A time of transition in the leadership of the Unive r s i t y o f the Ozarks offered a season for reflection this fall.
Rick Niece, president of the Presbyterian institution in Clarksville, is retiring in June and a new president, Richard L. “Rich” Dunworth from Millikin University in Illinois, will succeed Niece in July. The university has about 675 students.
As part of the university’s Walton Arts and Ideas Series, students chose four faculty members to give “last lectures” - what the four would give if it were their last.
The faculty membersdelivered those lectures this fall, with the last one given Friday.
KIM VAN SCOY
Kim Van Scoy, 49, associate professor of environmental studies and science education, talked about a lasting lesson from her childhood when she spent a day with her friend’s family in a black neighborhood in Florida.
“I realized I was the only white girl in the middle of a black town,” Van Scoy said. “I felt like every car that drove by slowed down. I felt like everybody that passed looked.”
She remembers feeling ashamed about telling her father, who was active in the civil-rights movement, that she felt uncomfortable.
“My dad said to me, ‘Good,’” Van Scoy said. “‘Don’t ever forget what it feels like to be different.’”
That lesson served as the basis for her “last lecture,” which was delivered in September. In it, she talked about changes that she wants to see in society, including equal rights for families headed by homosexuals.
“I just wanted people to think about things a little differently,” Van Scoy said.
In addition to supporting marriage rights for same-sex couples, Van Scoy hopes that laws change so that same-sex couples and their children have the same benefits heterosexual couples have.
The lifestyles of homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people may offend some Christians, she said, personal religious beliefs should not be used to justify discrimination.
She said she watched the hardships two same-sex couples experienced when their domestic partners were in ill health. Instead of celebrating the lives of their ill loved ones, they had to spend time with lawyers sorting out legal issues.
“These are human beings,” Van Scoy said. “These are people who have families.”
DAVE DAILY
Dave Daily, professor of religion, said that when Christians focus so much on how to get to heaven, they miss the significance of physical life.
“The central idea of Christ is the notion of the incarnation. That God became flesh in Jesus Christ,” said Daily, 47. “What that does is make material life matter. It’s not just about our souls.”
Daily has taught Bible classes for 13 years at the university and focused his “last lecture,” delivered in October, on the intersection of religion and economics.
“The Bible is deeply involved in the welfare of the material life of creation itself,” he said.
God intends for human life to be free from exploitation and for all people to have the dignity of food to eat, shelter and good work, Daily said.
In his lecture, Daily talked about the significance God places on human life that is reflected in the Sabbath and Jubilee.
“The Sabbath is the keystone of the Ten Commandments,” Daily wrote in his lecture notes. “Sabbath is a social leveler. No one works on the Sabbath, no matter what your social status. Even the draft animals don’t work on Sabbath. Sabbath proclaims the good news that everyone and everything has dignity and value simply by virtue of its creaturely existence.Everything deserves rest, everything deserves the kind of life in which they can pause and take delight in the sheer goodness of existence.”
Leviticus describes the establishment of Jubilee, when slaves were to be set free and debts forgiven every 50 years, he said.
“Jubilee shows that in God’s world, families are not condemned to perpetual debt slavery, power and wealth are not held in the hands of a few, and everyone over the longterm has the opportunity to support themselves through good, decent, sustainable patterns of labor and rest,” Daily said.
SEAN COLEMAN
Sean Coleman, biology professor, says the concept of “intelligent design” bothers him, both as a person of faith and as a biologist.
Wrestling with questions about science and faith have strengthened Coleman’s beliefs, and he hoped his “last lecture,” delivered Nov. 2, challenged students to examine their beliefs and reach their own conclusions, he said.
The intelligent-design movement provides a way for some people to reconcile faith and some of the ideas of evolution and natural selection, Coleman, 31, said. He calls it a “God in the gaps” ideology.
Proponents of the belief that Earth exists because of an intelligent designer point to God when they find gaps in what science can explain, Coleman said.
“Scientific evidence is going to fill in those gaps,” Coleman said. “Then, you’re left with no faith. That is problematic.”
The intelligent-design movement emerged in the 1980s after a court case banned the teaching of creationism in public-school science classrooms as an alternate explanation of evolution, Coleman said.
Coleman explained in his lecture that scientific theories develop from a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. More evidence exists for the theory of evolution than for the theory of gravity, he said.
“Science cannot study the supernatural,” Coleman wrote in his lecture notes. “Scientists are not trying to disprove the existence of God.”
Coleman grew up in western Wisconsin attending a church affiliated with the Congregational United Church of Christ and had parents who were active in the church.
“I didn’t realize there wascontroversy between science and faith,” Coleman said. “There really isn’t a controversy for me.”
ELISSA HEIL
For Elissa Heil, 50, associate academic dean and professor of English and Spanish, her “last lecture” was inspired by her experience one day recently in the classroom. It was eerily silent when she walked in. Students were not chatting about their assignments or examinations or everyday life. “Their heads are bent on their devices,” she said. “Every student is engaged in texting. They’re not talking to one another.”So, instead of focusing on her scholarship and love of literature, her “last lecture” focused on one of her biggest fears for her 10-yearold daughter’s generation.
“My fear is what we’re missing by focusing so much attention on our technology,” Heil said. “We should use technology - not make it a lifestyle. My fear is it’s becoming too much a part of our life.”
Heil has a smart-phone and a Facebook account, but she said she is not preoccupied with the technology like her students are.
In her lecture, given Nov. 16, Heil talked about the intrusion of technology at the movies, at dinner parties, at hotel bars, during vacations and even at home.
When her daughter had a friend stay the night, Heil noticed that the girls were a little too quiet in the living room.She discovered that they were in the living room texting each other on their iPod Touches.
“They were together, 5 feet apart, but were missing the joy of developed conversation that the luxury of the institution of the sleepover provides - the late-night chats, giggles, plans and board games, all part of growing up,” Heil said.
She concluded her lecture with two thoughts: “One, never lose sight of what we hold sacred as a community; and two, don’t leave us for the virtual world but luxuriate in the here and now, your privileged position in this place.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 11/22/2012