Dr. John L. Hoffman, president of Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College, delivered his inaugural address at an October 14, 2022, inauguration event on the campus of Bemidji State University. A replay of his address is above, with a full transcript of his speech, as delivered, below.
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Yeah, Chrissy told me she had a surprise. Yes, breathe, take in the moment.
Boozhoo. Hello. I am John Hoffman. I use the pronouns he, him. I am so honored to be here.
Let me begin with some thank yous. I’m going to start with a thank you to my boss, my bosses, students, faculty, student affairs educators, staff, members of our community, alumni. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for bestowing the opportunity to serve; I’m moved.
It’s been an amazing week. We’ve tried to lift up all the members of our community in one way or another. We began on Saturday with our athletic programs and a great athletic weekend Hall of Fame Shrine Game. On Monday we celebrated Indigenous People’s Day and announced that Minnesota State is placing its Institute for Indigenous Education and Practice here at Bemidji State and NTC, that we will host and they are investing $600,000 in that beginning effort.
On Tuesday for the first time, to our knowledge, in the history of NTC and BSU, we raised pride flags on National Coming Out Day at both of our campuses. On Wednesday and Thursday I got to spend time with students — lunch, apples and cider — and then also with our alumni, our foundation boards. Thank you for that time. And then here we are today. So I thank you. I do have a couple other bosses that I need to acknowledge. So Chancellor Malhotra, Trustee Moe. Thank you also for bestowing this honor of service upon me. I am grateful.
I need to acknowledge mentors and chosen family, so many of whom are here today. Members of my family not here today. Where’s the camera? Mom, Dad, I know you wanted to be here. You are with me in my heart, thank you for everything. I love you. Izzy, Joy’s mom, Dave and Evette, Dan and Mickey, Louis, my brother Lakota, the rest of your family. Thank you so much Hannah and CJ, my stepchildren, the ones who call me bonus Dad also can’t be here today, but are here in my heart, and Joy… For more than 20 years, you have seen the person I aspire to be, and have helped me to become that person. I’m so glad we are doing this together. Well, I love you, and that’s what I can say right now.
So today is inauguration. Oh, inauguration. What is this? Chancellor Malhotra shared, it’s more than 300 years old. The word inauguration means to dedicate by an augury. Another one of those words we use all the time, augury. What is an augury? An augury is a prophet. And to my former students, this is the place where they chuckle because how many classes did we begin where I announced that I was a prophet? I explained to them what would be happening over the course of the semester and tried to give them a few clues about how to be successful as we went along. I don’t know if you laughed or rolled your eyes, but here we are again talking about prophecy.
Prophets are bold, but they are often oftentimes misunderstood. They do not predict the future. They certainly do not determine the future. Prophets speak words to the present with the goal of influencing the future. Think of Charles Dickens and the ghost of Christmas future, the ghost that comes and lets Scrooge know just how awful things are going to be if he continues along his current path. The ghost is a successful prophet because Scrooge changes his ways. Fortunately, not all prophets speak from doom and gloom to accomplish their ends. In fact, I believe the best of prophets see within people the potential that they do not see themselves. And to my faculty colleagues, my student affairs educators, the staff, you do this exceptionally well because we discover talent that other institutions miss. We have first-gen students and students from low income families, Indigenous, black, students of color, students who have unique and different abilities, many of whom did not see themselves going to college.
They come here, you help them discover the talent within. You helped to discover and develop that talent. And to the students, let me just say this as clearly as I can. If anyone has ever told you because of an identity, because of your culture, because of a status, because of the ways that you know or experience the world, because of life experiences, if anybody has told you that you are less than, that is bull… BS. I’m not going to finish that line in front of these bosses over here. You are powerful and it is precisely because of your identities and your cultures, your life experiences, your ways, your unique ways of knowing, being and doing that you are powerful and that you will change the world. And in a unique way because we serve this body of students so well, Bemidji State and NTC as institutions are quite similar.
I think perhaps you’ve heard at times folks say that BSU and NTC, that you’re a little bit less than. You’re not as selective as another institution. You’re not as elite. Once again, that is bull… BS. And it is, there’s no place for this because you do special, remarkable, amazing work. There is no place that I would rather be than working among folks who discover and develop talent and to my cabinet and to other leaders in the room. Our work. In the same way that our faculty and our student affairs educators help students to discover and develop their talent. Our job is to help these two institutions to discover and to develop their talent to realize just how powerful and amazing we are. We are truly rare and special institutions.
