Traditional Connectivity Much is made these days of 'cmnectivity'. Terms like bandwidth, server capacity. gigabytes, and a whole lexicon of terms describe the technical infrastructure on which the process of keeping people in comael depends. Social networking has become a big topic in recent years. The telephone, and even email, have been supplanted to some degree by Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, and a host of other options to slay 'connected' to friends, past and present.
These wonderful digital tools now are seemingly indispensable to keeping us together. Electronic connectivity is a reality of modern society in which we and much of the rest of the world exisi. I have been drawn into this environment reluctantly, but am in the flow nevertheless. My preference for being connected, though, is a connectivity of the heart. My associations with friends of college days involve such a connection. I don't have to be in touch with them on a daily basis, though this possibility is available and appreciated. With the close friends made on a university campus like Southern Nazarene University, a Christian college with deep faith roots, my college friends can reassemble anytime anywhere and feel the 'connectivity' that many crave. My hope is that many readers of our annual report know exactly the emotion described above because of your experience at SNU. It's hard to explain 10 someone who hasn't had such a heart bonding as that which happens on this 111 year old campus. As you read the SlOries of a few of our graduates and their descriptions of their experiences here, I trust you will warmly recall your time during those formative years of educational pursuit. Connectivity with people is the focus of this report and I hope you will feel an appreciation for an institution that provided the setting for the relationship making that occurs here. On a deeper spiritual leW!l, I trust you will recall times when your connectivity to Christ and the faith of our fathers was deW!loped and strengthened. It is because of the connection to Him that the other relationships are given more than transitory human significance. May He be the Center of each connection that you have with the significant persons in your life.
Sincere Best Wishes,
~~ l oren Gresham, President Southern Nazarene University
Connection is about things joined together. It's about unity. Solidarity. Continuity. It's about firsts. The first handshake with a new friend. The first time your father said he was proud of you. The first time you held hands. But the most powerful aspect of connection is the exponential value. One leading to another...which leads to another. People are connected now, more than ever. Our phones send messages all over the world. We've got hundreds, if not thousands, of friends on Facebook. We have HD television signals beaming to space and back. Blogs and vlogs with daily updates. One-hundred and forty character diatribes of detail. It seems like such a simple and natural thing, to connect person to person. But do we really connect? How is it that the connections we should be most concerned about are just put on the Dack burner? Connections with old friends. Connections with family. Connections with a church. Perhaps if we were plugged into a community that never let us go, we would feel it then. And, maybe, if we sacrificed for il...it would be there for us when we needed it most. Then maybe we would always feel that soul-to-soul connection. The way we're meant to live. Connected.
SNU is a place of deep connection. A place that can put a smile on the face of a tired US Soldier. A place that fosters a legacy of fourth generation alumni. A place to take family photos. A~d a place to i~vest your life's work and build a foundation for the future. Some find this connection in the patience of a professor who has explained the lesson to you several times. Some see it in a frie~d who simply was there for you late one night in the dorm. Or that one speaker in chapel who completely changed the way you thought about your relationship with Christ. And some find connection in all of these things together over time. For over one-hundred years now, SNU has continued to foster true and genuine relationships. Weaving lives together. Revealing tod's calling in your life. Opening doors to complete a mission. And, ultimately, dedicating a life's work to Him - who is worth working for. As you read the following stories, we hope you will feel a connection to each person, as well as to Southern Nazarene University.
View the An~ual Report ONLINE - I~duding BONUS features! Watch for this icon throughout indicating video interviews to be viewed at www.snu.edu/connection
路Jay's umr, Delta Company' 19th Infantry, returned home with no losses due to combat and were (he hlghesr d<!corated Unit of the 45th IBCr; with the most Combat Device awards. SNU was honored, In October of 2008, {O serve as host and staging site for the welcome home ceremonies for more than 2,600 soldiers of the 45rh Infantry of the Oklahoma Army NaltOnal Guard.
FALLING CLOSE Graham Morsch rOgl sits down on a newly built bench in the courtyard of the Marchant Center. He glances up at the nea rly century old trees with trunks you can not reach around, with branches hanging overhead. Trees that have endured ice storms, hot August days and yet year after yea r produce shade and dazzling fall colors, And, Graham can't help but smile inside at the thought of all the generations that have sat under Ihese trees. When Graham Mo rsch walked across the stage as he graduated last May, he was handed a diploma, just like everyone else, But in many ways it was not just a diploma that was placed in his hand. He was passed a baton that came from three generations ea rlier. The Morsch family has seen four generations at BPC/BNC/SNU, and they're sti ll counting, It Started in 1910, when Josiah Erbin and Lina Altha Westmooreland Moore attended BEthany-Peniel College. They began a family legacy that would last a century. "I remember my grandma telling me a story about when she th rew a snowball at my grandfather .. ,in the classroom, and then slipped and fell," he says with chuckle, "Or the time my dad organized a group of students to dribble basketballs 15 miles to a BNC lBethany Nazarene College) men's basketball away game," The stories Graham grew up with were stories that are intertwined with the life and history of the university today, When Graham's great grandparents were students at Bethany-Peniel College, the school had just built its first do rms. His grandpa rents would see Bresee Ha ll rise up on Route 66. And Graham's father would see the Redskins playing in Broadhurst gymnasium. "There's a great value in having a family heritage here, It's neat to have professors that already knew me and my family. And to have professors who were kind of looking out for me. M'{ dad had Dr. Gresham for political science when he was here." But with all these family conne:tions, when does legacy give way to individuality? How can one find their own connection, despite so much family histo ry? "I didn't want to go to SNU just because my parents had been here, my grandparents, or my great-grandpa rents ... 1 didn't want to just have my
Family photos remind us. They remind us of hairdos that probably should never come back. They remind us of styles that weren't so flattering. They remind us of faces that used to smile and laugh together. Or how small we were. Is it possible, that family photos also serve to remind us of where we are going? Rev. Shane Rackley rOOI, pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, seems to think so. He has pictures of his four daughters at about every age in his hallway. Pictures of his wife, Ellen 1'98), early in their marriage. Pictures of himself and his parents. Pictures in his office. Little marks of time. Frozen moments in frames and monuments. "My wife says I'm too sentimental," as he laughs a big heany laugh. Those sentimental memories come quickly when he Slam talking about his years as a
student at SNU. He was called to ministry shonly after his conversion to Christ in the midst of an eight-year educational journey. "I've taken classes at a various schools trying for different types of degrees. I jokingly, but at the same time very seriously, say that I was a full-time student for eight years." For the lasl three and ha lf years of his education, he found what he could only describe as~ "different atmosphere" than the other schools he attended. "The places I haa been before were either extension campuses ota large state university or something of that sort. And I wasn' anything more than a number. The professors had full-time jobs and they taught in the evening. It was very obvious that they were just there to do a job, to draw a check ... but when I wcs at SNU there was a real strong sense that the professors not only cared about me, but were invested in my success."
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"It became very clear to me that my P;::r.:f~:
were fu!filling God's call on their life by i their lives in my life. When people do
changes the whole dynamic of the educat;'"
receive. "
That's where we've taken pictures every year. That's where we go for our legacy walks. That's where 'Mee-Ma' (Ellen's mother, Linda Sharp! works. That's where Dad went to school. I want them to have a familiarity with the campus. So they have that connection that's built in."
Connection with c community. Connection with a legacy. Connection with God. And for the Rackley girls, connection will begin in their photo albums.
This dynamic made an impact. An impact worth
passing down. And now, every year Pastor Shane and his wife, Ellen, walk around the campus of SNU with their girls, and tell them stories about their years at SNU. Pastor Shane tells Anna and Alice about the time he helped blild Centennial
Plaza when he worked for grounds crew. He talks with Molly as they walk by the dorms where mom lived. AVd he'll take Mattie th[ough the
So Pastur Shane takes photos of his daughters on the SNUs campus; a tradition he's been continuing for years. He does it not 10 simply document his girls growing older but document the environment in which they grew up. To document the community they've been a part of. To develop a connection with who they will become and to a future.
religion building where he spent many ours and
days. All of this, to try to give them a sense of the good times they had al SNU. "I really see SNU as my school. And it's important to me because it's an exte~sion of who I am.. and I want my girls to ave a connection. want, for them, the ubvious choice to be SNU. I want them to tiink, 'Ch yeah. SNU.
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" ... so heritage is important...because what I invest in my children, for every life that they touch, becomes kind of my responsibility." Maybe photos aren't about funky hairdos and awkwardly fitting jeans. Maybe they're not about smiling and saying, "Cheese!" Maybe they're about capturing moments of soul to soul connection . 11
52%
48%
• REVENUE, GAINS & OTHER SUPPORT FROM JULY " 2008· JUNE 30, 2009
•
$22,697,356
Federal & State Grant $204,642
mt!I!m
. 1)lII'
$5.485.390
• Private GiltS
& Grants
$4,572,043
• Educalll:H1 Departments 5589,150 $3.186.262
TOTAL REVENUE: $30,797,036 LOSSES, Split Interest Agreements ($640,644)' Investment loss ($S,291,163)"
EXPENSES
TOP TEN CLASS YEARS BY NUMBER OF PARTICIPATING DONORS CL ASS OF 1969 -
55
CLASS OF 1972 -
44
$1.910.562
CLASS Of 1971 -
44
$9.370.413
..
CL ASS OF 1910 -
42
CLASS OF 1968 -
40
• Student Services
CLASS OF 1963 -
40
CLASS Of 1974
39
CL ASS OF 196 1
38
CLASS OF 1967
37
CLASS Of 1952 -
35
•
$16.286.909
.'•
naBS.917 n.169.233
,
'
$869.199
TOTAL EXPENSES: $38.475,233 NET CHANGE IN ASSETS: ($7,678, 1971-
FROM JULY 1, 2008· JUN E 30, 2009
Business Corporation Support
* The amount of market losses in
TOP TEN CLASS YEARS BY TOTAL GIVING CLASS OF 1964 -
894,456
CLASS OF 1969 -
$83,678.84
CL ASS OF 1976 -
$74,759.36
CLASS OF 1951 -
S10,592,56
CLASS OF 1959 -
S68,891
CLASS OF 1913 -
S61,830
CLASS OF 1966 -
S54.156
CLASS OF 1949 -
$48,218.95
CLASS OF 1980 -
S46,848.28
CLASS OF 1994 -
S46,201
the endowment required to be covered by unrestricted funds had been recovered through market gains 8S of December 31. 2009.
SNU broke ground on the A.M. Hills Residential Complex in November of 2009. This project represents the single largest construction project in the history of SNU, at an estimated cost of $12 million. The projected opening date is January 2011 . This new facility will house 290 students and will offer more variety in on-campus housing. For more information about the pro/Bel and to View {he LIVE construction webcam VISI! www.sflu.edu/newresha/J
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