Finding Calling
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magazine Grand View University Summer 2014 FINDING YO UR CALLING president’s PEN them a higher paying job? Or, do we exist In listening sessions around the country, the to equip and empower our students to higher education community, employers change the world? and citizens in general have railed against These may seem like silly or rhetorical this particular measure, objecting to the dilemmas. The answer to each seems to notion that the value of an education lie somewhere in the middle, but we live can be reduced to an average salary level in a culture that tends to debate most calculated at a single point in time, to issues from extreme viewpoints. For the say nothing of the problems with data past decade or so, and certainly since collection and interpretation. Yet advocates the recent recession, public policy dialog, continue to pursue the implementation funding, and media coverage regarding of such a ranking system. (Now go back higher education have been largely and re-read the questions I posed at the about jobs…getting people the skills beginning of this article.) they need to get employed. Meanwhile, As I grapple with this tendency to institutions that provide a broader value education only as a means to a PHOTO: DAN VANDer beek ’90 baccalaureate education – and the liberal higher paying job, I cannot help but think arts in particular – are being labeled as about our older alumni fondly singing the Should Grand View “change with the unaffordable and less valuable to the lyrics of “Happiness Never Depends on times” and adapt as quickly as possible to economy Success”: what students today indicate they want? Within the past year, the federal Live not in dreams that are selfish and Or, are there certain values and truths Department of Education has proposed vain, that Grand View should hold onto and a single, four-factor ranking of every Look not with envious thoughts on your impart to current and future generations institution of higher education which brothers. of students? would be tied to an institution’s ability Pure is our happiness, rich is our gain Is education a private good or a to participate in federal financial aid When we rejoice in the welfare of public good? In other words, do the programs. One of the factors to be used others. benefits of an education accrue mostly to would be the average salary of graduates Those lyrics communicate a value and the student in the form of higher earnings, from each institution, calculated 18 a concept that is fundamental not just to or does society as a whole rely on and months after graduation. There would be our Danish heritage but to Lutheran higher benefit from an educated citizenry? no recognition of an institution’s region, education in general. Another word to Do we exist to make our students student demographic, or the distribution describe it is “vocation,” as defined and wealthy by giving them skills that will gain of its graduates across various professions. understood in Lutheran teaching. As STUDENT CENTER FIRST GV FINDING GROUNDBREAKING STUDY TOUR YOUR 2 TO CUBA 6 CALLING GV breaks ground Students, faculty, Grand View on Student Center guests visit Cuba encourages students construction and on educational to discover talents to renovation project. tour. benefit others. Lutherans, we know we are called into come together during our first annual this world to serve others. In our homes, Transforming Lives: Celebrate Vocation communities, workplaces, and churches, Week. I am reassured to see faculty, staff, we are called by God to set aside our own and students alike embrace the concept self-interest and understand how our gifts of vocation, both as an institutional value (talents, abilities, passions, etc.) can be put and as a personal ideal. And I am pleased in action to serve others. Our Lutheran to share those and other stories in the understanding of vocation informs us feature article of this magazine. that there is a larger purpose to our Bottom line: Grand View transforms magazine work, our roles, our positions within our the lives of our students so that they can organizations and communities. And that transform the world through the lives that SUMMER 2014 sense of purpose empowers us to act – to they live. VOLUME 63, NUMBER 2 act in ways that benefit others. My final request is this…if you believe Editor LACIE SIBLEY ’07 So…should Grand View just get with what we’re doing is important and if Designer Kelly (DEVRIES ’00) DANIEL the times, go with the flow, and forsake you agree that we should be preserving Contributing Writers CAROL BAMFORD, our historic values and roots? Are we a and imparting this important concept of Molly BROWN Photographers TODD BAILEY ’92, JIM HEEMSTRA, “dinosaur” that needs to