It’s difficult to imagine a more fitting leader for Knox College over the past decade than Teresa Amott. Born in Bolivia to a Brazilian mother and American father, she lived and studied abroad through much of her childhood before enrolling at a small liberal arts institution (Smith College). After earning a Ph.D. in economics from Boston College, her research focused on how race and gender discrimination affect the workplace experiences of women and people of color.

As the first woman ever to lead Knox, she presided over a moment when the College not only welcomed the largest numbers of international students and students of color in its history, but also faced the challenge of increased competition for a declining number of college-bound students, as well as growing income inequality that made it difficult for many of those students and their families to afford college. As Teresa leaves the College for a well-deserved retirement on June 30, 2021, Knox Magazine takes a look at 10 of the College’s most significant achievements during her tenure.

The Reopening of Alumni Hall

When Teresa arrived on campus, Alumni Hall, built in 1890, had been largely unused since 1978. Former Knox trustee and Galesburg community leader Mark Kleine recalled, “When I joined the Board in 2007, one of the first projects we discussed was to get Alumni Hall renovated. My initial reaction was, sure, that’s not a big deal, and then I found out it had been attempted two or three times before. I thought, what am I getting myself into?”

Teresa proved to be the catalyst the project needed. She joined Kleine’s Gateway Task Force—so named because of Kleine’s and then Dean of the College Larry Breitborde’s vision of the building as a gateway between Galesburg and Knox. “She had really great insights about why the building was so important to the campus and how it should be used,” said Kleine. Housing the Office of Admission, it would be the first place prospective students visited. Separate centers for global studies, career success, research, and community service would provide current students with the opportunity to put what they learned at Knox to work in the world. For returning alumni, the Office of Alumni Engagement would offer an official welcome back to campus.

Within 18 months, donors—including Kleine and wife Jeannette and other members of the Board of Trustees—had contributed more than $11 million to the project. Within another 18 months, the building was open for business.

A $200 Million Endowment

As of December 31, 2020

On June 30, 2011, Knox’s total endowment was valued at $84 million—a respectable figure, especially after the Great Recession. As of December 31, 2020, Knox’s endowment has grown to $200 million, providing the College with its strongest financial foundation in history.

That growth has provided a crucial safety net as the College continues to feel the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the demographic decline in college-bound students. “All of this sounds challenging,” says Board of Trustees Chair Chuck Smith ’84. “But I’ve observed a great deal of optimism. Knox has made substantial investments over the past decade in tremendous faculty, first-rate facilities, and endowed student scholarships. Those investments will help us weather this storm.”

Whitcomb Art Center

Early in her tenure, as Teresa was still learning her way around Knox, she asked Art Department Chair Mark Holmes to show her all the campus spaces where art was being taught—painting in the Ford Center for Fine Arts, design in Borzello Hall, photography in SMC, and art history in the Old Jail. At the end of their walk, they stood in a parking lot on Prairie Street gazing out toward a disused lumberyard. “My Knox colleagues and I had often talked about how that would be a great space for a new building, and I just casually shared that with Teresa,” remembered Holmes. Within moments, “she was struck by the idea. We walked back to her office, she showed me some building projects she’d been a part of at other institutions, and we kept talking. And, within a year, she had secured a $5 million gift from Richard ’57 and Joan Whitney Whitcomb ’56 to start construction.”

Whitcomb is an ambitious building—an award-winning architectural showpiece that is also a model of sustainable building practices, as well as a tangible connection between the campus and Galesburg’s thriving downtown arts scene. “It’s one of those very rare things where you set out an idea, and someone says, ‘I think we should do that.’ And then makes it happen. That’s the kind of leader Teresa is.”

"People Who Are Fabulously Not Like You"

That’s how current admission publications describe the Knox community, trying to convey the excitement and opportunity that comes from being part of what has become one of the most diverse student bodies of any U.S. liberal arts college.

Knox’s current student body reflects both its historic commitment to welcome students from all backgrounds and the changing demographics among U.S. high-school students. In 2011, nearly two of every three Knox students were white and came from the United States. Ten years later, the majority of students are either international (20 percent) or U.S. students of color (35 percent).

“It’s beautiful, coming to a campus where I knew no one; it was my first time in the United States, and Knox became a home for me,” said Oluwabamise Afolabi ’21, a biology major from Nigeria who currently serves as student senate president. The people he has met here “helped me move out of my comfort zone and become a better version of me.”

Human-Powered Career Development

As a labor economist, Teresa has spoken repeatedly about the value of a liberal arts education in an increasingly automated and specialized workplace. One challenge is helping students understand that their opportunities aren’t limited by their major.

Career development “is really a relationship-building process with each student,” said Scott Crawford, executive director of the Bastian Family Center for Career Success. Students are encouraged to start working with career counselors as early as their first year and welcome to stop by any time. “We’ve hired and trained 10 peer career leaders (current students) who do much of what our full-time staff does,” including helping with resumes, cover letters, and interview prep. The Center proactively emails students when it receives specific opportunities that seem like a good fit for them, connects them with alumni working in their desired fields, and works with alumni to help them hire Knox students for internships and jobs.

“When I started, there were literally 35 jobs or internships in our old system,” said Crawford. “Right now, we have 4,430 jobs and 1,490 internships available.” In recent months, students have gotten offers from Tesla, Microsoft, Bank of America, and insurer Zurich North America, among others.

Back-To-Back-To-Back-To-Back Soccer Champions

In November 2019, both the men’s and women’s soccer teams won the Midwest Conference (MWC) regular season titles and the MWC Championships to advance to the NCAA Division III national tournament. Collectively, it was Prairie Fire Soccer’s fourth consecutive visit to the national tournament, with men’s soccer winning the MWC championship in 2016 and 2019 and women’s soccer taking those honors in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Those accomplishments reflects the College’s renewed commitment to athletic excellence. During Teresa’s tenure, Knox has hired full-time coaches for every sport (economics professor Jonathan Powers still coaches the swimming and diving teams). The College has also invested in new equipment and facilities, including an indoor golf training simulator and artificial turf for Jorge Prats Field. Funding for many of these initiatives has come from Knox’s K Club. “As former athletes, we feel like we’re teammates to the current athletes,” said K Club President David Anderson ’89. “We want to make it so the current teams can have the success both on and off the field that we had at Knox.”

Sustainable Sustainability

Student-led initiatives are responsible for many of Knox’s moves toward sustainable practices, so it’s no surprise that it was students who asked Teresa to hire the College’s first full-time sustainability expert—someone with both education and experience helping organizations become greener.

Within its first year, the Office of Sustainability had started a bike share program, added more recycling drop-offs across campus, and implemented a plan for a campus farm to provide Dining Services with fresh produce. Subsequent directors have built on those earlier successes, coordinating the waste-free move of eight offices and 45 staffers into Alumni Hall, waste-free Commencement, and waste-free student move-in and move-out.

Knox students, of course, continue to lead the way. A student-led (and funded) effort brought the campus its first solar power array, installed atop Wilson House in 2017. In 2019, the campus chapter of the Food Recovery Network donated more than 50,000 pounds of unused food to community organizations. Deb Steinberg, the College’s sustainability director since 2015, also lauded the work of Students for Sustainability, particularly their outreach to other clubs and organizations. “It gets students working together to help the campus learn about being better stewards of the Earth.”

The Return of the Business Major

(Plus Other New Programs)

What are prospective students looking for? For many, it’s a business major. Building off the success of its popular business and management minor, the College introduced a reimagined business major in 2018 with a distinct Knox flair. It’s interdisciplinary, with a strong emphasis on ethics, leading diverse teams, and finding creative solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. It is already one of Knox’s most popular majors—only creative writing and biology had more graduates among the Class of 2020—as well as a top draw for future students, generating a 27 percent increase in applications for admission during the first year it was offered.

That’s not the only academic innovation. Since 2015, the College has added 10 new minors in fields from astronomy to arts administration, plus four new majors in environmental studies, data science, journalism, and public policy. It’s all part of helping Knox students learn how to apply the skills they’ve developed as liberal arts graduates for the marketplace. “Things that require the application of different modes of thinking to solve real problems are really right up the alley of a liberal arts institution,” said Rothwell C. Stephens Distinguished Service Chair in Mathematics Kevin Hastings ’76.

The Ongoing Transformation of SMC

Knox’s Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center (SMC) is the oldest science building among its peers in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. In the decades since it opened, Knox’s approach to teaching the sciences has evolved to a more hands-on and collaborative model, and many aspects of the building’s original design are ill-suited for 21st century teaching and learning. The College is now in the midst of an ambitious phased plan to update and renovate large sections of the existing structure even as students and faculty continue to work there.

