Conclusion
As you may have guessed, I never made it to Alaska. I did move to Colorado after high school, refusing to attend college. I worked as a plumber for much of that year, and I felt true accomplishment in that craft. But I didn’t feel like I was giving back, that I was utilizing my gifts and talents to further society. And I didn’t feel a deep sense of purpose and meaning. So I returned to college and found that I loved learning so much that I went on for a master’s degree and then a doctorate. My first position after finishing my PhD was at Florida Gulf Coast University, a public comprehensive much like Central Washington. And I became dedicated to this work of fulfilling the promise and potential of higher education for the people of this great country—people from all different backgrounds and abilities and even from across the world. I have been asked many times why I would want to be a president of an institution of higher education in this challenging time. We are experiencing decreased public support, increasing questions about the value of what we do, with adaptive challenges facing us: climate change, racial injustice, the polarization of our civic society. What I know is that no one person, not even a president, can solve or truly even engage these issues alone. There is no hero that can ride in and save us. We must do this work together. We must build a stronger governance system that blurs the boundaries between faculty, staff, students and administrators. We must come together as a community, to lead together, to transform what we do—together.
This is the moment that we have been given.
I am deeply honored to have been offered the opportunity to join you as the 15th president of Central Washington University, a special place that transforms lives, not because I have all the answers, but because I know, in my heart, that together we can figure out what questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to begin to find answers.
Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to the work before us.
Be well.
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