A Message from President Dr. Wright: Better Days

Spring is coming to central Indiana. It’s a beautiful time of year when our minds normally turn to commencement ceremonies, job searches or promotions, and summer vacations.

This past Saturday, our normal Spring Commencement day, marked an historic milestone for all of us at IWU. It was the end of the first time in our history when IWU finished the traditional academic year teaching all classes remotely. It was a bittersweet day.

The day represented so much of what has been taken from us by this terrible pandemic.

But it also represented an astounding achievement by IWU faculty, students and staff. All through the day I enjoyed seeing the celebrations graduates posted on Facebook and other media.

Despite everything this pandemic threw at you, by God’s grace, it has not defeated you!

 Now our thoughts turn to the future. I want you to know that our teams are hard at work right now planning for summer and fall activities all across the IWU community.

    • We are planning to celebrate “Spring” commencement on August 22 with National & Global, Wesley Seminary, and Marion
    • IWU-Marion faculty and staff are preparing to welcome new and returning students to campus this
    • We are working to make the Marion campus and our regional education centers available for conferences and camps in the second half of the

We have two primary goals. The first is to continue to keep students, employees, and community workers safe. The second is to allow students to continue their education uninterrupted.

We are even now identifying the specific ways our activities will need to change in order to safeguard the health of our community as we move forward. Our plans are based on the best practices identified by public health, medical, governmental, and other authoritative sources. Those plans will grow, and may change, as new developments arise. We will keep you informed as we move forward.

Some may ask why we are planning aggressively for the future.

There are times in our lives when great disruptions come. They seldom come with the scope and impact of this pandemic. We grieve for the suffering and loss it has brought. We cannot move forward without acknowledging and lamenting our losses. But we do move forward.

While this pandemic is a formidable foe that has done historic damage to our families and our economy, at IWU we are absolutely convinced that good will prevail. In fact, we believe that our country will rise to this challenge just like we have to every other challenge in our history.

IWU people have been and will continue to be at the center of the fight. Thousands of our alumni and students are among the first-line responders to the pandemic. They are putting their lives at risk every day to care for the ill, and to keep necessary services in place.

Our faculty and staff are, even now, creating some of the most innovative programs we’ve ever offered to prepare new generations of world changers, to get our nation back to work, bolster our social services, and recreate the fabric of our communities.

Please join us as we pray for wisdom and courage both to fight the current pandemic, and to plan well for the future. We will use every available resource to make IWU a place of safety and a place of learning, fostering a faith-filled outlook on the future, pursuing ingenuity and persistence until we see the better days that are coming.

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7

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