be replaced by vocation, the next time you hear or read DAN VANDER BEEK ’90, DOUG WELLS a style or mode of education that seems a media account that reduces higher more relevant to the desires of students or education simply to job skills that lead to a Board of Trustees the specific needs of employers? True, we higher income, or the next time you hear Chair PAUL E. SCHICKLER need to prepare students for their careers; a public official denigrating the worth of a Karen (Sorensen ’70) Kurt E. Rasmussen ’88 and we do. But if those of us who believe college education, please speak up. Please Brodie Dawn Taylor in the importance of our long-held values do not let those extreme perspectives Michael L. Burk Martha A. Willits Eric W. Burmeister do not hold them up, defend them, and shape higher education policy in such a Gregory J. Burrows Honorary Members preserve them for future generations, then way that Grand View – and so many other C. Dean Carlson Marcia H. Brown shame on us. institutions like us – are not valued and Peter M. Cownie Garland K. Carver Mary C. Coffin H. Eugene Cedarholm I am intensely proud of what the preserved. Eric T. Crowell ’77 Phillip D. Ehm ’51 Grand View community has done to infuse Robert S. DeWaay Thomas R. Gibson Bao Jake “B.J.” Do Larry D. Hartsook ’63 “vocation” into so much of what we do. Virgil B. Elings ’58 Michael N. Hess I am proud of our faculty for embedding Brett E. Harman J. Robert Hudson Scott M. Harrison Theodore M. Hutchison vocation in our new core curriculum. I KENT HENNING Nick J. Henderson Richard O. Jacobson was thrilled to see our campus community PRESIDENT Kent L. Henning Charles S. Johnson Richard W. Hurd ’72 Timothy J. Krumm Carey G. Jury ’70 Robert E. Larson José M. Laracuente James E. Luhrs Robert L. Mahaffey ’58 Sandra K. (Jensen ’57) Anita Norian Rasmussen James W. Noyce Elton P. Richards Gary E. Palmer ’72 John P. Rigler GV Magazine is published three times annually by the Marketing Department at Grand View University and is distributed at no charge to alumni and friends of the institution. Constituents are encouraged to send contributions, suggestions and information for Alumni News to: Lacie Sibley, Editor; Grand View University; 1200 Grandview Avenue; Des Moines, IA 50316-1599 8 515-263-2832; [email protected] or fill out the form online at www.grandview.edu. Grand View University 1200 Grandview Avenue Des Moines, Iowa 50316-1599 515-263-2800 The Hjemed (a Danish word meaning Homeward, pronounced Hyem’-ath) 800-444-6083 sculpture, which was installed next to the Student Center as part of Grand View’s www.grandview.edu centennial celebration, was moved prior to construction on the Student Center. The sculpture now permanently resides along Grand Central Walkway, across from the Krumm Business Center. The centennial sculpture was designed by artist/ designer Mark LaMair ’81. PHOTO: KELLY (DEVRIES ’00) DanieL on the ROCK STUDENT CENTER GROUNDBREAKING BY LACIE Sibley ’07, editor Grand View broke ground on the anonymous gift of $1 million dollars have The Bookstore expansion and renovation project for the also been given as lead gifts. and Viking Theatre GV Student Center April 25. The GV Major corporate support from the remain open during Board of Trustees, many alumni, faculty, Des Moines community includes gifts from construction, with staff, donors, and friends of the university The Principal Financial Group, Du Pont- accessibility through were in attendance. Work on the project Pioneer, UnityPoint Health, and Bankers the east entrance. Gbegan immediately after commencement Trust/John Ruan Foundation Trust. ceremonies and is slated for completion by the time fall 2015 classes begin. Thanks to generous support from donors to Transformations: A Campaign For Grand View University, more than $12.4 million of the $20 million overall campaign goal has been raised, including $7.5 million for the Student Center. Much of the building project will be funded by private gifts to the university, which include $2.5 million from the Rasmussen family who are honoring retired Grand View faculty member, The Reverend Thorvald Hansen and his wife, Johanne, a retired Grand View staff member, as well as Irvin and Elizabeth Ibsen, with their gift. A $1 million Legacy Grant from Prairie Meadows and an GV RECEIVES TWO GRANTS BY LACIE Sibley ’07, editor Grand View was recently awarded two them with services to help them complete open online courses (MOOCs) and other new grants, the College Success Grant the credits they attempt during their first online teaching methods as possible by the Great Lakes Higher Education year of college, as well as earn the grades alternatives to traditional upper-level Guaranty Corporation and another by the necessary to position themselves for a undergraduate courses in the humanities.