Embracing our community

I repeat the now familiar line that we, EMU, cannot afford to be what we have become. I do not speak of finances like the Prioritization Steering Committee (PSC). It is my hope and belief that the PSC has taken steps to put the university in a better financial state. My fears lie far beyond the university's balance sheet.

I know I am not alone in feeling a hint of emptiness on reading the PSC preliminary recommendations. We placed hope in the yearlong prioritization process. We endured the painful examination of each individual part of our community. We forced each part of the community to explain what they provide to the community and why they should be allowed to remain a part of the community. We ranked our various parts against each other so we would be able to call one third of us "Above Average" and another third of us "Below Average." And after we endured the painful breaking of our community into individual parts, we anxiously waited for the PSC to come and sew us back together.

The PSC report issued Monday did not have the secret answers or visionary guidance that we sought for our fractured community. We were instead greeted by incomprehensible statistics and indecipherable acronyms. The answer, we were told, was to dump the very least of our community and prune several more parts of the community. No mention was made of how to think of ourselves as a unified community again. No clear vision of our future could be found.

The PSC correctly noted in the opening statement of its report that EMU has changed quite a bit in the past ten years. Instead of a clear statement of who we are now, the EMU community is left with pages of financial statistics. With all the scars from the statisticians' scalpel, it is hard to see the Potter's hands at work in this 12 page document.

The leaders of our institution have made multiple statements over the past few years of who and what EMU would like to follow. The Board of Trustees in November 2002, reaffirmed the university's commitment to Mennonite Church USA and the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. The PSC report mentions the Board's more recent commitment to compensate faculty and administrators on par with the national median of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. The PSC made its decisions based on the comparison of EMU to the Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System Southeastern Peers and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems Peers. EMU is clear on who it would like to emulate, but these statements do not answer the important question: who is EMU?

Our shared values, as designated by the Board of Trustees in March 2002, include the value of community. It was in this same shared value of community that Ken Roth asked a similar question of our identity in September 2002. "The EMU mission statement joins with Micah 6:8 in a commitment to 'do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.' Are we doing that?" asked Roth.

We all learned the cost of questioning the community earlier this week. Ken Roth will leave this university having done far more than the PSC in furthering our campus community. He challenged our community to become stronger. The Board of Trustees and the administration are too weak to accept his challenge.

We cannot afford what we have become. Until the leaders of this community learn to embrace the internal community over outside influences, we lose much more than the dollars and cents valued by the Prioritization Steering Committee.

Contact Galen at galen.wenger@emu.edu