College president addresses issues
[First of a two part series]
Editor's note: The following is a transcript of an hour-long, tape-recorded interview conducted Saturday by Star-Journal editor Grant Overstake with Tabor College president Larry Nikkel.
The Q&A format provided an opportunity for Nikkel to address recent incidents and the role of sports in a faith-based institution.
Star-Journal: Dr. Nikkel, what is the mission of Tabor College?
Nikkel: We adopted a mission statement about two years ago which I think has served us very well and which I think is very clear about what our purpose is.
Our mission statement is "Preparing people for a life of learning, work, and service for Christ and His Kingdom."
It's simple. It's succinct. It's got various elements of it that has to do with preparation, not only for the four years here, but for life, for service, and, within the context of building the kingdom. That's what Christian colleges should be about.
We also have a vision statement, which I have not committed to memory. A mission statement should answer a question about why an organization exists. A vision statement is more internal, and tries to tell us what it is that we can stretch for.
We say that we want to be the college of choice. We want kids to choose Tabor if they're looking for four things: An education that is academically excellent, globally relevant, life-transforming, and decidedly Christian. If that's what kids are looking for in their college experience, we want them to choose Tabor.
As we all know, we don't always get that with every kid. But that's the mission and that's the vision. And so that's the context within which we try to operate.
Star-Journal: That seems to be a good context on which to build this discussion.
Nikkel: Yes.
Star-Journal: We read time and again that campus safety is the most important factor for parents when choosing a college for their children.
What steps, if any, have been taken to safeguard students? Have there been any reviews of that in light of recent events?
Nikkel: Fortunately, we have had (as long as I've been around, nine years, and before that I was on the board before I became president) we have just never had incidents that threatened the safety of the community.
Now, the incident that we just had last Monday, any time you have an altercation between two people, it has the potential for being expanded, and especially if there is the threat of handguns or other tools that can be threatening.
An incident like that once in how many years? I don't know. We don't want it to happen. It's unfortunate that it did happen.
But I think one of the big selling points for people coming here is you can walk to your car any time of the day or night and not have to worry about who's watching, or who's following, or what's going to happen. So I think we have a near perfect track record on campus safety.
Star-Journal: Haven't more of these incidents been the loss of personal property?
Nikkel: And I would say that over time that has become an increasing issue. I don't even know every instance of theft or alleged theft, but I am certain that this semester we've had more theft on campus than any semester in my memory.
And it's hard to know whether that just is multiple offenders, or just one person. I hope that once we get through resolving the issues we're dealing with right now, that we'll see this goes away as a major problem.
Star-Journal: Are young people sometimes a bit naïve in leaving things laying around?
Nikkel: I don't think there's any question about that. Even in the Hillsboro community, there are still many people who don't know where the lock is on their car. [Laughs] They don't lock their cars, they don't lock their houses, all that kind of stuff. Well, that's probably naïve. And the same thing is true for here.
But what I would say is that we absolutely do not want to settle for resident life that when you've got to go down the hall to go to the bathroom, you'd better lock your door. That's just not acceptable.
We have to have more trust in each other and have a commitment to standards of conduct that we all know are right. And I think that's the way it's been.
But I think that there are people who've lost things in this last semester that would say they've had to learn to be much more guarded than that, and that's not the way it ought to be.
So hopefully, we can return to a more trusting, confident way of living at the residence halls.
Star-Journal: On that same topic, the Hillsboro police chief has expressed concern about the number of times the police have been called over here, and the drain it's putting on the department's resources. There also was informal discussion at city hall about the fact that these are taxpayer dollars.
Have you talked about having your own campus security, and are we moving toward that?
Nikkel: First let me address the first point in terms of over-taxing the police department. First of all, our hope would be that, six months from now, that's not a problem. That's would be the first point.
The second thing, in terms of using taxpayer dollars, is we would never wish to use taxpayer dollars in this way.
But we also pump in a tremendous amount of resources. Tabor College is one of the economic engines in the community. So, we don't mind using taxpayer dollars; that's what they're there for. But we don't want to use them this way.
The [Associated Colleges of Central Kansas] presidents had a conversation about a month ago, and several of them have actually employed campus security. I don't believe very many of them right now are satisfied that they have really impacted the problem.
Because, let's say you've hired one person and they're driving around, or walking the campus; the people who are inclined to break into something or [steal] something, or whatever, they absolutely know where that person is at.
I don't think we're interested in having to hire on-campus security, because I think we would say that campus life at Tabor over the years has not really required it.
We will not tolerate the kind of activity on campus that causes this type of disequilibrium on campus. I'm not saying we would never consider it.
We have resident directors who are students, who have charge of certain floors, and that kind of thing, and that system has worked very well for us for a long time. We have every reason to think that will be more than adequate walking forward.
Star-Journal: Mayor Delores Dalke is on record saying that she isn't sure Hillsboro still is a Mennonite community, and that emblem is maybe past us. Is Tabor still a Mennonite school?
Nikkel: Yes, beyond question, but the issue is what does that mean?
We're a Mennonite school because our board is overwhelmingly Mennonite Brethren (our bylaws call for the ownership churches to elect the majority of our board, and so the board has a distinctly Mennonite Brethren flavor).
We as an institution are committed to operating this school on the basis of the Mennonite Brethren confession of faith, which lays out clearly the theological basis upon which we live and teach. That's clear.
Now what's different from 45 years ago when I was a student here, is at that time I would suspect that at least 90 percent of the student body was Mennonite Brethren. Today that number is more like 25 or 30 percent.
Now that doesn't mean we're not a Mennonite school, but that does mean that we have people coming from many other faith traditions and denominations that don't really know very much about Mennonite Brethren.
If you were going to use that as a measuring stick as to whether or not we're a Mennonite school, you'd have to say no. But I think that being a Mennonite school has to do with much more than a percentage of students that are of our denomination.
That's also true of almost every other denominational college that I know. Bethany [College] is a Lutheran school, but they have a small percentage that are Lutherans.
Fifty-three percent of the students at Friends University are Catholic, they're not evangelical Friends or Quakers.
And we're no different from that.
Star-Journal: Is the expectation of the older alumni that Tabor is that "light on the hill" where everybody is being indoctrinated to become Mennonites?
Nikkel: I don't think that's true. We just finished a capital campaign that took us to every town and hamlet and big city west of the Mississippi. [Laughs] That's not quite true, but we went to a lot of places and talked to a lot of people.
I would say that we have more alums who would be concerned if they thought we were trying to hold on to some 40 or 50-year-old world view, and maybe the expectation of Mennonite kids all going back to their Mennonite farming communities to be the way we were 50 years ago.
I think there's more concern on the part of the alumni that Tabor College is relevant to today's world, which means that we have to see things differently.
We have to hold on to basic standards, and teach from our Mennonite Brethren confession of faith, but we have to be globally relevant.
That means that we do see things differently than we did in the past. We still operate under the same value system, but it's within the context of a much different world.
Star-Journal: At the same time, there is a belief system at Tabor that students are asked to adhere to. Is that standard too lofty for some students who attend here?
Nikkel: No it isn't, but it's difficult. When you have students who are wishing to come to college, and this would be especially true for athletes (but I want to be very careful not to say that athletes are our problem. OK? I think it's not right to stigmatize and generalize and categorize people in that way. Because we have fabulous people who are athletes).
But I think the problem we're talking about here is most difficult to address with athletes.
When you're 17 years old and you're thinking about going to college, the brutal fact is that a lot of these kids are more interested in going to college to play volleyball, basketball, football, or soccer than they are thinking about being a great scientist, or a doctor, or a pastor. OK? That's just the way it is, not just at Tabor, but a lot of places.
So what happens is, when you try to fill the squads we have with the right kinds of people, we ask the right questions; we really do. And I think we probably ask those in ways that other colleges might not.
We try in every way we know how, which includes the words they use on their application, about lifestyle, or about Christian commitment. We ask the right questions, and they respond. And sometimes they respond in ways that seem they're really quite appropriate.
But when they visit campus and talk to people, I think a lot of these kids do not differentiate between Christian colleges.
But I know this: We are pretty clear with our expectations. And students even sign what we call a lifestyle commitment. But again, some of them will say, 'OK. What else do I have to sign?'
We put them in a difficult position in some ways, because we're asking them to sign something in which they might not truly understand, even if you've talked to them about it in advance.
That is something we talk about here. How can we do a better job of having people understand what they're coming to and what the expectations are, and, are they really committed to that? In fairness to them.
Because if they come here and say, 'O gosh! I had no idea about that!' then we're not being fair with them.
We've worked that pretty hard, and I think we have to keep working at it, because it's real clear that at least in some cases, whether it's their fault or our fault, it doesn't matter, but we're not matching up in a few cases in the way that we would like to.
I think we are matching up in the overwhelming percentage of cases, but not in every case, and we'd like to do it with everyone.
Star-Journal: A lot of times in a college setting, this is the first time the students are away from home. How do you balance what the parents expect, in terms of what they think their kids are up to, and the reality of what's often going on with young people?
Nikkel: You have to remember that young people have been young people, for a long, long time. [Laughs]
When I was here, even with this substantial majority of MB kids, young people just found a way to test the limits.
It's always been that way; always going to be that way.
So here is the approach that we try to take. I sometimes say that when we have trained a person for vocation, our job's only half done, because we have to also to train them for life.
This spiritual and personal transformation we talk about, this environment, which is decidedly Christian, academically excellent, and globally relevant, that's the kind of thing that we're working at.
But we know that a lot of the kids, I'd say the majority of kids, when they come in at 18, they don't even understand what all that means. I probably didn't get it until I was in my 30s. It just takes awhile.
So we know that kids are going to be involved in things; they're going to test the limits. And we absolutely do not want to take a kind of a legalistic view of that.
I grew up in a legalistic system where my mother could wear bracelets and necklaces but not earrings. Go figure. I just hate that idea, and we don't want to do that here, either.
So we know that we're going to be dealing with students that have stepped across some kind of a boundary from time to time.
So the issue is not are we going to have a pure campus of do-gooders? That's just naïve. But the issue is how will we deal with wrongdoing when it happens?
We're absolutely committed to a couple of things. One is to confront it when it happens.
(Because at a lot of schools, even Christian schools, it's not confronted. So that ends up with the school not having integrity with who they say they are). Well, we're committed to having integrity. So that means that you confront that.
Now, if the student says, 'You know, you were right. I stepped over the boundaries and I intend not to do that again.'
There's lots of opportunity for those people to be here and to grow here, and to just have a fabulous personal and college career.
We don't try to have a rule that says, one time, or two times, or three times. That's that kind of legalistic approach; kind of a cookie-cutter thing where you just open the policy manual and say, 'Violation number two and a half, this what we do in this situation.' It just doesn't work.
It's like raising kids. I've had one of my kids say, 'Well you're not fair!' Well what do you mean by that? 'Well my brother did this, and you did that; but I did this and you did this.' It just doesn't work that way, does it? That's why it doesn't work that way here.
I have this little thing that I sometimes use with faculty and staff around how we deal with students. I don't think it's original with me, but it says 'Nobody wins unless we all do.'
If we had a bunch of students that come here, and we have a third of them fail, either conduct-wise, in the classroom, or some other way, you know what? We've all failed. Because something's not working right.
That doesn't mean that we take responsibility for the fact that they missed class, or didn't turn papers in, or scored 30 percent on exams. We can't take responsibility for that. But if that happens, something went wrong, and we're all part of that. I feel very strongly about that.
But having said all of that, every now and then you get into a situation when you have a person or group of persons on campus that it's just clear they are not stretching to meet the conditions that are necessary for us to be the kind of campus community that we want to be.
And, another principle that we try to operate by is that you can never put the needs of any individual ahead of the needs of the community.
So in those few situations where that happens, you have to remove someone from the community to protect the community.
And when we get to that conviction, we will do it.
Star-Journal: How do you get your coaches to buy in as pillars of that belief system?
Nikkel: I think that we've done a real good job of that, but there are no guarantees that it happens perfectly in every case.
And I would say that with [recently let-go head football coach] Robert Rubel, with [former coaches] Mike Gardner, with Tim McCarty
These were all good Christian men. Their heads were screwed on right, and so on. So we all want the same thing. It doesn't work right in every case.
But, you're right, there has to be buy-in at every level.
Here's what I want from coaches: First of all, in their personal life and character, they have to reflect the character of the school. They've got to be decidedly Christian men and women.
They've got recruit people whose goal is to graduate from college. They're not here for a semester of football, or one year of volleyball or whatever it is. They're supposed to be here to graduate from Tabor College.
I think it's ideal to bring in kids from the great plains. Why?
If you bring somebody in from New York City (I'll use that because we tend not to recruit there) and they come to Hillsboro, Kansas, as great of community as it is, they stand around for three days and say 'Where am I?'
And so we've got to recruit kids who can survive this culture. (That doesn't mean we can't recruit urban kids, because I think kids coming from Houston, or Kansas City, or wherever, they can come to Hillsboro).
