By CD EskilsonFrom festivals and play productions to academic lectures and research presentations, California Lutheran University’s Homecoming Week celebrated the university community’s foundational value. With graduating classes returning to campus to rejoice alongside current students, supporters and the public, the week’s events honored Cal Lutheran’s past while celebrating its present and looking toward its future.
Founding Values and Future Mission
The week honored shared connections beginning with Thursday’s Founders Day Convocation, an annual gathering where the community honored the enduring work of past generations and reaffirmed their commitment to the university mission.
“It is good to gather and be renewed by our founding stories,” said the Rev. Dr. Colleen Windham-Hughes, rector of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, in her welcoming remarks.
The university’s enduring impact was highlighted in the Founders Day address delivered by the Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, presiding bishop emerita of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She reflected on how the university exemplifies a remarkable story of Lutheran education rooted in embracing various identities and understandings of faith. Cal Lutheran’s journey from a small college of Norwegian students to its 10 years as a Hispanic-Serving Institution underscore how Lutheran identity is not bound to a particular culture.
”The world is a far bigger place than one group of people,” she noted.
The ceremony also included the presentation of the Christus Award to the Rev. Mark Marius ’92, a convocator and pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara, California. In accepting the annual award, which honors those who have worked to deepen the partnership between Cal Lutheran and the ELCA, he noted the important communal bond he felt guiding his service to the church and university.
”I inherited a dream that is shared by all of you and rooted in Cal Lutheran’s history,” he said.
That evening, Eaton gave the Founders Day Academic Lecture to the campus community as well as Cal Lutheran’s guests and neighbors. Titled “The Once and Future Church,” Eaton’s lecture examined the ELCA’s evolution from early immigrant settlers segregated by ethnicities to modern-day integrated congregations that support their communities through daily works and social justice.
“We pray for a good family, good home, good job, good government,” Eaton said. “[Martin] Luther understood good government was a way for God to bring order and justice to the world.”
The lecture also reflected on the increasing division in American society, which poses a shared challenge for all people of faith. Lutherans shouldn’t remain silent but should practice grace and be open to other points of view, Eaton said.
“It’s incumbent upon the faithful to speak up to those in authority when that seems to be going contrary to the way we understand God being God for us, and how we embody that in this church,” she said.
Eaton commended Cal Lutheran for its role as a university that is open to all people and faiths.
“This is a very strong school,” she said. “I think you have done the hard and good work of not negating your Norwegian roots but saying that this is for everyone.”
Spotlighting Student Artistry & Innovation
Events across Homecoming Weekend additionally highlighted current students’ artistic and academic achievements to the broader Cal Lutheran community. The Cal Lutheran Theatre Arts Department celebrated a successful production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, directed by professor Christine Cummings. Theatre, music, dance and visual arts students contributed to the production by designing costumes and properties, choreographing movement and composing an original score. The production’s collaborative efforts highlighted the interdisciplinary spirit of the arts at Cal Lutheran.
The play also sparked connections after the curtain fell. The student dramaturg and social media manager led campus outreach, interviewing students and faculty about technology’s impact on their lives and deepening audience engagement with the play’s themes. A representative from the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) attended and recognized the cast and crew, nominating the stage manager, properties designer and two actors to compete at the ACTF Regional Festival.
Audiences responded enthusiastically, and multiple performances received standing ovations. Cummings lauded the students’ accomplishments working together on the play.
“I couldn’t be more proud of these students for tackling this challenging play with such joy and dedication,” she said. “It is a director’s dream to be surrounded by a team of talented and passionate artists like this. The most special thing about theater is that you cannot do it alone.”
The week also featured opportunities for academic exploration at the 24th Annual Student Research Symposium on Saturday. Hosted by the Office of Research, the symposium featured over 60 students showcasing findings from faculty-mentored summer research projects.
In his remarks, President John Nunes highlighted the connection between Cal Lutheran’s emphasis on student research and St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s concept of caritas, a pursuit of knowledge directed by compassion and service.
“There are some who learn to gain knowledge, some who learn for their ego and then those who learn to better the world,” he said, noting that students’ projects were united by their intention to make an impact on the world.
The symposium included the presentation of the Student Research Awards by Leanne Neilson, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, who noted the long and often unseen process behind students’ findings.
“When you read an abstract, what you don’t see are the weeks of troubleshooting or the projects that didn’t work … every project here has a story that’s not on the page,” she said.
Matthew Gordley, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, also presented the Faculty Mentor Award to Chad Barber, a professor of biology who advised five students on cancer research projects. Gordley emphasized the key role faculty support plays in advising these projects to foster student inquiry.
“Our faculty come to Cal Lutheran because they are committed to this kind of work, and our students are better for it,” he said.
The afternoon continued with research talks from five students touching on a range of topics. Swenson Science Summer Research Fellow Carina Lindfield, a senior, presented data science research identifying supply patterns in Philadelphia’s bike-sharing system. Her proposed plan optimized redistribution for about 50 bikes in the city, highlighting how demand prediction can help improve bike availability.
Lindfield appreciated the experience of collaborating with a faculty mentor on her research, as well as having the chance to share findings with an audience.
“Faculty-mentored research here at Cal Lutheran is a great way to learn from professionals in fields that you are interested in,” she said. “You get hands-on experience as well as feedback from your mentor, and it’s an amazing feeling when you finally finish your research and have concrete results that you created.”
Alumni Connections
Alumni also found opportunities to celebrate with one another at the Homecoming Festival hosted Saturday in Kingsmen Park. Past graduating classes and their families reconnected over live music, food, yard games and a beer garden, making for a festive atmosphere.
Attendees shared how the gathering highlighted the life-changing impact Cal Lutheran’s community has had on them.
“I looked forward to seeing a bunch of amazing friends I hadn’t seen in too long,”Sammy Fahn ’25 said. “What makes Homecoming so special, particularly as an alum, is it really shows you how far you’ve come from where you started in college. It reminds you of all the people you met and touched along the way, and vice versa.”
Alumni also noted how Homecoming festivities provide an opportunity to see how the university has grown and where it is headed for the future.
“Being gone for the last two years, Cal Lutheran homecoming gives me a sense of what is still continuing on campus … of what is happening with the stuff that I was a part of and contributed to,” Ethan Klein ’25 said.
The 2027 Homecoming Weekend will take place Oct. 22 through 24 on Cal Lutheran’s campus. More details will be announced in the coming months.
