplicably started to fall off. The second half was past the midpoint before we scored another point. The 20-point lead evaporated in a flash, and the list of Scots with four fouls was as long as the scoring drought.

It appeared that the season, which only minutes earlier seemed to be closing on a high note, was going to culminate in yet another unlucky turn.  But, as the final minutes of the game and season began to tick off, the team showed that the string of challenges had built character. Zero field goals for the half of the second period suddenly turned into four buckets, and the string of missed free throws gave way to perfection at the line.  The season ended on a two-game winning streak. The fans, including the president, went home happy.  The team went home with an appreciation for what it could accomplish individually and collectively.

Having grown up in Indiana, one of my biggest disappointments was an inability to hit a jump shot or box out for a rebound. I had to take my lessons on staying focused and confident and the rewards of hard work from the chemistry lab. Our basketball team learned those same lessons on the court, in what some would incorrectly describe as a losing season.

For those unfamiliar with the history of Midwestern commerce at the beginning of the 20th century, the name “Big Four” in the novel’s title was short for the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company. “South of the Tracks” might have been a more obvious title, as the book’s premise involves bankers’ reluctance to lend money to anyone farming on the south (or wrong) side of the railroad tracks where even the hardest workers struggled to produce a profitable crop.

Despite a title that hints at the illegal practice of red-lining loans, I enjoyed the novel and its description of life in a town that sounds very much like the one where I grew up. In the story, as in the reality that it mirrors, relationships between bankers and farmers extend beyond the analysis of credit scores, net worth and leverage ratios. In small towns, bankers know whether payments are made and they also know when payments are made in spite of a poor crop. They know if a farmer is struggling because of poor weather or because of poor management. And they seem to know, even before the ministers and lawyers, when a farmer’s operation is about to be sidetracked by marital problems or sibling rivalries. Loan decisions are made within sound fiscal guidelines, but those guidelines are informed by lives spent building and evaluating trustworthiness.

So it was that I found these themes resurfacing in my mind when I overheard a conversation while standing in the visitation line. It was between an aging farmer and her longtime banker whose wife had just passed away. Clearly the relationship went back many years but it seemed as if this was the first time these longtime neighbors had had occasion for personal reflection. “You know, we would have lost our farm 20 years ago if you hadn’t worked with us” was the phrase that caught my attention. “We worked with you because we knew you were working even harder” was the response.

So short an exchange, yet so meaningful. It was the capstone to a business relationship that had meant much to both sides. Only as a death underscored the fleeting nature of relationships, however, did the gratitude and respect finally get verbalized. Often, a handshake at church, a nod in the restaurant, or a wave as two pickup trucks pass on a country road serves as the only acknowledgment to the personal relationships that can transform a town into a successful community.

When small towns lose their community banks, their local stores, and their neighborhood schools, residents lose the opportunity to develop trust and to express that trust. Communities of all types are weaker when those deep and lasting relationships disappear. Perhaps that explains why a recent Monmouth College Midwest Matters Poll concluded that residents in the heartland are particularly resistant to the concept of globalization. Could it be that they are defending a way of life that was built on being given and then responding to opportunities? Could it be that the growing frustration of hardworking Americans is attributable to the disappearance of community-based institutions that recognized and valued character?

We should not, even if we could, roll back the globalization of our economy. Our lives are enriched by trading goods and services across boundaries. The “think local, buy local, grow local” arguments don’t always make sense. “How will we get bananas?” was the response of a colleague when students at her Illinois-based college asked that all food purchased be grown within a 50-mile radius. Notwithstanding bananas and big-screen televisions, there is, I think, a need to recapture the personal interactions that enrich our lives and anchor our communities. Community banks, and their role in economic mobility, will help us find our way in the emerging global society.

I spent time this weekend thinking about the impact of community banks because I was moved by the exchange I heard at the funeral. But my reflections were made more personal as I considered the interesting parallel between banks and colleges. Both are in the business of opening doors and making dreams come true. Both are facing economic pressure to become larger institutions with more branches.

Small liberal arts colleges were, for a time, the dominant form of higher education in our country. Now, with fewer than 5 percent of college students attending institutions like Monmouth, there is a temptation to overlook the continued importance of our role. But when I heard the heartfelt exchange between a farmer and her lifelong, local banker, I was reminded that within our smaller, residential college setting, we too specialize in recognizing character and rewarding it with an opportunity. And, like the community bankers in our small towns and sometimes in our literature, we don’t turn our backs on our students, who have become our neighbors, when tough times hit.

We recognize character because we function on a scale that allows us to get to know our students well enough to recognize hidden skills that are waiting to be tapped. We serve our students well because we interact with them over time in multiple environments. We are at our best when we see beyond the high school transcript and the first assignment submitted or even the first semester’s work. In fact, it is through our ability to nurture those talents that are not immediately visible that we empower our personalized approach. We are residential because being a community is both a prerequisite and a reward for the way we do business.

Just as we know that the global economy is here to stay, we must also accept the fact that postsecondary education is no longer dominated by liberal arts colleges, and that locally-owned banks will never again be the predominant engines of American commerce. Yet we would all be weaker by far if either of these anchors of our society were to disappear.

Press releases make bold claims about the oldest rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains or the third oldest rivalry in the country or the longest continuous game. Unique objects, like an old oaken bucket or Paul Bunyan’s ax or a little brown jug or a train’s bell or a bronze turkey are won and then subsequently stolen by the losing teams. Winless teams get a chance to “make their season” and playoff- or bowl-bound squads debate whether it is just another tune-up or really the game of the year. Alumni return and tell stories of gridiron glory or campus hijinks that grow in grandeur with each passing decade. Coaches and even college presidents realize that, ultimately, their tenure will be remembered by the football record in these rivalry games.

This past weekend was my 40th college rivalry game, not counting the numerous IU-Purdue games that I followed as a child. Despite the string of victories over Knox in my seven years at Monmouth, I fear that there have been more losses than wins in those four decades. It will take a lot of victories to make up for those many November Saturdays cheering for Duke over UNC or Holy Cross over Boston College.

My rivalry games have been about evenly split between NCAA Division I and Division III schools. Last week I had the opportunity to spend several hours talking to a national sportswriter about the differences between DI and DIII athletic programs. We discussed a wide range of topics; I wish that I had thought about the special way that athletic rivalries can impact Division III colleges. The unique nature of these rivalry games illustrates the important role athletics play on our campuses.

At a typical DIII college, 20 percent of the students participate, at some time, in intercollegiate athletics. Since both Monmouth and Knox are smaller than the average DIII college (the numbers are skewed by a handful of large state institutions) and since both offer more than the typical 17 sports, it is safe to say that the participation at colleges like ours is closer to 40 percent. Add to that the students who are involved in events directly associated with athletics (marching band, cheerleading, dance squad and broadcasting) and it is safe to say that half of our students participate directly or indirectly with our athletic programs.

Athletic programs–and, by extension, rivalry games–are a participatory activity for students at Monmouth and Knox and so many other fine DIII liberal arts colleges. Saturday evening after watching the 123rd Monmouth – Knox game (a.k.a. the Turkey Bowl), I turned on national television and watched what was billed as “the game of the century” between LSU and Alabama (doesn’t it seem like the game of the century comes along every couple of years?). While the nationally televised game was enjoyable and the pageantry was spectacular, I was left to wonder how many of the tens of thousands of fans were in study groups with the players or had done community service projects with the linebackers. Perhaps the football coaches for LSU know the sociology or accounting faculty members and meet to talk about students and curricula. Maybe the fans in the stands exercise and play pick-up basketball with the players on the field and maybe they work together on class projects. Maybe they do and maybe they don’t, but at Monmouth or Knox I am sure they do.

At Alabama the head coaches were escorted in and out of the game of the century by a squadron of state police officers. An hour before the Monmouth – Knox game on Saturday, our football coach was sitting alone on the sidelines talking to me. I wanted to hear his thoughts on the upcoming game, but Coach Bell was more interested in exploring ideas on how we might increase the probability that our student-athletes graduate. What could he do, he wondered, to ensure that our football players are fully integrated into all aspects of campus life.

The rivalry game at Monmouth has at least as much significance as any of the games of the century that will be played this month on national television. In fact, they may be even more important. That is because for us they are far more than simply athletic events. Our approach calls on us to broadly integrate major events into the life of campus. DIII colleges surround their big games with competitive blood drives, food collections, debate tournaments and the like. When we are at our best, wise student leaders, faculty and administrators use hard-fought contests to demonstrate how to compete and then live in harmony with the competition.

Saturday afternoon I watched a team playing for its first win against a team that had already clinched the conference championship. Both teams played with enthusiasm and energy from the opening kickoff to the last tackle. I walked the field after the game as friends and family mingled with both teams, separated by only a few yards of artificial turf and a single, relaxed security guard. A few minutes earlier I had listened to appreciative cheers from the visiting fans for a good play that had no impact on the game’s outcome at the end of a difficult season. I looked around the stadium and appreciated the noticeable absence of insulting or off-color banners and knew that this was the result of a call from student leadership rather than policing by event staff.

For me, the color and pageantry of a college football game is breathtaking. The sidelines are filled with students who have promising careers in front of them. Marching bands represent thousands of hours of music lessons and drills coming together. The stands are filled with proud parents and appreciative alumni. In Division III, everyone seems to know everyone else and by the end of the season and especially the last game of a senior year, there is a wonderful mix of nostalgia, sadness and excitement about next steps. In many ways that last game of the season–particularly when it is rivalry game–is a final exam for our students and our colleges.

Monmouth and Knox, from players through fans and entire communities, scored well on our final exam. Emotion and energy was high as it should have been. Even with very different records, the players brought energy and enthusiasm to each play. Rivals competed with respect and with remarkably few penalties. Civility was maintained throughout the stands and tailgate areas. Students at two great institutions enjoyed competition and differences and demonstrated that rivalries can be characterized by civility and respect. If we can make that happen first at colleges, then we can expect our graduates to make it happen around the world.

Nearly 20 years ago a friend lent me a book that changed my career trajectory.  I was teaching chemistry, leading an active research team, traveling the country promoting a laboratory-based, guided-inquiry approach to teaching science, growing strawberries and pumpkins on a beautiful New England farm and slipping back to the Midwest each summer to join a band of friends who gathered each July to recreate our childhood experience of detasseling seed corn. Life was busy and enjoyable. I couldn’t imagine anything else.

Then, a handful of Jesuit friends – I was teaching at the College of Holy Cross – invited me to join a lunchtime reading group that was considering what my colleagues described as “the preferential option for the poor.” The preferential option was to me a new and puzzling idea. The central tenet, as I remember it, was that the poorest and most oppressed of our society were provided with a more complete revelation of the gospel message. Jesus had, after all, lived as one of them. If those of us who live a life of relative privilege are to have any hope of understanding the gospel, my Jesuit colleagues explained, we had to visualize it through the experiences of those who daily face oppression and hunger.

This was a new and troubling concept for me; I wasn’t sure I agreed with it then and am not fully persuaded today.  I talked about it with a friend and fellow scientist, George Hoffman, who was chair of the biology department. I don’t remember George’s comments but do remember that he recommended that I read “Night Comes to the Cumberlands.” That book set me on a new career path. The author, a lifelong resident of eastern Kentucky, painted a picture of Appalachia that was devoid of hope. It was critical of those who lived in the area and equally critical of those who had exploited and polluted the region from afar.

