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According to Reynolds, community moves forward where there is an openness for conflict. Reynolds said one man came up to him afterwards, and said, “I have a voice.” He said others were optimistic about their roles at the university.

However, he added that others also approached him with skepticism, asking, “What will really change?”

Also on the panel of speakers was CLA Dean Garvin Davenport, Professor Walter Enloe of the Graduate School of Education, and Professor Marie Failinger, who teaches in the School of Law. In addition,
President Linda Hanson, Associate Vice President of Finance Michelle Hegarty and Assistant Dean of Students Carlos Sneed spoke.

Seating in the Fieldhouse was prearranged. At the tables, members from different branches and departments from across the university community sat together. Rarely did two people from the same area sit at the same table.

Management and Economics professor Beth Gunderson said the arranged seating was helpful to further the convocation’s purpose.

“I haven’t made these connections in a long time,” she said.

Professor James Pielemeier said that meeting with different members of the community that one might not have a relationship with was helpful to the convocation’s goals.

Pielemeier added that his table spent time after the speeches getting to know one another. No one in the “very mixed group” at his table was from the School of Law, where Pielemeier teaches.

Kris Toferscheid, a reference librarian at Bush Library, said the event was the staff and faculty’s “ first time with the president where people started to feel her out, [discover] her agenda and where we are going.”

Toferscheid also mentioned that people are “longing” for transparency, which was also a common theme of President Hanson’s speech.

He said people wanted information disseminated so people know how decisions are made. “I want to know what the Board of Trustees is up to,” he said.

Toferscheid added that despite his six years of working at the university and being an alumnus, he didn’t recognize “20 to 30 percent of the people there.”

“[The convocation was] a wonderful way to start the campus year, with the ‘charge from the president,’” said Patti Klein, Director of Residential Life and Associate Dean of Students.

Klein said Sneed was the most engaging because he included students in his speech to the faculty and staff, explaining that students “are at the center of what we’re doing here.” In addition, Sneed talked about marginalized groups, emphasizing that a successful community must include all groups.

“[The convocation] reaffirmed what I’m here for and why I came to Hamline,” Klein said.

The event also introduced new faculty and staff members. In the convocation’s flyer, short biographies and their accompanying photographs introduced the 28 new faculty and staff.

According to Jen Thorson, Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications, the convocation of faculty and staff was the first of its type at the university. She also said that gathering the faculty and staff of the entire university together to plan for the coming year is a new tradition that President Hanson plans to continue. President Hanson conducted similar convocations at the College of Sante Fe.