STILLPOINT Fall 2023

A Season of Celebration

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SPRING AND SUMMER

It’s been an exciting season of change and reinvigoration at Gordon. Here are just a few things we celebrated over the spring and summer: Kaye Cook (psychology) received a $275,000 Templeton Grant for divine forgiveness studies.

Lilli Johnson ’23, Sarah Ratzlaff ’23 and Anna (Xin) Qi ’23 and Kobi Bui x’26 won awards from the prestigious Broadcast Education Association.

Launched 30+ new and reimagined programs in highdemand areas of science, business, psychology, communication and more.

Student teams placed in the International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition and the National Student Advertising Competition.

NCTQ named Gordon’s education program among the best in the nation.

Tiana Fox ’24 and Lucia Hopkins ’24 were named National Champions in the open women’s double at the American Collegiate Rowing Association Championships.

Gordon received a Salesforce award for “Excellence in Advancement and Alumni Relations.”

$26.5M gift commitment from generous longtime benefactors.

9 new faculty joined to support program development in business, education, computer science and more.

Gordon was named a 2023 “Best Value College” by the Princeton Review.

La Vida received the Best of the North Shore (BONS) Editors’ Choice and Readers’ Choice awards for the best kids’ outdoor program.

Nearly 200 alumni and friends gathered at Fenway in June as I threw the ceremonial first pitch at a Red Sox game.

Don’t miss future news and announcements like these! Subscribe to The Bell (stories.gordon.edu) or follow @gordoncollege on social media.

THE GIFT OF WORK

Pamela B. Lazarakis Director, Professional and Career Development Program & James Higginbotham Legacy Fellows

As a longtime career development professional, I am struck by God’s commitment to preparing people of faith for lives of work, service, ministry and contribution around the globe. Gordon’s mission—a timeless statement of this intentional preparation for contribution—is joined by the invitation to students to thrive in the fullest sense of that word.

When I look through the lens of career development, thriving emerges from four areas:

1. Following Christ. Being in right relationship with God and being a follower of Christ is our foundation upon which all of life and work is built.

2. Understanding and cultivating your God-given gifts and talents to fulfill a unique life calling. Often this process of discovery is aided by a supportive faith community. Over my career, I’ve had the immense privilege of thinking broadly alongside hundreds, if not thousands, of students and alumni about the work that they were uniquely created to do, including how they contribute in their current season of work and how they prepare for the next.

3. Viewing our human endeavor as creative, generative and good, mirroring the work of God at Creation. “Good” doesn’t always mean perfect; in fact, persisting through challenges while embracing opportunities is all part of wholeheartedly pursuing meaningful work. How we work, how we talk about work, how we live the rest of our lives—these are all threads in our story, and they are opportunities to remember and reflect our Creator.

A call to

THE SHOCKIN G SHAPE OF LOVE

Ian DeWeese-Boyd, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy and Education

Like a plant turning its leaves toward the sun, sinking its roots deep, we yearn for what it takes to grow, to thrive. We strive constantly for the energy and elements that will make our lives glisten with the verdant splendor of a well-tended vine. We develop our minds, our portfolios, our profiles. We want comfort, health and pleasure. We don’t mind working hard to obtain these things if that’s what it takes to have a life worth living.

4. Pursuing excellence. In all forms and types of roles— public and private, formal and informal—our work and service should exhibit competence and integrity. The results may become transformational and even redemptive in our lives and the lives of others.

Thriving boils down to this: Follow Christ, cultivate your gifts, mirror God’s good work and pursue excellence. We catch a glimpse of it in Ecclesiastes, chapter 3:

for people

to be happy and to do good while they live . . . and find satisfaction in all their

Do good while you live, and find satisfaction in your work. In doing so you honor God and reflect his story in your own.

“I know that there is nothing better

than

toil—this is the gift of God.”

thrive

But is that all it takes? Philosophers like Socrates acknowledged the goodness of these things but saw that none of them can be the sun or the source of real thriving. Pursued as ends, each will wither you. Turning toward these dark suns, sinking your roots in such sterile sands, will leave your life rotting on the vine. Philosophers and prophets alike insist that serious scrutiny of our lives individually and collectively enables us to see through the glittering good life—to see the poverty of wealth, the weakness of power, the emptiness of reputation—and to glimpse the beauty of being just. More than that, to see that the true source of justice can only be love; it alone is the sun and soil we need to thrive. God’s great love for us— recognized, received and reflected—animates every aspect of true human flourishing.

A TIME TO THRIVE

Reid B. Swetland, M.A.

Associate Dean of Campus Engagement, Mental Health Counselor

Perhaps it’s being a born and raised New Englander, or my fondness for Solomon’s wisdom poetry in Ecclesiastes 3, that I am accustomed to the language and preparation for the changing seasons. Being alongside students in their various stages of growth has been nothing short of a divine privilege.

There’s an old adage that says the last thing to grow on a fruit tree is the fruit. A lot of hard work and patience is required before we get to the harvest, work that may not look like living your best life or the #blessed often associated with thriving.

Learning to thrive means that during seasons of personal, intellectual and spiritual formation you experience, thriving isn’t the transformation process itself, but the result of it. No longer being in the place you once were, able to reflect and see the growth, able to accept what seemed to not

Jesus’ life epitomized this thriving, and his beatitudes describe the shocking shape it must take in the lives who live by this love. Acquainted with sorrows, they mourn; sensible of their poverty, they long for justice; suffering injustice, they are merciful; feeling the burn of conflict, they work for peace; persecuted, they persist; pure of heart, they see their beloved in the hungry, thirsty, unhoused, unwell and imprisoned. These are the thriving.

have a purpose in the moment or seeing God’s faithfulness throughout constantly changing seasons of life.

When the Apostle Paul reflects that he has learned to be “content in all circumstances,” our circumstances could be the seasons that Solomon described; not just as one or the other, but encompassing everything in between. If Solomon were a college student, perhaps he would have written there’s a time to survive and a time to thrive. Learning to thrive means being equipped to be faithful, trusting stewards of wisdom to navigate the life God has called each of us to live.

HOPE EMBODIED

Kori North ’03, M.A. Director of Spiritual Formation

It has often been said that the church is the hope of the world. But what does that mean for how we as Christians engage with the church beyond obligation or boxchecking?

To bring hope to the world, we need to first start by looking both inside ourselves and at the world around us. This means asking, How can I bring my most honest self into life with others? Where are there unmet needs, and how can I meet those needs in tangible ways, or simply through the ministry of presence?

Church can be the place where we find deep community and figure out what it means to be faithful in every area, developing a whole faith for a whole life. It’s where we show up for our neighbors with presence and where we make space to hold questions with holiness. Engaging with the church means identifying each other’s giftedness, celebrating what God is already doing around us and working together to live out the gift of heaven here on earth.

27:13 says,

TOGETHER IN THE MESSI-NEST

Kelly Foster, M.Arch. Associate Professor of Art

In my Industrial Design class in the art program at Gordon, students were tasked with creating small objects that could make an everyday task better. “Better” should be broader than making the task easier. They were to pay attention to how objects could aid people’s daily rhythms to support meaning, healing or delight.

Along the way students would learn how to model their designs digitally and how to prototype their designs through 3D printing. Then they could iterate their designs, repeatedly testing and improving them. The process and the technologies were new to the students. To succeed they needed a disposition towards experimentation with the courage to risk getting things wrong.

A 3D printer builds up form by layering lines of plastic on top of one another. If the printed object has an area with nothing underneath it—like a bridge or a tree branch—temporary supports must be included in the print.

In preparation for a print, one student neglected to instruct the printer to provide the needed supports. When the printing process reached the unsupported section, the printer blithely continued printing, draping strands of magenta-colored plastic in mid-air.

We are the land of the living. It’s not a time or a place we need to wait for or find—we see and reflect the Lord’s goodness here and now.

The church is full of people like us, and God uses us to be beacons of hope in the world. This is what it means to thrive: to bring hope in the places we are least expected, to be fully invested in loving our neighbors and to be hospitality embodied. Thriving is overflowing; it’s experiencing God’s goodness so fully that we can’t possibly keep it to ourselves.

