NetVUE Saga Grant

Our projects on Reframing the Institution’s Saga or Story include a faculty-authored book on the university’s educational mission, the first focused discussion of that mission since it was approved by the faculty in 1993. Incorporating voices new to PLU, the book presents different facets of the university’s educational mission and our efforts to incorporate vocation and diversity in the curriculum.

The second project is a comprehensive digital narrative timeline that explores the persons, groups, events, and policies that have shaped the cultural context in which the school was established and grew over the past 130 years. Previously published histories of PLU focused on the internal life of the school and its ability to survive financial crises. The Saga timeline exposes the struggles of minority communities in Tacoma, the impact of war, racial conflict, and immigration, and the efforts of faculty and staff to open the school to the larger world. It speaks honestly about former leaders who promoted a parochial view of education and those who opened the school to broader learning.

The third project, a video, presents four marks of Lutheran higher education through the eyes of PLU students from diverse backgrounds and majors. This project is focused on senior high school students and first year students enrolled in PLU’s First Year Experience courses. The students who speak in the video present their distinctive views concerning these four attributes: asking critical questions, embracing complexity, communal learning, and opening doors for others. It is an engaging narrative that includes reference to the school’s saga.

In 1890, PLU welcomed students from Nordic Lutheran backgrounds. Today, the university counts 48% of its students from minority identities, many religious traditions, and a community whose members represent over thirty nationalities, with study programs taking place throughout the world. What continues amid these many changes is a commitment to liberal arts education, an education committed to reform, the hallmark of Lutheran education since the sixteenth century.