Maybe It Was Meant to Be

by Loren Dickinson

We made a vow when we first arrived, Carolyn and I: “Stay a decade,” we promised.

That would be ample enough. This was our second college job. The first on the East Coast lasted four years, and then one day in May it ended unhappily when I was summarily dumped, never mind just cause.

So, “ten years this time will be ample,” we said. It doubtless was ample in the perceptions of some, but ample or not, it’s now clear to all we broke our vow.

That decade ended in 1972. We made no more promises. We felt we found a fit.

Our kids agreed. For their entire college careers here, both lived in the dorm a mile away. “Best of both worlds,” they told us. We could see that. And now nearly three decades later with no more vows to make or break, what is there to say for ourselves?

Nothing, except to defend ourselves.

I think it seemed right here in so many ways. Maybe what we saw began to hark back to our flatland roots, she from Texas, I from Minnesota, and mutual college years in Nebraska. If this country has flatlands, those are they. But this is more than geography.

We found colleagues with no pretenses, no subtleties, no veiled agendas. We found students to be much the same. They seemed scrubbed, fresh, and ready to go at college.

We liked that. Both students and colleagues were like roots to us—the stuff we had known and packed with us without knowing it.

I’m compelled to describe it all the old-fashioned way: Wholesome. Who uses that word anymore? Long since it hath faded from style, because for all its quaintness, it faileth at sophistication. But for me, both colleagues and kids—especially kids—were wholesome here. Many still are. That’s one reason we’ve stayed.

Is that all? No, not all. We found our work suited us, she an accountant and human resource person and I a born and seldom-repressed ham with propensities to interact. Her bosses kept her at duties just beyond her immediate grasp. She was up to it.

Mine (13 presidents and deans) left me alone.

I got the feeling I was to fashion my tasks as I thought best. Make stuff happen. That suited me. They threw support behind launching KGTS, creating or remodeling a half dozen courses, inventing the London Study Tour, and helping inaugurate Evensong.

We stayed for other reasons. The environment was right. We took to the dry and variable weather (sans mosquitoes), succulent fruit from local branches, and summer’s heat and winter’s wonders. Wouldn’t you stay for those reasons?

Not that we didn’t have tempting chances to leave. If you’ll permit, invitations came from each Adventist college save two. Why didn’t they call?

Three offered deanships, two offered departmental chairmanships, one offered a presidency (it surprises me more than it does you), and many offered tasks more tempting—teaching—teaching other wholesome kids about how communicating works. But I felt content doing that here, very content.

Seven times we put it to a vote. Seven times the vote was unanimous.

So we stayed, and stayed, and ...

Have those wholesome kids changed? I think so. They are at once more generous and more self-centered. Proof: Many surrender themselves in ever greater numbers to missions and service, but they want and they view stuff their way, on their terms. And they seem so cheerful about it.

They are at once more urbane and more uncouth. Proof: They’ve traveled widely and surfed video, TV, and computer highways, but common courtesies, while still courtesies, are much less common. It’s painful but I’ll admit it: They may be modeling off dues-paying adults, I among them, many of whose courtesies have seriously eroded.

They are at once smarter and dumber. Proof: They catch on quickly to technology and wisely savor the diversities amongst us; but more and more they’re making some awful choices that trap them in dependencies and abuses. Not smart.

Does change elude me in all this? Not at all. I am at once more patient and impatient. Proof: I take stretches of time for the amiable and dedicated student, but I get annoyed at the ones who don’t behave as I would order things if I could. I now seek to guide more and direct less. Controlling behaviors nettle me whether directed at me or others. Arbitrary people frighten me. I think they’ve had bad models. Or many may face unresolved issues from long past that even to them aren’t clear.

I worry now more than I used to whether or not kids sense anything spiritual from me. My spiritual side, I fear, is too often too subtle. What if they miss it? That may be the teacher’s unpardonable sin. Maybe.

Teachers may carry far more credibility in the melting and molding process than anyone else, including some parents, and that’s truly awesome. I used to petition the Great Maker that He permit me to influence just one student today. I don’t pray that anymore. Tens and hundreds now. One is way too few.

Kids have helped me see that spiritual subtleties often are simply not enough. Many speak openly and without reservation of their spiritual experiences; they talk to each other about them; they hold prayer sessions and small groups in order to promote spiritual connections. I didn’t do that in college. Neither did most of my peers.

I now assume less than I used to. It takes some knowing to know that one doesn’t know much. I learned that again a few quarters ago when a student appeared for a speech. Her moment came to stand and deliver, but the speech went so poorly.
I’d heard a lot of speeches like hers, and of course I can spot an ill-prepared piece of rhetoric.

So I said so. “You didn’t spend much time on that speech, did you?”

Her reply stunned me: “You have no idea how much time I spent on that speech.”

She was right. I had no idea. I’ve never made that judgment since even though the temptation has drawn nigh.

I don’t have a philosophy of teaching but it’s time I get one. When it emerges, it’ll sound something like this:

1. No one takes classes from me; they take them with me.

2. I’m often unsure any learning transpires in my small domain. Nor do I motivate or inspire. Those are student responses, not teacher behaviors. But if I can be animated and knowledgeable about my topics, offering some conviction about them, maybe an entire room full of burgeoning professionals will catch a glimmer and see sense in it all.

3. Students are not customers; they’re valued guests and peers of mine who pay for and deserve my best attentions. We’ll engage, they and I, in pursuits that take them where their agile brains ought to go.

4. There’s no point in assuming students have values plugged in and secured. Many don’t. It’s my job to offer the highest values I can muster and urge students unabashedly to take them on for themselves.

5. I no longer assume the student knows why he’s taking the class or for what good it is. It’s up to me to help make that clear. Once he knows, then he may attach salience to the course that otherwise might be missing.

6. Teachers’ best work may well transpire not in the classroom but in the sanctuary of their offices.

I wish it to be free—free for a student’s joys and a student’s woes. Some have told me it works that way. I like that.

And now I vow to close. It’s a promise I plan to keep by saying: Walla Walla has been right for us. It fits like a favorite shoe and the decades have rolled past like mere days.

Maybe that means that what was, was meant to be. And that’s good.

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Winter 2000
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