Phase 1 renovations, completed at the start of 2020, focused on the central core of the building. On the first floor, the space that was once a large amphitheater-style classroom has been transformed into the Amott Learning Commons—where students can access the latest research publications and work on group projects. New classrooms on the second floor accommodate classes of all sizes, with whiteboards around the perimeters for impromptu problem-solving. The once gloomy interior of SMC is now flooded with natural light from a two-story glass atrium that both expands the building’s footprint and visually connects the space with the rest of campus. It’s also home to a 55-foot whale skeleton, transported from the East Coast to Galesburg, that was painstakingly restored and mounted by a team of faculty and students. The cherry on top, so to speak: a brand-new observatory with a larger dome, multiple telescope mounts, and an outdoor classroom to serve the growing demand for astronomy courses.

2,867 Graduates (And Counting)

Teresa often says that the world needs Knox graduates more than ever before, and Knox’s mission of access has inspired it to support historically underrepresented students more than ever before. For many first-generation students, making the transition to college brings challenges no one prepared them for. Add to that the challenges that college students have always faced—discovering who they are, what they stand for, and how that identity fits into the larger community—and the effort that went into each of those 2,867 degrees is inspiring to behold.

Fortunately, students don’t have to shoulder those burdens on their own. In the last decade, the College has created the SPARK (Student Preparation and Readiness for Knox) Program for incoming first-years to develop their academic skills before courses start and expanded tutoring through the Center for Teaching and Learning. The College has also worked hard to provide a welcoming environment for students from all backgrounds, with expanded programming for students of color, students exploring their religious practices, and students just beginning to understand their gender and sexual identities.

“My hope is that we can help our students, through their experiences here—joy, excitement, stress, frustration, or even occasionally feeling overwhelmed—always remember there’s a reason they’re here earning that degree,” said Tianna Cervantez ’06, executive director for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “It’s so they can take everything they build here, everything they learn here, and use it to make the world better.”

The first car John Lawler ’88 owned was a white 1983 Ford Mustang. In October 2020, almost 40 years after that Mustang rolled off the production line, and 30 years after he first joined Ford as a finance analyst, Lawler was named as the global automaker’s chief financial officer. Today, his preferred ride is still a Mustang—the 2015 anniversary edition.

Despite his penchant for Fords, Lawler didn’t set out to pursue a career in the automotive industry. After he graduated from Knox and completed an MBA in finance from the University of Iowa in 1990, he decided to apply for a position with the automaker because it was known as an excellent training ground for finance professionals.

It turned out to be an interesting moment to get into automotive manufacturing. The early 1990s were a period of transformation, when the focus in vehicle development had shifted to safety and reducing carbon emissions. Non-domestic competitors were a threat; back then, they had better technology than domestic automakers. The product development cycle was also much longer than it is today; it took five to six years to develop a product. “You’d build a vehicle, launch a vehicle, and then, after a few years, we knew that the consumer needed a new vehicle,” said Lawler.

Today, the global auto industry is an intersection between industrial manufacturing and high tech, and the product development cycle has been cut almost in half. The accelerated product development time frame reflects a much greater pace of change.

“The threat today is not just from other auto manufacturers; there are now lots of competitors from the tech world. Cars are now connected, and we use the data from cars and consumers to ensure we are providing what our customers want,” explained Lawler. “The capability to upgrade the vehicle over the air slows the aging of our vehicles and provides upgraded features.”

So how was Lawler able to adapt and thrive in an industry that has changed so dramatically? “A great liberal arts education teaches you how to live with a growth mindset,” he said.

A “growth mindset” is the term Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck coined to describe how successful people approach setbacks and failure. Instead of assuming they have reached the limits of their abilities, those with a “growth mindset” are motivated by those challenges to learn more, try different approaches, and keep developing their talents.

Lawler discovered the difference this mindset could make when he took his first overseas position within Ford. In 1996, he was sent to Japan to run financials for one of the first programs in a collaboration between Ford and Mazda. “When I got to Japan, I started there approaching my new role from a closed point of view—a ‘this is how we do things’ way of thinking.”

He realized that wouldn’t work if Ford wanted to become a truly global organization, and he looked back to his undergraduate experiences to show him a better way. “At Knox, we worked on group projects and completed projects with classmates from different cultural and educational backgrounds. We pushed the edges, and kept an open mind about everyone else’s point of view.” As time went on, he developed a deeper awareness of the team around him in Japan, and adjusted to a much more open way of working within other cultures.

