Where intellect and imagination converge

Of the many ways to describe Lewis & Clark College, consider these two:

1. Our campus is at latitude 45 degrees 27 minutes 1.5 seconds north, longitude 122 degrees 40 minutes 7.9 seconds west. Our elevation rises to 515 feet. We are 56 miles west of Mount Hood, 80 miles east of the Pacific Ocean, and 6 miles south of Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square.

2. Our campus sits on a rise not far from the confluence of two of the West’s great rivers: the Willamette and the Columbia. The land that we call home, this fertile valley, was shaped millennia ago by natural forces powerful almost beyond our imagining. We enjoy proximity to an urban center rich with cultural, social, and political life, and bursting with opportunities for community engagement. Yet we are also near an almost endless variety of wilderness experiences and geologic marvels that distinguish Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

Both descriptions are true. If you are GPS-dependent, the first is the way to go. For a fuller sense of the vitality that animates the Lewis & Clark campus, look to the second.

What to make of this brief exercise? I submit that the first description may be said to reflect intellect at work, while the second is a somewhat more imaginative telling of facts. The first is a data-based demonstration of mental acuity, the second a more evocative presentation of mental imagery.

I present these two ways of describing where we are to illustrate that, at Lewis & Clark, intellect and imagination are complementary forces that are critical to learning. Education at Lewis & Clark celebrates the convergence of these forces—the intellectual rigor to ask why, and the imaginative daring to ask why not. For example:

• In our College of Arts and Sciences, after probing the why of genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, students boldly ask: Why not mobilize in a public action to end atrocities like these? Why not seed the future with hope by endowing a scholarship that will foster daily personal and transcultural interactions with students from sub Saharan Africa? The Lewis & Clark community launches initiatives in response.

• Our Graduate School of Education and Counseling provides aspiring teachers and counselors with the knowledge, skills, and experiences they will need to answer the “why” questions of their students—and also asks: Why not establish a network of mentors and programs to support and develop new professionals encountering the real-world demands and joys of the classroom? Thus is born the Oregon New Teacher Initiative.

• Our School of Law faculty and students study how and why the law developed over centuries, and what impact it has had on individuals and society. Such a foundation then leads to questions such as: Why not refocus criminal law from the perspective of a victim? Why not structure legal proceedings so that victims are advocates for justice as much as they are bearers of evidence? The result is the school’s National Crime Victim Law Institute, which works to assert and protect victims’ rights in criminal trial courts.

Each of these examples illustrates our capacity to connect the classroom with the community. Convergence moves ideas through time and space, and moves our students from studied reflection to active service—marking ours as a private college with a public conscience. Intellect and imagination do not converge just on Palatine Hill. They find expression in Portland neighborhoods and Northwest communities. They take root in urban centers and rural towns across the United States. And they link the College to people and cultures in cities, villages, and communities in other parts of the world.

We draw deeply on the canon of the world’s knowledge ancient and modern—to shape the content of our courses, to engage our students with different ways of knowing, and to form the crucible in which new ideas interact and from which new methods of inquiry emanate. And just as we tap the resources and heritage of the Northwest to enlarge the experiences of our students and to enliven their own sense of community, we also cultivate a global consciousness. Through our on-campus curricula as well as our overseas and other off-campus study and immersion programs, students develop the awareness that each of us, wherever we are rooted, is a citizen of the world. For our students, public life grows from community engagement and acts of service: a lived experience of other peoples, other cultures, and other customs.

The Columbia and the Willamette flow from many tributaries. So, too, intellect and imagination at Lewis & Clark rise from many elements. Convergence, in fact, is as much a narrative arc as a propelling force. So in this annual report, we choose to review the past academic year in terms of the coalescing of many disciplines, stories, traditions, and cultures. We look at the convergence of the world of ideas and ideas of the world. Teaching and technology. Ways of knowing and ways of serving. And promise and practice.

We are able to impel the coming together of such powerful forces because the generosity of our many friends sustains and advances our work. I am ever mindful that each pledge we receive and each gift we record confirms that our values and programs continue to resonate across generations and across borders. And so, as part of this report we present with immense gratitude the names of those of who honored us with their contributions during the 2005-06 fiscal year, thus reasserting their belief in the power of Lewis & Clark to help shape the next generation of global thinkers and leaders.

I am proud to affirm that at Lewis & Clark, in each of our three schools, our graduates transform what they learn into a deeper understanding of the world at large. At Lewis & Clark, what emerges from the convergence of many academic disciplines and life experiences are citizen-scholars of the first order—women and men who celebrate knowledge for its own sake and for what it, and they, can do for others.

Thomas J. Hochstettler
President