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Sometimes people imagine that a college or university should be like a monastery: isolated, insulated from the volatile goings on in the world, a perfect, protected place to learn.
We think this is absolutely the wrong model for a university in our time. An intellectual ghetto will not do, a cloistered place where we talk only to ourselves and to other academics. As a Christian university, we cannot indulge in the false comfort of Christian separatism. We have to be in the mix.
Seattle Pacific University must portray genuine openness, fearless engagement, confident encounter. This means connected research, a scholarship of engagement. It means sending students out into the city, in service, for internships, ensuring that our graduates are equipped to negotiate the great cities around the globe. It means tackling head-on the tough issues of the day. It means bringing all kinds of people into our midst. It means taking risks.
We seek to live and do our work as a university right out there where the world loves and suffers and thrives and fears.
• Alumna Michele Weslander ’91 has played a key role in U.S. intelligence support for global anti-terrorism efforts.
• National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dana Gioia visited SPU to discuss the future of art in America.
• Professor of History Donald Holsinger provides an expert’s view of Middle Eastern Culture and History.
• At SPU ’s invitation, the New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed 900 Seattle leaders for the University’s Annual Downtown Business Breakfast. His topic was “The Landscape of American Politics.” Said Brooks to the crowd, “It’s nice to be at a university where students are provided with a vocabulary to talk about the most important issues in life.”
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