Alumni Magazine September 1983 Whitworth University

Whitworth Digital Commons Whitworth University Whitworth Alumni Magazine University Archives 1983 Alumni Magazine September 1983 Whitworth University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/alumnimagazine Recommended Citation Whitworth University , "Alumni Magazine September 1983" Whitworth University (1983). Whitworth Alumni Magazine. Paper 345. https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/alumnimagazine/345 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the University Archives at Whitworth University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Whitworth Alumni Magazine by an authorized administrator of Whitworth University. Whitworth College, Vol. 52 I No. 1/ september 1983 Dr. Robert H. Mounce, President Stemming the Tide "The educational foundations of you'll never doubt whether there is our society are presently being musical talent on campus. In athlet- eroded by a rising tide of ic competition as well as in the mediocrity that threatens our very quietness of contemplation there is future as a nation and a people," abundant evidence that What grim and eccentric prophet Whitworthians are immensely of doom wrote that? Sounds like talented. one of those perennial pessimists What can we say about who keeps bewailing the decline of leadership? Is Whitworth turning contemporary society. out leaders? At this point I could Not so. It comes from a recent easily produce a list of prominent (April 1983) report by the alumni who have excelled in their prestigious National Commission on chosen fields, And that is one Excellence in Education, The important kind of leadership. Yet eighteen member commission there is another kind to provide included representation from every direction for society. The powerful segment of American society The independent liberal arts impact of a Single life dedicated to concerned with the quality of what college stands or falls on the basis the well-being of others is a form of goes in the classroom, of some over-riding purpose, a leadership too often overlooked. Eighteen months of intensive deeply ingrained raison d'etre. Whitworth graduates are notable for study and consultation by the Whitworth has a reason for being. It choosing careers of service. Commission turned up some stands proudly in the historic The education system of America discouraging statistics. For example: tradition of those colleges may be in dire straights but the about 13 percent of all 17-year-olds committed to the desirability of a answer is not more money. It is a in the United States are functionally value-based education from a clearer grasp of what makes people illiterate; the College Board's Christian perspective. reach out for excellence. The Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) Is there a vision at Whitworth? Christian faith fosters those qualities show a virtually unbroken decline There is. It incl udes a student body of character that make for greatness. from 1963 until the present; eager to learn and continually It provides a reason for being and international comparisons of growing toward responsible clarity of vision. It demands the full student achievement reveal that on adulthood, a faculty well-equipped involvement of every talent we 19 academic tests American students to teach and deeply concerned possess and calls us to lead out by lXe~e firs ocsecond.and.,u >-...-j_about..the-IQtallif"-Ot-th<>-Studenr, a demonstrating what it means to be comparison with other staff and administration willing to God's children in a hurting world. industrialized nations, were last serve the pressing needs of the The Commission on Excellence seven times. community. The vision is one of in Education has done us a real Little wonder that the report is exalting God by loving Him with all service. It has reminded us of where titled "A Nation at Risk." A free and our rational faculties (Mark 12:30), Whitworth can make a major democratic society cannot function What about talent? It's in no short contribution in the dilemma of apart from an informed citizenry. supply at Whitworth, The scholastic American higher education. Ignorance is the surest and quickest average of our freshman class this Today, as in the past, Whitworth route to slavery. year is 3,6. Listen to the choir and eagerly accepts that challenge. How does Whitworth College fit into this scene? I was struck by the observation in Dr. Mounce's Preaching/Speaking Engagements the report that the current decline stems primarily from "weakness of October purpose, confusion of vision, 9 Preaching, Shadle Park Presbyterian Church, Spokane, WA 16 Preaching, Garland Avenue Alliance Church, Spokane, WA underuse of talent, and lack of leadership." What made this November 6 Preaching, First Presbyterian Church, Hayward, CA statement leap from the page is the 9 Speaking at Chapel, Whitworth College, Spokane, WA fact that these very qualities - December purpose, vision, talent and 20 Preaching - Senior Citizens Group Luncheon, Garland leadership - are what makes Avenue Alliance Church, Spokane, WA Whitworth what it is today. Inside Today 3 A Report on Reporting Faculty Focus / 17 Alumni Notebook / 18 6 Architect David Martin in China Today's Mail / 22 Today in Sports / 23 Calendar / 24 23 Football's Bruce Grambo: A Profile 2 ·_.:..