Inspired teaching and learning will return
Wednesday, July 1, was my first official day as the eighth president of Skidmore College. I accepted the job in mid-december — back in a different world, it seems. I long anticipated this first day, walking the college grounds and beginning to establish relationships with all the members of the Skidmore community.
As I walked across an entirely empty campus on my first morning, the wave of disappointments that have become such a part of our lives in the COVID-19 era hit me again. A college campus without students is a particularly barren landscape. Animated discussions, lively arguments, laughter, Frisbee, and the bold yet still somewhat innocent perspectives of 18to 22-year-olds ... these should dominate a lively college campus. Now our quiet and empty campus, which has been that way for months, reminds us of the suffering, both of lives and livelihoods, in the nation and the globe.
Walking past the buildings dedicated to the arts, the new science center under construction, the Scribner Library and the athletic fields, I felt the significance of the vibrant culture of an education rooted in the arts, the sciences and the professions. In the words of Philippians, these are the things that are true, just, lovely and pure. We are in a moment of present suffering, to be sure. But the essence of the liberal arts education is not confined to present challenges. It stretches across generations and connects our current moment with the significance of the past and the promise of the future. Ultimately it teaches us how to overcome the present challenges.
At nine that morning I delivered my First Day Address to the community, virtually, of course. I knew I had this first chance to address all of Skidmore — current students and their families, but also all of our dedicated staff and faculty, thousands of loyal alumni and the Saratoga Springs community of which we are a part. As I prepared my remarks, I wondered, how does one effectively lead a people-centered organization in such times? How can one inspire community when our human connections are severed by a virus that has distanced all of us from one another?
I was also keenly aware that I assume this position of leadership and responsibility at the very moment of a nationwide reckoning with America’s history of racial injustice, anti-black oppression, and the ongoing failure of America to live up to the enormous promise of its founding principles. Those principles animate the entire concept of a liberal arts education: to liberate the mind to think critically, creatively, and ethically, to develop character and leadership to serve one’s community and one’s country. That is the ideal that inspires me to put myself in the service of Skidmore College.
Consequently, I announced a presidential initiative on racial justice that will be a primary focus for us for the coming year, and I asserted the fundamental premise that yes, Black lives matter. And I described our plan for bringing nearly all our students back to campus in the fall, as safely as we can, to provide the distinctive Skidmore education.
I do not call this moment a crisis. Crisis was our mode in March, when the virus first hit and we had to suddenly
send students home. Now we are in the mode of urgent operations in a challenging environment, striving together to stay safe and whole while living and working alongside this terrible virus.
Similarly, our struggle with racism and injustice demands more than crisis response: it calls for sustained, long-ranging, transformative efforts to realize the beloved community that America has long sought yet never achieved.
Such transformation calls for hope and for hard work, two things that Americans have always been good at, and two things that form the essence of a liberal arts college. As my first day drew to a close, I walked home across a campus whose emptiness is, I know, fleeting. It will soon be replaced by the inspiring scene of teaching and learning — always a hope-filled enterprise — and so I was conscious of my great fortune. I have come to a place dedicated to the promise of the future, and I am honored to enlist myself in that promise.
Marc Conner is the new president of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs.