• Edición impresa de Junio 19, 2018.

Goshen College’s Latino Scholarship Dinner keynote address

By President Rebecca Stoltzfus

I began as president of Goshen College just seven months ago. In my inaugural address, I envisioned several aspects of the future I wanted to create for this college. I said:

“I imagine a future where we openly engage with and invest in this City of Goshen, this Elkhart County and this state of Indiana — a future in which we see our commitment to local place and land and people as a distinctive strength, and as a wellspring of learning and relevance.”

Our Latino friends, neighbors and community members are one of the distinctive and vibrant strengths of this city; a wellspring of learning and relevance.

This city claims as its motto that we are “uncommonly great at the common good.” It is our very good fortune to be a part of this common good.

But I want to start by focusing not on Goshen College, but on the reality that we face in our society today. I want to look at higher education through a social justice lens.

Higher education is central to economic justice. According to research at Georgetown University, by 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high. The lifetime wage difference of someone who holds a bachelor’s degree compared to someone who holds a high school diploma is right around $1 million.

The rate of college completion for the population 25 years and older was 33 percent in 2015. Two-thirds of all U.S. citizens do not have this educational and economic advantage. And in Elkhart County, only 25 percent of Elkhart County citizens has any post high school credential.

A college degree, while not a perfect leveler of income inequality, is a very important one, and there is a massive gap in access. And lower income students are particularly underserved.

Higher education is also central to racial justice. Recall that 33 percent of U.S. adults had attained a bachelor’s degree in 2015, but only 15 percent of Hispanics had. By the year 2025, 20 percent of all U.S. college students will be Latinos. It is clear that Hispanic students are the fastest growing youth demographic, and they are hungry for education. We must increase our support for their well-being and for the continued prosperity of our community, our state and our nation.

Goshen College is in the midst of this work. In 2005, 4 percent of our students were Latino and in this most recent academic year, 23 percent of our students were Latino.

And they persevere to graduation. Institutional culture and practices matter, and we are constantly learning how to support our students better and to improve our learning community. Our graduation rates in 2015 were 66 percent overall and 71 percent for Latinos (compared to 56 percent overall and 46 percent for Latinos at all Indiana private colleges). And 90 percent of Goshen’s Latino graduates since 2008 have stayed in Indiana contributing to Indiana’s “brain gain.”

And, as a Christian college rooted in the way of Jesus, Goshen College has a deep commitment to social justice. We take seriously the words of the prophets: “Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor.” Jesus puts it most simply when he says to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

We do not do this perfectly. We sometimes have trouble seeing past our historically white identity and culture.

But we continued this important work when Goshen College committed 15 years ago to doing systematic and transformative work to open our doors to the emerging and vibrant Latino population in our city and our region. We continued this legacy with our Latino and Latina brothers and sisters when we fought to prevent the CORE Civic Detention Center in Elkhart County. And we continue this legacy by increasing economic access to a Goshen College education for our Latino youth.

And as Cesar Chavez said, “It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.”

President Stoltzfus talking with Rebecca and Mike Kubacki. Photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach

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