Winter 2006-07
Never a Boring Day
The president of a university wears many hats.
Frequently the hats are changed from one hour to the next: communicating with alumni and friends via email, responding to faculty/staff/students regarding facility concerns, interacting with civic officials and architects while envisioning building projects, chairing committees, interviewing prospective faculty members, enjoying an evening with students at the annual semi-formal dinner, preaching a sermon, watching an athletic contest, and numerous other activities.
One thing is for sure: it’s not a boring job.
In some ways my role is relatively simple: to do everything I can to obtain the resources (people and funds) so that faculty and staff at EMU can fulfill their roles effectively. Human talent is the most important resource any organization possesses.
Jim Collins, in his best-selling business book Good to Great and sequel on not-for-profit organizations, writes that it is paramount to “get the right people on the bus” and to “place those people in the right seats on that bus.”
That metaphor for leading an organization has special meaning for me. As a 16- and 17-year-old I drove a 60-passenger school bus at Iowa Mennonite School. Being a safe driver wouldn’t have meant much if I had forgotten certain students on the route or if all had decided to pile into several seats on one side of the bus. I’ve jokingly told a few EMU students from Iowa that they owe their very lives to my safety record as a teenage school bus driver. That always elicits a quizzical look! For sure, I am grateful for God’s grace as well.
The faculty and staff on the EMU “bus” are phenomenal people. Almost all could increase their salaries and benefits by going elsewhere. But they are on this bus because they believe in our mission. I observe how much they sweat “blood and tears” for the sake of our students.
Their impact is reflected in a letter from a nursing alumnus who made a generous contribution to support financial aid for current students (see story on the estate gift of Kathryn Suyes). She represents the many faithful, grateful alumni and friends who partner with faculty and staff in this mission we all love.
No university president, public or private, survives in the role very long if he or she is not willing to ask for financial support to provide “fuel” for the bus. To those who can’t imagine asking for money I say, “If you like to be with people and you believe 100 percent in the mission of the organization, inviting others to give is not difficult.”
If you can read the stories in this issue of Crossroads and not be inclined to support EMU to the level of your capability, however large or modest, I’d have to wonder if you are reading the same magazine!
Seriously, please consider the impact EMU has had on your life or on members of your family, or on your congregation, or on this world so much in need of hope and healing – and then give generously with joy.
—Loren Swartzendruber. MDiv ’79
