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September, 2021
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students in the Klingler College of Arts & Sciences,
I hope your Fall semester is off to a wonderful start! This is my second academic
year at Marquette, yet in some ways it feels like the first. This year has brought
my first opportunity to participate in the Convocation for New Students and other
events like our Orientation Open House for New Undergraduates and various meet-and-greets
with incoming graduate students. What a joy it is to encounter students just embarking
upon their academic journey. The energy across campus with students attending in-person
classes underscores the vibrancy of Marquette’s educational enterprise.
The beginning of a new semester always presents many demands upon our time and attention.
To accomplish anything, we must discern what matters most and focus on it. An interesting
challenge, however, is to avoid letting focus lead to ignoring what matters most.
Recall the following line from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: “I find letters from God dropped in the street.” If our to-do lists consume our attention
too completely, we may walk right past those letters without even noticing they are
there, just waiting to be discovered.
Similar ideas appear in the work of Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ, who admonishes us that sometimes
our focus leads to single-minded attention on minor things. As he writes in “The Experience
of God Today,” we are “forever occupied with the grains of sand along the shore” and
risk forgetting that we “dwell at the edge of the infinite ocean of mystery.” In other
words, we end up with our back turned to the transcendent goodness that sustains us
and brings forth all that is. We certainly should not ignore finite things, but rather
treat them as windows into the divine—in Whitman’s words, as letters from God. These
letters can often appear in the form of another person.
Nurturing community is a crucial way to remain mindful of the beauty and blessings
of every day. With our visioning work in Arts & Sciences and a renewed commitment
to student success in the College and across campus, we are reminded of the importance
of connections. They extend to our broader network of peers across the country and
the world. I recently published an essay on leading toward a hope-filled future with four colleagues from other schools that
are part of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. I invite all of you
to seek out connections with one another and to deepen those that already exist. For
inspiration, stop by the wonderful new exhibits at the Haggerty Museum of Art right here on campus: “María Magdalena Campos-Pons:
Sea and Self” and “Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections.”
Whitman’s poem points to a task we could assign ourselves this academic year. Let’s
keep an eye out for letters from God. And, more importantly, let’s read them and ask
what they may be calling us to do, whom they may be calling us to become. During this
Ignatian Year, let’s broaden our attention enough to seek wisdom wherever it may be found.
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring
ways we can all work together for the common good.
Sincerely,
Dr. Heidi Bostic
Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
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