The Icon talked briefly with Dr. James Harder, retiring Bluffton University president, during his last official full week on campus.

His exit at the end of the month brings to a close a 17-year relationship with the university, 12 of which he served as its president. Those dozen years are an exception to the national average for university presidents. That national on-the-job average for a university president is six years.

While his presidency ends, he and his wife, Karen, will remain in Bluffton as Karen continues on the faculty as a professor of business. His own plans beyond June 30 are not yet announced.

One thing Harder said he hopes to dive into later in the summer is reading. “I read bits and pieces of so many things. I’m looking forward to read books from cover to cover,” he said.

And, in early June, Jim and Karen’s daughter, Annalisa, became the mother of twins while on a Mennonite Central Committee assignment in Cambodia. So, the natural inclination over the summer may find this soon-to-be former university president discovering the job description of a first-time grandfather.

During the 12-year Harder era the university gained a health and physical fitness complex, the Sommer Center, in 2012, which replaced Founders Hall, built in the early 1950s.

And, “We are on the cusp of a new science center,” Harder said, who arrived in Bluffton in 2001, just one year after Centennial Hall was completed.

Centennial Hall, Sommer Center and a science center were identified as the most pressing needs at Bluffton as Harder took over the presidency from Dr. Lee Snyder.

Reflecting on the changing world of higher education, particularly four-year liberal arts colleges, Harder said that students today are interested in studying different things and in different ways than previous generations of students.

One is online education, which he says is now more comfortable and acceptable for faculty and students.

“There’s a good future for a variety of learning experiences,” he added. At the same time, Harder says that Bluffton has proven itself as a residential campus.

Concerning liberal arts, Harder says that there is a need today for quality in-depth education from the classic-body-of-knowledge perspective.

“What you put in your head inversely affects your life,” he said, referring to a liberal arts education.

It’s interesting to discover that the past 17 years are the longest Jim and Karen Harder have lived in one place.

Jim grew up in Kansas and at the age of 12 moved with his family to Seattle, where his father was a General Conference Mennonite pastor. He then attended Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas.

Following that was a Mennonite Central Committee assignment in Kenya, five and one-half years at Notre Dame and then 12 years on the faculty of Bethel.

Describing his feelings about this community, he said, “Bluffton truly feels like home.”