WE ARE BLESSED

Good news is precious! This fall Dana’s enrollment numbers showed the greatest percentage growth of any Nebraska private liberal arts college. A lot of people at Dana deserve the credit. I salute our fine admissions and financial aid personnel, supported by the enthusiastic and creative efforts of many coaches, directors, faculty and staff. What pleases me is that reports indicate the growth will continue. We are showing nearly 25 percent growth in applications over the same time period from last year, our best year in decades, and campus visits are up significantly, a good gauge of student interest.

Even bad news can have a positive outcome! The baseball-size hail that caused severe damage to campus roofs, windows and lighting instruments on May 22 has a bright side. Although repairing the damage is costly and time-consuming, much of the cost has been covered by insurance. The result is that many deferred maintenance issues have been addressed. New roofs, windows and lighting yields lower repair costs in the short run.

I firmly believe that God blesses us at all times, even when the outlook is bleak. Twice in my years as president, we have received help when it was not expected. Fifteen years ago, after Old Main burned, an Omaha-area Danish American farmer by the name of Leonard Johnson died and left in his estate more than $1.5 million to Dana. That money enabled us to proceed with the Old Main replacement classroom center. To help us maintain the building, we received a generous gift from Omaha philanthropist Chuck Durham. The building was named the Margre Henningson Durham Center to memorialize Chuck’s wife, Margre, a wonderful Danish-American friend of Dana.

More recently, when our financial well-being had been challenged by reduced giving and endowment borrowing, the million-dollar trust of the late Marvin Jersild matured. Jersild was a Chicago-area attorney and a brother of the late Rev. Hans Jersild, who many years ago served as president of the church body that founded Dana. Two of Marvin’s nephews are Dana alumni — Dr. Harold Jersild ’50, an orthopedic surgeon from the Quad Cities, and the Rev. Dr. Paul Jersild D ’53 T ’59, retired seminary professor and dean, now of Virginia. Marvin Jersild’s original vision for the trust was to provide a chapel to Dana, but he left his estate gift unrestricted so that it could benefit Dana wherever it was needed.

Readers may recall that our chapel need was filled when Trinity Chapel was built in 1993, thanks to a gift from the trust of another Danish-American couple, the late Terkild and Margaret Nielsen of Michigan, made possible by direction of the fund’s trustee, Dana alumnus Victor E. Lauritsen ’41. The beautiful stained-glass chapel windows depicting the Holy Trinity were completed thanks to many gifts. The final two windows, dedicated at Homecoming in October, were the gift of Dana friends, Lowell Kramme, the Danish Ambassador of Iowa, and his wife, Marilyn. The gift was given in remembrance of, and in tribute to, their Scandinavian parents.

Without the gifts of the people I have mentioned, we would not have been able to provide important, much-needed facilities at Dana. People often say that you can’t depend on estate gifts for annual support. That is true; but small under-endowed colleges like Dana have been richly rewarded by estate gifts to supplement annual giving. So, let us salute these generous saints. The ones cited here did not attend Dana themselves, but they have known and prized the work of the college and the people who have learned here.

As Anne and I move closer to retirement, we remember with thanksgiving those who have aided us in our 19-year journey here. We will continue to urge all Dana alumni and friends to make generous annual gifts to support needed scholarship help for our students. We also ask them to make a provision in their estate plans to benefit the college. For some a child’s share and for others a larger share will be designated for Dana. Without these God-sent gifts, the extraordinary Dana educational experience that I received, and we still offer, could not be provided. May what we do here always glorify God and prepare men and women for faithful lives of service.