Ken West: Parents give lesson to college president

One of my friends, Dr. Bill Robinson, is president of Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. At this small liberal arts college, administrators worried about the impact of the economy on the parents of their students. Bill sent the following account of his first interaction with parents after the economy hit bottom. The encounter came as he delivered an address on Parents’ Weekend.

As Bill walked into the auditorium, these were his thoughts: “This is going to be a tough crowd. This is going to be a group of people with concern written all over their faces. These are people who are trying to finance education for their children, and they are feeling the pressure. These are folks who have lost a ton in the past few months.

“Then I walked in and looked around and there wasn’t a trace of anxiety or sadness or anything, except what looked to be the same level of joy we had seen in every other Parents’ Weekend. I looked around and thought, ‘This is amazing.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, of course they are happy. Of course they are not feeling sad right now. They are with their children. This is what is most important to them.’

“So I got up there and welcomed them and said, ‘As I look out on all of you students with your families and families with your students, it’s very clear to me that anything that we have lost in the last months or so isn’t nearly as important as what we haven’t lost.’ And they just cheered. The most primal and important values have remained intact and even gotten stronger.”

Eye on the ball

Anyone who plays sports has heard the following phrase repeatedly: “Keep your eye on the ball.” In athletic competition, it is easy to become distracted. Instead of taking care of fundamentals, athletes think of the score, listen to the crowd, begin running before they catch the ball, and suddenly find themselves out of control. In a sense, they take their eye off the ball. In response, coaches quickly call timeouts to remind their players to refocus on fundamentals.

Today, psychologists offer a similar message to the one we’ve heard from coaches. Keep your eye on relationships. Most of us have lost plenty in these tough financial times. In response, we have made the best decisions we know how. After we control all that we can, we should not be distracted by the things we cannot control. Keep your eye on the relationships that bring you happiness.

Recently, Patty and I watched a football game with our friends Ron and Linda Wellman. Their grandchildren were with us. Although we had just received horrendous news about a beloved sibling, the joy and spontaneity of these grandchildren lifted our spirits. When we left the game, we called our three adult children. Just hearing their voices confirmed what Bill Robinson observed, “Anything that we have lost in the last months or so isn’t nearly as important as what we haven’t lost.”