I decided to search for an opportunity to replace the certainty of teaching chemistry at an exceptional liberal arts college with the uncertainty of administering a college in Appalachia. To my surprise and disappointment that door never opened. Maybe I sounded too much like a Yankee carpetbagger. Maybe wise search committees realized that chairing a well-funded chemistry department in New England wasn’t the right preparation for a college on a tight budget. Two years later I turned to another path—one that brought me home to the Midwest and allowed me to serve in three different colleges, all with Presbyterian roots and all committed to assisting first-generation college students. Now, nearly two decades down this path, I am pleased with where it has led. I have enjoyed every minute—or nearly every minute—of the journey. The years ahead at Monmouth will include challenges for all of us, but the future is remarkably bright.

In the midst of this satisfaction, I have occasionally wondered why my first or subsequent steps away from the classroom didn’t lead to Appalachia. The idea had seemed so right at the time. Recently I have discerned a possible explanation that I find both exciting and daunting. It goes back to a central message of that book my colleague recommended years ago. In the late 19th century and again in the early 20th century America realized that the natural resources for economic growth could be found in abundance in the Cumberland region of eastern Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. That insight, so apparent to some from afar, was slow to come to the residents of the region. These people were ill-prepared to harness the wealth or to make sure it was developed in a sustainable and responsible fashion. Wealth and prosperity were generated, to be sure, but not for the benefit of the local residents, who were eventually left with a scarred and polluted landscape.

Who is to blame? Some point fingers at exploiters from outside the region who recognized the value of timber and later coal. Certainly there were unscrupulous operators; there are always irresponsible individuals in every era and society. But some of the blame should also be placed on an educational infrastructure that didn’t prepare local leaders to recognize what was coming or respond in a way that protected the local resources while ensuring that a portion of the wealth generated built local communities. Fifty years after the publication of “Night Comes to the Cumberlands,” college students still speculate about what should be done to rebuild a region that has seen more than its fair share of poverty.

What should be abundantly clear, however—especially to those of us at institutions of higher learning in the Midwest—is that we must take a lesson from Appalachia and not allow our region to fall victim to the same fate.  After all, our resources are central to the economic vitality of this country and much of the world.  What can possibly be more valuable in the 21st century than fertile soil, temperate climate and clean water?

The world is increasingly recognizing the value of our natural resources. Will that wealth be extracted from our region only to leave behind worn-out fields and depleted or polluted water supplies? Will the Midwest continue to export bright college graduates and ultimately the wealth generated from our natural resources? Or will we instead develop and retain a cadre of business leaders and scientists who will understand how and why our natural resources must be used responsibly? Will educators and social scientists build the infrastructure that supports sustainable prosperity for our communities?

Will colleges like Monmouth help ensure that our region’s natural resources feed the world in a sustainable fashion while bringing quality of life and prosperity to our communities? Or will we be left to analyze, 50 years hence, what didn’t work? If we opt for the former, I believe we can avoid the sad fate of Appalachia and will have reason to celebrate both the extraordinary bounty of the Midwest and the extraordinary power of a liberal arts education.

The arrival of new students and our traditional matriculation ceremony are always a highlight of the fall semester. Add to that a cornerstone ceremony for a new academic building that will be our most elaborate construction project ever and you have the makings for a very full Saturday. Even before Saturday morning rolled around, however, many important events had already transpired.

On Wednesday a group of distinguished alumni met for long-range planning conversations. On Thursday our Board’s executive committee arrived for two days of deliberation that included plans for construction projects that will extend into the next decade, a roadmap for financial strength, and strategies to ensure academic excellence for generations to come.

Then there was the inaugural meeting of the Trustee Council on Saturday morning. Composed of former Board members, this group of veteran leaders returned to campus to learn about and offer counsel on our current direction.

Throughout all these diverse events, and from many different groups, one message resounded: Although our world faces many complex problems, decades of hard and creative work by the entire community have prepared Monmouth College and her graduates to play a pivotal role in addressing those problems.  This is our time to emerge from the shadows cast by our Midwestern humility and step into the bright light that will shine on those who are ready to tackle the tough issues ahead.

