Taking action today will generate a radiant tomorrow

In this issue we announce a $100 million campaign for Carthage, “Light That Travels.”

Why, you may ask, and why now?

Because resources are required for Carthage’s light not to dim, but to brighten. For our light to reach not fewer students, but more. For our time-honored programs to shine further, and for our timely new programs to shine forth.

I write you as president during a time that will be as challenging for Carthage as any since its move to Kenosha and its struggles in the 1970s — perhaps even more so. I know you read the news of higher education. Fewer students are enrolling, and fewer colleges are surviving.

In this competitive and even chaotic time, I call on us to demonstrate the commitment to education that we demonstrated in 1962, when our grand opening in Kenosha brought thousands of people and support from across the land.

In my six years at Carthage, our faculty and staff have strengthened every aspect of what we do. And the results are showing.

When so many small colleges are recruiting fewer and fewer, we are recruiting more.

When others spend more time talking than doing, we are improving retention rates and closing equity gaps.

While others fret about the future, we confidently strike out toward a future in which Carthage grows in leadership, service, and impact.

Make no mistake. These times will test Carthage. But being tested and being found capable is the essential story of the College. It is, as they say, in our DNA.

For this next chapter of my presidency, I intend not only to secure Carthage’s future, but to broaden and deepen its impact.

Building on the strength in teaching and in serving students we have already achieved, we will reach further. We will raise more money than ever before to fuel the difficult journey ahead. We will serve and support our incredibly hard-working students. We will enable our especially dedicated and imaginative faculty and staff. We will build the college our region acknowledges as essential to its future.

Join us in this journey, when you are most needed. There will not be a more important time later.

Five to 10 years from now, we will look back and ask: Which colleges persisted, prevailed, and prospered?

I know we will reflect then, with pride and satisfaction, on how we responded when the dark clouds gathered. How, when fog and haze obscured what successful American higher education would finally be, our light pierced through it all to show others the way.

In 1975, when enrollments were declining across the country, Carthage President Harold H. Lentz wrote:

Carthage lives now in its 128th year with widespread recognition as a strong college, succeeding while many institutions are dying, moving steadily forward in times of great difficulty for higher education in general. As a battle-hardened veteran among the older colleges in the Midwest, it has learned the secrets of success.

Almost 50 years later, those words ring as true as they did then. And now is our time.

Join us as we prepare to claim Carthage’s future.

Join all those who are confidently proclaiming that future.

Join us in carrying the light.

John R. Swallow