This post features the Honors Day Convocation address delivered by Dr. Anton Armstrong ’78, Tosdal Professor Music and Conductor of the St. Olaf Choir.

Thank you Provost Sortor for those introductory comments, and good morning members of the student body, faculty and staff colleagues, members of the St. Olaf Board of Regents, friends and donors to St. Olaf.  I am honored to offer remarks in a ceremony where we gather to honor the academic achievements of our students.

St. Olaf College has been a distinctive institution of higher education since its founding in 1874, in that its students not only included men but also women.  This very much set it apart from other Lutheran institutions who were exclusively schools of higher education for men training for careers as teachers or the ministry. Throughout its history, St. Olaf  has worked to provide its students the finest, rigorous liberal arts education rooted in the values of a community of faith. Beginning in the 1960’s, the College expanded its mission to become a globally engaged community of learning, providing meaningful opportunities for international and domestic off-campus study connected to the college’s curriculum.  Our current mission statement clearly bears witness to St. Olaf ‘s dedicated efforts to “challenge students to excel in the liberal arts, examine faith and values, and explore meaningful vocation in an inclusive, globally engaged community nourished by Lutheran tradition.”

St. Olaf College has been a distinctive institution of higher education since its founding in 1874, in that its students not only included men but also women… Throughout its history, St. Olaf  has worked to provide its students the finest, rigorous liberal arts education rooted in the values of a community of faith.

Now St. Olaf is facing another big and long overdue challenge to truly become a community where all can thrive and belong. While we are here today to recognize the academic achievements of members of our community, this afternoon we will open our inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Symposium: Recognizing Excellence, Challenges, and the Work Ahead. This event has been designed and brought to fruition by Vice President for Equity and Inclusion María C. Pabón Gautier, her able associate Marina Edlund with the assistance of the St. Olaf Council on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Our College can be very proud of its past academic achievements, but we are now being called to an even higher goal. As a proud St. Olaf alum of the Class of 1978, I rejoice in the high academic excellence for which our College is now recognized.  However, one important distinctive characteristic is that our academic excellence is grounded in a community of faith, where the nurturing and care of the individual guides the work of the College.  The experience of the Norwegian immigrants who founded this College impels us to advance the ideal of a community where people of ALL backgrounds and identities belong.  I am energized by a 21st century Lutheran ecumenical perspective that is evidenced in the work of the College Ministry team, where not only only two rostered ELCA clergy, but also Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders work together to serve members of the St. Olaf community.  The Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community as well as our Religion Department, Philosophy Department and other faculty partners create opportunities for academic and personal reflection on religious belief, including reasoned consideration of Christian faith and other traditions that engage questions of truth and meaning.

Now St. Olaf is facing another big and long overdue challenge to truly become a community where all can thrive and belong… As a proud St. Olaf alum of the Class of 1978, I rejoice in the high academic excellence for which our College is now recognized.  However, one important distinctive characteristic is that our academic excellence is grounded in a community of faith, where the nurturing and care of the individual guides the work of the College.

As a musician, you may not be surprised to hear me say that Hymnody has been an important element in shaping and guiding my faith perspective.  As I think of striving for a Community of Belonging, a favorite hymn of mine contains this text:

In Christ there is no east or west,
in him no south or north,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.

Join hands, then, people of the faith,
whate’er your race may be.
All children of the living God
are surely kin to me.

So this morning, I ask each of us to remember the call of “The Great Commandment” as found in Matthew 22:37-39, where Christ declares:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

We have just sung the text of African American writer and civil rights activist, James Weldon Johnson, that serve as the lyrics for the Black National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” with music by his brother, J. Rosamund Johnson

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
let our rejoicing rise,
high as the list’ning skies, let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
sing a song full of faith that the dark past has taught us,
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.

These words exhort us to lift every voice, not for one or two, but for everyone!

Yet, how do we begin to achieve these lofty goals in the realities of our current life and world, where division and distrust seem to reign supreme?  I believe we are creative people who must continue to aspire to a better St. Olaf.  For me, here the words of the immortal African American writer and poet Langston Hughes ring ever true as written in his poem, I Dream A World.  For his time, when Hughes uses the word “man”, it meant an inclusive “all”:

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

Colleagues and friends, I keep returning to the belief that we are called to be “pastoral” servant leaders in our learning, teaching, work and leadership. As a choral conductor, I have often seen the messages proclaimed in choral music through the lens of both priest and prophet.  Choral musicians are so often called upon to provide comfort, compassion, and healing through our music.  Yet, we often have to be the prophetic voice leading the cries for care of our neighbor, care of our planet, and demanding justice for all!  A brilliant example of this will be presented tomorrow afternoon in this space at 3:30 p.m., when the Viking Chorus, the tenor and basses of the St. Olaf Choir will join with the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club under the baton of Mark Stover, ’01 and a former member of the St. Olaf Music faculty to present To Repair, a poignant, compelling work composed by St. Olaf Assistant Professor of Music Tesfa Wondemagegnehu. To Repair focuses on confronting racial inequity and inspiring hope for a better America, incorporating elements of traditional African American spirituals and text from notable Black authors.

