North lands dreaming: Further up and further in living up to the expectations of our children

Inaugural Address of Dr. Karen I. Halbersleben, Eleventh President of Northland College

Delivered May 3, 2003 Mr. Chairman; esteemed associates of the platform party; honored members of the Board of Trustees; Northland students past and present; distinguished faculty and staff; devoted friends of Northland College and of its newest President, I bid you welcome.

Few of you in the audience today have ever attended a Presidential inauguration at Northland College: they are a rare event at this very special place in which only 10 men have served as President in the 110 years of our existence. My two predecessors averaged a staggering 15 years of service apiece, which is a goal of longevity I do intend to aim for with your support. I have now officially been installed as your eleventh President, and the first full-time woman at the helm of Northland College.

Historian that I continue to be, I must take this opportunity to remember the incomparable Harriet Dexter who preceded me in this office as Northland's real first woman president for an interim period of 9 months in 1971. She blazed this trail for me as she blazed so many others during her career of dedication and achievement, and I would not have her forgotten on this of all days. Women have opened doors of possibility for me all my life: I thank Harriet as I thank my mother, grandmother, my Aunt Ruth, and so many other women who have made it possible for me to be fully accepted in this position of honor and responsibility.

My inaugural wish for each of you hearing my voice today is that at some point in your own lives you experience the boundless happiness and the sense of fulfillment that I feel at this moment. If all humans could, at least once in their lives, feel this same sense of blessing, of support, of purpose, we would indeed be living in a just and joyous world.

My desire to share with you directly some sense of the fulfillment I'm feeling today is one reason that you were presented with a volume of Sigurd Olson's writing as you took your seats this afternoon. Reflections from the
North Country is Northland College's gift to you, both to commemorate this day in the history of our College and to celebrate Sigurd Olson's remarkable contributions to Northland College and our mission. But even more than that, particularly for those of you who are not residents of these north lands, Olson captures the majesty and the mystery of our wilderness and the natural beauties of the region we love so passionately. Through this book, we offer you Olson's and our love for the north country, at once exuberant and life enriching.

Now I don't for a moment pretend to be a polished interpreter of Olson's writing. Lord knows, I still have a world to learn about the environment and environmentalism. But, maybe that's what's so appropriate about this book on this day: Olson does two things for us. First, Olson reminds us how our engagement with wilderness brings out the best and most profound in human nature. And, secondly, Olson answers the question "Why is Northland College's mission uniquely and enduringly important for the future of our world?" What more do you need in an inaugural address?

Now the professor in me would find it very easy to stand up here and do a perfectly crafted 55 minute lecture on the way the book is constructed, and the many ways Olson addresses the two themes I just mentioned: personal connection with nature; the triumphant reasons for Northland's mission. But, I leave that for you to do on your own. Consider the book as a kind of homework assignment. Leaf through the three categories his reflections fall into in this book: Primal Heritage; Search for Meaning; and the Imponderables. As you read, you will grasp with joy the "why behind the why" of Northland's unique integration of the liberal arts and environmentalism. The book is as expansive and inspiring as the wilderness itself, and I urge you to engage with it on your own just as you engage with nature: personally and in your own way. So, don't worry: I'm not going to stand up here and pontificate about the whole book; nor will there be a quiz when I'm done. No, it's one specific essay in the collection I'd like to talk with you about today. It's one that lifted me out of my chair when I read it and provided me with the inspiration I needed both for my remarks today, and indeed increasingly for my life itself.

The essay I want to talk about today is entitled "The Dream of Hudson Bay." It's a very short reflective piece, found on page 53. By presenting his own experience with human dreams, Olson gives much better answers than I ever could to the questions: "Why Northland? Why this oddball mission of becoming the nation's leading environmental liberal arts college?" And, most particularly, "What's next for us?" How can one short essay accomplish all of this? That's the miracle of Sigurd Olson: listen.

In this essay, Olson follows an easy progression. First, he talks about the dreams we all have as young people: dreams that motivate, dreams that inspire, dreams that impel action. Then, from his perspective as a person pushing 80 at the time he wrote, he reflects on how a person's dreams change and deepen over time. Finally, as only Olson can, he writes a little prose sonnet on how the act of having dreams as humans connects us to nature, connects us to each other, and connects us to our better selves.

Dreaming as connection.

Dreaming as motivation.

Dreaming as a way to move further up and further in the journey to wisdom.

Here is how it unfolds. Olson begins by describing a dream that took hold of his heart as a young man: to canoe in the vast and glorious Hudson Bay. That desire came to haunt him until he indeed fulfilled this first, grand dream of his younger years.

At that moment in his life and in his essay, a phenomenally important thing happens. He realized that that first dream, important and motivating as it seemed at the time, was not enough. With that first great dream accomplished, he yearned for something more. And, in search of a new dream, he first journeyed to other places and pursued new adventures. Each vista was achieved in turn and replaced by new, physical challenges to seek. Dream of place succeeded dream of place. Step one.

