Scott McQuilkin: Whitworth Board approaches complex issue with civility, grace

By Scott McQuilkin

Spokesman-Review readers may have seen the headline that the Whitworth University board of trustees voted to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected classes in the university’s employee hiring policy. It’s a significant topic, one about which faithful, thoughtful and well-meaning Christians disagree, including on our campus. Over the past 16 months, while educating and equipping our stellar students, this question has been before our community. And while I could spend time explaining the long discernment process culminating in a recent vote, I have a different purpose today. That is, in a world that needs good examples of how to engage in difficult conversations on complex and controversial issues with humility, grace, civility and respect, our board was Exhibit A. I am so proud to be associated with them, the individuals and the collective.

Last year, a Christian college president who knew that Whitworth had taken up the question about our hiring policy language made this request of me. He said, “Scott, could Whitworth do us all a favor by working through this conversation in a way that provides a model for others? No matter what the outcome is, please do this well.”

In every way, Whitworth trustees did just that. On this question of whether to make Whitworth’s hiring policy more inclusive, our board members hold convictions that are as diverse as we see in the broader culture. However, unlike what we so often see in social, political and even church communities, our trustees sought to listen and learn from one another. They wrestled through a difficult decision that easily could have divided them. Although not of one mind, they emerged with perhaps even greater appreciation for the wisdom, intelligence and decency of their board colleagues.

In this decision-making process, our board embodied Whitworth’s mission that elevates rigorous, open intellectual inquiry and the integration of Christian faith and learning as complementary rather than competing values; that affirms both Christ’s teachings and cutting-edge scientific research as essential to the fearless pursuit of truth; and that challenges students, regardless of their faith background, to ask tough questions, to engage with diverse perspectives, and to think hard about what they believe and why they believe it. Since its founding in 1890, Whitworth has occupied a place in higher education that is lightly populated but offers unmatched learning opportunities.

I entered the Whitworth community as a student in September 1980. For 43 years now, this has been my educational and professional home, and the hub of my faith community. I didn’t need more evidence for why this has been a worthy place to spend my career or to have my own children be shaped and educated. Over this past year, though, I have fallen more deeply in love with this place and its people. My faculty, staff and student colleagues treated one another as beloved image bearers of God, even in our disagreements. We practiced humility and mutual forbearance as we guarded against easy presumptions of certainty. We lived into the values of shalom.

Newspaper headlines, nightly newscasts and social media posts often don’t allow for context and nuance. Even in this column I can’t do justice to the hard, careful, tireless work of our board in navigating through difficult decisions with such grace. So, instead, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to these extraordinary servant leaders for their example and for their stewardship of Whitworth’s mission and its people.

Scott McQuilkin is the president of Whitworth University.