"Beauty in Community" with Dr. Donna Harris

A leader sets the tone for the culture of a community. A leader models the ethos of a place and of a community. This could certainly be said of Dr. Donna Harris, president of Minnehaha Academy, a private K-12 Christian school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A school I am grateful to be an alumni of. Dr. Harris is not a distant observer of community life, but a vibrant participant. For instance, she is known in the school community for being an outstanding vocalist, having performed alongside the school’s gospel choir.

On August 2, 2017, unexpected tragedy befell the over century-old school when a blast leveled the middle portion of the Academy’s high school. In the midst of losing two beloved employees and the ensuing grief and uncertainty, Dr. Harris forged ahead in wisdom, fortitude, and faith. The strengths that had always been a hallmark of her leadership were highlighted. In the wake of the tragedy Dr. Harris stated in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, “I don’t ask God why….We’re trusting God will show us the beauty we know can come out of this.”

That same steadfast faith characterized my time with Dr. Harris. In our time together, she spoke of how to see beauty at work in the wake of tragedy and how a community can emerge from such an event with renewed vigor for loving one another well.

The Interview

Audio engineering: Podcast P.S.

THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: I know that you are the president of Minnehaha Academy. But if you could maybe speak to your role and what you do here at Minnehaha because I think maybe that role of president shifts for different institutions.

Dr. Harris: Right. Sometimes institutions will use president, head of school, it's different for different institutions. But my role is to advance the mission of this wonderful school. I like to say that it is God's school.

In my role, I oversee all of the operations of the school. That means everything from finance, to the academic program, to the work that we do in development or fundraising, the work we do in recruiting and retaining families, HR. There are individuals that report to me, my senior leadership team, but ultimately the operations of the school, everything that's involved really report in to me.

I believe in collaboration. So certainly can't sit in my office and create a strategy and initiatives and the things that we need to do to advance the mission. But certainly I think bringing in great people that are talented in their areas and I work really hard to support them and provide the resources they need to do the work that they do for the schools.

I spend a lot of days connecting, also reaching out to alums and every now and then I get to have conversations with parents who might have exciting things they want us to do or think about or even concerns. Because I think that's an important part of growing, that you are listening to your constituents and as we can, to hear that and to make steps for ongoing improvement. That's the nutshell of what I do.

Melissa: I didn't realize how many facets you were a part of here. Thank you for explaining that.

Dr. Harris: Oh, sure, sure.

Melissa: Then how long have you been here? I can't remember when you said-

Dr. Harris: July 22nd, 2019 I celebrated my 10th year here. I came July 22nd, 2009. I can hardly believe that I'm saying that, but here I am. It's gone by quickly. It's been a blessing for me. It's not just about what skills and talents that I can lend to the school, but it's also about how I've grown through being a part of this community as well. It's a two way street, really is.

I hail from California, so now that I've been here 10 years, I've gotten used to every kind of winter and I won't say that I love winter. It's a little too long. But I'm a spoiled Californian so I live downtown Minneapolis and close to skyways and close to the life of the city. My husband and I get to walk everywhere we go and we have the heated garage so that when it's negative 40, you whip in there and you don't have to dig myself out of snow to get into my driveway. So it works, it works but-

Melissa: That’s the way to do it. Heated garage, yeah.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, yeah, totally.

Melissa: I am curious, what drew you to Minnehaha? That would be a big draw living in California, the weather and just how beautiful it is there. So what was it about Minnehaha that drew you all the way to Minnesota?

Dr. Harris: Well, if you'd asked me 11 years ago would I have ever imagined being here, I would've said absolutely no.

I've always loved education. I started my career teaching in public schools and thought I would be a teacher forever. And I loved what I did there. I loved working with kids.

I was pulled into the district to do various things, integration technology, curriculum development. They were grooming me for administration, which I never thought I would be interested in. Then at the same time, my children were attending a Christian school, K-12 in California, a very large Christian school. I was pulled in to that school community as a parent to help the school develop strategies around becoming more diverse. They were 99.9% white. My son and another student were the only two children of color in kindergarten. My daughter was the only child of color in seventh grade.

So they had this massive strategy for a number of years on helping the school become more diverse. I got to know the school in other ways and every year that I served on that committee, the superintendent would say, "Would you consider serving Valley Christian?" And "No, no, no, no, no." Finally, one year I thought, "Hmm," it resonated a little differently.

So I joined that school community as their director of curriculum and instruction and moved to their assistant superintendent, which is like here where I'm president, I was the next in line, so to speak and [I] thought that's where I would be. And as I was continuing to serve there, we had started to develop a succession plan and I was going to take over for that superintendent. Wonderful school, 2,500 students, a huge budget, wonderful 21st century programming. I thought, "That's where I'll be, and I'll move into that place."

