I begin this report with a word of gratitude. It is an honor for me this week to be installed officially as the provost at Westmont. I am thankful for this opportunity to serve here, and I pray that my efforts will be equal to your trust.
For the installation events we have scheduled a panel discussion entitled “Awakening the Moral Imagination” on Wednesday afternoon (3:30 to 5:15 p.m.) in the Page Multipurpose Room. All are welcome. I have envisioned this as an occasion for me to listen as faculty reflect on some of the distinctive aspects of our mission and possibilities. Paul Willis will read a couple of his poems, and nine other Westmont professors will serve as panelists. I’ve offered a few preliminary thoughts on the theme below.
With the national election looming, this is the season for political debates, with both Obama and Romney chiming in on such fierce issues as whether or not the Green Bay Packers should have been awarded an interception on Monday Night Football. Tom Knecht, former free safety and current political science prof, may help us understand why we will eventually vote as we do in his Phi Kappa Phi lecture—one of several events this coming month devoted to political themes.
Robert Hamel's properties design work was seen onstage this summer in the Skopje National Opera, in Skopje, Macedonia. It was part of the Macedonian National Theatre's production of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III. This followed an earlier production at the Strumacia Theatre Festival and the Ohrie Summer Theatre Festival, also in Macedonia. All of this is a continuation of Bob's designs for their Globe Theatre Production in London last spring. Bob created two lifelike latex heads—realistic copies of the two actors' actual heads—for the decapitation scene.
Telford Work has published two chapters in recent anthologies. His article "Hope" appears in Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom (Eerdmans, 2012), a volume with essays discussing "a socially responsible, gospel-centric, and ecumenical evangelical identity." His essay "Pneumatology" is included in Mapping Modern Theology (Baker, 2012). It charts the "wide variety of theological reflection in the modern era about the Holy Spirit," assessing the "societal forces" that shape that reflection, "such as technology, culture, philosophy, and especially ecclesiology."
Now that the European Union's police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina is concluding, the Mission Magazine—a primary voice of the project—took time to interview Susan Penksa about the legacy of the EU endeavors in the region. Susan's observations drew from the research that led to her recent book The European Union in Global Security. She noted the recalibration in the mission in 2006 due to the changing circumstances within the countries, and saluted some of the "positive functional effects" of this shift, which assisted "the national authorities in the fight against organized crime and corruption." But she also remarked that the EU's security policies remain "a work in progress . . . of interest to a world that has always expected more of the EU than it has been willing to give."