This summer we’re asking all of Whitworth’s new students to read the book Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder. We hope you will find the book to be challenging and engaging on a number of levels. It tells the story of a doctor seeking to serve the poor and sick people of the world in his particular calling. His example is a powerful springboard to the reflection and preparation you will undertake at Whitworth as you continue your vocational journey.
The book occasionally uses offensive language and depicts events that do not reflect the values Whitworth seeks to exalt. Our educational mission is to help you to become more careful and critical thinkers and discerning people of faith. We do that by engaging rather than avoiding difficult issues, and we do that as a community collaborating in the search for truth. With this assignment, as in all we do at Whitworth, we encourage our students and faculty to evaluate the book’s message, to bring to the surface our worldview assumptions, and to consider these issues in a wider cultural context. |
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To give you a preview of the kind of critical thinking and analysis you will find when you arrive on campus, we have asked four members of our faculty to respond to Mountains Beyond Mountains from their own perspectives and academic disciplines. Their brief essays, included in this booklet, will introduce some of the major themes of the book and will whet your appetite for a Whitworth education of mind and heart.
Michael K. Le Roy
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty |
