3 minute read
Scholarships and scholarship
Every alumni weekend, the President’s Office hosts a unique chapel service focused on three things: scholarships, awards, and scholarship.
This Awards CommUnity is one of the annual events that I enjoy the most because it provides opportunity to rejoice in the generosity of donors (who often contribute nearly $700,000 through numerous scholarships to help fund the education of hundreds of students); the dedication of our faculty, staff, and students who have earned a variety of awards; and the excellent, varied, and often awe-inspiring scholarship practiced by faculty, staff, and especially students.
Every year we invite chairs and deans to nominate faculty and students to be featured in our excellence in thought segment. Usually, we assemble an impressive list of more than thirty individual scholars. We have about twenty minutes to survey all this wonderful scholarship, so we adopt a BaskinRobbins, taste-test-spoon model. We compose slides highlighting all the rich, complex detail, and I ask each scholar or team a human-interest question. Each interview takes just a minute or two. In each case, we celebrate the God-serving accomplishments with warm applause. It is rewarding to watch the student audience tune into the contributions of their fellow students and to feel the inspiration—“If she can do that, so can I!”
Most but not all of the scholars mentioned in this edition of Westwind were featured in our most recent Awards CommUnity (the editors have discovered several impressive contributions that we missed). Allow me to mention three more case studies of excellence in thought.
This year, something unusual happened. We featured nine faculty and staff members who have recently completed doctoral degrees, perhaps the largest such cohort in the history of the university. They earned doctorates in education, English, marital and family therapy, materials science and engineering, social work, and theology. They came to the platform representing a rich array of accomplishments and research, possessing fresh expertise to teach and mentor students. A treasure trove of talent from the risen Christ!
Just a few days before, at a ceremony hosted by the Washington Campus Coalition for the Public Good and sited at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, I had the privilege of presenting the Student Civic Leadership Award to two students with rich resumes in serving both on and off campus, Anilce Castillo and Shayla Kern. We took opportunity to honor them again at Awards CommUnity. Their fine examples remind us that the highest scholarship is excellence in thought shaped into the form of generosity in service.
As is true every year, tracing the stories of student scholars highlights a key feature of the Walla Walla University brand of higher education: WWU students have opportunity to be drawn into the research agendas of skilled faculty members who help them develop their own identity as scholar-researchers. It is impressive to watch faculty members as they mentor students in conducting research, connect these budding scholars to networks of other researchers, and activate students as participants in the wide world of scholarly discourse. It is part of the secret sauce of a Walla Walla University education, which has four key ingredients: Excellence in thought, generosity in service, beauty in expression, and that most important one of all, faith in God.
