I write this column from Ingersoll House, home of Knox presidents since WWII, and now my home and office during a global pandemic and economic shutdown. And for the first time in my tenure at Knox, the magazine will not be printed, but rather distributed online to Knox alumni and friends. We are fortunate to have had only five COVID-19 cases and no deaths to date in Knox County, but the virus rages across the country and the rest of the world. These are indeed extraordinary times.

I mourn the death of every individual—someone’s parent, someone’s child—and I am deeply inspired by the bravery of all those on the front lines of this catastrophe. My own stepdaughter is a psychiatric nurse, serving individuals with mental illness who are homeless in Frederick, Maryland, and she is going to work every day. She is essential, as are the doctors, nurses, food service workers, custodians, respiratory therapists, EMTs, police officers and firefighters, grocery workers, mail carriers, the unpaid caregivers… the list of all those who are keeping the country safe and healthy is longer than I can enumerate here.

I know that there are many Knox alumni among them. Some of you are doctors and nurses in unimaginable conditions. Some of you are in research labs, participating in an unprecedented global collaboration to formulate effective tests, treatment, and vaccines. Some of you are public servants in fields like public health, economic policy, and schools, making decisions every day in an environment of uncertainty to re-invent our institutions for a pandemic time. I send to you all my heartfelt thanks.

And in these times, I cannot help but think that the world needs Knox graduates more than ever before. The pandemic touches every field of human inquiry—biology, economics, sociology, statistics, psychology, political science, law, medicine, philosophy. Every day a health professional encounters a profound ethical problem, faces down their own fears, taps the deepest reservoirs of their skills. Every day a journalist digs deep to understand the crisis in all these complicated dimensions, investigating how we found ourselves here, and creating a record of accountability that will serve us well in the future. Every day a scientific researcher mobilizes a laboratory of diverse individuals into a team with one singular purpose but multiple pathways of understanding. Every day a parent becomes the social studies, math, science, and language arts teacher for their stay-at-home children.

The world needs Knox graduates: people who are critical thinkers, who can bring broad interdisciplinary understanding to bear on wicked problems, who exhibit intercultural competence and equity-mindedness, who uphold the highest ethical standards, who do not shrink from analytic rigor, and are committed to bending the moral arc of history.  Now more than ever.

I have often said that the residential liberal arts college is a uniquely and exceptionally American form of education, in which neither caste nor gender, race nor wealth determine what a young person can study and who they can become. But these are difficult times for small colleges, our revenues depleted by enrollment challenges, stock market volatility, and a sudden recession of exceptional severity. These colleges, Knox among them, are deeply threatened by the present moment. As the world needs Knox graduates more than ever before, Knox needs our alumni and our friends more than ever before. 

Speak on our behalf, be proud of your education and tell others how your success was rooted in what we do on a small 80-acre campus in the heart of the country, and consider a gift to Knox at this time. I am confident that among our student body this very moment is someone who will become a global change-maker in the future. Your gift now will help that student realize their dreams. Now more than ever.

Take care,

— Teresa

P.S. It seems a lifetime ago when I announced my June 2021 retirement and promised my very best efforts to Knox during these final months. The next 13 months will be very different from what I imagined, but I assure you that I will certainly keep my word!