

Practicing Hope
Are you needing some hope right now? I have come to understand that hope is not only, or even primarily, a feeling. It is a practice. It requires muscles. Here are three strong practices of hope.
Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus offers regular and intimate reflections on campus, interesting people she’s met, conversations she’s part of and higher education today.
Email her: president@goshen.edu
Are you needing some hope right now? I have come to understand that hope is not only, or even primarily, a feeling. It is a practice. It requires muscles. Here are three strong practices of hope.
Jim Collins, author of the business books Good to Great and Built to Last, defined a Hedgehog Concept as what differentiates great companies from good ones. He writes, “A hedgehog concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at.”
My word for 2022 began poking at my mind back in December. As I wrapped up work before the holidays, I was getting some feedback about my hard edges. In my journal I wrote repeatedly, “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:5)
In 1983, when I was a student at GC, I wrote my senior paper on the topic of gender. That was three years after Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin overthrew their male boss in the movie "9 to 5." Things have changed! But gender is every bit as important today, and for some new reasons.
The very low unemployment figures in Indiana make the time and financial investment in a college education harder for some students and their families to accept. The opportunity costs are very real! So how do we make the case for college in this economy and this region? Here are my 5 arguments.
Why does Goshen College exist? In what ways would the world be diminished if we did not do what we do? If ever there was a time to be crystal clear about our mission, this is it.
Whatever personality we begin with, leaders learn to work with their personalities and beyond their personalities rather than be constrained by them.