Reprinted with permission of the News-Register. By Starla Pointer, August 27, 2018. Most of Linfield College’s new students — about 375, including both freshmen and transfers — attended the traditional opening convocation Friday along with parents, staff and other college community members. Classes started Monday.
Linfield’s new president, Miles Davis, opened his part of the convocation with a shout.
“One team!” he declared.
“Wildcats!” the crowd roared back.
“One team!” Davis repeated.
“Wildcats!” they roared.
Davis arrived at Linfield in July from Shenandoah University, where he was the inaugural chairman of the Harry F. Byrd Jr. School of Business. He also was a founding director and dean of the school’s Institute for Entrepreneurship.
Linfield’s first African-American president, he is the initial college president from the Ph.D Project, a network designed to prepare members of underrepresented communities for high-level leadership. He was recently inducted into the Project’s Hall of Fame.
Davis recalled a recent visit to Portland to attend a jazz festival. Competing with the music was a rally for the Alt Right movement.
Such rallies, riots and other controversial gatherings aren’t new, he said. But “this is the first time large numbers around the world can watch the deep evolution of a nation in real time.”
Now the rallies often include questions about the value of education — in particular, higher education, especially the liberal arts education offered by schools such as Linfield, he said.
“Yet the liberal arts afforded us democracy,” he said, noting that liberal arts’ concept of covering a broad range of subjects “has origins in the attempt to discover universal principles.”
He added, “the liberal arts were, and are, those subjects and skills which are essential for a free people.”
Davis connected the goals of liberal arts education to those of the Constitution.
He encouraged audience members to spend time getting to understand the Constitution better.
He also encouraged them to support liberal arts, which, he said, “are not about political affiliations or indoctrination, but about acquiring a depth of knowledge and learning to reason through” conflicts and challenges. Doing so “lifts up society” and “grants us the capability to advance as a community, a nation, a world.
“We need liberal arts education now more than ever,” Davis said, restating the title of his speech.
Davis, who spent time in Hawaii when he was serving in the Navy, began by expressing concern for alumni and current Linfield families who live on the Islands.
The Big Island has been damaged by lava eruptions, and all have suffered heavy rainfall this summer. As of Friday, Hurricane Lane was bearing down with 100-plus mile an hour winds and more rain; it later was downgraded to a tropical storm.
Davis promised the college would help families who had arrived for orientation worried about being able to travel home.
Convocation began with faculty members marching into the Ted Wilson gymnasium in their academic regalia.
“Teach us to seek your wisdom beyond all the knowledge we pursue,” Chaplain David Massey asked in his invocation.
He also asked God to help members of Linfield College “to listen to those with whom we disagree long enough” to reach understanding. “Let our kindness be swift … (let us) know humanity, friendship and wisdom,” he asked.
Political science professor Nicholas Buccola welcomed the crowd to the event.
He reminded new students that “you’ll be challenged like never before … pushed beyond your comfort level,” which will serve as a catalyst for learning. Students may doubt themselves at times, he said, but “professors will notice you and encourage you, get to know you and help you.”
At Linfield, Buccola said, “you are surrounded by people committed to a community where we know and care about each other.”
Johnene Loverich, mother of new freshman Maddie Loverich, already knew that.
“I’m so sold on small,” said Loverich, impressed by the welcome her daughter received when they arrived on campus from their home on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
That community feeling is what led Maddie to attend to Linfield, the only school she applied to.
A strong softball player, Maddie had been looking at a different college in Salem. She and her parents traveled to see a softball game there. They were impressed by the visiting team, the Linfield Wildcats.
“The team camaraderie was clearly amazing,” Loverich recalled.
They decided to investigate McMinnville on their way home. “We visited Linfield, and Maddie fell in love,” her mother recalled. “We’ve fallen in love with Linfield more with each visit.”
Now she’s looking forward to playing for the Wildcats herself, as well as to attending classes for her media studies major.
When they arrived for freshman orientation, Loverich said she was surprised to see her daughter greet other students as if they were longtime friends — even though they’d never met in person before. She realized they had become friends through social media.
Loverich said she also was impressed, again, by how friendly Linfield is. She attended Washington State University, a huge school that can feel impersonal. On the Linfield campus, in contrast, it’s easy for students and professors to get to know one another.
“I’m really impressed,” she said, noting Linfield’s motto, “The power of a small college.”
