President James H. Moore, September 29, 2023
I can’t begin to tell you how honored, and how humbled I am to be standing here in this chapel, on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College — a campus that has been the center of my life since 2006. I can’t begin to tell you…
Unfortunately for me, I don’t have a choice…I’ve been told by several of you that I need to give a speech, So here goes.
I need to get some thank yous out here first. I have to thank the Board of Trustees for placing their trust in me, my cabinet, and all of us here at this college. We will not let you down. This campus knows its value, we know that the world needs us, and we intend to deliver on the promise that we will continue to graduate servant leaders who will shape the future and make this world a better place.
I have to thank the faculty and staff of West Virginia Wesleyan College for their tireless work on behalf of our students. They are, after all, why we get up every day and come to this campus, right? I’ve seen my colleagues care for these students for the entirety of the eighteen years that I’ve been a member of this faculty, and I’ve come to learn the stories of those colleagues that left before I arrived. We’re all part of a great big marathon, that’s also a relay race, and the baton keeps getting passed from generation to generation. We’re running this race for our students. Thank you, so much, colleagues, for what you do.
I have to thank every teacher I’ve ever had, many of whom are here physically or in spirit. All of the people who have shaped me are teachers in some way or another. Thank you for believing in me through my ups and downs, thank you for your patience with me as I grew and failed, and thank you for showing me what good, real, dedicated teaching looks like.
Thank you to the musicians and the music. The call to be a jazz musician and teacher of jazz has been my guiding light, and it’s the thing that brought me to the academy and to Wesleyan. It’s amazing to see you all here today. You make me want to be the best version of myself I can be, and you inspire me on and off the bandstand and the stage.
I do wanna tell you all, be warned, there are a lot of musicians here. You might be sitting next to one. You might not even know it! They won’t harm you. They might just make you a little bit hipper.
In addition to musicians, there’s also a lotta trumpet players here…
Thank you to my parents, my sister, and my family for always making me feel valued, for giving me the courage to chase all of my dreams, and for supporting me through tough times. To my mother, who reminded me often as a skinny, band nerd kid that someday folks would show me respect and encouraged me to be brave. To my father, who spent his entire career in public service saving lives and showing me what quiet leadership looks like. And to my sister for being such an inspiration and teaching me that artists can and should be versatile, not singled tracked.
And to my fiancé, Jessica, and her children — my family. Jess, for being my rock and my equal and partner, and for affirming that the work that we both do matters to this state that we love.
On this day we celebrate the 133nd anniversary of the founding of West Virginia Wesleyan College. Founding.
It didn’t happen all at once. According to Alumnus Brett Miller, author of “Our Home among the Hill, WVWC’s first 125 years” the idea was sparked when a non-Methodist president was elected to lead West Virginia University in 1882. Before that, because the Methodist conference had had difficulties sustaining a school, they had trusted the Methodist-friendly administration of WVU to serve their needs. But in 1882, things got real.
So somebody, or some group of people in a room, decided to do this.
Let’s consider that for a moment here. Because it speaks to the power that we all have to create change, to create goodness, and do important work. Do we have a school? Or do we have a cause.
I believe we have always had a cause, and that’s true today. The call to learn is among our highest callings, and this place, the people here, and all of those who came before us, are a part of furthering that cause. Faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni, members of broader community, members of the United Methodist church. We are all part of a continuum of caring that defines this place.
To graduate broadly educated people who are prepared to be movers and shakers, taught by dreamers and giants. We can talk about our mission statement, and its important to be sure, but at its core that’s what this place is about.
I know that the world needs this College. I know that the world needs us to continue to shape tomorrow’s leaders. I know that the world needs us to be at the table to solve problems, to serve our state and our nation, and I know that our long track record of doing this will stand the test of time. I know all of these things. You all know these things. Our graduates know that this college is needed. Our students know this.
