Heie, Dr. Harold 1935-2024

HEIE, ALDRIDGE

Posted By: Marjorie Brunsting-Volunteer (email)
Date: 1/11/2025 at 13:41:03

Mr. Harold Heie, age 89, of Orange City, passed away on Monday, November 18, 2024, at the Prairie View Home in Sanborn Iowa in the presence of several of his family members.

Harold was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 19, 1935 along with his twin brother John, to Henning and Nelly Heie, immigrants from Norway

In light of his interest and ability in science and mathematics, Harold studied for an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, a Masters degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California, and a PhD in the Aerospace Sciences at Princeton University, after which he worked briefly in the aerospace industry at the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City, California.

On June 23, 1962, he married Patricia Aldridge, the love of his life and partner for 62 years, at Hillside Lutheran Brethren Church in Succasunna, NJ. They were blessed with three children: Johnathan in 1963, Janice in 1964 , and Jeffrey in 1967.

At the age of 13, he made a commitment to “follow Jesus” at a worship service at the 59th Street Lutheran Brethren Church in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Harold’s life has exemplified that commitment and his stated belief that “following Jesus is a dynamic process, in which the steps you now take to follow Him will give you greater insight into how to faithfully continue following Him.”

It was during his studies at Princeton that Harold made a major career change, based on the inspiration provided by a professor of electrical engineering, Dr. Forman Acton, for whom Harold served as a Teaching Assistant. Forman loved both his subject matter and his students. This inspired Harold to decide that he wanted to become an equally effective teacher (of mathematics) to which he devoted 17 years, 12 at the King’s College in Briarcliff Manor New York (1963 to 1975) and 5 years at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts (1975 to 1980). It was during his early days as a VPAA that Harold discovered his gift of being able to listen well to the concerns and dreams of his faculty, which laid the foundation for his later Respectful Conversation Project (described below).

It was during his time teaching mathematics that Harold discovered his administrative skills, which led him to serve for 8 years (1980 to 1988) as Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa; 5 years (1988 to 1993) as VPAA at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania; and 9 years (1994-2003) as the Founding Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College (now the Center for Faith and Inquiry).

Harold retired (sort of) in 2003, when he and Pat moved back to Orange City. During his retirement years, Harold’s work has focused on his commitment to orchestrating loving and respectful conversations among persons who have strong disagreements about contentious issues (like same-sex marriage and political affiliation/involvement about “hot-button” public policy issues), both through local small-group conversations and more extended conversations on his website www.respectfulconversation.net (the two aspects of his Respectful Conversation Project).

The highlights of Harold’s accomplishments over his many years as a teacher and administrator at four Christian liberal arts colleges pertain to the very significant role he played with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU). He provided leadership for Faculty Development programming for faculty at CCCU schools for many years. This included him initiating and leading an Initiative Grant Program for Networking Christian Scholars that still thrives today, and speaking at over 50 CCCU schools and at numerous regional workshops sponsored by the CCCU on the meaning of the phrase “The Integration of Faith and Learning,” which Harold believes focuses on making “connections” between two worlds of knowledge that are too often separated: the realm of “biblical and theological understanding” and the realm of knowledge in the various academic disciplines.

Outside of the realm of academics, Harold has also initiated a number of local projects, which include an annual Latino Festival designed to celebrate the culture of the growing number of Latino residents in northwest Iowa and a glass recycling program that enables residents of Orange city to care for the natural environment that surrounds them.

Harold’s dearest friends will tell you that the Christian value that he has held to most tenaciously was the value of “truth”; so much so that he came to view the essence of Christian liberal arts education as “conversations seeking truth”.

Harold also exemplified a deep commitment to the Christian values of “empathy” and “humility” that enabled him to beautifully exemplify a very rare combination in our increasingly fragmented and polarized us-versus-them tribalistic American culture: holding with deep conviction to his/her own beliefs about the “truth” regarding the issue at hand AND at the same time believing that he/she may be “wrong” and can learn from loving and respectful conversations with those who disagree. Harold’s apparently utopian hope was that when each conversation partner (CP) is given a “safe and welcoming” space to tell his/her conversation partners the “reasons” for holding to contrary beliefs about the issue at hand, which will unavoidably reflect his her “personal life story”, those in conversation will discover that each CP may see things that the other has missed due to their differing life stories. In other words, each CP may have captured a portion of the “full truth” about the issue, but because each CP is finite and fallible, that portion is incomplete, and a more comprehensive set of beliefs can emerge from talking lovingly and respectfully about differing “partial glimpses.” It was Harold’s commitment to this very rare combination that deeply informed the Respectful Conversation Project that he has focused on during his “post-retirement” years.

Harold is survived by his wife Pat, His son Johathan (Shiela) of Sioux Center Iowa, daughter Janice of Aspen, Colorado, and son Jeffrey (Tammy) of Harrisonburg, Virginia, grandchildren Stephanie TeGrotenhus, Lacey Julius, Noah Heie, Samuel Heie and John Thomas McCormick.

As requested by Harold, his body was donated to the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. A family memorial service was held at his home in Orange City, IA.

Source: Oolman Funeral Home online obituary.