Here's where the story of Northland College enters our picture. Northland College was founded as the Northern Wisconsin Academy in 1892 with its own dream, both immediate and inspiring:

• a dream of offering opportunity to the children of the immigrants who labored hard in this criminally cut-over district;
• a dream of serving a region newly shorn of its magnificent forests of white pine, of serving a place of stumps and slashings which remained intensely vulnerable to the ravages that the resulting ecological devastation was bringing;
• a dream of somehow redeeming through a love of place the destruction of these beautiful north lands.

Northland College also dreamed of providing access to students - both male and female, native and immigrant - for whom liberal education would not have been possible but for this magical little school nestled on the shores of Kichee-Gamme. And Northland dreamed of serving God in the Congregational tradition of service, celebration, and inclusion. Noble dreams for a young academy and then, beginning in 1906, college. Throughout our first century, Northland dreamed big, willing to set ambitious goals and to sound important themes in grand style. And, in time, as Northland matured and achieved these founding dreams, new visions emerged.

Back to Sigurd. As we age, he notes, the dreams of our youth change, becoming somehow deeper and more expansive. Mature dreams move past actual physical goals, and move us instead in the direction of seeking to connect with something larger than ourselves. Mature dreams seek not experience as much as understanding, seek not physical gratification as much as wisdom. Olson writes: "My dreams, like those of most people, have gone through many stages; the first was concerned mostly with physical satisfaction... But once this is accomplished comes the search for the ultimate, which only knowledge of the earth, the universe, and man's relationship to it can bring."

Listen to that last bit again:"...the search for the ultimate, which only knowledge of the earth, the universe, and man's relationship to it can bring. Here, as Olson charts for us the journey of a person's dreams, from the concrete yearnings of youth to the growing desire to understand life's larger purposes, he connects us today to the upward trajectory of dreaming that is the story of Northland College. And here, in just a few, short, glorious phrases Olson answers as only he can the "why behind Northland's why": why we have continued to move "further up and further in" as we matured as an institution.

30 years ago, like Olson, Northland understood she was ready to deepen the dreams of her founding. In 1972, a dream of more expansive connections grew from the earlier, more immediate dreams. Northland's ongoing dream of serving the place we love through the transforming powers of the liberal arts came together in a unique and powerful way. A new, noble dream of connection emerged: of integrating the glories of liberal education with an explicit exploration, understanding, and service of our environment. A dream of grounding students in the intellectual majesty of the liberal arts, and then thrusting them outwards:

• to ask the biggest questions of all,
• to cross disciplines,
• to transcend time,
• to find the fullest expression of human mind and heart in their understanding of their connection with our planet and their obligation to the future.

With that dream, Northland announced that we were fundamentally different from other institutions of higher education; and, we celebrate today that we have been guided by the right dream for more than 30 years. Ours has been a consistent and coherent commitment to life. When we have said that our goal< is to become the nation's leading environmental liberal arts college, we have not used the word "leading" in the competitive sense: that we somehow must cross a mythical finish line before anyone else. There are no real measures to gauge "leading" in this way: no one hands us an award or gives the runner up a kindly pat on the back. No, we think of "leading" in a more Biblical sense: of leading a people through the wilderness toward its very survival. We think of leading our society, while there is still time, to environmental and social sustainability and justice. And, this we do: leading - though sometimes messily, sometimes crankily-but always leading as we pledge to continue to do.

As you tour our campus you see physical representations of this dream and this leadership... award-winning green buildings; solar panels; wind towers, however temperamental; our straw bale house; campus composting and the ever-popular composting toilets. Leaf through our academic catalog and see the vibrant intellectual evidence of this leadership: entire programs in Environmental Studies and Peace Studies; humanities programs like one in English that develops students' expressive abilities through the lens of the environment with learning experiences like "Humanity and Nature"; programs in the natural sciences that prepare our students to become stewards of our natural resources; an Outdoor Education program which, as one of its tracks, teaches our students to make nature accessible to those who are challenged physically or mentally. Ours is a curriculum like no other and, in the hands of our remarkable faculty, truly transforms our students. And, talk to our students: a more engaged and engaging group of young leaders you will not find. They inspire me on a daily basis. At Northland our students are finding the opportunities they need both to train their minds and to become the agents of positive change this world so desperately needs. And that is leadership indeed. What a dream we have dreamed.

But, just as in 1972 Northland built on the dreams of her founding and enunciated a new, mature vision of connection and service, so again today is it time for Northland to dream "further up and further in." And here, my friends, is where we stand today: ready to embark on the fullest expression of dreaming that Olson holds out to us: the "third step," as he calls it. Here we move from the dream of establishing ourselves as a leading environmental liberal arts college, to one that envisions working consciously to translate our dream for others who hunger for the same ability to serve our planet and each other.

Listen again to Olson: "The third step is that one must realize he is not alone: most of the world is seeking peace and fulfillment."

True peace and fulfillment can only come when humans live in right relationship with each other, with their planet, and with their Creator.

True peace is possible only when our relationships are built on a foundation of social and economic justice.

True fulfillment can only come when we know that we have done everything we can to protect the world our grandchildren, and their grandchildren's children, will inherent, out to the seventh generation of our future.

