The reading of this book and the pursuant discussions in our study group have served to heighten my awareness of issues that had already begun to nag at me. Who are we? What is L-R? What do we stand for? Do we take a certain stance on certain subjects or do we sit back and see how much the market will bear? There appears to be a conflict between what our donors want to believe we are and what, in reality, we are.

I am in contact with donors who graduated prior to 1970. Many of our most active donors are Lutherans who attended L-R because it was a Lutheran college. They remember a strong Lutheran connection and make the assumption that L-R still is as they remember. We are quite deliberate at fostering this illusion with that group. In public celebrations attended by our active donors, we emphasize those characteristics with which they will most likely identify, e.g., faith life, on-campus worship opportunities, sacred music, and so on. A case in point is our endowment luncheon.

We invite all donors who have established named scholarship programs and all the students who are receiving said scholarships to a special Endowment Brunch. This year we had over 360 attendees. Three “representative” students spoke on behalf of all. Two of them were sacred music majors with one going on to the Lutheran seminary after graduation. The third spoke at length about the Lutheran element and how she chose to go her as a way to continue to connect with the Lutheran part of her life, while receiving an excellent education. For this event, we put forth a particularly “Lutheran” or perhaps “Christian” foot to our donors. Is this because we know what kind of institution they want to support? If we picked three scholarship recipients at random and had them address the group, what message might we hear? Should our institution attempt to be the kind of college our donors want to support? Would our donors be as willing to lend their support if they perceived that L-R has changed from what they so fondly remember? Do we know what we want to be? Are our assumptions about what the donors will support correct? We seem to think we know which side our fund-raising bread is buttered on.

Recently I was privy to a discussion by several donors and community representatives (who are not donors) around a recent drama production. The gist was that they were disgusted by the raunchy material, the plethora of profanity and the heavy sexual content. Do we have a right to expect that on a Christian campus there is a self-imposed, intentional effort to lift up the “good” drama and eschew “bad.” As a student of the arts, I can assure anyone that there is a multitude of thoughtful, witty, dramatic/comedic material available. It is not necessary to choose the worst we can get away with. Many departments within the college are making a deliberate effort to enhance our standing in the community, and would see this kind of public production as damaging it. Several of these people said they would not make the mistake again of attending an L-R play production or probably any other, for that matter.

Who makes the decisions about what our college is to be? Does it happen merely by accident? One of our admission counselors was overheard making the following remark to the grandchild of an alum, when asked about the Lutheran element of the college. “Yes, we are a Lutheran school, but that won’t interfere in anything you choose to do here. It’s really just part of our history.” As it turns out, this is not the answer this student wanted to hear. He was actually interested in the “Lutheran-ness” of our institution.

My questions are, “Are those of us who promote the college and those who raise funds for the college on the same page? How did we arrive on that page? Are we making decisions based upon a clear mission message of the college, or is it just happenstance, left up to individual development officers, admission counselors, professors, etc.?”

I would like to be able to find a way to make true statements about the Lenoir-Rhyne College of today while still lifting up the Lenoir-Rhyne College of yesterday.