Then I kept getting phone calls from this pesky search firm and I just ignored the calls…ignored, ignored, ignored. One day I went home and said to my husband, "This search firm just keeps calling me." And he said, "Well, you never know what God's going to do. You might want to have a conversation."

So it was in the back of my mind when they phoned me. I agreed to a really brief conversation and it intrigued me that Minnehaha was approaching its Centennial. Here's a school that has been faithful to its mission for nearly a hundred years. The school where I was serving was nearly 50 years. And that intrigued me.

Then I started to read more about the school and its focus on what I would always call the three A's: arts, academics and athletics and a commitment to excellence in all those areas. There was no separate A for faith, which I liked because faith is in and through all of that, you don't have a separate pillar for faith. That's where faith happens and it never touches athletics, academics and arts. That was intriguing.

Probably there was a third or fourth conversation and in one of the conversations I mentioned that I was chairing a committee to replace our senior pastor who was retiring. We were a Covenant church so our team was being trained by someone at the ECC level, superintendent conference there. I mentioned that and I said, "Covenant," or something and they said, "You're Covenant?" And I said, "Yeah, my church became a Covenant church about 15 years ago." And he said, "Were you aware the school was covenant?" Well, I wasn't, I wasn't aware of that. That was another connection.

Then oh, about a few weeks later, they flew my husband and I out. You start to have all those 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. conversations with the school community. I'd been very transparent with my superintendent. He knew that I was having these interviews. And one night really late, he called me and said, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" And I said, "Wonderful school, but I'm going to go back to Valley Christian." And when I arrived, he said, "I just want you to know Donna, I talked to every board member while you were gone. I am willing to step down now and accelerate the succession because we value you that much. We want you to stay." I said, "No, I'm fine. God's still working through you here."

Well, I was miserable for the next two weeks, I just couldn't get this school out of my heart and mind. I remember leaving campus one day and looking up and saying, "God, if this is a door that you're opening and you are in this," I said, "I will just move through until the door slams closed."

So it really was a call. It really was a true call that I hadn't sought out. Never would have anticipated that I would come to this wonderful community and it's been quite a journey. But totally something that God just put before me and walked through that door. So yes, that's what it was.

Melissa: Thank you for explaining that. As I mentioned earlier, the reason why I was drawn to interview you is I mean, being a part of the Minnehaha community as I was a part of it and then hearing from my brother-in-law, just how... I would describe your leadership, how he talks about it, as vibrant and how you are just in and a part of the community. He mentioned that you sing at chapels and just when I think of a president I have other more of maybe a distance between-

Dr. Harris: Your schema is a little different.

Melissa: Right, right. I was like, "Interesting." So everything I've heard has been just so raving that I was like, "I need to meet this new president."

Then I know just knowing the journey of the explosion over the past couple years, one of the themes of the blog is finding beauty in the midst of brokenness. Just to hear about the perseverance of you and this community in the midst of a really tragic event. And to stand in the midst of that as a leader and stand firm in your faith, I think is a huge testimony and witness to, I mean, so many layers of community: the direct community, alumni community, probably all of your neighbors and surrounding community. I mean even the nation, it made national news as you know.

Dr. Harris: On national news, yeah.

Melissa: All of that to transition us into why I wanted to highlight you as someone who really exudes internal and eternal beauty. With that, I'd be curious to know just how do you define beauty?

Dr. Harris: Well, I define beauty as the character and nature of God. I think it makes it pretty easy when we think about God's character, His nature, His love, how He cares for us, the world that He created for us. I think it takes away some of the other trappings that we ascribe to beauty.

And when we think about God's grace and His power, again, His love, that is true beauty. It has nothing to do with other trappings that we in this world have given them.

When I see a deep valley or a beautiful mountain or trees swaying in the wind, that's beauty. When I see a little child who has such an innocent heart, and who naturally puts other people in front of themselves, and who have genuine care for others, you just want to take that in a bottle and call it beauty on the outside.

That's what I think of God and I think the Bible speaks of beauty in a lot of different ways and gives us stories that really talk about His beauty. I think there's some beautiful things that come, that flow from that relationship with God that I think is critical for all of us.

Melissa: Thank you. I believe that one, at least for me personally, I think one of the biggest challenges to seeing beauty in the world sometimes is that there's so much brokenness. I would be interested to know if you could maybe speak to or speak about an experience of brokenness that you've had currently or in the past? Then maybe how in the midst of that you saw beauty breaking through that situation.

