19 To Be Our Best Selves

Gustavus isn’t an easy place; it challenges every member of the community to be their best selves: to serve, in community, with excellence and to value justice and faith. Nevertheless, it forgives us when we don’t achieve perfection around any of the “pillars” and invites us to pay better attention next time. When I came to Gustavus in 2009, I imagined that I had put the call to administration behind me; that here, I’d be a cog in the educational wheel; that here, I’d focus on my principal vocation – to serve students who come to learn about the Earth. I’d be a teacher and a research mentor; perhaps I’d write a textbook that would begin to fill a need for liberal-arts-grounded science writing. I’d probably be a department chair. But a Dean? No, that’s for people with more wisdom than I. Yet here I am, persuaded that the best place for me, right now, is in service to the wheel. Perhaps a cog still…. Far from feeling robbed of my primary vocation, I find that, for a while at least, I can serve the mission best by supporting our faculty and programs that deliver an excellent education to our students.

As a faculty member, I deliberately cultivate a classroom and a research atmosphere that challenges students to strive for growth and to reach beyond the things they know they can do. By acknowledging that the science of geology exists within a global, human context, students learn one of the principal tenets of a liberal arts education – that no discipline exists in a vacuum. By extension, academic achievement should occur within an environment of life balance, good judgment, and solid ethical foundations. As I aim for these very things in my own life (with varying degrees of success), I hope that I serve as a model to students, convincing them, perhaps, that they can achieve excellence within the context of a balanced existence.

These aspects of Gustavus’ mission are important for all learners, from the introductory-level student, to the nearly-finished geology major, to the engaged member of the St. Peter community, and, yes, even the passengers on a cruise ship. For our geology majors, though, I hope that my participation in their learning does even more. It should help them to develop mastery of the discipline, independent critical thinking skills, the capacity for productive teamwork, and an appreciation of the global nature of geology. These elements are built in to the geology curriculum, and, to me, they form the basis for both the teaching and the doing of geology.