Living in Hillsboro for four years can be a great part of their education. Because a lot of urban kids don't have a clue what it means to live in the great plains. I don't apologize for that for a minute.
And, then on top of all of those things, a coach has got to be able to coach well, and mentor their kids.
Again, I want to be real clear, because I've think we've done a great job in hiring good coaches. Typically, that's the kind of coaches that we have.
Again, whether it's basketball, soccer, or football, we don't hit on every one. But that's what we want from coaches.
We want them to recruit the right kids, model the right things, be respectable in their sport, and love their kids.
Star-Journal: Would that include being a part of the everyday faith development of their players, going to chapel and that type of thing?
Nikkel: Yes, absolutely, and to model that. It's like a parent, we don't say 'we're taking you to Sunday school.' It's never that.
It's not like, 'Well, I'd like for you to go to chapel.' It's, 'We go to chapel and we expect you to go to chapel.'
That's the ideal.
Star-Journal: If a player is removed from a team for disciplinary reasons that also would violate the honor code, does the coach tell the administration? How does it work? Does the student remain on campus, undisciplined?
Nikkel: I would think that that doesn't happen very often, or it shouldn't happen.
I think Dr. Ressler has done a really good job last year and this year, getting three critical components of our system together on the same page: the admissions people, the athletic people, and the student life people.
The whole point is that we've all got to be on the same page. And even when we are, it would be possible for someone to be suspended from a team, but not be suspended from campus life. (It would depend on what happened and all that kind of stuff).
I think it would be unusual for someone to be suspended from a team for the violation of a moral code or something like that without them also having student life involved in that, and agreeing to whatever that was.
I wonder if someone could be under some type of discipline from student life, and not be kicked off of a team? I think that could happen.
Something may have happened in a dormitory, or something like that (and I'm not saying it would be a felony type thing). But some violation of some code of conduct that may have nothing to do with whether or not they're eligible to be on the football team. So I don't think that if you get disciplined in one place, you automatically get disciplined in another.
But I think there are some offenses where they would have to be together, and if you lost your spot on an athletic team, you might also lose your spot on campus because of the nature of the violation.
Star-Journal: What if a coach says to a player, 'You're out of here, pal. You're a miscreant. You're a malcontent, or whatever, then that person becomes a 'free radical' on campus?
Nikkel: Maybe the coach says, 'You are not a positive influence on the team and I can't use you anymore.' But they violated nothing in terms of going to classes or whatever.
But what if that person is a malcontent on campus? At a certain point, that attitude or behavior may spill over and get to the attention of student life and they would have a different issue to deal with.
Star-Journal: What type of responsibilities do coaches have for reporting these infractions to student life.
Is there a clearinghouse for discipline; a centralized location?
Nikkel: I think it would be through the student development office.
But let me say again, what we would like to have is almost a biblical thing, where it says if you have a problem with somebody you go to that person, you don't necessarily go to someone's father or boss, you go deal with it.
Lets take the band for example. If you've got a problem with the band, the band director is going to take care of that if he can without copying student life and saying, 'Guess what? So and so screwed up in my band today.'
It wouldn't go farther than taking care of it at the point where there is an issue.
If there is a recurring problem, somebody else is going to get involved.
But it isn't that there's a system in place, nor do I think there should be a system in place where every little problem in a classroom, or in the band, or on an athletic squad automatically goes to student life.
Let's say that a student came to band practice inebriated, and the band director said to that person, 'You know that can't happen. If it happens again
I would say even that kind of thing (because it's a violation of something more than relating to band), then the band director has an obligation to talk to student life, and they would do that.
We expect the same standards to apply across the board.
Does that happen without fail? I expect not. It never does. But that doesn't mean that we don't try for it all the time.
Star-Journal: Is there anything else you would like to add at this point?
Nikkel: I think the thing that I would say about this incident that grieves me so much, is that we have such great kids and (I hope the community would agree, such a great track record, of having good kids and having good community relations), that when you have an incident like we had, it grieves me because [statistically] it's an outlier.
It's an exception to things.
I know the police were saying that they've been called a number of times, and they have.
And like I said, we intend for that not to continue. But I think we have such a good history of good conduct and good relationships in the community, that when this happens, it grieves me.
Hopefully this isn't going to happen again for a long time.
[Next week: the conclusion of the interview with president Nikkel, in which we discuss the role of college sports at Tabor].
