Untitled Episode

0:00If all goes as planned, our nation should continue to open up over the coming weeks and months. We've been removed from being physically present and our jobs, our schools, our churches, and our familiar social settings. We all are longing to return to a more normal coronavirus-free life. One big question mark remains regarding schooling when the summer is over and the fall begins, particularly for incoming college freshmen and other returning college students. In an effort to gain some sense of what we need to be prepared for regarding higher education, we chat with the president of Geneva College, Dr. Calvin Trapp, and the team of Geneva College administrators on this episode of Youth Culture Matters. From the Center for Parent Youth Understanding, this is Youth Culture Matters. If you're a parent, youth worker, educator, counselor, grandparent, or anyone else who cares

1:01about kids, we're glad you've joined us for this practical, informative, and whole-filled podcast. This is a place where together, we talk and think critically about the rapidly changing world of today's children, teens, and young adults. Welcome everybody to another episode of Youth Culture Matters. I'm Walter Mueller here at CPYU, and we are still on our government-regulated stay-at-home order here at CPYU and in our state. We're all working remotely here, and we have quite a lineup of people to chat today about a topic that I've been hearing a lot about as I engage with folks, youth workers, parents, and these Zoom calls we've been doing trying to navigate this thing. One of the questions that's been coming up a lot is, what happens in the fall? Of course, parents who have been doing the online education at home with kids from kindergarten

2:02through 12th grade, most of them have pulled their hair out by this point, and they're wondering, hoping, is school going to start again in the fall wherever you are? There's a lot of questions about what's going to happen on the college campus. I don't know, Jason, out there where you are in Spokane at Whitworth have made any decisions about the fall yet. They have. They've decided that they're committed to bringing students back on campus, but obviously with many new rules, regulations, with how that is going to look, they've got to have a lot of things in place. We'll see what happens. My wife is on staff as a counselor for the school, and so they're getting updates all the time, and honestly, the school is trying to flex as they're getting information, and I'm sure we'll hear a lot about that today, so it's an ever-moving target, is what it seems like. So, trying to get some clear answers with the data that they're given, I think is a lot

3:03of work, and so I really respect the work of the people that are going to be coming on the podcast today. Yeah. So, as I've been thinking about this and people have been asking me questions, Chris brought up. I said, hey, we need to do a podcast on this, and immediately I thought, let's go right to the college where I spent such happy days, we used to sing that song all the time, right? And I thought, let's get Dr. Calvin Trapp, who was at the time when I was a student at Geneva. He was, man, Calvin, I don't know if I should refer to you as like a townie, or how do we say that your dad was on staff at the school at the time, and you were a high school student and you'd come over and I'd see you in the gym, you were a high school student, I remember you wearing your black hawk high school varsity football jacket when you would come into the gym, and now you're the president of Geneva College, and I thought, you know, you've been an education for a higher ed for a long time, who better to bring on to pick a brain

4:09about this than you, so welcome, Calvin. Thank you, well, you know, it's frightening how good our long-term memories are becoming Walt. You probably remember my high school jacket as well as I do, but yeah, I have been involved in Geneva College for a long time, and this is a good time to be at Geneva, it's a really difficult time, it's challenging, unprecedented, but the mission of the college is so important to us, and we're getting tested to see what it means to be forecrested in country in this moment, and so we're thankful, I'm thankful to be here with some members of our leadership team today, so we have Jamie Swank, who is a jurors doctor, and is our dean of student development,

5:14and we have Melinda Stevens, who's a doctor of chemistry, who is our provost, and heads everything to do with academic affairs, and is in second command in the college, and we have Anthony Turner, doctor of education, and he is our vice president for enrollment and marketing at the college, and so we're working through all these questions and issues, a number of us were on a call right before this meeting, thinking about details, about how do we bring students back to Geneva College in a really safe and healthy way, but with a premium on face-to-face instruction. Yeah, so I'm a graduate of Geneva, and this is no secret, I talk about Geneva all the time, Geneva was incredibly formative, and I value my education there. Man, it is probably one of the three institutions that really shaped me over the course of my life,

6:19and early on there, right out of high school, Geneva just set me on a course that I am so grateful for, you know, Christian higher education, and been around since 1848, right, so it's one of the older Christian colleges in the country here, and as I think about it, can I start with this? What are, you mentioned some of them, Calvin, but what are some of the unique challenges for Christian higher education, perhaps? I don't know, I guess we can differentiate here as to how different institutions are handling this situation and this pandemic, but can you unpack that a little bit for us? Well, I think what the challenges are, first of all, incredibly common. We have a radical level of uncertainty, and people are craving certainty right now. They want us to be able to say, okay, all of this chaos is over, and now we're going to do A, B, and C the way we used to do,

7:22and from a leadership perspective, that option is just not available, because we don't know when COVID-19 is going to end. We expect resurgence, but we're not sure about it. We have some historical knowledge of pandemics, but COVID-19 is its own disease, so we don't know about that. So what it does is it challenges us to provide an education in the midst of it. One of our bed rocks in thinking about this is a great essay by C.S. Lewis called Learning in War Time that he wrote during World War II, and it helps us to know this is not a bad time for education. It's a great time for education, but it's not easy to do it. And so figuring out what colleges like Geneva have to figure out is this doesn't fit our financial model at all.

