New Lincoln University President Jerald Jones Woolfolk got two standing ovations from faculty and staff attending Monday morning's opening session of the Fall Faculty-Staff Institute.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting that!" she said after the first ovation, right after she was introduced as the session's featured speaker. "Thank you so much.
"I am so excited today to be here."
Woolfolk began serving as LU's 20th president June 1, and said the "excitement that I have for the future of Lincoln University is overwhelming, and I know that together, we can move mountains, build bridges, make crooked roads straight, make narrow roads wider and, through perseverance, ensure that Lincoln University will prosper and continue to change lives for the better, for the next 152 years."
In her first three months, Woolfolk said, she's found the city and LU people "to be some of the kindest and warmest people I have ever met.
"I've seen people who are cheering for Lincoln."
Woolfolk said she's been busy learning her new job, bringing in new top-level administrators and attending alumni events.
She's become a member of the Capital Region Medical Center and Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce boards - and has spent some of her time meeting with local officials, including Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe.
And, she noted, she's been getting ready for school.
"To be successful working in this business, it has to be your passion," she said. "It has to be your calling.
"It has to, truly, be a labor of love."
Success of that work will be seen in the future successes of the students.
"The students we produce will tell the story of Lincoln University (and) forever represent the vision and the dreams of the soldiers from the 62nd and 65th Colored Infantries," Woolfolk said, referring to the African American Civil War soldiers from Missouri, who had been forbidden by an 1847 state law from learning to read or write, but who helped found Lincoln as they were being mustered out of the service at the end of the war.
"We must never forget our past, and we must always honor it," Woolfolk said. "However, we must not get stuck there.
"We must determine for ourselves who we are in the 21st century, who we will be in the future and and how we will get there."
And that work must be done together, because "not one of us has the answer to everything."
She added: "Together, we can move mountains and we can make hills easier to climb."
Although founded as a school to educate freed slaves, Lincoln now "is, perhaps, the most diverse university in our country," Woolfolk said. "While we celebrate our diversity, we must also ensure that every one who walks through our doors feels a sense of belonging (and) inclusion.
"It is our diversity that makes us stronger."
And Lincoln must work to be sure it's helping all students learn skills they will need in the post-college working world, and it must work to expand the number of students it helps, by seeking new students from all parts of the country - including Mid-Missouri.
"We must not take Jefferson City for granted," Woolfolk said, "and recruit just as vigorously here, at home," as the school recruits in other communities across the nation.
"We have major, major work ahead," she said. "I am ready for the challenge, and I hope you are, as well."
That brought on the second standing ovation.
Before Woolfolk's speech, Student Government Association President D'Angelo Bratton-Bland said one of the students' goals is "strengthening the relationship between the faculty, staff and the students here at Lincoln University."
Math teacher Stephanie Clark, who chairs the Faculty Senate this year, said no one can predict what will happen in the future.
"All in all, no matter what happens this year, or the next, we will face it together - because we are Lincoln, stronger together (and) able to face any challenge that comes our way," Clark said. "We are strong because we've had to fight for our place in this world."
James Smith, new chair of the Staff Council, said even though LU employees have defined jobs as part of school operations, "My challenge this year, to me and to all of us, is to not become myopic on our own job, but to look at what we're doing and the legacy that we are continuing."
Curators President Marvin Teer, who graduated from Lincoln in 1986, said: "Lincoln had the one thing that I needed more than anything else - it had a faculty and a staff that cared about me."
He urged the faculty and staff to work well together.
"Our students do watch how you interact with your colleagues and with other students," he said.