About the Center: A Charge From the President
A Gospel View of Our World
SPU Seeks to Become a Model of Reconciliation and Embrace
On September 20, 2000, as part of my annual State of the University
Address, I stood before the Seattle Pacific University community and
called us to intensify our commitment to racial reconciliation. I had
no idea at the time where this call might lead us.
But I felt a deep conviction, that if we are serious about our mission to engage
the culture and change the world, we must step up to the challenge
of race and dividedness and exclusion that has plagued our world far
too long.
Most of all, I felt we had to try to craft a vision of hope
that is rooted in the gospel of Jesus. Of course, I knew there were many
on our campus who cared deeply about this issue and that much had been
accomplished over time at SPU. But I was convinced we had to take huge
new steps toward articulating a coherent purpose for what we were trying
to bring about. Might it be possible, I thought, right here at Seattle
Pacific University, to discover some of the keys to tearing down walls
that divide?
Might it be possible, to use the language of Miroslav Volf,
to get at the conditions of exclusion and find our way forward to become
a community
of embrace?
Might we bear witness to the hope we find in
Jesus Christ, the hope of grace and love, forgiveness, and unity?
Might we claim for our community the radical notion that God wants all
of his children to flourish together?
Might we actually make a real difference
through the very gifts we have been given as a Christian university — through the radical call of a
gospel view of the world, through the gifts of learning and scholarship,
through our clear commitment to grace-filled community, through our distinctive
mission to engage the culture? Could it be that we might actually model
reconciliation? Could it be that reconciliation might become part of
the very fabric of our institution?
How presumptuous of us, how naïve, our critics might say, just another gesture
of political correctness. Others might claim our campus is too "white" to think
we have anything to say. Others might accuse us of indulging in "white guilt," a
motivation that is almost never healthy.
I understand these notes of caution and suspicion, and I understand
we have a lot to learn and we have trust to earn. But we are moving forward.
Sometimes groping our way, we are determined to take one step at a time
on the long road toward reconciliation and embrace.
I stand at this moment quite simply amazed at what is going on across
our campus. Something pretty profound is happening. We have begun to
talk more openly about race and reconciliation. We have recruited ethnically
diverse students more intentionally, and our numbers are changing quite
dramatically. Faculty reading groups are discussing works such as Miroslav
Volf's Exclusion and Embrace and Chinua Achebe's Things
Fall Apart.Our
friends Gary and Barbara Ames contributed $1 million toward a strong
scholarship program, and we now celebrate 15 Ames Scholars, ethnic
minority student leaders who are making a huge impact on our campus.We hosted 13 CCCU colleges and universities for a three-day conference
on our campus to discuss reconciliation, a project supported by Deborah
Wilds of the Gates Foundation.
We are building relationships and forming partnerships in the urban
community, and we are adding ethnic minority members to our Board of
Trustees. We hired two key leaders in Tali Hairston and Joe Snell to
give leadership to our efforts, and we brought in Pastor Alex Gee as
a wonderful coach and encourager. This fall, we held a President's Symposium
on Reconciliation and, under the guidance of Vice President Les Steele,
conducted a Day of Common Learning on the topic. We also welcomed 400
multicultural student leaders to Seattle Pacific for a national conference.
Two years ago, a group of students invited me to go with them to
Jackson, Mississippi. They were headed to Jackson, as part of our
SPRINT program, to work with the great civil rights leader John Perkins,
and they insisted that their president come along.
Well, after nudging my calendar in many different ways, I went
to Jackson that December, and I had the privilege to see the work of Dr. Perkins and to sit with
our students and listen to him deliver some of the most moving and penetrating
Bible teaching I have ever heard. The theme was reconciliation. Tali Hairston
and I then gathered with John and his team and began to think together how SPU
might partner with this great leader. How could we extend the teachings, the
hopeful vision, and something of the legacy of Dr. Perkins into our own efforts
for reconciliation?
Out of those conversations and many more came the John Perkins Center
for Reconciliation, Leadership Training, and Community Development that
we inaugurated on October 20, 2004.
Through the work of the Center, we
will build bridges into our urban community, create partnerships with
urban churches and organizations, launch scholarship and reflection,
and change the shape and face of our own campus community. We are thrilled
to open this new chapter in our work and are grateful to Dr. Perkins
for partnering with us.
So, something is happening indeed. We feel blessed,
and we are thankful. As we move into the future, my hope is that reconciliation
becomes part of the fabric of our institution, the natural way we go
about our work. This strong commitment to reconciliation will be a
clear part of our 2014 Blueprint for Excellence. We will continue
to focus on dismantling those walls that divide, but our great desire
is to craft a vision of hope, not just through words but through our
actions. We actually seek to model reconciliation. As I have said from
the very beginning, we are serious about this work, and we will stay
with this for the long haul.
— Philip W. Eaton, President
Perkins Perspective
Read up and sign up for the Perkins Perspective and get the latest news from the Perkins Center at SPU. 