Dr. Harris: I think that brokenness is something we all experience. Some of us are better at hiding it than others, but it's the reality of life. Brokenness for some in their book of life is a little bit of punctuation. Brokenness can be a sentence for others, a paragraph, full page and a chapter, that's reality of brokenness. But whatever it is, we all experience brokenness in this book of life that we live.

I think for me, at the age that I am now, brokenness comes in a variety of ways.

It comes from the challenges that you have growing up. I think about those, my early years of trying to figure out who Donna was and trying to measure up to folks. Little bit of a challenge growing up, my parents didn't come to a mature faith until later on. My parents went to church, they were both from Columbus, Georgia, but weren't strong Christians and they were challenged I think in that way.

My dad was the Air Force, so I was an Air Force brat. So we traveled around a lot and I was often the only African American in a classroom or one or two and you notice when you're not drawn in and not as well received. I was pretty studious so I wasn't in the in crowd where I was the life of the party, kind of a person.

Sometimes you're teased or marginalized because of your specific commitments, whether it's academic or whatever. I remember an experience when I was in fifth grade and I was with my friends who none of them were African American. For some reason we decided to bring in little makeup stuff. One of my friends, I don't know how we were able to do this in fifth grade, but she had brought in some nail polish. And I remember I was polishing my nails in class. Must've been a break or something.

And I remember my teacher saying, "Red nail polish doesn't look nice on people with your skin color." I remember that so powerfully. And I thought, "What's wrong with my skin color?" As a fifth grader, you just take it all in, you're not confident enough to ask questions or think about their… or you don't know where to put that. But I remember that shook me a little bit.

Of course now, and Minnehaha helped me out a lot because one of my favorite colors is red. So having a school that red and white is our color, I get to wear it all the time. But those kinds of things start to help you see that the world perceives some people one way and some people of course, another way.

I have five children whom I love and they're wonderful, all adult children. But I think there's always brokenness in raising children, whether it's the physical things they go through, three of... Let me see, is it three now or four? Four of my five children have all had emergency appendectomies. You go through it one time and then by the fourth kid it was like, "Okay, we got this." Their own challenges that they go through.

I remember someone saying “a mother is as happy as their happiest child” and I believe that's true. As your children are navigating life, whether they're little... Sometimes people will say “when they're young, they're on your mind. When they're older, they're on your heart.” I think maybe you could parse that and say, "Well, not really."

But you're always trying to make sure they're in tow when they're little and not hurting themselves. But as they grow older, you're recognizing that the decisions they make in life sometimes may not be the decisions that are best for them and you're concerned as a parent. I think that there's always brokenness in trying to parent well and trying to come alongside your children as they grow.

Of course, you've mentioned a couple of times the tragedy here at Minnehaha Academy. Who would've thought that we would have experienced this as a school community?

That day is still seared in my heart and mind, it will never go away. Certain sounds and smells and will take me right back to that day when everything was literally... Literally I was thrown back out of my shoes. Those are my shoes that our historian said, "We got to keep those." Those are the shoes I was wearing the day that I was blown backwards and cement, ceiling is falling and everything around you.

I remember the story that I often tell is the story of leaving the house that morning. There's two things that I don't leave my house without doing. One is making my bed because I said, my dad was an Air Force guy so he taught us how to make the bed corners and flip the... I'm really fanatical about making the bed. And the other thing is kissing him goodbye. I tend to wear brighter lipstick.

So that particular day I was chasing him around the house trying to kiss him goodbye because he was running from the lipstick and all this stuff. I feigned annoyance and said, "Fine then, I'm leaving." And he runs behind me and he says, "No, I'm going to kiss you goodbye because it might be the last time that I have to kiss you goodbye." He literally said that and he never makes jokes like that ever.

I remember this sense of foreboding as I was heading to the car. Got to work and moved further to the back of my mind. I was interviewing a candidate for a job at Minnehaha and heard noise in the hallway and didn't really make out what was being said. Then I had a new assistant who had just been with me a couple of weeks.

A little bit after I heard the noise, she knocked on the door and she said, "They're telling us to get out of the building because there's a gas leak." I'm thinking, "Okay, someone's smelling gas, we'll just follow our protocol." She was very new, didn't know our protocol for exiting the building. Of course, the person I was interviewing had never been in the building. So I looked at both of them and I said, "Follow me."

Here's my doorway. I took one step out of the doorway and everything that you would think of happening in a war zone movie, a big bomb, a big blast, just in a matter of just a second.