Whether or not you claim the label "environmentalist" for yourself, we are connected by this need, this mandate to serve the children who follow us. If we don't make the decision today, right now, to love these children, who will?

Northland must consciously reach out and translate our dream, to bring our fire, in ways that are accessible and indeed compelling to those who, for whatever reason, resist the label "environmentalist." Remembering that most humans want the same things for their children, Northland must work to translate our life-giving dream to those who might dismiss environmentalists today as tree-huggers, as anti-business zealots, as dreary and depressing scolds. There are three ways I see this translation, this reaching out occurring; three ways I will ask us to use to measure how well we're able to translate our life-giving mission to ourselves and to others.

First, you will know that we are achieving our dreams by the ways we interact with each other. Community must come first. I believe that to translate our dream outwards means, above all else, demonstrating the inward joy we feel as we connect to each other and to the planet. We must celebrate and, whenever possible, show that we're enjoying this work, because we are! Let our twinned-commitment to education and wilderness bind us together as a community of hope and purpose, and deal graciously with those who are reaching out to us for the lessons we can teach. Rather than dish out guilt and despair, let's give out hope. Let's provide not only the tools people need to make a positive difference in their own lives, but also the sure knowledge that earth-friendly decisions DO make a difference to the future of our planet.

Secondly, you will know that we are achieving our dream by the ways we educate our students. Today we dream a new expression of what a Northland education means both for our students and for the larger world. To paraphrase, perhaps to mangle, the Bible: Northland educates for "faith, hope, and clarity."

Faith that the educated choices each one of us learns to make are enough to move us back toward right relationship with the planet and all its inhabitants.

Hope, and an education for hope, that gives us the tools we need to serve the future.

And clarity to understand that the choices we make in one area of our lives reverberate outwards and affect endlessly both the present and the future.

An education for "faith, hope, and clarity" unleashes the human spirit in its search for beauty, for connection, for meaning; and, acknowledges that the world is now too dangerous for anything but Truth, and too small for anything but Love. An education for "faith, hope, and clarity" harnesses the best of the human intellect and spirit, allowing us to live up to the expectations, not of our parents, but of our children.

The third hallmark of this "further up and further in" dream will be in the way Northland reaches out in educational service. You will see a Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute that focuses its programs and outreach on providing all Northland students with the experiences they need to become environmental leaders. We will offer a full and varied range of internships and interdisciplinary research opportunities focused on outreach programs in areas like Northern Forest Restoration, Environmental Education, and Regional Sustainability. You will see us reaching out to serve the ongoing educational and economic needs of our region by providing educational and financial access to students who seek to transfer into Northland from regional two-year and tribal colleges. You will see us reaching out to serve by exploring a new focus on one of the greatest environmental issues of all: rural health care. You will see us working to become a model of sustainability on our own campus and a resource for Ashland and the Chequamegon Bay region as together we all move towards economic and environmental sustainability. And, you will see us partner whenever possible with our Native American neighbors: to learn from and assist them as together we endeavor to serve the seventh generation of our future.

Northland will continue to embrace the dreams that have brought us here: service to this region; access to all; celebration of liberal learning; affirmation of our historic and spiritual ties to the Congregational Church; zealous pursuit of service to the planet and the future. With the courage and strength that made the dreams of our past come true, we now embrace the ultimate dreams of enduring peace and fulfillment.

As an old man, Olson described it thus: "When I sit in my cabin watching the flames in my fireplace, it reminds me of countless fires I have built all over the North - but even more, I remember that mankind has gazed into fires and dreamed his dreams for centuries. The longing for the Hudson Bay is behind me, but the great dream, that of finally growing into the vast world of comprehension and knowing is very much alive. This is the grandest dream of all." This is what1s next for us, friends. Growing forth in the vast world of comprehension and knowing, of service and of joy. And, for us, that means dreaming further up and further in.

The story of Northland College shows that our dreams matter.

Our story shows that our dreams have the power to change the world.

Our story shows that our dreams involve all those who love Northland in an enriching journey that takes us further up in the desire to serve humanity and further in the pursuit of wisdom.

Our new dream comes from bringing hope and connection, joy and clarity to a world that yearns for it.

Our new dream comes from journeying with Sigurd Olson, first on the canoe trips that reveal the full glory of the north country, then returning to the campfire with its warming and illuminating vision of connection and purpose.

Our new dream comes from affirming together the glories of all the dreams that have brought us to this day, and the life-giving dreams that we carry forward from this room.

Dream with me about a place of learning situated in the northern reaches of this great land.

Dream with me about a place that has helped redeem a countryside that had been blasted, blighted, and burned-over by greed and short-sighted financial gain.

Dream with me about the special community that has grown in this place and, through its dedicated service to God, humanity, and environment, has provided transforming educational opportunity to all who seek it.

Dream with me about a community of learning that is at once bold and noble.

Dream with me, and be part of, the grand realization of our new dreams as today we move further up and further in the service of both Creator and Creation, of education and the environment.

Can little Northland College make this new dream a reality? If you allow me to use the vernacular of my adopted and adored home: with your help, "you betcha!"