But in 2006, when I showed up here as a 26 year old jazz musician, straight out of grad school, I didn’t know that I needed West Virginia Wesleyan College so badly. So let me tell you what I found here that it turned out I needed. Let me frame how this college shapes people by telling you what needs this place has filled for me — someone who didn’t even go to school here, someone who thought this would be his first stop on a journey to lots of other places. Because, to me, understanding why the world needs West Virginia Wesleyan College starts and ends with acknowledging what this place has done for me.
I needed to come to a place that would show me a world outside of my own academic discipline, and then teach me how it all fits together. That’s not to diminish the music’s importance for me, but as a young person I was so hyper focused on that one thing that I didn’t have a broad view of the world. I sat on committees here with Ed Wovchko in Chemistry, with Chip Keating in Philosophy, with Vickie Philips in Religion, and with Shirley Fortney in Education. I worked on task forces, as a first year faculty member, with Eric Waggoner in English, with Boyd Creasman, also in English — the English faculty seemed to get stuck on all the task forces back then, somebody had to proof read the rest of our work. I learned how to be a member of the Wesleyan community by watching how engaged someone like Alisa Lively was and is, how plugged in someone like Alice Creasman was to all things on campus, and to see how much Bob Skinner cared about the college and it’s place in our community. I needed to learn that the right way for an institution of higher education to function is holistically, and completely, NOT in isolation. I needed to be shown that I had a place as a music faculty member in something bigger than myself.
I needed to come to place that truly valued giving every student a chance at real growth and transformation. I needed to come to a place where many of the best musicians I had in my ensembles were not even majoring in music at all. I needed to be taught by students like Nick Snyder that someone can be a great saxophonist and love Hank Mobley as much as I do and then graduate with an exercise science degree and become a physical therapist. I needed to come to a place where someone like Tanner McGrew could sing Frank Rosalino and Curtis Fuller solos and crush high F’s on the trombone, graduate with a degree in music education, and then go across the world and play professional basketball.
I needed to come to a place that was seemingly small, seemingly remote, and seemingly off the radar, to get reconnected to a senior music professor named Melody Meadows. Chair of the Department of Music, and one of the most amazing musicians I’d ever seen. Dr. Meadows, I needed to land at a college where you were. I needed to see you get a room full of students excited, yes, excited, about 18th century counterpoint. I needed to see a music professor tell a group of college students in music theory that if they couldn’t play a blues together, they were missing some serious information as musicians.
And in my very formative years I needed to be reminded by Melody and so many other colleagues that our students are, in fact, the greatest measure of our success as educators. I needed to be reminded that it’s not about me, or us as professors. It’s about our students.
I learned that one of the great masters of jazz in Pittsburgh, trumpet player Pete Henderson, had a phrase that he’d use to describe a musician who was so involved in what they were playing on the band stand, they didn’t really hear what the rest of the musicians were playing. That phrase is “my thing.” My thing. My thing is all that matters right now. I needed to come to a college that models the idea that all of us are part of something bigger than ourselves. “My thing” doesn’t happen here. Our thing does.
What I found at West Virginia Wesleyan College was a place, a community, that was so invested in the success of our students that we, as faculty and staff, would FIGHT over the best ways to serve them. My challenge to this college community is to define how we carry that inherent investment in the success of the traditional 18 year old student’s success to as many learners as we can. In as many ways as we can, in as many places as we can, as long as ever we can.
We have to talk about John Wesley — nah, we GET to talk about John Wesley – the founder of the Methodist denomination of our Christian faith. Wesley espoused curiosity, inquisitiveness, and a diversity of thought. As a United Methodist college, we are CALLED, indeed we are mandated by the University Senate of the United Methodist Church, to create, foster, and sustain a learning environment that is diverse, challenging, and forward thinking. An environment that welcomes people of all faiths, creeds, affiliations, and stations of life. We’re not alone as a college in espousing this, but as a member of this faculty for almost twenty years, I’ve seen this in action. It’s real here. We live Wesley’s vision of what a learning community is supposed to be. I needed to come to college that would eventually reconnect me with the church that I was lucky enough to grow up in. When I was a kid at Westover United Methodist Church, I didn’t realize that a lot of the lessons I learned about servant leadership were happening there. My parents were really engaged in that church. They gave of their time and talents to make it a better place. And isn’t that what life is all about? Coming here to this college, I saw that behavior modeled so many times I can’t even count.