Later on the forensic engineer said, "Had you gone two more steps, you would not be here," because we were right under the boiler room.

The wonderful colleagues that we lost were just a little bit ahead of us because they were following that same protocol. But I say all of that to say that there is true brokenness in experiencing such a devastating tragedy. But also I think the beauty, and we often use the Scripture, I've been using the scripture in Isaiah that talks about God gives us a crown of beauty instead of ashes. And ashes were the symbol of grieving and sorrow in Biblical times.

The crown of beauty that God has given this community is just amazing. The way that we have come together as a community, the sense of unity, our recommitment to a lot of things. Whether it be reinforcing our prayer life, our connections with one another, making relationships the main thing, making the main things, the main thing, which is people. And remembering the brevity of life and making everyday count with the people that you love. The things that we think about to say to people that often we don't.

I often will say our student accounts person, one day she grabbed me, she says, "Donna, I love you." And I said, "I love you too Brenda." She said, "I've always loved you, but I never told you." Those kinds of things that this experience does.

I think it's made us stronger. The idea of resilience is real.

The students who spent two years in our temporary site and those experiences for them will be formative as they grow and develop. They will look back at their resilience. I mean they wrote a sign on the fence: “Our foundation will not be shaken, class of 2018.” Their foundation will not be shaken as their life trajectory continues and they will point back to this experience and think about the lessons that they've learned.

So the beauty in the faith has deepened, our commitment to one another. There are so many beautiful things.

As you said, the nation heard our story and I remember doing the interview with the Today Show the day after the event. You're in a wheelchair, everything. You have concussions, trying to think clearly. But the media has been wonderful to this school. We have been able to tell our story and our faith commitment, our mission to integrate Christian faith in learning is not left on the editing floor. Many of the stories kids talk about faith. I've talked about faith, our principal and students. One of the Star Tribune reporters that has followed us for two years, her child started school at Minnehaha this year.

Melissa: Oh, wow!

Dr. Harris: She said, "I've gotten to know your community so well through the story, that I wanted to send my child here." And I thought, "Wow, that's just indicative of the beauty that comes out of something like this."

Melissa: Wow! What a huge perspective shift for a whole community. I mean, how rare is that? The woman who came up to you and hugged you, your co-worker, to say “I love you.”

Dr. Harris: That's just so neat. I think we all know it. It's the challenges in life that really make you stronger.

When you're flying high, when you have all the money in the bank, when your health is great, we are less inclined to hear the still small voice of God. That's just a reality in our humanness.

And when things shake up like it did for us here, that's when you grow. That's when you see through different eyes, the eyes of your heart and that's when God changes things I think and works.

Melissa: I like you said too, “make the main thing, the main things.”

Dr. Harris: Yes, people. People are the main thing. That certainly was very evident here. Certainly we needed to rebuild, but we did a lot of things to make sure our people as much as we could... “How are you doing today?” We had therapy dogs and our pastors here from the conference office just being there. It's amazing, the touch of a hand or a hug, that just gives you that impetus to keep moving forward.

Melissa: That was on brokenness and that is one thing that gets in the way, at least for me, of seeing beauty sometimes. The other thing is lies, I think the lies that are all over the place about what beauty is. I'm curious to know what lies have you experienced about beauty?

Dr. Harris: Well, I think we often give a lot of attention to the outward appearance, that lie. I probably would be lying if I said that at some juncture in my life that I didn't buy into that too. But I think there's something about getting older and more comfortable with yourself where you care less about what people think. Everybody has their own standards, if that's the word to use. I happen to be a person that enjoys certain fashions. I can never do the nail thing because I just could never figure out how to button up stuff.

But whatever those things are that make you feel better about yourself, not because someone's telling you to do it to make you feel better. But whatever those things are, I would say that's fine. But whenever you get into a space where there is this sense of you're not this until you look a certain way, or you invest this amount of time in your exterior.

To me, if people were to invest as much as they do around the outside to the inside, that inner beauty, gosh, we'd have a lot of beautiful people, more beautiful people walking around.

The lies that magazines say, you can look at magazines where they're Photoshopping. What is that saying? Unless you Photoshop me, people won't hear my message or those kinds of things.

And I see the young girls, I mean now this stage of my life, I have five grandchildren and my oldest granddaughter is seven. You have these conversations and they're starting to articulate things that you go, "Who told you that? Who told you that your hair wasn't..." She's by biracial so her hair is a little different than other people's hair and hearing, “How come your hair isn't straight like”... All of those messages come through and then they become “your hair is different,” but then “your hair is not as great as my hair.”