His success in Japan led to other international assignments. Lawler served as controller of Ford Europe’s product development organization for three years. He then moved to China with wife Inga Johnson Lawler ’90 and their three children. There, his role expanded far beyond his previous focus on finance—as CFO for Ford Asia Pacific and Africa, he found himself as part of the team setting the company’s business strategy in that region.

In 2012, he was tapped to lead Ford China, where the company was making aggressive investments to grow its market share, as its CEO. During his tenure, Ford’s growth in China reached record levels, selling more than 1 million Ford vehicles in 2015. Lawler also led an initiative to help reduce traffic congestion by partnering with Dida Pinche, China’s largest carpooling app, to pair Ford drivers with ride seekers.

“I believe that if I had graduated with a degree in business from a large public university, I would not have been able to adapt to other cultures as well as I did; to understand their perspectives. Every time I went overseas, I approached the new role and team with a respect and understanding that I was coming into their culture and was going to learn from them, versus the attitude that they were coming into my culture.”

Lawler’s most recent roles within Ford—where his responsibilities have included everything from global strategy and data analytics to preparing the company’s entry into the autonomous vehicle market—highlight how much the company has changed since he joined it three decades ago. Exciting innovations are on the horizon at the automaker, with a focus on electric vehicles. “I am especially excited about the electric van and the F-150 [pickup truck]—which will be introduced over the next year or so [E-Transit late in 2021, F-150 in mid-2022], and they will be game changers,” said Lawler. “We are thinking about these vehicles as connected ecosystems that will improve productivity and enhance our consumers’ commercial businesses. Ford is now transitioning from what’s traditionally been a transactional model to a lifecycle engagement model.”

In his industry, change has been a constant, but it is hardly predictable. “Everybody talks about managing change. Is anyone really managing change? How are you managing, growing, and adapting to new environments? Think about the different frameworks you use to make decisions and how you are influenced based upon your background. Should you be thinking about different mental models and how you approach a problem? Look at it from a different angle.”

The constant transformation that has marked the industry helps explain how Lawler has spent his entire career at a single company without losing touch with the growth mindset he developed at Knox.

“Any time I got the itch to do something different at Ford, I did it. I’ve had multiple careers within Ford. Living and working overseas was something Inga and I, and our children, enjoyed. There was some familiarity because it was the same company, and that made it a bit easier, but it was still dramatically different, like starting a new job in many ways. Now, I lift my head up and it’s been 30 years.”

As he looks forward to a world of autonomous vehicles and electric vans, however, some things haven’t changed. Lawler’s all-time favorite Ford vehicles, the Mustang, the Bronco, and the F-Series truck, are still in production. And the work of keeping Ford in step with the needs of the next generation of drivers still requires the skills he learned in Galesburg back in the Eighties.

“My Knox education gave me a lifelong appreciation that there’s never one right point of view; that issues are complex and there’s never a perfect answer—just a good answer. You pivot and adjust, and you keep learning, and learning how to learn.”

Jaelon Brooks ’22 and his teammates haven’t yet completed their Knox degrees, but last fall, they were able to take on the role of turnaround consultants—experts in reversing the fortunes of struggling companies. Tasked with developing a turnaround plan for Crocs, the team asserted that the casual shoe company should expand its product line by selling rain gear, swimwear, and shower footwear, too.

“In the long term, we want to see Crocs continue to stay in the footwear industry, but we need to see them add new items,” Brooks told a panel of alumni judges. “We believe that Crocs will be successful in adding rain and aquatic apparel because they create the rubber materials already.” Fellow team member Behrooz Dinyarian ’23 called on the company to beef up its e-commerce efforts, a move that would expand its global presence.

Those insightful recommendations represent just a couple of examples of the skills and knowledge that Knox students gain at the Knox College Business Intensive Seminar. Led by Jim Foley ’78 since 2017, the short-term immersive experience helps students understand how the business world likely will have an impact on their careers, no matter what their academic interests are. Students in the program explore various business-related topics, including leadership, innovation, marketing, emotional intelligence, ethical business decision-making, design thinking, and entrepreneurship. For their final project, a case study, students analyze a specific company and come up with recommendations to improve its outlook.

