This last Friday we had a conversation about the realities that surround Warner Pacific College-WPC at our monthly Faculty meeting. Our small group was given the task to analyze what is the reality related to place. As a context for our conversation we were given some ideas developed by CREDO a consulting firm specializing in higher education.
WPC is located in SE Portland. If we use a radius of about 100 miles for our impact we see that there is diversity involved, so our conversation converged in the analysis of how we at WPC are and can be prepared for this diversity. How the academic programs that we offer can target this diverse population. How can we develop new academic programs that better suit the needs of this diverse population.
One of the members in our small group mention the metaphor of having a discussion or a rolling train. The train is already moving and we are forced to adapt to the fact that it is already moving. This comment about the metaphor allowed me to mention a physical fact about reality: We live in a Space-Time four-dimensional reality. Time has to be part of our conversation.
Even though I mention the need to include time it felt to me that my colleagues didn’t get it. They omitted to share to the whole meeting this need to include time in our analysis. This is what I think about including time in our conversation.
Life is ever changing. WPC mission statement (Warner Pacific College is a Christ-centered, urban, liberal arts college dedicated to providing students from a diverse background an education that prepares them to engage actively in a constantly changing world) clearly articulates the need to prepare students not only to be ready for change but also to be part, to engage in this change.
What is then the context related to time that we have to analyze? What are the circumstances that surround us and our students that are changing? What kind of convictions, knowledge, competencies, skills, and tools are now modeling and constructing the pedagogical reality relative to how we now engage in the world?
These are questions among others that should be analyzed and answered. These answers will help WPC looks at the needed changes relative to academic programs. Academic programs that will produce capable professionals. Ethical professionals with a strong liberal arts foundation that will enhance our society, as students become positive and ethical agents of change.
David J Terrell 
I’d like to hear more about your thoughts on time as it relates to how we think about equity and diversity. One immediate thought has to do with technology–it has shrunk the space-time continuum in certain ways that have become normative for our students but is still a little foreign to us (and so we often judge it negatively).
It sure is a very interesting question as we tend not to link equity and diversity with time. I’d probably would use history to analyze the evolution of our situation. This will open some conversation in relationship with the direction of our society in general and our local context in particular so as to be able to predict what will happen. You are right in pointing out the need to include technology in our analysis.