Then you start absorbing those lies and it shapes and it then makes you lose confidence, or it makes you set aside maybe even some of your values because those lies are saying that this is what you must be, this is how you must talk, this is how you must walk.

I think that the reality is I'm a pretty strong person and I'm an introvert by nature and so I can be alone and be okay and not run with the crowd necessarily. Even as I was going to high school, I wasn't so much into that. But yet deep down, it still penetrates.

We just have to recognize and call it what it is and recognize it and remember what beauty is: the character and nature of God and trust that.

Then you get to the age that I am and you say, "I don't care what you think. I am who I am and I'm happy with who I am."

Melissa: Thank you. It sounds like as you've gotten older, that's been one shaping thing. But another question I'd like to ask is just have you had your view of beauty transformed at all? Any experiences that have transformed your ideas around beauty?

Dr. Harris: I mean, I think it's the longer I live, it's the models that I see. I think the people that have mentored me and that are important in my life, the women in particular that I think about. How they have modeled inner beauty through, whether it's their character and nature, their kindness, their care for others and how that's demonstrated.

Some of them physically people would say, "Hmm, they're not beautiful at all." But yet if I were to be asked to share three adjectives about those individuals that have impacted me, beauty would probably show up in a definition.

I have really seen those that have come around me and how beauty has shown through them and it continues then to chip away at that old definition of beauty.

Because I can say, "But that person, that person, that person." It's a wonderful thing that you can just say it's not about physical stuff and then you can be relaxed and who you are. Be your authentic self when you don't think you have to be all of those things. I don't know if I quite hit that, but-

Melissa: Yeah, you definitely did.

Dr. Harris: But I think that's how it's shaped over time for me.

Melissa: Yeah, those models.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, those models are critically important.

Melissa: I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, that's really cool. It makes me think about being a model for other people too. I'm like, "Huh, what am I-"

Dr. Harris: Yeah, and I'm sure you already are.

Melissa: Well, thank you.

Dr. Harris: Because I think that we don't recognize often that we are. Someone's looking at you. When I was in fifth grade, I was looking at somebody. And we often are, we create a definition in people's hearts and minds often. And for bad or good, I think.

Melissa: Well, thank you. The last question I'd like to ask is if there is one thing that you wish people knew about beauty, what would it be?

Dr. Harris: Well, I would say that for those who are not people of faith, that they would recognize that there is beauty in God and that He is the source of beauty and that He has called each of us to do beautiful work in this world.

We have been saying that a lot at Minnehaha Academy as we've gone through some assessment of our integration of Christian faith. We have challenged our students to think about reframing what they do, whether it's service or even homework, if I'm doing homework I'm doing God's beautiful work. What does that mean? I'm fully committed to growing as a student. That's God's beautiful work. When I go out and help on a mission project, that's the beautiful work that God has called me to do.

I don't know who said it, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say, "Nope, that's not the case because there's beauty in all." Because if it's in the eye of the beholder, then I can say she's not beautiful, he's not beautiful.

But if there's beauty in all of us who God created in the mother's womb as we hear in Psalms, then everyone is beautiful and beauty is everywhere. That's what I would say.

Melissa: How you guys must be transforming students' views of those things too.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, it's kind of neat. We're having them think about through lines and what does it mean to have a teacher to have a through line in his or her classroom around what are the beautiful things by the end of this unit that we want students to grasp. Whether it's stewarding God's creation, whether it's being focused on social justice or kindness.

When you think about your curriculum through a lens of beauty, and then when you think about the work you're doing, that you're called to do a thing of beauty, it also helps you not to be so nervous about your performance. Because if you're doing everything as unto God, He's got your back, He's with you. He will always be with us and so that's neat.

Melissa: Man, I haven't heard education described like that before. I think when you're a student too, you don't hear the vision for it. That's a really beautiful way to describe education.

Dr. Harris: Yeah, we try to do that a little bit more with kids to help anchor them a bit more. It's more than why are we learning this? Whether it's algebra or something like that. But it's why are we committed to Christian education? It's not to put you in a bubble, but it's to help you see your place, discern God's call on your life. That's a deeper, deeper work that we do than just open brain, deposit content.

Melissa: Right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

Dr. Harris: You are very welcome, more than welcome.

Find out more about Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota here.

Are you tired of being sold a broken brand of beauty?

The brand of beauty we are so often sold as women is way too small. It divides and dis-integrates us. I am on a mission to expand and re-discover beauty, authentic beauty. I believe beauty is the life of God at work in us and among us. Will you join me in exploring that kind of beauty?

PodcastMelissa KucharskiJanuary 14, 2020impossiblebeauty