Day of Learning in Community
April 9, 2008

The college will celebrate its first Day of Learning in Community on Wednesday, April 9. Regular classes and activities will be suspended for the day so all campus community members can learn together around the theme of place.

Thinking about place is especially appropriate during the year in which we’re celebrating the fact that Northwestern College has been in place for 125 years. Places like Orange City, northwest Iowa, and this and other Reformed communities have influenced Northwestern as much as the college as influenced our town, region and faith communities.

Place is about people in relation to locale and geography, from the small—your own skin or dorm room—to the large—your city, region, country, planet. Place is also about humans in relation to physical, intellectual or spiritual spaces, from the corporeal—a building or community—to the incorporeal—an intellectual tradition or virtual space.

We make places, and places, in turn, make us. We inhabit some places more intentionally than others, and we are influenced by some places more fully than others. We change, destroy or improve places, and they transform, divide or unite us.

Understanding your place is an essential part of understanding the creator and God’s creation—including the creature that is you.

Kathleen Norris
10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Bultman Center

Our guest for the Day of Learning in Community will be Kathleen Norris, author of the bestselling Dakota: A Spiritual Geography and other nonfiction and poetry. In Dakota, Norris wrote about a place similar—both geographically and spiritually—to “Siouxland,” as our region is called. Describing, understanding and minding a place requires more than geographical knowledge, more than historical research, and more than cultural or religious study. Truly minding place requires that participants cultivate an integrated understanding of place, as Norris does in her writing.

Norris will speak to the whole campus community at 10 a.m. and again at 7 p.m. She has recommended Day of Learning in Community participants read at least a a chapter (PDF - available on campus only) of Dakota. The complete text is available at Ramaker Library and the Orange City Public Library. It can also be purchased at the Northwestern College bookstore or through most online and retail booksellers.

Learn more

Place for students
Day of Learning in Community schedule