So words of prophecy, where are we going? Well, I’d like to say that there are three things that set us apart. Four that make us truly remarkable.
First, our people and the convergence of our people. Now, I’ve already talked about students and faculty, I could go on and on, but let me bring in another element because it’s convergence of people. It is a convergence with the community of Bemidji, our American Indian tribes. It is Northern Minnesota and it is that engagement that makes us special. We do have some work to do. We have to change some of the mapping. Too often colleges and universities across the country have started — “What do we need? What do we do well? What do we enjoy doing?”
We’ve started there and then we’ve reached out and we’ve looked to the community and tried to find places where the community fits with our needs in our wants.
We need to reverse the mapping. We need to start and engage Northern Minnesota, engage our tribal nations, engage Bemidji, start with the needs of this wonderful space and work backwards. We need to start with the future job skills that our students are going to be engaging in and design our curriculum backward from there as we build on the heritage of what we have done. It is an amazing task that is set before us.
But if you have any questions about our capacity to do it, let me talk about one more group of people, our alumni and our donors. Talk to our alumni. Look in their eyes, look for the sparkle in their eyes as they talk about this place. What has made it special? Their experience here, NTC, BSU, was so powerful that not only have they gone on to be successful in their lives, they feel compelled to reinvest in the future of our students.
And when they give their gifts — no, not their gifts. Because Paul Hanson said it very well at the Hall of Fame weekend this past weekend, he was an honorary letter winner. And he said, it’s not a gift, it’s an investment. And the return that he expects on that investment that he gets is that we ensure that every one of our students has such an amazing experience here. That not only are you successful in your lives beyond, but you feel compelled to return to this place and invest in future generations of our students. And I know, I know that it is happening, but people alone are not enough to make us, to set us apart. I think our people do. But I have some colleagues here from other institutions who happen to think their people are pretty special too. So how do we set ourselves apart? Well, it’s three things.
The second of which is place. It is people. It is place. We are here in Northern Minnesota, rural Northern Minnesota. It is beautiful even if it is snowing outside. It is beautiful. The convergence of the green and the white with the trees today, the gold, the blue of the lake, the colors of our two institutions. It is beautiful. But we know that there are disparities facing people in rural America. The educational outcomes, the economic outcomes, they’re disparate. There is nothing wrong with our people here in rural north. Absolutely not. There are structures, there are systems that we have to work on. The problem is in the system. The solution is in the people.
This place is also surrounded by Minnesota’s three largest Native nations as well as several others within the state of Minnesota. One in four individuals in Beltrami County, one in five in Bemidji proper are American Indian. What an amazing opportunity. And yet Dave Hengel, the executive director for greater Bemidji in the Bemidji Pioneer this last weekend wrote an article talking about the disparate outcomes, the differences for the rich and the poor for American Indians and white folks in our community. And he talked about the impact it has on the character as well as the outcomes of our community. We have to do better. We have to right past wrongs and engage in bringing the feathers together.
The people are more powerful together. Let me give you, there needs to be this mutuality. Kim was talking about this a moment ago. This mutuality, it’s not about one group including another. It is about a mutual engagement. One example, our climate is changing. That is a fact. We can engage in debates about how to respond, but the climate is changing and not for our good. In our land acknowledgement statement, we acknowledge, we recognize that American Indians are physical and spiritual caretakers of the land. In the Ojibwe language, the word for great-grandfather or great-grandparent is the same as the word for great-grandchild.
So if I, who aspires to perhaps be a great-grandparent someday, wishes to care for myself, I need to be mindful of seven generations to the future, to the great-grandchild. That is a lesson that I have to learn from the physical and spiritual caretakers of this land, the people, the place. Three things.
We’ve got some remarkable programs here. Just some remarkable programs at both Bemidji State and NTC, we’ve got exceptional nursing programs that are connected to Sanford, the Sanford Medical Center here in Bemidji. A community of 14,000 that puts us on the map, not just with the athletic center but with amazing medical care for Northern Minnesota and our programs fuel that work. At Bemidji State, we have programs that buy reputation: our technology, art and design program that is recognized across the country, a one-of-a-kind creating exhibits… Political science. I can’t name all the programs. I’m going to get in trouble for the ones I forget, but they’re remarkable programs.
