Intercultural and Global Engagement

A Message from the President

As a college community, we’re committed to studying the life and teachings of Jesus, who taught us to love one another by learning to love our neighbor as ourselves. Learning how to live together with difference and to love each other lies at the heart of a community devoted to attitudes centered in truth and practices focused on others. 
 
More than anything, we want to walk together with hope and honor Christ with actions that bring us closer to knowing the heart of God. I deeply desire that we love one another as Christ has loved us. We’re committed to being repentant people, one in spirit and purpose, as we advance the Kingdom of God through the work of the college.

Today, our culture and society stand at a critical juncture. As we come to terms with the events of 2020, our attention must continue to shift to issues of race as we realize that a fresh understanding and a different approach is necessary in every sphere of our society.

At Westmont, we’re trying to develop a greater capacity to listen by opening our hearts to the most aggrieved members of our society. We want to understand and empathize with those groups who have been left out and left behind. We want to be a community of learners who seek to reconcile even as we experience the rich impact of God’s reconciling and transforming work in our own life. We’re working to develop a capacity to see the wider hurt in our society and the role we’ve played in it. 

Our strategic plans amplify our focus on diversity, global engagement and intercultural competency in our service to and recruitment of students. Progress and growth occur over time, with no finish line for efforts dedicated to diversity and our multicultural programs. We often overestimate what we can get done in one year and underestimate what we can get done in 10. We recognize we still have a lot of work to do, but we also have the commitments and the priorities in place to accomplish the work. 

In our long and enduring history, we’ve faced all manner of challenges arising from both natural and human origins. As we respond to our country’s past and the present reckoning with racial issues, we do so with buoyant optimism that God will remain faithful.  Just as he has led us in every previous generation, God will renew us again and help us grow in our faith and knowledge so we can better share his love, grace, mercy, justice and peace.

With a bright hope for our future,

Gayle D. Beebe

President’s Article Westmont Spring ‘20 Magazine July 7, 2020