President’s Perspective

Discipline in a Long-Distance Race

“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

— Hebrews 12:1–2 The Message (MSG) W hen I announced my final year of service to Warner Pacific University, my intention was to finish my time well—to approach this year as a marathon runner might—to give my all to the last months of the presidency. As this semester started, I’ve faced the challenge of cleaning out my 12 years of accumulated documents, books, and other items, to preserve the past and prepare for the future president. Every weekend, I’ve dedicated hours to this task. I’ve cherished the time with students these weeks. Many of my lunches and dinners have been shared with community partners and donors who love the University and care deeply about the transition of leadership. Leaving a job that has also been a calling is a leadership challenge—and one I anticipated. I’ve always intended to finish my time as President as I lived it—fully present, pressing in, leading for the best outcome for the University.

The challenges of the past several weeks have been challenges I did not anticipate facing in the last months as President of Warner Pacific University. The words of Hebrews resonate with me so strongly in this season of COVID-19. While I was planning to run the race well and cross the finish line giving my all, the last few weeks have brought to mind the discipline a runner needs to be able to run a steady race. I’m finding myself “kicking” into a faster pace to finish this race.

Students are at the heart of the Warner Pacific mission.

I remain convinced that the mission of Warner Pacific University is more important today than ever. “Warner Pacific is a Christcentered, urban, liberal arts university dedicated to providing students from diverse backgrounds an education that prepares them to engage actively in a constantly changing world.”

We are working hard to make sure our students continue to have the opportunity to receive an education that prepares them to engage actively in a constantly changing world. Our world is constantly changing—we feel this so acutely in this moment. And we are still preparing students with an education that will change the course of their lives MORE than COVID-19 changes their lives. They will earn an education that will provide social mobility for their families, a new understanding of themselves and others, a future that will allow them to have employment options, even in the midst of a global pandemic. As a university, we’ve held out hope to students in the form of education.

And the finish line is as important today as it was when I began in 2008: to provide access to a Christ-centered, urban, liberal arts education

for all students. Providing access has meant doing the work of identifying and removing the structural and institutional barriers that have limited this access for historically underserved students. Students who are no longer strangers to us but are now the reason we run this race. Students who, in the midst of COVID-19, find themselves underemployed, staying on campus because there is no safe home in which to return. Students who rely on the University for the stability they need to successfully navigate the transition between adolescence and adulthood.

Too often the structures, systems, culture and nomenclature of higher education have limited access for students who don’t have a guide that personally and intentionally walks them through the process. This is as true for adult learners as it is for traditional-aged students. That’s on us! It’s not on students or their families! For me, this has been one of my greatest frustrations with higher education. Many higher education institutions make the claim of accessibility for all, but throughout the educational structures, systems, processes and examinations, barriers exist that challenge the notion of full access.

“If you were to suddenly drop into a place where you did not know the protocols, expectations, culture, nomenclature, etc., would you need someone to give you a hand and to guide you?”

As we began this work more than a decade ago, an employee challenged the notion of providing students with the proposed intentional, highly personalized approach of supporting, reaching out to, and assisting with navigating processes, suggesting that we were hand-holding, and that we would be stunting students’ growth into adulthood by not making them “stand on their own two feet.” In response I asked, “If you were to suddenly drop into a place where you did not know the protocols, expectations, culture, nomenclature, etc., would you need someone to give you a hand and to guide you?”

In that moment, I knew that we needed a story to illustrate the realities that students from diverse backgrounds face when they approach the usual higher education situation. Several years ago, I read the book, “A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League,” by Ron Suskind. The book follows the journey of Cedric Jennings as he enrolls at Brown University and encounters all kinds of hurdles that exist in many higher education institutions. Admission processes, standardized tests, curriculum, reading and writing assignments, social and residence hall realities, all historically framed in dominantculture sets of rules and expectations.

I started by ordering 50 copies of the book and asking people to read it with me. When those ran out, I bought more. Then I invited Cedric to come to campus to share his story, and how education changed the trajectory of his life. In 1993, Cedric was an honor student in one of Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods. After his superhuman effort and dedication, he realized his ambition of going to college, only to find one barrier after another that nearly upended the achievement of his goal. Cedric ultimately earned two master’s degrees and worked as a clinical social worker and served in the administration of the Mayor of Washington, D.C.

For me, Cedric’s story and that of hundreds of diverse students I have encountered over the years are the reason for our work at Warner Pacific University. Students who are as brilliant and worthy of a Christ-centered urban liberal arts education, just like all their dominant-culture peers, who without any of their own doing, benefit from the “privilege” of knowing how to navigate the systems and structures that were built by and for people like them.

Unfortunately, many of the structures and systems deeply embedded in higher education have perpetuated the ongoing historic practices that have failed to serve diverse students well and resulted in lower persistence and graduation rates, higher loan debt and impossible oppression by inequities in access to employment opportunities and living-wage jobs. The clear message of Jesus in articulating the purpose of his earthly ministry in Luke 4:18–19 provided the clarity for the expression of our mission in this time and place. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come” (NLT). It was time to “favor” those who had been left out of higher education.

Over the past decade, faculty and staff engaged actively in transforming many aspects of how education is delivered and ways decisions are made that impact the services delivered to students. Together, our University community took the dare to deconstruct the old and reconstruct something new. Creating new wineskins for new wine, rather than trying to retain the old wineskins that were detrimental to many of our students.

Our mission and commitment led us to reevaluate one historic practice, structure, system of higher education after another. Asking ourselves about its necessity and relevance to our core mission, and whether it perpetuated the exclusion of students from historically underserved backgrounds. Time after time, it became clear that the “tried and true” protocols actually led to exclusion, bias and perpetuating the elitist obstacles.

While we continued to recruit students in many of the same venues as the past, we added emphasis in recruiting students from high schools and community colleges in our immediate neighborhood, where the greatest percentages of diverse students in the state were enrolled. We began partnering with organizations, including College Possible and AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). Our student body began to reflect our neighborhood schools and community colleges— increasing in racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, first-generation demographics in significant ways. We retooled our hiring practices to address implicit bias and to intentionally seek diverse employees. Our Board established aspirations to increase the diversity of its membership to include at least 50% women and/or people of color, which it has now exceeded.

As this transformation began to take hold, Warner Pacific employees began to believe and create new processes, embrace new practices in supporting students and teach with a lens of inclusion and cultural responsiveness. Students today are persisting and graduating at rates similar to those of WP students in the past, and they go on from Warner Pacific to lead and serve across the city. Dozens of students come to mind who are in public office, leading nonprofits, serving as accountants, teachers, business leaders, social workers, and soon will include nurses, leaders in criminal justice, sports medicine, human resources and cybersecurity.

When starting this journey, this marathon race, of serving as President of Warner Pacific, I could never have imagined the place this would become. I am humbled and grateful to see the Kingdom work that is taking place every day through Warner Pacific. God placed us in this city, with neighbors and community members that we could love and serve. Throughout, we have engaged students in a journey where Christ has been at the center of our work. It has been an honor to love our students, work alongside our employees and serve our city. God’s irony is using a soul that grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Oregon to lead Warner Pacific at a time of embracing its urban mission.

In Christ,

Andrea Cook, Ph.D. President Warner Pacific University