8:25And so we have to think about how do we utilize resources, how do we move through this troubled moment, because we believe we have a long-term future at Geneva College. The Lord has blessed us and prepared us. Everything about our college from the world's perspective is modest, except for God's goodness in providing prudence and care, and a deeply committed faculty, deeply committed to the mission, and to a ministry of education. It's not just a job for people at Geneva College. People are committed to building Christ's Church and building our communities for the long haul. And so there are eternal dimensions, because there's eternal truth involved in an education in our context. So figuring out how to maximize our community and how to tighten our belts and do that in a way that brings us out on the other side, is still able to conduct this ministry of education. That's the challenge. Yeah. And Calvin, I'm going to ask you, go ahead and defer any of the questions

9:30that Jason and I may throw at you to the folks from the administration there who you've brought on, because we'd love to hear from them too. But let me ask you, you said something about this is a good time for education. And in my conversations with youth workers and parents, one of the things I'm working to convince them of is this is a good time, you know, to be a youth worker. It's a good time to be a pastor. It's a good time to be a mom and a dad. One of the reasons for that is we have the blessing now of time, concentrated times, void of a lot of the normal interruptions around the home, you know, since we're all there together. And there is this rising sense of, you know, self-awareness of our spiritual needs and the questions that we have about what's going on that can be answered from a biblical perspective. So I see that, you know, with family and ministry, when you say this is a good time for education, unpack that a little bit. Well, one of the things that we're familiar with is the common phrase teachable moments.

10:36And when we think about teachable moments at Geneva, we always start with the scriptures. So you can ask a question like, what's your favorite teachable moment in the scripture? And who's undergoing it? And so if you think about Jesus and the disciples, there's tension and problem and difficulty all along the path of Christ's ministry. And then all the way through the book of Acts. I mean, people are teaching and learning and growing under pressure. There are burdens. If we're not in a burden some time as a professor, I try to burden my students, not overwhelm them, but to put them in positions where they can learn, where they're being asked to do things they haven't done before in ways they haven't done them before. And I think for example, of how did Joshua learn? Well, Joshua will went up the mountain halfway with Moses. And for all we know from scripture was alone for 40 days and 40 nights, wonder. And in between,

11:38well, he learned a tremendous amount with Moses the whole time and Moses was under fire. Just Joshua's his age and then aid. And then he takes the people in the Promised Land, not Moses. It's these kinds of things that teach us from the scriptures, that the pressures and burdens of our own days are the moments in which we learn and which things get embedded in our hearts and minds. And our loves then are loves that propel great Christian learning emerge in those contexts. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about, and I'm guessing some of you folks have read this book, The Coddling of the American Mind. I don't know if any of you have read that, but Jonathan Height and Greg Lukyanoff, you know, they talk about kind of what's happening on the college campus. They tend to focus on that. And one of the three great untruths that we believe here in our culture right now that certainly is true in higher ed in many, many places is, you know, what doesn't kill you will hurt you, which is the exact opposite of what we hear and what we learn

12:44in the scriptures. And so, you know, I think that's what you're talking about here, Calvin, that what doesn't hurt us we actually learn from. Absolutely. And you know, one of the things that that that my colleague to talk about is we have really been looking hard at questions related to generation Z. And how do we usher people into a Geneva education? Because we want to take into account the real experiences and places from which our students are coming in their background. But where the Lord needs them to be when they leave Geneva hasn't changed. And so how we invite them in is an important question. And what a valuable time for us to help them navigate these challenging moments. I think that whether you're talking about how to come into

13:46the college and enrollment and understanding what can happen at Geneva College and a transformative ministry of education, where we're of course providing degrees, you know, celebrating 100 years of engineering at Geneva College under Christ Rain. But also how does that work out in residence life and how does it work out in the classroom on a day-to-day basis? Those are the kinds of things that that we're really grappling with. And like we talked about at the beginning, we do not have all the answers to this. We're working on, we're a learning institution. And so we're learning as we go. And I think students learn well when they're learning with us as we're learning, not just hearing from us as kind of experts or the sage on the stage. Can we hear from some of the folks who are involved in an administration there about the before we get into some of some of the things that we can expect moving forward. And we're going to let you speak. I know specifically for Geneva, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot of overlap

14:51with other schools. But what about looking back over the last couple of months, the response that you had to make immediately? What were some of the changes that you had to make on campus and with a way that education was delivered? I'll take a stab at that. Can you hear me? All right. Yeah, we hear you. We're having some internet issues here. So folks who are listening, we normally can see each other and somehow all our cameras went off. So we're running just on voice here. But go ahead. Okay, thanks. This is Melinda Stevens. And yeah, I apologize for the crackling and the poor connectivity. It has been a challenging semester, but I think as Calvin said, lots of teachable moments. And I'm really proud of the way students and faculty have adapted and demonstrated resiliency through this semester. It certainly had its challenges.

15:52But early on in March, we had to make a hard call to move everybody off campus and to convert our in-classroom experience to a remote one. And this was done with faculty and students for whom the in-classroom experience was definitely desired. And online experience was little to none. So with some training that was done in a short period of time, the faculty adapted their courses to an online domain as of the other institutions that you can do in person, so they crossed the states. So we survived that experience for a bit. And we're trying to plan for the future for all possible features depending on contingencies.

16:55Okay, we got most of that. I know the internet's not cooperating with us. Real great, you know, real well here. This is kind of like last week as we were recording. I know Sunday morning, all these churches were using Zoom. And everybody said that Zoom shut down, which was probably a blessing in many ways because everyone says they're zoomed out, which leads to another question that I want to ask. And that is about, you know, what was that like? What's that experience been like educationally in terms of the effectiveness of being out of the classroom and moving solely to an online experience? I know a lot of schools, a lot of degrees were doing that long before this pandemic arrived. But there were a lot of questions about that. Parents are asking about that because they know that some of their graduating high school seniors, if they do, in fact, go ahead as plan to start school in the fall, that may be the platform that they use. They may be still at home and not on campus. So if someone would speak to that. This is Calvin, you know, I think it's really

18:01interesting because we have been getting a lot of messages and been in conversation with parents. And one of the fascinating things that you could never accomplish if you're trying to do, for instance, a research study of this is you have parents actually seeing their college students studying or not. And so we've gotten messages from parents who have said, my students really struggling. And we've talked to students who are saying, yeah, there are some dynamics here that are difficult. I think it's important for us to be careful though because a pretty typical scenario is a college student who's forced back home because of COVID-19. All of a sudden, their parents are working at home and they have a sibling or two who's working at home. And so they're not able to set up anywhere but in their bedroom and their bedroom is not

19:02very well equipped for this kind of work. And so there's the background of chaos and sort of families working in situations that even families aren't accustomed to where people can't really get out and in and out and go to work and that kind of thing. But I do think that students identified some of the value of being in a face-to-face context. When something's forced on you, you deal with it a little bit differently than when it's a free choice that you make. So we have really taken the mindset and when I say we, I'm thinking about my students in my interpersonal communication class that I was teaching this semester with a colleague, we really believe that online education is better than nothing. That was really valuable. But we don't think it's almost like being in a Geneva classroom face-to-face at all. It's a

20:08poor approximation. It's a great solution in a crisis but it's not our number one driver. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we're going to come back. We're going to talk about that. Let's take a little break when we come out of the break. Jason's got a question and we're having a conversation about education, higher education and how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting it will be right back. Stick with us. If you enjoy listening to youth culture matters and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting cpyu.org slash giving to make a donation. Your prayers and financial support make this podcast possible. Well, thanks for sticking with us here on Youth Culture Matters. We're here with a great group of individuals that are from Geneva College and we're continuing our conversation on education

21:13and what to expect in the coming year. Many of us have experienced multiple changes and as parents, I know that we're asking a lot of questions about what to expect when we return to school. Sticking a little while longer just with the conversation about online education, I would love to hear some thoughts that you could extend to parents about what you've seen and what they should expect in the future with the way that online educating might take place or has taken place or what you've learned. Yeah, this is Jamie. I serve as the Dean of Student Development at Geneva and it's been to Calvin's point earlier that entering online education unexpectedly in a crisis format obviously has some unique implications, but I think there's a few things as a student development professional kind of working in the co-curricular and in our context and the

22:21discipleship realm with students and character formation. I think there's a few things that stick out. I think with online education, not every student is on equal footing. You know, home situations, very financial situations, very, and so really when we're on campus in a classroom, there's a leveling that happens not that it's, you know, everybody's situation goes away when you're on campus, but there's a leveling that happens in a classroom when you're engaging a professor one-on-one that you know, an online situation highlights some of the inequities that exist in people's personal situations and so you have students that are overcoming significant challenges at home to learning that they don't necessarily have to navigate when they're on campus and so from a care standpoint, from a support standpoint, you know, there are some real challenges in

23:23getting to students that typically we would be able to work directly with one-on-one whether that's an academics, whether that's in mental health, whether that's in any of those things that help a student thrive in their learning and in their study. So one of the things that we're having to think about creatively and innovatively is that as we consider moving forward and if we would have to be online more so in the future is what does it look like to provide the type of support and resource-ing online to students in regards to those support services that allow them to take full advantage of their learning because it just looks really differently online. So that's one thing that sticks out for sure. I think the one thing also that we're learning, you know, when you've only ever done online education, you don't really have anything to compare it to and what's been really fascinating and for us, I think really encouraging is that we have students

24:25who have had the classroom experience, who have had that intimate kind of learning environment with their faculty, life-on-life types of situations that are coming back and saying, well, wow, like my learning just isn't what it was when I was on class and class and so I don't think that that's so much a critique on the online delivery. It says as it is, it's just a richer learning experience in the classroom and those who have tasted it know what what limits online has and so the feedback we have is students who said faculty done a great job adapting and maximizing the experience but they're there's just recognized loss and I think that that's really critical for a generation that has learned to relate solely online and I think that this particular moment for our students, for our nation is that we we're really kind of faced a wrestle with the limits

25:30of building relationship, doing discipleship, doing learning in a solely virtual context and I think that that will really actually be a big benefit for our students moving forward because I think they'll have more reasonable expectations of technology and how to use it and what they're missing when they're not engaging in other realms if that makes sense. That's a great absolutely. That's an awesome answer and this is one of the things I've been trying to tell parents you know we're concerned about screen time before the pandemic with kids when you look at the numbers then we're concerned going into it the kids are going to jump into their screens even more but what I'm hearing is they're jumping in because they're bored they're jumping in because they're anxious they're jumping in for good reason because they want to connect with their peers but they're getting tired of it and they're really longing for the community the real flesh and blood community that we've all been created for Jason I think you had another question. Yeah well I want to stay

26:31on just the conversation around parents because I think that a lot of parents what I'm finding are having a lot of questions about not just what's happening now but what's going to happen next year right parents are really not sure what to do my nephew graduating from high school going off to college next year it's a state school it's it may or may not have some of the same issues that you are facing I'm sure many of the same ones but also some different ones with the aspect of Christian education and so what are you sharing with parents as they're trying to prepare for that next season or maybe they have kids that are going to be returning as students and they've they've had two years of education at Geneva and now it's it might look a little bit different and so what what is the message that you're communicating to parents in the midst of this season well you know Tony Turner is our vice president for enrollment and marketing and and he talks to parents and students who are thinking about these questions every day so Tony maybe he could help us out

27:35with that yeah that I'll jump in you know I think Jason that's a really great question and just talking with parents you know I think parents are overall you know concerned about you know about multiple things I think they're they're concerned about you know number one the safety of their of their son or daughter attending college at the same time though what's been interesting is that parents are concerned about the educational aspects of their son and daughter of taking a good education and so I think what we're seeing as parents are asking how will a college deliver exceptional education quality for my son and daughter as we kind of take a step back and look at the COVID situation that we're in we have we have undergone probably the biggest social science experiment known in a very long time we've had to shift education not only in a college

28:36level but you know pay through 12 and a very short period of time and so as I've been talking with parents I've been finding a lot of parents are saying you know really appreciate the efforts that schools are trying to deliver education but we really long for our son and daughters to have that that in in person education experience and so that's been a common theme that I'm actually hearing from parents is that well my son and daughter be able to come to college and if they are going to attend college what are some safety protocols you're putting into place and so we've been talking a lot with parents these are some of the things that we're thinking through you know such as how we're going to facilitate you know dining how we're going to facilitate housing and in those aspects but the overarching common thread we're hearing from parents is is safety and community parents are really longing for their son to have that college experience it's

29:37almost it's almost like a right of passage in some ways you talk about that college experience and so that that has been on the forefront a lot of parents minds and so they're asking how will how will college is still delivered that type of experience in this new environment that that we're in because they're aware of the challenges that we're facing but they're still asking that really important question which in some ways for me is kind of surprising knowing the situation that we're in but families are still very hopeful that we would have some type of on-ground experience that I think families now are experiencing more and more the value of that face-to-face instruction I think more so now than they have before because they've had to get rushed into a unique online experience can I ask what are you hearing and any of you can answer this but what are you hearing from parents as you know we move three months down the road into the unknown and boy I would be

30:42right with all those parents who are communicating those things to you about you know the I have strong opinions about completely online education then there I'll just be honest they're not positive I don't think they're real positive for students I don't think they're positive for instructors and I'm sure there's a lot of that I've read some of it on this you know it's a I know people have differing opinions on this but if if you are looking at a situation where it's going to be difficult to get students back on campus how do we answer concerns about well maybe for this year we'll just you know do the local community college or we'll do a gap year or you know we'll just take a year off not call it a gap year but get into the workforce and I know that people are considering those options we fielded a lot of questions about that have you heard those if you and if you have how have you answered that if you haven't heard it or do you

31:42anticipate it how how will you answer it I hope that's a fair question yeah well I think it's a very fair question it has come up of parents have been asking or have mentioned you know we might do a transition year we'll do community college I think part of it boils down to what do the families feel it's safe for them of course at Geneva we're we're taking time to explain to families you know the safety measures that that we're putting in place in order to protect our students you know and we're we're getting outside you know counsel for that but it does come down to a family decision in terms of what they feel is best and we have families on both sides where they feel very confident that with the measures that we're taking that they feel comfortable allowing the spending daughter to come there are others that are still you know still navigating through that and and want to wait a wait a year before they come to do and that's publicly fine

32:45our goal is is to articulate the families these are things that we've thought through we put together we've deliberated to provide the best education we can in the midst of a current pandemic but you know but families you know we walk families through through that conversation because we realize it's difficult there's always going to be concerns about you know what are the effects of this and you know I think you know looking back at scripture you know we have we have the promise of a vehicle from nothing but my parents application may request be known on to God and the piece of God that passes on our stage of people hearts and Christ Jesus and so sometimes it's easier to quote that then actually to live it especially when we can't really see you know the you know we physically can't see you know the virus coming down the street and so I think those those things we keep in perspective as we talk with families but the more we communicate with families on what's happening I think it puts families at a little bit of ease because we're

33:50constantly communicating the efforts that that we're putting forth to ensure you know the best education during this time yeah that's good that's good well let's take another break and we'll come back we'll finish up with a with a final segment and we've got some more questions here we're having a conversation with Dr. Calvin Trapp and members of the administration at Geneva College I do want to say before we go to the break that Calvin I think you did you mention that Jamie who's in charge of student development is she actually an attorney did you say that at the beginning? I did she's got a doctorate that's you know what's Dr. let me just say I am grateful to God that I attended Geneva College under the tutelage of Carl Cunningham and Don Sullivan neither of those were attorneys because they had been attorneys we would not be having this conversation right now so yeah student development I love those guys yeah I just thought that was funny we have an attorney student development right that's great that's great let's take a break we'll

34:57be right back how is the coronavirus pandemic and stay at home water affected your family one of the many good things that has come out of this crisis is that families are spending more time together in fact families are rediscovering the joy of sitting down at the dinner table together to share a meal and time and conversation and as we navigate the question sphere and anxiety that have come with living in this cultural moment we realize that our kids are ripe and ready to hear the truths of God's word we've been given a great opportunity to nurture our children and teens in the fate here at CPYU we've launched a family table talk initiative designed to provide your family with tools to help you dig deeper into and apply God's word we've recruited a team of gifted thinkers and writers to create several weeks worth of family table talk daily devotional guides the guides give you a scripture passage to read together at the dinner table some commentary on the passage to spark your thinking some questions to help you apply and discuss what you've read

36:00and a short prayer to pray together these family table talk devotional guides are all free to access them for download and printing simply go to our website at CPYU.org that's CPYU.org and click on the link for these brand new family table talk guides thanks for listening to you culture matters for continuing our conversation with many individuals from Geneva College and so we're excited to continue this dialogue i want to go back to something that we said during the break and it's the aspect of some of the most surprising outcomes during this time that some of the things that you're seeing and Jamie you were mentioning this and i would love for you just to share it with our listeners some of those elements some of those outcomes some of those things that you're seeing that are surprising but actually could be quite beneficial yeah and and i don't want to as a Geneva alum don't want to do too much on our community

37:05but just have been so blessed by our communities response to this and i think a lot of it goes back to we've talked about as a leadership team and Calvin has brought us back to this kind of the capital that comes with relationship that those relationships have been forged and so when we're in crisis those relationships support help us to support each other in the situation but the one of the things that's just been so overwhelming to see has been the creativity that's come out of our students then being able to look at situations where hey this would be what they would want but it's not what we can give right now in this historical moment and their ability to recognize that state that see that adjust adapt to show care for one another president trough and i had opportunity to sit with our student government a little while back and just to kind of hear how they were experiencing the

38:08the the pandemic and in their learning and you know he asked the question you know what have you learned about Geneva what have you learned you know through this situation and so many of their answers were directed towards care for one another and awareness of each other and and just this kind of heightened almost maturity that the situation has brought out of them being innovative taking leadership taking initiative and when we look at employers what we're we're learning from employers over the last couple of years is they're saying hey some of these types of things resilience see prudence adaptability awareness of others and team generationally has been suffering and so it just feels like we have this unique moment and the moment has forced us as a society to have to grapple in different ways with the way that we move and i think our students are just going to really come

39:12out of this with a unique opportunity to have some tools in their tool belt at the next level and I think it's educators it's going to be a lot of fun to help them process that and and and see them mature as a result so you know one of the questions that we talked about a few minutes ago was how would somebody decide whether they should have their student go back to a on-campus place and and i've been in higher education my whole professional life and the question that people don't ask is who are they going to who are they going to people look at degree programs and they look at dorms and they look at all kinds of important things these are important things but the question that that the apostle Paul what he impresses on Timothy in second to mithy three is remember from whom you learned these things and and where who we're sitting under and who we're sitting with and who

40:22we're working with is an incredibly important question one of the things that i've been talking we've been having chapel on the grid which goes against everything i believe in in terms of technology and is essential at the same time so we so we had to go to chapel on the grid and one of the things i was trying to impress on our students was this none of this has taken jesus christ by surprise in the least none of this has taken him by surprise he's the king of all creation and the king of and the king of all nations and so this isn't a surprise to him and he has actually been preparing us to walk through this moment for people who are committed to christ um he's been preparing us and he has a way for us through it um he's been preparing us in advance now we didn't know it we didn't know what was coming but he knew what was coming and brought us into it and we see him doing this with the disciples and we see him speaking to people all through the

41:25scripture about what he was preparing them to do and how he was moving them through difficult times and um and i covet people's presence with our faculty and staff because that's at the life blood of what happens at jeniva college is that we really believe that the presence of the lord in christ matters in these moments dramatically and being in a classroom or being in a residence hall or being in a different places that we work with people who are older brothers and sisters in christ who have questions too not all the answers but to think through with people um over a distanced meal or in a distanced classroom you know in person but at a distance with all the safety measures that's a huge value um that we are inviting people back into who are able to come and if they

42:32need to wait a year that's fine with us that's fine uh if they need to um if they're in a net risk population and they need to participate with us in a virtual format that's an okay option for us we we're working through the details of how to make sure that people can continue to have the highest quality Christian education um that's rigorous high expectations and then to provide the support even at a distance that jeniva was talking about. Calvin what you're talking about here is you know the sovereignty of god the providence of god the way that god is working i really appreciate the fact that you remind us that none of this is a surprise to our lord and savior and you know when you really understand providence you realize not only that god is doing something and has prepared us for this but through our pain and through our suffering which we buy in large in our culture today try to avoid god is uh conforming us more and more into his image and he's also preparing us for

43:39whatever is next and you know as i think about that there was a we're going to see this at some point we're going to see this and i think all of you have mentioned that great things are going to come out of this because god is in control i think about the story of i keep going back during the pandemic to the story of joseph you know when he finally faces his brothers and reveals himself you know what you guys meant for harm or in this case what the enemy is meant for harm and for damage god has used for good and that's the providence of god and i saw a quote i ran across a quote from the puritan john flavel the other day where he basically said and i'll paraphrase it here but he said you know the providence of god is a lot like reading hebrough or a hebrough word it doesn't make sense until you look at it backwards and i know that down the road we're going to be able to look backwards at this and i truly believe these young men and young women who are graduating from high school these young men and these young women who are at junevan other colleges

44:43universities they're going to think back on this and i i i think if they if they take that perspective they're going to see increasingly with with greater and greater clarity exactly what god is doing now but it it'll be down the road and so as you as you think about that you know have you heard your students and i'm just i'm just going to lean into juneva right here because this was a big part of my education i know what still is have you heard your students process this with some depth you know from an understanding theologically of who god is and how he works in our lives uh jamey's going to be able to talk to talk to this one i i would just say the meeting that jamey and i had with our student government leadership was all about that the the beautiful thing about it was they were concerned for their classmates for the very same

45:44things we were concerned about i have it pretty i have it pretty well here but i'm worried about my friends who are in a difficult home situation i'm worried about my friends who don't have the kind of food access that i have i'm worried about my friends who have at-risk people in their household or they're at risk um and the lord's going to take care of them and we're praying for them um and i heard that from my class my students in my class as well processing things in in really a season of life appropriate and above level in terms of the things that are that are most important from from the perspective of the lord and that's not every juneva student um that's not every juneva student a lot of us as juneva students that didn't really catch on until we were juniors or seniors and maybe for some of us after we got out there were a lot of

46:47there were a lot of uh things that were set in motion that we didn't really understand until we got five or ten years out of juneva college but that's by design i think want to to tag on to that a little bit um and to kavans point i think you know our students are processing it differently based on you know their situation and and what they're navigating and their families are navigating you know um but that said i think one of the markers uh that i've come to use with with with my team when we're looking at hey our students developing are they maturing um is that reality that you know as we become adults um part of being an adult apparent a leader a supervisor is recognizing that your decisions impact other people um and taking ownership of that and also understanding that it's not just about consuming that it's about contributing and i think what i've heard a lot of our students processing

47:48in the moment is well how do i contribute how do i uh author myself in this moment you know student leaders who are home coming back and saying all right like i got a lot going on i'm pretty overwhelmed with this transition to online learning but you know how can i help how can i get involved are there students that you know um aren't connecting with a lot of people that i can reach out to and i think that that's significant i think that's significant for a generation to to recognize that they have something to offer that they have something to contribute that they have responsibility and and and the in the wow this is really hard and woe is me and how is this impacting me but seeing students starting to say yeah i've had that moment we've grieved it and we've invited our community into that grief that's a very natural part of this process is grieving that you know things didn't turn out the way that we had hoped and commencement has to be on hold for a minute uh so it's not to

48:52deny that there's a grief that uh doesn't need to be processed and having authentic conversations with our students but watching them have those and then move into okay well now now what what is my role what is my responsibility and i'm just super proud of our community and that proud of our students and and really excited to process with them more um because i'm sure there's a lot of learning that's happened that we haven't even had a chance to to hear from from them on yet and so that's going to be really exciting yeah suffering and suffering and difficulty do that it's an amazing amazing school the school of suffering and difficulty and and i know a lot will be learned through that i know we need to close this out and i really well yes oh sorry i was just going to add one more thing if sure sure absolutely i was going to say you know the few students that you know if i interacted with particularly some freshmen that are now going to be sophomores and a few others i think a lot of are when they're when they transition from beyond campus and back home and facing the realities

49:54of their home situation mom and dad you know one of them has lost the job and things like that and just talking with some of the students and saying oh i didn't realize how much my parents were sacrificing while i was in college and so you know i'm talking with students who are working extra shifts and and working jobs and trying to do school and so in some ways i think it's this situation is forcing them to grow up a little bit faster where they're realizing while there's a lot to life then just going to college and it's going to class and so just talking with students and they're still having good spirits but just trying to juggle all those different things and and really have an appreciation for just family and the sacrifices and growing through that i think it builds at resiliency and that stick to abness that that i in the conversation i'm having with students they're saying you know while i really appreciate this experience because of all the things i'm learning not only about myself but also just with my own family that i've never really had

50:59the experience before and so i think there's a lot of things that are happening now that i think a lot of our students haven't encountered before because of what's happening with their mom and dad and so i think there's a lot of things that are that are happening in a family unit structure there are kind of that lessened in the skies that i think families are are having to communicate more have to build relationships more because they can't really go out as much they're they're having those family times of dinner together they're finding creative ways to keep each other engaged and so i think those things are are really valuable things are happening now that i don't think we're happening as much before this and so i think that's a really a precious jewel that we can appreciate through the current situation. And i really appreciate you sharing that Anthony because you know one of the things i'm going to take away from this discussion we're having here is instead of focusing on the negatives we're seeing so many positives of what the Lord is doing

52:04in individual lives for institutions for families and ultimately i you know believe for our culture so this is a good thing i you know one of the encouragement that i want to give to parents who are listening and and the students who are struggling now you know through all this wondering about the future is after we hear these folks who are administrators from Geneva college talk about what's been going on for them and that they're institution which really they're speaking you know for everybody in some way shape and form is that instead of you know getting getting lost in our complaints or in our fears i want to encourage folks to really pray for the people who are making these decisions that people at Geneva or whatever school you know your your students or you are attending you're you're looking forward to going to and i want to ask them the ones who are still with us here if each of them would just give us something specific that we can be

53:06praying for as we enter into the summer months and the unknown of what's going to happen when the fall semester begins so why don't we start let's start with Anthony and then we'll just go from there yeah i i think uh for for me um is that families would have a real peace um just about what their plans are for education this fall whether it's online or you know face to face the families would have peace i think there's just a lot of uncertainty among family members just should i go to college should i not and just there's a lot of different news pieces out there from i should go shouldn't go and why and so just i really pray you know my for peace and and clarity for for families who are really trying to make a really sound decision on what to do in this next phase that's good that's good and and we're going to pray for you Anthony because you're on the front lines there you know in you know with stew the students in terms of admissions and things

54:12and we know you're having these conversations so we'll pray for wisdom who's next i can jump in um i think one thing that i would would say would be just for our team um a faculty and staff to just have um eyes to see and ears to hear i think uh this situation has a collective impact but um it'll be um experience very individually based on um you know family circumstances and um you know we have open enrollment and so some of our students are coming um with a really strong lifelong faith and others that are really new to faith and new to the um and new to the conversation of the gospel and so just that we would in the fullness of this season and all that it's requiring administratively and educationally that the Lord would just give us the capacity to um to see

55:14our students well and especially right now from the distance and to be able to to do the individual ministry that we desire to do uh so there are students really can develop fully into what God has for them that's good that's good calman i think you're the last one on the call with us i'm not i am yeah i i'm here good uh and i think i think that's right i i think that the um uh that the thing i would want us to pray for for Geneva specifically but for everyone is that we would uh keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ um and and i really love cs luis's um in prince caspian uh when the children go back to narnia and and uh and aslan is with them but only lucy has really had a glimpse of him and and she needs to fix her eyes on him and he's right there it's not a distant look it's a close

56:26look and then to follow uh because what we're what we most want to do at Geneva is to hear and do uh it's a recurring theme in scripture here and do and word and deed and in times like these it's very easy to get distracted um it's easy to get distracted by the media the circumstances the concerns of the day and we need to not be distracted we need to be have our eyes and our ears fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ um because it's precisely in times like these that he will guide our paths uh and does and we've had that experience even in the last six weeks even in the last week that that he will guide us but we we have to be able to find our contentment in him it's not going to be comfortable it's not going to be convenient but we can have real peace and contentment in walking with him and keeping our eyes fixed on him on the walk and that and I really we really

57:32need that because from a leadership perspective wow I mean it's just there's it's swirling it's a swirling context it's um uh and we're not going to find our own way through it that's not that's not a possible option so that's what I pray that we'd fix fix our eyes and ears on Christ that's good hey Chris is telling me he thinks Melinda is still connected on Skype so let's go to her if she's here good I am here can you hear me oh yeah yeah okay good um well I think Calvin wrapped it up pretty pretty well there but I would I would ask parents to um pray for fruitful growth academically in the fall um and I'll just giving that perspective in my role over the academic program and um that whatever we have to do uh in our own personal biases for in classroom instruction but whatever that looks like in higher education that students would be

58:36able to grow um academically emotionally spiritually um with their connections with their faculty in the fall uh and I think uh Calvin's comment about it's important from whom you learn I think that's so true and um my own son is going to be a freshman at Geneva next year and that's so important to me so I just want to um ask for uh folks to pray that those fruitful growth conversations and academic outcomes would be true um thank you this is so good you know uh this morning I was I was reading in Psalm 11 which uh is one of my favorite Psalms and there's a there were a couple verses and verses three and four that I think are really timely right now they came to mind as as I was listening to you and the Psalmist asks when the foundations are being destroyed what can the righteous do and and I love the answer because it's not like a you know like a one two three do this

59:37or ABC you know take these steps and everything like great it's an answer of fact it says the Lord is in his holy temple the Lord is on his heavenly throne he observes everyone on earth his eyes examine them and and just the fact that God is in control in the midst of all this when we feel like perhaps things are are falling apart and so I appreciate so much you folks coming on Calvin, Anthony, Melinda, Jamie thanks so much thanks for what you're doing I feel like my Geneva degree gained value today you know just by listening to you and and so I appreciate that so much and and we're gonna ask God's blessing on you I do want to mention that as always that anything that we've mentioned here on the podcast and we include links on our homepage cpyu.org go to look for this episode and the player I know a lot of you get your podcasts you subscribe elsewhere but if you go back to cpyu.org and look at the player we'll include some links underneath and we'll

1:00:38include a link to Geneva College I know some of you are interested in hearing more about the school I know you've heard a lot today and and these folks have represented the school well so we're grateful for them Jason thank you for being on here and for everyone for joining us we'll talk to you the next time on the next episode of Youth Culture Matters thanks for joining us for Youth Culture Matters a podcast from the Center for Parent Youth Understanding if you'd like to learn more about today's youth culture visit our website at cpyu.org and if you have any questions comments or feedback email us at podcast at cpyu.org