Learning about business fundamentals “shouldn’t be something scary and shouldn’t be something that is in any way meant to force [students] down a path different from their real passion,” said Foley, who directs the Turner Center for Entrepreneurship and the Illinois SBDC International Trade Center at Bradley University. “It’s just that the truth is business really does touch so many segments of our society. Regardless of your major, you very likely will have some sort of a career involved in business.”

“Business needs the perspectives and insights that English majors and scientists and mathematicians and economists bring,” Foley added. “There is a role for quite narrow-focused people in the business world. But on the whole, there’s a stronger need for the more holistic, broader-perspective individual, which you get naturally through a liberal arts student. That’s why studying business from the context of the liberal arts is a very natural combination.”

Foley is exceptionally qualified to lead the Knox Business Intensive Seminar. The Galesburg native started off as a computer science major at Knox and later decided to create a self-designed major that blended business and computer science. Nowadays, he said, that field of study is known as management information systems. He launched a career in the software industry after graduating from Knox and then earned an MBA from the London Business School at the University of London. Before taking on his current responsibilities at the Turner Center, Foley worked all over Europe, in Los Angeles, and in Mexico City. His overseas business experience includes positions in marketing, sales, and corporate management in the computer industry.

Foley said that one reason he became, and has remained, involved with the Business Intensive Seminar is “because I love giving back to Knox.” Knox loves him, too. He consistently earns positive feedback from students, faculty, staff, and alumni for his work.

“It’s a great fit,” said Knox faculty member John Spittell, Joseph E. and Judith B. Wagner Distinguished Professor of Business and Management, Executive in Residence and chair of the Department of Business and Management. “He brings an energy, he’s got a good personality, and he’s engaging. He can power students up.”

Spittell observed that while the Business Intensive Seminar allows students to pick up new business-related skills, they’re also integrating lessons they’ve already begun to learn during their time at Knox: how to think critically, how to analyze critically, and how to deliver effective oral presentations.

Foley “helps students think beyond the surface of business and ask questions and go deeper, tying in the liberal arts,” said Eric Johnson, the Knox associate director of alumni engagement for campus connections who works with Foley on planning the seminar. “They really value that he’s an alum, that he’s been where they are. He’s showing them how business can help them wherever they decide to go in their career field.”

An Authentically Knox Approach to Business

Knox’s Business Intensive Seminar is an outgrowth of a previous short-term business immersive experience, the Fullbridge program, that Knox offered in 2015 and 2016.

At the 2016 Fullbridge seminar, Foley joined other Knox alumni to evaluate students’ final presentations. He also sat in on some of the sessions and started thinking, excitedly, about how he and his colleagues at the Turner Center “could easily facilitate an experience that might even more strongly align with the needs of the Knox students.”

Not long afterward, Foley met with President Teresa Amott and developed a proposal that led to the debut of the Knox Business Intensive Seminar in June 2017. Students who completed that first BIS gave the program an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“It was hard work, but the experience was realistic,” Deja Jenkins ’19 said at the time.

Jenkins, who majored in creative writing and minored in psychology, has stayed connected with the program. In 2018 and 2019, she volunteered as a student mentor who helped the teams prepare their final presentations. In 2019 and 2020, she served as a judge for those presentations.

“I’ve stayed involved so long because I had a great experience with BIS the first year I participated,” Jenkins recently said. “It was exhausting, don’t get me wrong, but I had a lot of fun in the various learning modules, especially on emotional intelligence and the SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats] analysis. Before I attended BIS as a student, the whole thought of business was intimidating and seemed out of reach.”

Afterward, she recalled, she was confident and well-prepared for her summer 2017 internship at the National Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources, a Galesburg nonprofit commonly known as NAEIR. Since graduating from Knox, Jenkins has been working in Galesburg, and she also is pursuing a master’s degree in library and information science through an online program at the University of North Texas.

Jenkins reinforced the idea that the BIS is well-suited for Knox students from all academic disciplines. “The seminar helped me connect the dots between creative thinking and the business world. There’s so much to be explored in what could be, but hasn’t been done yet, and I think that notion can be applied to many aspects of life, not just coming up with ways to help turn around failing businesses.”

Alumni Volunteers Make Business Challenges Feel Real and Relatable

Knox alumni have played increasingly influential roles as the Business Intensive Seminar has evolved, and their involvement resonates strongly with students. “When you integrate the alumni into this program, it’s so powerful,” Foley said. The BIS students often experience what he described as “a-ha moments” when they hear from alumni—not only because of alumni’s business successes, but also because of their varied academic backgrounds.