At NTC, we have dental assisting programs that have drawn businesses to this community. But beyond the reputation of our programs, there is the regionality of our programs, Bemidji State biology programs that focus on aquatics and wildlife. We think about NTC, each of the programs, childcare, trades programs, all of them connected back, connected back to the community. They are remarkable programs. We have amazing co-curriculars. Athletics, I know that we’re facing some difficult times financially. There is no strong future for Bemidji State without a strong future for Bemidji State Athletics and for the Beavers.
And if you haven’t noticed from the music, there are three extraordinary faith-based institutions in Minnesota that have nationally, if not internationally, recognized music programs — Saint Olaf and the two Concordias. We do it in a public space and at a public tuition rate that is a third or less of that of our peers. It is essential that this music and the arts continue to thrive in our space.
Academics, co-curriculars. But there’s also this unique alignment, a two-year institution, a four-year institution. There’s a handful of these partnerships across the country. NTC faculty and staff, I charge you to take the lead on this. Four-year institutions have the capacity to be innovative and entrepreneurial, but it’s not that easy. Two-year institutions, technical colleges, are designed to be nimble, to be responsive to the needs of our community. And in coming together, we create something special. An opportunity to be innovative, leading access and affordability and quality into the future of our region.
Three things set us apart: our people, our place and our programs. Four, make us remarkable. So what is number four? It is value. Now value starts with our values, and the cornerstones of our values are student success, diversity, equity and inclusion. Powerful cornerstones.
The Post-Secondary Value Commission has laid out an agenda for higher education, addressing future value, asking the questions of why, what and who as a means of getting to an action agenda.
Why? Our students. Transforming the lives of students, transforming the futures of their families and of their communities.
What? A quality education. A top-quality education that includes completion, but not only completion — we need to ensure, we need to check in with our alumni to ensure that they are successful in their careers, that they are healthier, that they are more capable of interrupting oppression and injustice in their communities, that they are building healthier relationships, that they are contributing to the public good.
And who? College is for everyone — everyone — in the same way that a park is for everyone. Now, perhaps not every individual goes to visit the park, but there should never be a question that that park is for every person in the community. There must never be a question in Northern Minnesota — but that college is for everyone, that there is a place for every individual who wants to pursue a post-high school degree, certificate, whatever it may be.
The why, the what, the who, leading to an action agenda. So what is our agenda? I have shared with this community, our enrollment is down significantly. There are budget challenges ahead of us. We are going to have to make some really difficult decisions; I am going to have to make some difficult decisions. But the future is not about our difficult decisions, It is about the ways that we invest into the things that we value. That’s the means of moving forward.
So how do you do that? Let’s start with our values — student success, equity and inclusion. We increase our retention, our persistence rates, our graduation rates, and we eliminate our equity gaps on our campus. And we don’t have to bring in one more, one additional student in terms of new recruitment to solve our budgetary and enrollment problems. And we do it by doing the right thing.
And when we do the right thing, students, prospective students see that, oh, I don’t just go to NTC, I don’t just go to BSU. That’s a place where I complete and earn a degree, and a degree, an educational experience that has value that changes my life. Three things, our people, our place, our programs; four, our value.
Prophecy. A couple weeks ago, Dr. Jilek spoke to me about what should our choir sing? And he shared a few options and they were all great. I couldn’t choose. So I said, let the students choose. Ask the students what is the lyric that the text that they would have, that they would have be a part of setting forth our future. And they chose “Flight Song.” The beginning of the song — and now this is kind of my interpretation with the song, so forgive me — but at the beginning you have a conductor and a choir, and each member of the choir has a hidden song. And it is the conductor who is drawing out the song, their words, as our faculty, our educators draw out the talent of our students. And as this is drawn out and they begin to sing, they engage the world and they engage cries for pain because there is a great deal of harm and injustice and pain in our world. Yet in the third stanza, fragile though they may be, they sing, dare I say, they become conductors of their own who draw out the song of the folks with whom they engage.
So what is our vision for the future? Let us sing.
Thank you.