Dr. Stephen Briggs
Recently, I asked a candidate interviewing for a faculty position at Berry about her own college experience. She told me the story of a professor who returned an assignment with a note requesting a meeting. Apprehensive as to why, she was astounded when asked to collaborate on a research project.
We shared a laugh because that’s my story too. In both cases, unexpected invitations prompted a change in course. Professors became mentors who shaped the way we thought about our capabilities, aspirations and paths forward.
Purposeful experiences
In my years at Berry, I’ve seen that script play out for a multitude of students in distinct ways. For some, it began with an invitation to serve for a summer in a special needs camp. For others, it was an opportunity to live and teach in a small village in Costa Rica; study art history in Florence, Italy; or investigate the mechanics of microfinance in Uganda. Students have conducted research (later published) on drugs used to treat cystic fibrosis and benefitted from analyzing a financial data set as part of a professional internship.
These experiences complement and extend learning that occurs in the classroom and through reading and study. The immersive quality makes them especially potent. They generate moments that inspire and upend, engaging students in a comprehensive way with lessons for the head, heart and hands.
At Berry, we refer to these opportunities as “purposeful experiences” because they invite intentional exploration, a firsthand testing of one’s emerging interests and abilities. I’ve watched their impact in my own family. A niece who as a Berry student took and curated 10,000 pictures at a camp one summer is now an accomplished professional photographer. A daughter with seven semesters of LifeWorks experience in sports medicine today is a board-certified specialist in neurologic physical therapy.
As my time as president grows short, I’m encouraged that the Berry Journey has emerged as an organizing structure ensuring that purposeful experiences are the defining feature of a Berry education. This distinctive framework guides students as they consider how to make the most of their four years at Berry, with digital tools and workshops reinforcing the efforts of faculty and staff. Because these intensive experiences serve as optimal learning contexts, we are establishing a special donor-funded endowment so that all students will have access regardless of their economic circumstances.
To be clear, we do not expect students to graduate with a definitive plan for their lives. Rather, we hope they depart Berry with a sense of direction and adventure, imbued with curiosity, courage and conviction. When visiting with alumni who graduated a decade or more ago, I often hear compelling life stories full of twists and turns. Many continue to wrestle with their sense of calling and purpose, exploring possibilities and finding success in endeavors beyond anything they imagined at Berry.
My Berry journey
Upon graduation from Wake Forest University, my goal was to earn a Ph.D. in psychology so I could teach and conduct research in a university setting. Close involvement with two faculty members modeled the value of a teacher-mentor-scholar, even before I was familiar with that label. I worked on campus for most of my time in college and before that as an orderly in a hospital during high school, entrusted with responsibilities beyond my years.
These formative experiences later influenced my career choices as I steered on several occasions toward positions and places that emphasized engaged learning and immersive opportunities.
When first learning about Berry in 2005, I was intrigued by its history and distinctive educational approach. During the presidential search process, I asked committee members what they wanted to emphasize in coming years. Trustee (now Emeritus) Glenn Cornell (62C) answered quickly and earnestly: “It’s all about the students.” He did not mean Berry is only about students; rather, it is essentially about them.
Captivated but wary, I probed one of the faculty search representatives – still a respected Berry professor – as to whether people at the college were serious about an education of the head, heart and hands. He assured me the commitment was genuine.
Still, that assumption needed testing. Despite our remarkable campus, Berry’s residential community lacked vibrancy, and our venerated student work program suffered from declining participation rates.
In 2007, we conducted market research comparing the perceived value of student work with other possible emphases: study abroad, undergraduate research, environmental studies, community engagement and so on. These other options are valued avenues of opportunity, and Berry has invested in all of them in recent years.
Collectively, we were startled when results showed that all of the groups surveyed – current and former students, prospective students and parents, prospects who chose to attend elsewhere, and benefactors – identified student work as Berry’s crucial distinctive. More recent research affirmed this finding, with alumni from 2000 to 2019 judging student work to be the top factor influencing their personal and professional development, slightly ahead of study abroad, internships and undergraduate research, but with a much higher rate of participation.
That’s why we decided to double-down on our commitment to student work and residential life just before the Great Recession struck in December 2007. Fortuitously, this meant Berry was hiring more students as jobs became tight, and we were adding and renewing residence halls as commercial building trended down.
At the same time, Audrey B. Morgan stepped up generously to meet the pressing needs of students and struggling families by establishing the work-based Gate of Opportunity Scholarship. The Woodruff Foundation soon multiplied her efforts with a challenge grant that spurred dozens of gifts from alumni and friends. Our decision to reinforce Berry’s enduring distinctives, bolstered by this outpouring of support, resulted in robust growth during these difficult years.
I grew as well, gaining confidence in my ability to steer through a crisis – skills that were tested during subsequent construction challenges, severe weather events, personal illness, student deaths, political and social unrest, a global pandemic, and the unexpected passing of a board chair. From experience, I learned the value of holding to a course that is responsive to volatile circumstances and the harsh winds of a particular moment, all the while guided by the compass of core values.
Principled and pragmatic. Innovative and rooted. Berry’s ability as a community to embrace tension and thrive in our differences is one of our greatest assets.
Lasting gratitude
Also from experience, I know there is little a president can accomplish without a high-performing leadership team. Thankfully, Berry has been blessed with leaders across two decades who together forged an era of steady improvement. They are remarkable.
So too are the many other employees who work year after year to make sustained progress possible. The people of Berry serve with dedication and goodwill in classrooms, laboratories, offices and shops across campus, often without notice. With 1.5 million square feet of buildings and 42 square miles of property, Berry is a complicated place that operates efficiently thanks to the efforts of more than 550 faculty and staff overseeing 1,800 student employees. The college’s can-do culture is deep-seated, reflecting the indomitable spirit of Martha Berry.
As I reach the end of my Berry journey, part of me longs to stay. With experience comes clarity of purpose and a steady hand. But each passing year also draws me further away from the emerging student culture. Case in point: Most current first-year students were born in 2006-07, the same year I arrived. It’s time to yield the helm to someone more relevant.
Berry’s compass
How, then, can we judge the success of two decades?
Enamored initially by Berry’s enduring vision and values, I since have heard many visitors allude to the college’s special culture. Sometimes we appeal to these values with a call to “Be Berry.” This culture has been nurtured across generations through the stories and sayings of our founder. We playfully refer to these as “Martha mantras” – things she said, or could have said, or were said in her spirit.
Success for me, then, is defined fundamentally by whether we have stayed true to those principles. Though Martha had little formal schooling, she founded multiple schools and a college, educating more than 10,000 students in her lifetime – a legacy that has grown by many thousands more since her death in 1942. She was devoted to improving the lives of her neighbors and inspiring leaders who would cultivate thriving communities. That remains our mission.
Martha lived out Berry’s motto fully aware that it was countercultural. “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister” (meaning “Not to be served, but to serve”) is the daunting challenge Jesus used to expose and correct the self-centered hearts of close followers. That’s why Martha made it the bedrock of her educational approach, for “character-building must in the long run be the essence of education.”
