Lees McRae College - Ontaroga Yearbook (Banner Elk, NC)

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September 20, 1985 Inaugural Address: Bradford L. Crain hope this means that I can stay awhile. fSaid as Crain pointed to the new medallion placed around his neck by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. J I once saw a cartoon that showed two men talking, the one saying 'Show me a man with his feet on the ground and his head in the clouds' and the other man replying, 'And I'll show you a man with a 2,000- foot insearnf Today I feel like such a man - both feet firmly ,planted ,- head touching the clouds and dreaming the collective dream that is Lees-McRae College. Greeters, I thank you. I appreciate your kind words - and to those of you who know me best I appreciate your creative uses of reality. Wasn't it Tallulah Bankhead who purportedly said: 'To hell with criticism. Praise is good enough for mel, Mr. Chairman, with enthusiasm and confidence I accept the challenge, the responsibilities - and the joys - that I ah'eady know are part of the job of serving as president of Lees-McRae College. As I do so, I invite and encourage the Trustees, the Faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the college to commit their full energies and imagination as well to serving in a grand partnership with me insuring not only the survival of our college but its continued renewal and growth toward excellence. Isaiah 40:31 - 'But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eaglesg they shall run and not be wearyg they shall walk and notfaint. 12 - Inauguration Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, distinguished platform guests, faculty and staff of Lees-McRae, Trustees, Advisors, honored guests and delegates, dear friends and family: In my professional career as an educator, I have heard four inaugural addresses and have read several others. As a somewhat obscure Subgenre of literature, inaugural speeches are intimidating by their erudition, by the very weight of their importance. Each speech with which I am familiar brought into focus the accumulated history and the envisioned future of that parti- cular college, often in the context of the current trends in higher education. And by virtue of the office,each presidential speaker was appropriately humbled and filled with under- standable pride - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes sequentially but always in combination. As I stand before you now, I understand the paradox of those competing feelings. And I understand the impossibility of marshalling together words to express all that this occasion demands. In the face of the impossible, I hope you will permit me some very personal reflections. I If you see a turtle resting on top of a fencepost, you know he had help getting there. I This has been a special week for me and for the college. So much has been done by so many that, were I to try to thank each person, I would surely miss someone and bore everyone. So may I say simply that the campus sparkles, the food has been delectable, the planning has been sensitive and precise, the programs filled with joyful noise, song, dance, prayer, purposeful talk, laughter, fellowship, flowers, and fun - a true celebration of our becoming new again. To all who made it happen, I thank you. To the community of Banner Elk and the surrounding area - you have welcomed me and my family warmly - even as we arrived here in the depth of winter. As some wag noted, it was so cold here this past winter that it got all the way down to celsius. The beauty of our community is ,knatehlessg There have been evenings as I walked from office to home when the stars and the lights of Beech Mountain touched each other, truly bringing the heavens to earth. And daylight scenes - in any season - snatch one's breath away: rime ice shimmering on trees matted against skies of Carolina blue - lush summer greens, washed clean by rains - and fall richness of colors that make Van Gogh's mad canvas experiments seem timid indeed. As Thoreau wrote: 'It would be no small ad- vantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain - Some will remember, no doubt, not only that they went to college, but that they went to the mountain? And, from my very personal perspective, it's good to live in a place where the word 'bald' is used as a noun meaning a place where rhododendron no longer grow. To my friends and my extended family - some of whom have journeyed far - your presence fills me with joy. To my mother who is here and to my father who is too ill to travel but who, I pray, will see this ceremony on .videotape - and to the Trustees of Lees-McRae - I thank you for nurturing me and for allowing me to be here today. To my children - Bruce and Emily g- I want publicly to say that my love for you both has been a great stimulus to my professional growth. And your love for me and pride in