And speaking of our relationship with the church, I have an announcement to make. For most of our history we have had a dean of our chapel — someone who provides ministry, care, comfort, and support to the entire Wesleyan community. But some years ago, that position went away, and when it came back, it was called something else. Director of Religious and Spiritual Life. Good people have occupied that role, and I’m so lucky to have the current occupant, Jonathan Acord, as a member of my cabinet and executive leadership team. Jonathan, you have been one of the brightest of silver linings of my taking on this position since February of 2022. I’ve seen your passion for campus ministry, and it has given me resolve during really tough times. I’ve watched the way that our students have responded to you, and how you have worked to grow them into people who take ownership of their faith and of this college. That’s why today I am pleased and honored to announce that Wesleyan will again have a Dean of the Chapel, and I am elevating Jonathan’s title according, befitting the elevation in spirituality that you have orchestrated on this campus. Please join me in congratulating our newest Dean of the Chapel, Jonathan Acord.
I needed to come to a place where students became the people they will grow into right before your very eyes. You know, we throw around a lot of tag lines in higher education. Find your voice, Become your Best Self, yadda yadda. And I know that they can sound kinda trite.
But for all of us here who do this work — we see a student’s face when we use those lines. We remember their names, don’t we?
My vision for this college is simple, really, and it’s connected to what we’ve always done at West Virginia Wesleyan without even thinking about it. We will be at the center of solving big problems, graduating servant leaders, embracing the values of John Wesley and shaping them to meet today’s moment, and putting students at the center of our work. We’ll do that, because that’s what we have always done.
I thought, when I was 26, that teaching music at a college was about teaching music. Here, it isn’t. Teaching anything at West Virginia Wesleyan College is about being here, and learning from each other, from all of our faculty and staff colleagues, and learning from our students. I think I grew as much or more in my first four years as a professor here than any of the freshmen who came here with me. I needed that growth, and that wouldn’t have happened had I joined another faculty, somewhere else.
My journey at this amazing college is what informs my vision of our future. We will be of service. We will graduate the leaders of tomorrow, who will shape an ever changing and complex world. And we’ll do it with love, kindness, and humility. We’re not perfect, we’ve got challenges, we have to make tough decision and choices as a college and as a community all the time, and higher education in 2023 is changing rapidly. But you know what? That ain’t new for us.
My good friend John McCuskey is here. His grandfather was president of this college during the Great Depression. He guided this place through some of the darkest days this nation has ever endured. And this college remained, and emerged stronger. We’re not going anyplace, folks. We’re meeting the moment that is right in front of us, just like we always have.
So, what I am asking of everyone in the Wesleyan community, those of you here on campus, those of you in our alumni family, and everyone who loves this college, far and wide, is to develop the ability to articulate WHY you needed West Virginia Wesleyan College in your own lives.
Our region needs a lot:
We need teachers.
We need nurses.
We need mental health professionals
We need addiction recovery specialists
We need pastors
We need primary care providers
We need artists
We need writers
We need scientists
We need the people who do these jobs to be educated NOT just in these fields, but we need them to be transformed into people who are empathetic, broadly educated, creative problem solvers, effective communicators, and courageous.
We need servant leaders.
We will prepare the next generation of servant leaders in order to meet the needs of West Virginia, Appalachia, and the broader community. We do recognize that, as a College, we have a responsibility to align our academic programs, our campus environment, and our extra- and co-curricular offerings not only with what students want, but with what our world needs.
We will be of service because that’s what our world needs. We are here because we are needed.
Thank you all, for all you do for West Virginia Wesleyan College. We have a bright future ahead of us, rooted in our rich history. Let’s keep it going…forever.