Colleagues and friends, I keep returning to the belief that we are called to be “pastoral” servant leaders in our learning, teaching, work and leadership.   As a choral conductor, I have often seen the messages proclaimed in choral music through the lens of both priest and prophet.  Choral musicians are so often called upon to provide comfort, compassion, and healing through our music.  Yet, we often have to be the prophetic voice leading the cries for care of our neighbor, care of our planet, and demanding justice for all!

I have long believed that the choral art must be relational and transformative.  In my own life, while I continually strive for musical excellence in all I do, music for me is but a “means of Grace” to reach people’s souls–both the performer and the listener!  Yet beyond music, I ask how each of us here today can be in service to others.  It calls us to be humble and vulnerable in the sharing of our gifts, whatever they may be.  Our call, our vocare, is to become “servant leaders,” using our talents and gifts as a means of  nurturing and nourishing “whole people”–in breaking down the walls from within and outside, that often enslave us or others.

One major challenge in Lutheran higher education for the 21st century is creating communities of belonging where we cultivate a respect for the good aspects of tradition and heritage, while being able to release those aspects that hinder true community. This means understanding each of us must be a voice for social justice and the proclamation of the Gospel of God’s mercy, grace, and love for all of God’s children.

One major challenge in Lutheran higher education for the 21st century is creating communities of belonging where we cultivate a respect for the good aspects of tradition and heritage, while being able to release those aspects that hinder true community.  This means understanding each of us must be a voice for social justice and the proclamation of the Gospel of God’s mercy, grace, and love for all of God’s children. To that end, it is only just that the College prohibits all forms of discrimination based on an individual’s race, color, creed, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, religion or disability,

In the document produced in 2018 by the Network of ELCA Colleges and Universities entitled:  Rooted and Open: The Common Calling, the following is stated:

To be a neighbor means to seek, to understand and serve people, communities and their needs. In the global and local communities in which our students move, they care for the people, space and ecology of a neighborhood;

Later in this document, the following is observed:

Martin Luther’s “theology of the cross” suggests that God is particularly present in and with those who suffer, a presence that beckons others toward solidarity with the marginalized.  Lutheran higher education calls students beyond the rewards of upward mobility and financial security so that their lives will also be attentive to people who need them most and places that call out for healing.  This is the wrestling that St. Olaf College President Emeritus Christopher Thomforde spoke about in his Chapel talk yesterday in this very room.

I often see the St. Olaf community as a garden where certain flowers have blossomed for nearly 150 years.  However, we must recognize that weeds have cropped up and these must be cleared out to make room for new, different flowers to be planted that will bring an even more beautiful bloom to the entire garden.   We are challenged in creating a community of belonging which not only nurtures a respect for tradition but also calls us to be visionary, prophetic voices.

So, how do we transform ourselves to really do the challenging work of Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI)  I truly believe it takes love, not hate, to make the “dream” of what Langston Hughes aspired to in his epic poem, a reality.  However, to achieve that love, it requires respect for one another to be the strong foundation.  We may not always agree, but can we better strive to respect our differences and not let those differences lead to further division among us. In other words, show more grace, compassion, and gratitude to one another and not see someone with whom you may not agree as the enemy!  Secondly, if we can establish true respect, then this can lead us to develop trust, something so sorely missing in today’s world.  Without trust in and between each other, we will be unable to reach the third and important step to transformational change, namely love.  True love can and must not only acknowledge where we have fallen short in the care of our neighbor and creation, but also give us the vision to actually seek justice for all people.  This is the love which Christ calls us to in the second part of the Great Commandment.

We must use the gifts of this educational community to nurture and nourish “whole people” in breaking down the walls within and outside of us. Our goal must be in creating a community of belonging at St. Olaf College, built on respect, trust, and love–where we become agents of light and hope!!

My friends, these conversations and this work will not be easy.  Indeed, it may well cause great consternation, and yes, guilt in some cases for acts of commission and omission.  But it is only in this honest and difficult self-assessment of ourselves, can we refocus the work and mission of St. Olaf  to achieve justice for all. Yet, it ultimately requires from each and everyone of us–respect, trust, and love!!   That is part of the work our College continues today and tomorrow in our inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Symposium.

St. Olaf Regent and ELCA Bishop William O. Gafkjen ’79 has been quoted as saying Lutheran higher education “is a gift to be shared, not a fortress to be defended.”  Our call today and as we soon embark in celebrating the 150th anniversary or Sesquicentennial of the founding of St. Olaf College, is to become servant leaders who inspire ourselves and others for lives of worth, service, and justice with dignity for all!   We must use the gifts of this educational community to nurture and nourish “whole people” in breaking down the walls within and outside of us. Our goal must be in creating a community of belonging at St. Olaf College, built on respect, trust, and love–where we become agents of light and hope!!

Watch the full Honors Day Convocation: