MCLARTY ' s MULTITUDES In thl fall o! _o I c;. t ditm -in-chief \Iaegl't n l <1rter introdu( L'<1 the Pr·ti t ,ltw1 tlwnw. "l\l ulttl nde,,.. to pre,itknt Hrn(·<· \kl.art; l'lw tlwnw ref eel'(\ ti'<' pcr<;on,11 ch,rn~es st1 drnt, Wt" I tlirou~h ilunn~ •h('ir time <1t Hardin,;. Though thl'ir thoughts, idea~ and opimwis ma\ ha\ L' l'b, 11:-,cd th,, n·m:iilll d the ~,nm• at their co• e Tfw follO\\ in.2, ir ten ic\\ took pl H'l' h( t\\l'l'll the twr lVhat are your general reactions to the theme, and how do you see it 1·ejlected in your own life? I love the theme, and I think that probably everybody, at least everybody who has some sense of self-awareness, realizes that we are this muddle of contradictions. As soon as I saw this Walt Whitman quote I thought about several years ago before we moved to Searcy, I was preaching at a church in Tennessee and Flavil Yeakely (former Harding University professor) came and did the Myers Briggs personality test with the whole ministry staff ... Years after (Tennessee), we moved here. And there was a thing in the ministry staff, and we took the Myers Briggs again, and my letters were the exact opposite ... My take on it is I was in two different communities, so the strengths that were called for were very different, and the things in others that I filled and compensations and all resulted in a different me. I think at the core I was the same person, but I was in an engineering university setting there, so I tended to be more right-brained with the people there. But then I came here, and it was more of a liberal arts and with all that was going on here. People were more spiritually conversant, and I found out all the sudden I kick in the left brain a lot more, and I am more linear, logical and less emotional overall. And I have thought a lot about what does that say about the contradictions in me? ... So I am a contradiction within myself. And I think the way contradiction is used here is not in a moral or spiritual sense; I think we still have the core. We are called to have a consistent core that is given to God, a core that is humbled to God, that seeks the way of God, and yet within that I find myself playing dramatically different roles in different areas of life. Do you think when you take on other roles in your life that only part ofyour life changes, or does the changeflow into every aspect ofyour life? I think it flows into a lot of other aspects. The core remains. The commitment remains. I think if we grow for a lifetime then everything around that is going to change. So as president, do you see this theme applied to your students now? I think we're in the process of discovering, not just the world, but about ourselves during the time in college. Things we would like or things we didn't know we would be good at. Things that inspire us that we didn't even know existed. We are far more complex than we even realize when we arrive on campus at age 18. tt'hat ties all the aspects ofllarding together? ... (When) I began brainstorming about what are the words that describe the essence of Harding, the two words I kept coming back to was the community because of the relationships and friends people talk about having that have lasted a lifetime, and the other is the sense of mission. Of purpose. Of a sense of living with a purpose and giving everything you have to God, and so it came together as a community of mission. It begins with mission, and the idea is when people come with that same core, then the opportunity for relationship is bigger than they've ever known. And I think one of the great things about Harding is you bring together 18-year-olds of spiritual passion from all over the world and put them together in Searcy, Arkansas, for 4 years, and something incredible happens. ··it'e stretch ancl lL'e grow beyond where we ure comfortable or where we feel some level of mastery," President lfruce McLczrly said about learning oi•er a lifetime. I Photo by Owen Brown PHESII>E~T 1n:1
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