Greetings to Friends, everywhere:
From June 16-19, 2025, Friends Association for Higher Education had its annual conference at Guilford College. Since 1981, FAHE has been lending support and encouragement to Quakers at Friends colleges and universities as well as those at non-Quaker institutions. Among our various purposes, our organization helps to clarify and articulate the distinctively Quaker vision of higher education, in terms of both curriculum and teaching. We assist the Quaker colleges and universities in affirming their Quaker identity. We invite Friends to join us.
The conference theme this year was “Science, Sustainability, & Stewardship.” Important subthemes ran throughout the plenaries and sessions which expressed ways in which Quakers have had a distinctive way of being led by our spiritual lives to pursue truth and be empowered to act in the world.
We were led in semi-programmed worship on each day, first by Wess Daniels, then Walter Sullivan, and on the last day by Randall Nichols. In the context of our colleges and universities facing great struggles, we were invited to share how Quaker institutions have been meaningful to our own spiritual lives and the value of these institutions to our students and communities. We were moved to hear about the blessings and challenges to North American Friends by the growing numbers of Quakers living in the U.S. from Cuba, Congo, and Kenya, many of whom are expressing their spiritual experience with movement, dance, and singing. We also noted the tremendous growth in Quaker numbers in Africa and South America.
During the opening evening of the conference we heard a plenary talk by William “Billy” Grassie, “Imago Evolutio: Human Nature and the Inner Light,” in which he described the large sweep of evolution and human history. In this “Big History,” he challenged us to consider God and the universe as synonymous.
The next day in the second plenary, “Experimental Truth,” Rachel Muers explored a Quaker perspective on experiential knowing, science, truth, and ethics. She expressed a subtheme which we heard in several sessions, that there are parallels in how Quakers and scientists pursue truth, how truth empowers our work, and how “small truths” stand against big lies. As she said, “Truth calls us and draws us in, convinces and convicts us, gathers us, empowers us and sends us.”
Other conference sessions expanded on this powerful subtheme, and in several sessions we heard about the commitment and agency of women, often within an overlay of patriarchal dominance, even among Quakers, regarding women’s accomplishments. We also saw a common emphasis on “cross-cultural empathy.”
Laura Rediehs led a Contemplative Gathering on “Quakers and Social Justice in Troubling Times,” in which we discussed our experience, fear, and hope regarding the many challenges we face. We were brought back to how Quaker institutions might help us navigate these turbulent times in higher education. In another Contemplative Gathering on “Psalm of Thanksgiving,” Mimi Holland offered a prayer of thanks to all, all creation, all phenomenon.
In a particularly enlightening Presidents Panel, Jean Parvin Bordewich, Guilford College; Paul Sniegowski, Earlham College; and John Ottosson, William Penn University discussed with us their schools’ responses to the serious challenges presented by the current social, political, and economic climate. A theme that emerged was the important distinctiveness of Quaker colleges and Quaker pedagogy in their struggle to stand out in the crowded higher-education marketplace.
In various sessions, we discussed the ways we can work with and teach Gen Z students, recognizing their concerns, passions, and abilities as well as the challenges of working with them; and the ways we can help students take themselves and their peers seriously.
We had two full days of sessions on the good works that Quakers are doing in multiple academic disciplines, locally and globally. There was a wide range of topics which included a reunion of participants in the 1985 World Gathering of Young Friends at Guilford College, which inspired their vocation as they were called into ministry and worked to renew the Society of Friends. Another session offered reflections on the FAHE published collections, “Quakers in the Disciplines,” with a special emphasis on volume 6, Quakers, Creation Care, and Sustainability.
Several sessions presented topics that took advantage of Guilford’s unique spaces: Wess Daniels led a group through the Underground Railroad trail through the Guilford Woods, and Don Smith shared via a planetarium show concerns about our species’s stewardship of the skies. In the middle of a rainy week, the clouds cleared so attendees could view the sky through Guilford’s telescopes at the Cline Observatory. Guilford’s ties to the local Quaker community were in evidence when the closure of the campus cafeteria led to two local Quaker Meetings volunteering to host FAHE members for potluck dinners.
In the final plenary, Lloyd Stangeland spoke with us about his experience of “Sustainability in Ministry” with a focus on Friends United Meeting’s impressive project with Ambwere Farm and other initiatives in Kenya. He spoke about collaboration between North American and African Friends to overcome challenges and to live out their testimonies.
As we depart from our gathering, we look forward to next year’s conference in June 2026 at William Penn University, in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
Walter Sullivan, Clerk, and Jacci Stuckey, Assistant Clerk
June 19, 2025
Friends Association for Higher Education 