Enrollment Update

Yesterday, I slept in because I could. This week we're on break and I frankly need it. I then headed over to Northwestern Hall to listen in to a special celebration and enrollment update. Patricia Lull, Dean of Students, used the opportunity to explain how Luther Seminary thinks about its enrollment, who's a part of that and what would we like to see happen. The most surprising thing I found out was that apparently I'm on the Enrollment Team at Luther Seminary. Yeah...it surprised me too. That's because Luther sees enrollment not as a task to be done by special group of staff, but its the responsibility of our faculty, staff and students. So this means hospitality in that radical sense of being a welcoming community that despite our (relatively) large size we really work hard to think about who else should be a part of this? Who's missing?

Why am I writting about this?

Well, I think its a really telling part of the Luther Seminary community that a vital lifeline of our life together — enrollment (with out which we would be...) — is seen as a shared responsibility of the whole community. We all do hospitality. We are all part of what kind of culture gets created both on campus and trans-locally in our distributed learning programs. We create the vibe we experience here. I'd say even though there's always more to be hoped for...this "community" thing is hard work and for a place like this, a liminal place like a seminary we do a pretty darn good jump of creating an open environment where things like hospitality, innovation and community can happen. The good news is that our experience with prospective student visits backs this up. When students visit campus, they almost always come.