The PLU Connection

By Justin Buchanan ’12

Brian Laubach ’84 ’95 and Isaiah Huey ’20 attended Pacific Lutheran University three decades apart. All it took was an hour of conversation to bridge the generational gap.

That’s the power of the PLU connection.

Laubach, assistant superintendent for secondary education for Clover Park School District, recently sat down with Huey, an Act Six scholar who is pursuing a double major in history and Chinese studies. They bonded over their experiences in theatre, the common struggles they faced in college, and the memories that stand the test of time.

The rich conversation unlocked stories that transcend the four years (or more, in Laubach’s case) each of them spent on campus, stories that ultimately draw together Lutes from all walks of life.

PLU proudly embraces a tradition of reformation, rooted in 127 years of Lutheran higher education and grounded by tenets that transform the Lutes who attend.

In an effort to draw connections between our alumni and their experiences — and better serve our community — ResoLute has been sharing the findings of donor-funded outreach conducted last academic year.

Through a series of online surveys and group interviews, PLU sought your opinions about the university’s priorities and how connected you feel to your alma mater and current PLU students.

Your input already is informing our efforts, including this conversation between Laubach and Huey. We invited them to campus to share their experiences with each other, and we were pleased — and, in many ways, unsurprised — to discover how similar their individual stories are, despite the years that separate them.

We plan to continue our effort to better understand alumni experiences and how they compare to the experience of PLU students today.

We suspect this pair of Lutes illustrates one of many ways that members of our community relate to one another.

The PLU campus may look and feel slightly different today compared to your years as a student. But the conversation between Laubach and Huey shows the transformational experience PLU continues to offer, now and in perpetuity.