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As Dr. Crain Inaugurated X , QF, . . . is Dr. Cynthia Tyson, keynote speaker for the Symposium on Christian Higher Education. In the background is Symposium emcee O'dell Smith. The Symposium on Christian Higher Education had an array of distinguished panel members who are con- stantly on the ufiring lines of Christian higher educa- tion. Clyde Robinson did his undergraduate work at Davidson College and his graduate work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the Administrative Coordinator of United Ministries in Higher Education. Mr. Joseph Grier is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his Doctor of Jurisprudence from Harvard University. He is an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Char- lotte. He is chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees at Queens College. John Kuykendall is a graduate of Davidson College, Union Theological Seminary in Vir- ginia, Yale Divinity School.and'has his Ph. D. from Princeton University. He is President of Davidson Col-1 lege. Richard Ray is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and has his Ph. D. from St. Andrews University in Scotland. The keynote speaker, Cynthia Tyson, came to this country as a Fullbright Lecturer at the University of Tennessee. Her degrees, including her Ph. D. in English Literature, are taken from the University of Leeds. She is President of Mary Baldwin College. Higher education in many forms towers over every other enterprise in the church's mission as the place where more people and mission dollars are invested every year than any- where else outside of congregations. We are in colleges that historically have a purpose, have a mission, and it is that education is essential to the nature of the church. In the institutions of higher education and among the people who labor there, the church must attempt to make sense of Chris- tian faith to women and men whose vocation is the light of the mind viewing and interpreting knowledge from a Christian perspective, and, in faith seeking to understand the physical world, human nature, in the mind of God. -Dr. Cynthia Tyson At left, delegates assemble for inaugural'ceremony. Lower left, CRAIN FAMILY AND RELATIVES fl-rj: Sandra Mintz, Frank and Dorothy Rhinehartg C. J. and Inez Rhinehardt, parents of Alice Craing Arlene Pritchett, mother of Dr. Crain, Brad and Alice Crain, Emily and Bruce Crain, Basil and Salene Preas. . . . We want to assure you, Dr. Crain, that we will work with you, we will work for you, watch you work . . . our future is not behind us and, above all, we welcome you. J - Mrs. Jean Williams, representing the Board of Trustees I Mr. President, I speak as the Executive of the Synod of North Carolina and on behalf of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., as we trust to you, sir, this treasured college which is an important part of the mission of our church. I bring greetings, also, from President Dan West of Arkansas College who is President of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, representing the seventy colleges related to our denomination, and we greet you in their behalf. Graduates of Lees-McRae have given significant leadership in the world and in the church. In turn, our intention is to support your leadership here. , - Dr. John D. MacLeod, Jr., representing the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. Inauguration - 11

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We know where we are going because we cherish where we have beeng we place value on memory and imagination, the past and the future. The two greatest gifts, I believe, that we can give our stu- dents are roots and wings: roots for understanding our heritage and wings for discovering our future. my accomplishments have turned my accomplishments into our accomplishments. Being the child of a college official is not easy, I know. In a book describing the lives of various college presidents, families, a book kindly lent to us by Jane Stephenson, was the story of the young children who made some use of the fact that their father was the president. Four or five-year-old twin daughters ofthe president were over- heard making the comment, 'We can do whatever we want, our daddy's the presidentf Their mother told them: 'Don't say your daddy's the president? At a party for new faculty members, the children were asked, 'Isn't your father the president?' and they replied, 'We used to think so but Mommy says he isn't.' A To Alice - my wife, my counsellor, my dearest friend, sine qua non fwithout whom nothingj - I know that all com- pliments to me during the last 22 years have simply been praises for you momentarily deflected. Nathaniel West had one of his characters say: 'She made him feel that when she straightened his tie, she straightened much more.' Alice makes me feel that way. John Stephenson shared with me a comment made by Alex Haley when he delivered the commencement address at Berea last spring. The comment was this: If you see a turtle resting' on top of a fencepost, you know he had help getting there. To all of you who influenced my life in large ways and small - I appreciate your help in hoisting me onto this fence- post. And I ask God's guidance as I go about my work. We have long been known as The College That Cares . . . we care enough to have Lees- McRae merit being called Simply the Best. Lees-McRae College has a particular genius. 'It is the genius of Edgar Tufts and those who followed him. Reaching back to the dreams and vision and dedicated work of generations of men and women, our genius has been long-nurtured. It is a genius for caring about people and for caring about quality. When these two elements get together - people and quality - all kinds of exciting things happen. We have long been known as 'The College That Cares.' And that title fits us well. We care enough to provide coun- selin and academic advisement services for each student on an i1 dividual basis. We care enough to exert massive efforts so that our students have every chance to succeed academically, rather than fail. We care enough to foster a campus environ- ment aimed at giving opportunity for our students to grow in soundness of spirit, mind and body. In short, we care enough to have Lees-McRae College merit being called 'Simply the Bestf Today there is an air of excitement at our college because we know where we are going. Not every college is so fortunate as we. We know where we are going, in part, because we understand and cherish where we have been. The two greatest gifts that we can give our students are roots and wings: roots for understanding our heritage and wings for discovering our future. What makes us so confident of our future is, in fact, our past. Our past is important to us. But as Lewis Carroll noted: 'It's a poor memory that only works backwardf We must develop a special quality of perceiving - a quality that gives us a nostalgia for the future. We must seek elegant solutions to our pressing problems of the present. Such solutions demand that we avoid the redundancy of simply copying the the past. Rather, we must adapt the beauty of the past to our present needs - and, in the process, make our new designs uniquely our own. 'Imagination is the beginning of creation,' said George Bernard Shaw. And he continued, 'You imagine what you desireg you will what you imagineg and at last you create what you will.' At Lees-McRae, there is no dearth of imagination, will power, and creativity. Here we have a community of fine minds - but not the sort of minds that T. S. Eliot accused Henry James of having when he wrote: 'He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.' Ours are working minds, tolerant minds, minds with convictions but free of stubbom arrogance, minds like those that have wrought this school out of chestnut and stone, minds dedicated to service and love, minds determined to impart what Alfred North Whitehead called the major aims of education: The giving of 'an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structiue of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it., And at Lees-McRae, education takes place in a context, not in a vacuum. That context is deliberately Christian, no accident about it. It is as deliberate and as solid as that stone pulpit in our Presbyterian church. That stone reaches down to the bedrock and rests there. The stone I'm told came from Beech Mountain - that peak that aspires to heaven. Indeed, the symbolism is essential: The pulpit reaches down for stability, aspires upward for faith and has a Bible resting on it. All are fitting symbols for Lees-McRae as we imaginatively, with faith, carve our educational aims into these mountains. E. B. White once wrote, 'I arise each morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.' Conflicting desires can make a powerful obstacle to planning and executing. But such conflict can also be a powerful motivation. Why must we choose and eliminate when we can combine and encompass. Mae West once said: 'When choosing between two evils, I always like the one I've never tried before.' Alternatives can be dangerous. I remember a cartoon that showed two experi- mental laboratory rats observing a third rat jumping for joy - the caption read: 'He's just been transferred from tobacco research to alcohol researchf But alternatives can be com- bined. That is one challenge of education today - to combine service and esthetics, the dignity of the labor of mind and the labor of hand. Education must develop leadership that copes successfully with ambiguity and paradox - because that is our reality. Such leadership pulls strehgth out of weakness, re- sources out of meagerness, faith out of despair, confidence out of fear. But the confidence is always moderated. Our challenge is not to find absolute certainty or to choose between improving the world or enjoying it.A Our challenge is to qualify our minds to think justlyg our challenge is to find pleasure by improving the world, our challenge is through education to recover in our souls a kind of radical innocence borne of clarity of purpose and characterized by courtesy coupled with courage, intellectual fervor tempered by grace, honor, kindness, imagination and - above alla- humility colored by understanding. As Tom Robbins has said - There are no weird people in the world - only those who need more understanding than others. In closing - G. B. Shaw wrote that 'Anybody, almost, can make a beginning. The difficulty is to make an end - to do what cannot be bettered., Edgar Tufts made what Terry Sanford termed 'an audacious beginning? It is our solemn trust to carry that beginning forward, to do what cannot be bettered. Inauguration - 13