From the President
  
Dear friends,
When our students returned to campus last month they were greeted by several significant changes in the college's facilities.

The largest change is the complete renovation of Mossman Hall. This $1.7 million project has provided beautiful and functional classroom and office space for the college's programs in business, nursing, history, psychology, and leadership. For several years we puzzled about how to show prospective students the beautiful Beech Science Center without having them notice Mossman Hall: out of date and partially moth-balled. Now it is all one, a splendid showcase. Just as important, the chain reaction set in motion by moving the business, history, and psychology programs to Mossman provided us an opportunity to unify scattered faculty and move them into upgraded offices in Christy Hall. Faculty in English, computer science, and communications, are now in much better quarters in Christy.

During the summer the college took the next step with information technology, installing equipment that creates a wireless networking environment for our laptop-toting students and faculty. All classrooms, labs, and common areas of the campus now provide wireless access to the Internet. Trustee Robert Jewell '77 and wife Barbara made a significant gift of equipment and services and their company - Network Integration Services - worked with the college's staff to complete the installation.

Several years ago the college partnered with Grace United Methodist Church to establish the Grace Little Builders Preschool. This summer the preschool moved up College Street to a large and newly renovated space right next to the Center for Teaching Excellence. The result is spectacular: The children, some of whom are the children of college employees, have a wonderful new center and playground, and the college's early childhood program has a laboratory school right next door.

You can't beat that! I encourage you to visit the college. I think you will be pleased and impressed by the campus and its people. It's a wonderful place.

Best regards,

Dick Merriman
President

Administrative Viewpoint

During the past couple of months I have talked at length with a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter from the New York Times. I've been sought out by ABC, CBS, and NBC news teams. National Public Radio and the Associated Press phoned me several times, as did the Wall Street Journal. Time and Newsweek have called (as well as a reporter from Europe's largest news magazine), and a CNN reporter left both her office and private phone number on my home answering machine. And that's just a sampling of the media frenzy that has surrounded Southwestern College this summer.

It's heady stuff for someone who has worked in public relations long enough to know that this isn't real life. I spend most of my time trying to get Southwestern College into the consciousness of these very reporters who now are clamoring for my attention.

That's why my conversations with reporters this summer have been tough.

Southwestern College is among the finest private colleges in the Midwest. Its commitment to technology and to service learning have been groundbreaking, and its academic reputation is superb. But the reporters aren't interested in the wireless installation that has made the college the first in the state to be Internet accessible from anywhere on campus. It isn't considered news that our professional studies and online programs are allowing students to earn college degrees long after they had given up on this dream.

What these reporters are looking for is something we can't give. Because a newsworthy Southwestern alumnus has requested our help in protecting his privacy, and because our loyalty lies with the alumnus (in the absence of legal reasons to go against this request), I'm turning away the reporters with "I wish I could help you, but I'm sure you understand our position."

Oddly enough, most have. One reporter even commiserated: "My first summer as a reporter was the summer Richard Jewell was accused of the Olympic bombing, and the media ruined his life before we found out he was innocent," she told me.

So if reporters ask you about Southwestern College, tell them about our wireless networking, and about integrative studies, and about our performing arts, and about the leadership and discipleship teams.

That's the real Southwestern College.

Sara Weinert