What is it, we might ask, that would cause some of our best and brightest graduates to conclude that this small college is ready to play a leading role on the national stage? Indeed, that question was asked repeatedly during the weekend. Three key answers emerged: our focus on citizenship, our emphasis on complex problem solving, and the central role that our region plays in the global economy. All of these are compelling reasons, but for me the one that resonates the strongest is our focus on citizenship. Lately, as I watch news coverage of the seemingly endless political standoffs in Washington, I am becoming increasingly resolved about the importance of preparing our students to be effective leaders in a democratic society. At Monmouth College, we use the term “active citizenship” to describe this expectation that we have for our students.

In an essay titled “Distinctively American: The Liberal Arts College,” philanthropist Eugene M. Lang argues that while the original focus of residential American liberal arts colleges when they emerged in the mid-19th century was to prepare students to become responsible civic leaders, today that emphasis is becoming increasingly eroded. “Qualities of responsible citizenship as demonstrated by student engagements with social issues are applauded,” he writes, “but rarely do colleges engage these issues in ways that meaningfully prepare students for active roles as citizens in recognizing, understanding and responding to them.”

Unfortunately, our society has lately favored a “one-size-fits-all” attitude that is having a negative impact on higher education. Among troubling developments, some of this country’s finest liberal arts colleges are encouraging students to specialize as early as possible. In this they are mimicking the focus of research universities and the narrowness of a technical school. Despite this change in focus, many of these schools continue to call themselves liberal arts colleges. Consequently, an important component of our educational system is becoming diluted, as is the phrase “liberal arts.”

It is clear that our country desperately needs leaders who can make a deliberative democracy work. It is up to America’s higher education system to provide them. The rich tapestry created by interweaving research and comprehensive universities, community colleges, technical schools and liberal arts colleges has served us well for decades. Each type institution can play an important role in educating and mobilizing a new generation of responsible citizens.

I am convinced, however, that colleges like Monmouth have the best prospect for producing exceptional civic leaders. We will produce graduates who examine all sides of an issue, assimilate and analyze knowledge from multiple sources and fields, welcome creative thinking, and eschew the pat textbook answers that polarize so many debates. Our graduates will be the leaders who break logjams, invent new ideas and build consensus. While other institutions are creating specialists and ideologues, we should be preparing the leaders who will integrate the best ideas of advocates from all sides of an argument. Institutions like Monmouth must prepare the leaders who will interact with teams of specialists to find solutions at the intersections of those specialties.

When we at Monmouth describe ourselves with the slogan “what college was meant to be,” we really mean what our type of college—that distinctively American form of higher education—was meant to be. We are among a distinct minority of colleges that have a four-year integrated curriculum building to an active citizenship capstone experience for all students. We still believe that understanding how knowledge from different disciplines and different eras fits together is as important as specialized knowledge. Our juniors all take a course that emphasizes the value of personal reflection, because we believe that decision making should be a thoughtful and ethical process. Our first-year students take a course entitled Introduction to the Liberal Arts; in that course we emphasize the value of deliberation that is both open-minded and civil. Our students learn to communicate and lead in formal classroom activities and informal co-curricular opportunities.

When liberal arts colleges were visibly the anchor of American higher education, these attributes were the norm at many fine colleges. Now, with pressures to homogenize, these important but time-consuming aspects of a college education are increasingly lost.  Perhaps this trend is one of the reasons that our democratic institutions seem to be on the rocks. I join many distinguished Monmouth alumni in believing that within our innovative curriculum, which harks back to what this college was meant to be, we have a national treasure.

As liberal arts colleges have lost their preeminent place in our diverse educational system, and as many colleges that formerly identified themselves in this honored tradition have lost their focus on citizenship, it is no surprise that we see our government teetering at the edge of an abyss. Fortunately, Monmouth has remained true to “what college was meant to be.” Personalized institutions that offer a tailor-made education continue to exist because of the belief that a handful of well-trained citizens can make a difference. We are preparing our students for just that purpose.