Anderson gives state of PLU address

PLU President Loren J. Anderson told an audience of academics and university staff last week that PLU is right on point in educating our students for a changing world. It’s a world, he added, that faces higher oil prices and a lower standard of living as a crowded globe tries to survive on fewer resources.“It’s been a shocking year for the global village,” Anderson said, marking his 17th State of the University address titled “PLU and the Post-American World.”Wheat and oil prices reached record levels, straining the budgets of U.S. families with both higher energy and food costs this last year, he noted. Conflicts are still occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, and new outbreaks of hostilities are occurring in former Soviet states.

“And natural disasters remind us that the planet is fragile and the forces of nature far exceed our own,” Anderson said.

Yet, Anderson said he was proud of the graduates who go out into the world to take leadership positions in an increasingly challenging world.

“Our graduates are prepared to live and serve in a difficult and often conflicting world,” he told the audience at Olson Auditorium last Thursday. “And I think,” he continued, “that they are equipped with the moral framework to do this,” through PLU’s focus on world outreach and travel, service at home and an interdisciplinary program that looks at problems from a 360 degree perspective.

“Our graduates will confront choices between good and evil, right and wrong, and they will face a world in the crippling holds of narrow self-interest and consuming greed,” he said. “So they must be equipped with the moral frameworks, core values, and personal strength that will enable them to confront harsh reality and uphold the highest ideal.”

In our world today, Anderson, concluded, America’s competitive advantage is producing graduates and leaders who can think. PLU provides excellence in this area, he said.

Today, Anderson will speak again, welcoming new and returning students back to PLU at his convocation address. Read Anderson’s entire speech here.