Paying Homage to King, Welcoming A New Year, and Doubling Down on our Purpose

Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty,

Like you, I have watched and read about the storm on the Capitol and the devastation it caused; the anxieties about something as fundamental for Americans as the peaceful transition of presidential power; and the worsening of the pandemic trends throughout Southern California. These present-day realities have me ruminating quite a bit about a leader’s role in such contexts.

I know that some of my presidential colleagues think our role is to send an immediate response to our campus when a troubling act occurs. I don’t criticize them for doing so, but that is not my natural inclination. Why not? Three reasons. One, I am loath to add to the proliferation of messages we get from the media, community leaders, friends, and families. Two, I do not want to engage in performance activism where folks craft and disseminate messages that are more likely to build one’s own social capital than to inform, educate, or advocate. Three, I want to be reflective not reactive.

As I mull over so many of today’s urgent challenges, I want any response I send to the university community to be an authentic, deliberate and measured one that is ideally tied to actions. I am not sure if this is a “good” or “bad” way to react, but it is a tendency I wanted to make explicit while I think about Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader I respect deeply.

As the MLK holiday fast approaches, I have been re-reading his speeches and writings. There are loads of insights that help me be a more graceful, generous, inclusive, and action-oriented leader. This year, many of his words hit closer to home than ever. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

With those words ringing in my ears, I think this is a time for California Lutheran University to double down on the purpose of a liberal arts and sciences institution. It is more important than ever for Cal Lutheran to provide our diverse student body with a high-quality, post secondary degree or experience that is shaped by the values of the ELCA, the rigorous pursuit of truth, an appreciation of divergent perspectives and ideologies, and a commitment to integrity and justice. In an era where facts and fiction converge, commentary devoid of evidence circulates wildly, and echo chambers amplify uniform voices while obliterating the chances of dissenters getting any voice at all, Cal Lutheran must commit as vigorously to teaching students how to learn as what to learn.

The work ahead will be hard and given the financial hardships spurred by COVID-19, we will have difficult decisions to make along the way. I promise to gather input before making decisions and then to communicate clearly the rationale for what is decided. I suspect that some of these decisions will be unpopular, so I urge you to examine the facts, weigh the trade-offs in play, and pull the “logic thread” through the argument to see if the conclusion is a reasonable one, even if you disagree.

Hard and challenging work shouldn’t scare us, as we are a resilient community. That resilience will help to buffer us from the hardships we have all faced in 2020. Let’s bid it good riddance and jointly welcome in a new year.

Next week, on the same day that many of you start your Spring ’21 classes, this country will inaugurate its 46th president. Not long after that, I am hoping that my advocacy work with Ventura County Public Health will allow our faculty and staff to get access to COVID-19 vaccinations. For more information on that distribution, please tune in at 6:00 tonight to hear Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin's live stream discussion on this important issue.

All the while, I encourage us to get outside, greet our friends and colleagues from a distance, and let our eyes reveal the smiles that lurk behind our sturdy masks. Let us all lift up the Lutheran values of grace, generosity, and inclusivity as we show the world that Cal Lutheran can do this. Cal Lutheran is doing this. We are getting through this, together.
 

Lori E. Varlotta, Ph.D.
President