From the program’s inception, alumni always have served as judges for students’ final presentations. That remained true in 2020, when alumni also took on additional duties. Because of the pandemic, the BIS shifted to an all-online format—a change that paved the way for a larger number of alumni to interact with students throughout the seminar. The alumni represented every decade going back to the 1960s. Some served as team consultants and mentors, working informally with students during the evenings and sharing personal experiences and insights to help the teams produce well-researched, compelling final presentations. Other alumni led panel discussions: one on ethics, emotional intelligence, and communication strategies and another on business innovations, design thinking, and effective presentations.

Students peppered the alumni panelists with questions: What do you do when your business is failing? What kinds of challenges have you faced in business, especially during the pandemic? How can you help your business pivot effectively?

Students also used the alumni panels as a tool for collecting advice that would help shape their final presentations. For instance, when Dana Brown ’19 and Jessie Johnson ’12 spoke at the session on business innovations, design thinking, and effective presentations, Brooks—whose team was analyzing Crocs—sought tips on marketing online casual apparel. He was asking a couple of experts. Brown, who was calling in from Italy, works with a luxury digital marketing agency, and Johnson is the founder and CEO of Life as a Strawberry, which originated as a blog and has developed into a food media company.

Brown and Johnson encouraged the Crocs team to harness the marketing power of user-generated content, namely, the social media posts that Crocs owners create organically. The company could repost some of that content and use it as a way to build stronger authentic connections with the customer base, the two alumni said. Their advice made its way into the Crocs team’s final presentation when Joseph Saoud ’22 talked about new marketing tactics, including user-generated content and collaborations with celebrities and other influencers.

That presentation, along with the presentations from the other teams, earned high praise from the alumni judges, who described th students’ work as impressive and thoughtful. The students, in turn, reflected on how they benefited by completing the Business Intensive Seminar. “I learned how to apply a lot of the skills that were taught in the classroom, or in this case over Zoom, in a lot of ways,” Saoud said. “I also learned how to collaborate with a group in order to come up with recommendations and the presentation. Those cooperation skills that I learned are unforgettable.”

Hearing such positive comments is rewarding to Foley, who is already thinking about the next Knox Business Intensive Seminar he’ll lead sometime in 2021. Alumni will keep playing important roles in the program, and virtual interactions between alumni and students are likely to continue even after the pandemic ends because they are so effective, he said. The online video chats also are convenient for alumni, who can participate from all over the world and across numerous time zones.

In addition, alumni help hammer home one of the key messages to BIS students: that the students have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of past Knox students who have developed successful business careers—even though many didn’t major or minor in business. What Foley wants BIS students to understand, and what alumni help him communicate, is this, he said: “You can do it! You are getting the same outstanding education these alumni received, and look at what they were able to do. This could be you in a few years!”

Alumni provide crucial financial support for Knox’s Business Intensive Seminar, which is funded by David ’65 and Dian Barth and the Robert ’66 and Carol Romsa Parke ’67 Ethics Fund.

What exactly does it mean to be a student-athlete when your team can’t compete? It’s a question that every member of the Prairie Fire has had nearly a full year to try to answer.

While Knox has done an exceptional job so far of containing the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms and residence halls—there were only about 50 positive COVID-19 tests among the campus community during the fall term—finding a way to safely participate in athletic competition proved a much tougher challenge. As of the beginning of 2021, the Prairie Fire had lost the spring 2020, fall 2020, and winter 2021 seasons to the pandemic. While limited competition has resumed at the start of the spring 2021 term, it’s still not the experience that most student-athletes imagined when they came to Galesburg.

Jack Craig ’21, a member of the Knox football team since 2017, had been contemplating ending his athletic career even before the Midwest Conference announced it would suspend all competitive play during the fall 2020 season. At the time, he was recovering from knee surgery—his fourth. Each surgery, he says, “took their toll on me, mentally and physically. After my third surgery, I told myself that if I needed another, I would be done with football.”

Instead, despite the intense physical and emotional demands he faced, Craig decided to return to football for his senior year, even without the guarantee that the team would be able to compete. “The coaches, the guys on the team, and the trainers were supportive all the way,” Craig said. “It made me realize that I enjoy being a part of Knox Football too much to just walk away, even if things haven’t been the easiest.”