- ~ '_'__'_I I TodaV's Topic ~ · ocietY -oK lucrative offer to the journalist for con- A SPOKANE FREE<".' ..' lANCER" ,', ."\::;.-,, SITS IN HIS tinued reporting. But the free lancer can't shake the lingering feeling that he has profited from someone else's woes. And that that is not a good way to profit •FORTY MILES AWAY, IN IDAHO, RE- porter Teresa Tsalaky has uncovered evidence of wrongdoing by a government official in the Spokane Valley. In the old days she'd have dropped everything and gone after the story hard. But lately she's been having doubts. "If something you write is going to cause him to lose his job, or have his week, but finally he knows he can wait no neighbors walk down the street and say, longer. What has happened to the family 'This is a bad guy,' you know - is it really has happened; writing about it will not worth it' asks the Spokesman-Review - change that, he decides. So he sits at the Chronicle journalist and Whitworth rypewriter and begins. alumna. "The grieving mother stands in a So troubling is this question to her by Paul Bunning supermarket parking lot, huddled against that she is considering leaving journalism a cold spring breeze, waiting to give the altogether. hit-man his down payment," he writes. "One of my colleagues recently It is the saga of a respected Spokane quit, precisely for that reason, because she family whose son was tried and convicted had to at times do things that could even of a series of brutal rapes, culminating in ruin people's lives by what she wrote," the heartbroken mother's attempt to Tsalaky says. arrange the deaths of the prosecuting "The thing is, it's a question of how attorney and the judge. good a reporter you really want to be. You He calls the story into the news- can hold on to your morals, not go after the paper, for which he has written before, and scandals, and be just a mediocre reporter. the national editor is enthusiastic. "We've If you want to be good, you've got to go seen a few wire stories on this," the editor after the news hard. You have to hit it hard, exclaims, "not very interesting. But this is you have to expose people, everything you wonderful!" find out, without getting affected by it You That Sunday the story covers most just go out there and do it" of page three, with two photos. It lands on Tsalaky studied at Whitworth for almost a million East Coast doorsteps. two years in the late 1970s, and then Three days later Newsweek magazine dis- transferred to Western Washington Univer- patches a team to Spokane, and soon this siry, which she felt had a stronger jour- poor family's crisis is cast worldwide. nalism department. But what she calls her There are even feelers from Hollywood on moral sensitivity she traces from Whit- a movie. And the newspaper makes a worth religion and philosophy classes. 3 --_. --- - --_. - "I think it helped teach me to look walks of life? If you're a lawyer you have Whitworth," he says.' below the surface of, for instance, what a to decide whether you're going to defend Such value-oriented education for person is doing, if he is mishandling city someone who might be guilty - but the journalists, he says, is unfortunately lacking monies, or ripping off his employees, to person still deserves the best defense they at many journalism schools. look beyond that to the person himself," can get so that justice is evolved," Gray As a result, he hates to see sensitive she says. says. alums like Tsalaky abandon journalism. Alas, such sensitivity has a price - Perhaps it is relatively new for jour- "Responsible Christians don't hide particularly in a world in which she who nalists to think about the difficult ethical from the world, they don't avoid issues. I hesitates is lost. problems of their work (although some certainly don't think Christ was avoiding While Tsalaky's work was accumu- would say not), but the questions are the nastier parts of life, he was meeting lating a residue of doubt, the real question- undeniably more important today, when with publicans, prostitutes, tax collectors ing, ironically, came after she wrote a nice, the press is so powerful and influential. (the legalized criminals of the day) ... in innocent series of features "about a lady Still, it has long been fashionable journalism you don't have to be a goody living in a tent up at the Lake Cocolalla for outsiders comfortably distant from the gum drop just writing about superficial (Idaho) campground because she could niceties.

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