A call to thrive

Psalm

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

The result looked like a nest for a bird that enjoys vibrant color but has a low regard for craftsmanship. The class had a good laugh at the model and the student took the nest home as a keepsake. The students had created a space for one another where each felt safe to try, fail and keep on trying. Each one felt valued in their uniqueness and as contributing participants in a shared project of making life better for others. Each could take the risk of making something new in the full knowledge that they were valued, accepted and loved.

This kind of support is what helps all of us take risks, fail, learn, grow and ultimately thrive—whether life looks like a perfectly constructed bridge or a sloppy magenta bird’s nest. We can create this kind of environment for one another in our classrooms and in our communities, and as we practice life together as the body of Christ, we share the support we’ve given and received well beyond the buildings where we meet.

A SONG SET FREE

Gregory Keller, Ph.D. Professor of Biology; Chair, Department of Life, Health and Physical Sciences

The Eurasian Redwing Thrush is nondescript, any way you cut it. Modest. Unremarkable. Ordinary. Enter any other synonym for “plain-looking” here, and that’s our bird. Its unassuming plumage appears like that of a young American Robin: brown, streaked, a touch of rust on its sides (which often goes unnoticed because it’s so unremarkable), with no plumage accessories or iridescent flair.

But as an ecologist and ornithologist, I know that the Redwing Thrush, like every other species, is defined more deeply not by its appearance, but by its relationships, behaviors and habits. A bird that survives the winters of Iceland, with the snow, and the ice, and the wind and the snowy icy wind, the Redwing manages to eke out a quiet living on important fruit resources and an occasional unlucky garden invertebrate.

Then, as the photoperiod extends a few more minutes each day, the inconspicuous thrush melts the Icelandic birchwoods in the summer with a flourish of ethereal song that can only be described as descript. Immodest. Remarkable. Extraordinary. Enter any other synonym for amazing, and that’s our bird. With its relentless melodious bird song, the multiple harmonics and layers with which a string quartet would struggle, the Redwing reinforces relationships with mates, offspring and adversaries.

A small bird in harsh tundra environment, the Redwing declares its territory for 22 hours a day in the Icelandic summer where it thrives: searching for prey, avoiding predators, building nests, finding mates, laying eggs, raising chicks, battling rivals and beating the elements. It is glorious.

Like the Icelandic thrush there are seasons when we might find ourselves quietly surviving. Frozen by the weight of our world’s challenges or perhaps wind-whipped by the grind of work or the responsibilities of parenting, we might endure, inconspicuous and unassuming, just waiting for the thaw. Our songs are quiet, our surroundings dark and cold.

But the world eventually ushers in new light and warmer days, and we start to see that punctuated between times of surviving can be magnificent seasons of thriving. Thriving isn’t synonymous with easy; after all, the Redwing’s seasons of thriving still involve avoiding Arctic foxes and beating the ice and wind. But these are times of peace, strength, exploration—when we can deeply experience God’s goodness in our relationships, our communities and our contributions at work and home. They are remarkable, melodious.

For the Redwing and for us, thriving is often preceded by periods of surviving. But how glorious when sounds of the whipping winter winds are replaced by complex harmonies, when a song is set free from silence.

Fall Events at Gordon

September 29-30: Homecoming and Family Weekend

October 2: Faculty Artist Series, featuring Sarita Kwok, Megumi Lewis, Stephanie Fong, Rafael Popper-Keizer

October 8: Symphonic Band Fall Concert

October 9: Admissions Open House | Explore Gordon, Music Experience Day

October 22: Community of Song Choir Concert

October 28: Gordon Symphony Orchestra Fall Concert

November 3–4, 7–11: Little Women Theatre Production

November 4: Admissions Open House | Theater Experience Day; Junior and Senior Class Recitals

November 10: Admissions Open House | Explore Gordon

November 18: Admissions Open House | Saturday Campus Tour

December 1: Admissions Open House | Explore Gordon

December 1-2: Christmas at Gordon (Campus Lighting Festival and 33rd Annual Christmas Gala)