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Lori White installed as 21st DePauw president
Promises campus will become more diverse, relevant
With members of the campus community and dignitaries present, the installation of Lori White as DePauw University’s 21st president last Friday was a unique ceremony on purpose.
It was a ceremony which highlighted White as the first woman, as well as the first person of color, to lead the university in its 184-year history. It was accented by a reverence for the traditions and the lived experiences of African Americans.
One of those traditions was a ritual conducted by Thomas Parham, president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, in which libations are poured to honor the sacrifices of ancestors and ask for their blessings. Along with “America The Beautiful” and “The Impossible Dream” from the musical “Man of La Mancha,” DePauw students performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — referred to as the Black National Anthem — and a musical rendition of Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.”
In another distinction, Mayor Bill Dory proclaimed the day as Dr. Lori S. White Day in his welcoming on behalf of the City of Greencastle and its residents. English professor Eugene Gloria also recited a poem he wrote specifically for the occasion.
It was Angelou’s poem, in which she declares that she will overcome every obstacle through her own self-confidence and perseverance, from which drew the declarative spirit behind White’s inauguration. In this, she promised a more diverse and relevant DePauw in the face of shifting dynamics in higher education.
In his keynote address, Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp, who White reported to when he was provost, and she vice chancellor of student affairs, at Washington University, echoed an evident confidence in White’s leadership as an educator and administrator. For him, this was “a day of affirmation and inspiration.”
“You took exactly the right step to deal with this when you hired Lori White to be your president,” Thorp professed. “Because there is absolutely no one in higher education better prepared to bring and keep a campus together, which is what you hired her to do.
“As the godfather of Black psychology said, it’s about strength, not deficit; and as the other godfather said, I feel good,” he said in referencing White’s father, Joseph White, and funk music legend James Brown. “I feel good, for once, someone who glitters is gold. Twenty-four-karat solid gold. Gold within.”
In her remarks after she was bestowed the Presidential Medallion by Board of Trustees Chairwoman Kathy Vrabeck, White laid out her mission for DePauw moving forward. In this vein, she first outlined three challenges which she believed higher education as a whole faces.
She cited a 2018 Gallup poll which provided that less than half of Americans expressed confidence in colleges and universities. No other major institution, including the military, law enforcement, religious bodies, the medical profession or the presidency of the United States, has seen a greater decline in public trust.
The second challenge she put forward is that the demographic and geographic makeup of prospective students is continually changing. While colleges and universities need to be diverse racially, culturally and economically, she said, competition for students will only rise.
Finally, she said there is a misunderstanding of the value of a liberal arts education. The practicality and need for critical thinking, good writing, collaboration and teamwork, as well as engaging with others with different life experiences, is continually questioned.
“How will DePauw rise?” White then asked rhetorically. “How will we ensure that DePauw in its 200th year fulfills the mission that has been present since its founding: To ignite in students an educational passion that many did not even realize that they had, and to prepare our students for lives of promise and uncommon success.”
White stated that the university must evolve its curriculum to be more adaptive in a developing world, but still remain true to its liberal arts foundation. She also advocated that making a DePauw education accessible through financial aid and giving had to be among its greatest priorities.
“I want Purdue, IU, Butler and Wabash to know that if there’s a talented student in this state, we’re coming for ‘em,” White dared. “And we’ll also find the next Vernon Jordans in countless other big cities, small towns and countries worldwide. We will ensure that the most talented students, including those whose potential is yet untapped, have the desire and the means to choose DePauw.”
White’s final element was for DePauw to be “living proof” that diversity, inclusion and free expression can coexist. The approach of a liberal arts education, she said, is predicated on students learning to debate ideas with those who have different views. This is especially when those ideas make them uneasy or mad.
“We will forever remain committed to this endeavor, to equip students to explore and to seek answers to historical, philosophical, scientific and moral questions about the human condition,” White said. “We will equip students for service and leadership, foster artistic expression and encourage the curiosity that undergirds research and academic pursuits.”
White closed her speech in referencing a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr., in which he encouraged the congregation to recognize a “drum major instinct” in his work for civil rights. Here, the drum major was a metaphor for being out front and leading others in a cause.
She said she hoped to be a drum major for the faith of DePauw’s founders in it being a great university; for equity in upholding values of diversity, inclusion, accessibility and free expression; and for the spirit of alumni and friends giving their time, talent and treasure for future generations of students.
“We rise, we rise, we rise,” White finally declared. The recessional then concluding the ceremony resonated with the DePauw University Band playing Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.”