For Craig, part of his motivation stemmed from setting a good example for newcomers on the team. “I hope they’ve been able to see how I come in ready to work, and I’m never satisfied with where I am,” he said. “Not only will this help them be better players, but it will help them be successful for the rest of their lives.”

But from a competitive standpoint, Craig said that the football team’s goal for the season—whenever that may come—was clear. “We all believe we can put together a winning record, so we all are training as hard as we can to prove that the next chance we get.”

“Competition is core to what we do as serious athletes,” acknowledged Director of Athletics Daniella Irle. “I felt like many of our sports were on the cusp of new levels of success, and for them to not be able to experience the ‘pay off’ by competing at improved levels continues to disappoint.”

Still, Irle noted, there have been important lessons learned as the Prairie Fire have had to adapt to its new normal.

That began with finding new ways to keep teams connected to each other. Irle says that the Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) was instrumental in developing virtual events and activities for teams after Knox students were sent home in the spring. “That was a jarring experience for many, and our SAAC stepped up throughout that virtual term and created spaces to keep our teams connected,” Irle said. “They did this while dealing with their own emotions.”

Individual players have also stepped up to help their teams. Alyx Farris ’21 says her role as the women’s soccer team’s only senior captain shifted after she learned that their fall season would be postponed. “It’s not just the season that’s cancelled, but all the memories associated with the season. Pre-season, having a locker room, and travelling together are cancelled,” she said.

“My role has become less about soccer and leading on the field, and more of emotional support. I really want to maintain the cohesiveness and closeness of our team, which is—not surprisingly—really hard to do during a pandemic.” Farris explained that this process was especially hard with first-year students new to the team, but organizing social events like “family” dinners and pumpkin-carving contests after everyone had been tested helped. “We just want them to feel like part of the team without seeming overbearing or patronizing.”

Lydia Mitchell ’22, a dual-sport athlete on the track and women’s soccer teams, agreed that events like these helped keep the team strong. “I think both teams did a great job of finding creative ways to do team bonding through Zoom and trivia nights,” she said. “It is hard to pass down our traditions, standards, and team atmosphere when we aren’t allowed to spend time together, but I hope that my teammates on both teams get to see what it truly means to be a woman in athletics at Knox College.”

Irle credits the creativity and perseverance of the coaching staff throughout the pandemic with keeping spirits up. “Staying engaged with their teams is one of the most important factors in retention and enjoyment of life,” she said. “The coaches understand that running practices consistently, even with all the cumbersome and ever-changing COVID parameters, is critical for the wellness of our student-athletes.”

Kaitlyn Kashishian ’23—a member of both the volleyball and track and field teams—explained how both sports adapted their practices by using drills that fit with each phase of COVID restrictions. “At times we had no contact with each other or any shared equipment,” she said. “Even as we were tested and allowed to have a few less restrictions, social distancing was still encouraged whenever possible.”

With occasional scrimmages to hold them over, student-athletes at Knox looked to their teammates and the prospect of competitive play as a catalyst for improvement. Kashishian expressed that it was difficult for her to keep motivated during the past two terms. However, she explained that she and her teammates had persevered by holding each other accountable and encouraging each other.

“When any of us start slacking, others come and remind us why we play,” Kashishian said. “We play for each other, not just ourselves. I think this has been really helpful because even though there isn’t competition, we have a real reason to keep working hard: for the good of the team and to make ourselves and each other better.”

Alyx Farris agreed. “I think there was a fair amount of complaining and groaning involved, but we just stuck to the restrictions as closely as possible. We wanted a season so badly, so we did what we were asked to do. Coach Taylor made absolutely certain we sanitized before and after practice.”

It helps that there have been glimpses of a better future. For members of the women’s soccer team, their patience paid off on the last practice of the fall season, in which they had a full-team, full-field scrimmage that the players treated like a real game. “It was such a good feeling to get out and play as hard as we could against each other,” Mitchell said. “One thing I love about our team is that we love competition, and we also love to have fun. The scrimmage was a great way to showcase our hard work and talents and to do something we all love.”

As Prairie Fire teams gradually return to competition, Irle said that the resiliency of the coaches and student-athletes at Knox keeps her centered and forward-thinking. “I can’t spend my time worrying about ‘what might have been’ when ‘what could be’ lies ahead. I walk into the building every day motivated to find a way to keep all our programs growing and evolving.”