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Legacy Voices – Pages
Legacy Voices: Our View of Today’s University
From the President Emeritus, Dr. James Womack ’63
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I parked and walked around campus the other day, thinking about the 126 years of this remarkable University. As I walked, two things pressed on my mind. First, for a campus to thrive in three centuries requires a succession of superior leadership. Studies today have concluded that institutional success is all about leadership. Second, resources play an essential role in a university's achieving its mission. Where students study, eat, sleep, and worship makes a difference in their education.
From my perspective, Bushnell University has superb prospects looking forward. It has a strong heritage of courageous leaders, beginning with its namesake, James Addison Bushnell. What a great name.
Look at its present leaders. It has a forward-thinking Board of Trustees and a management team of a president and vice-presidents who are uniquely qualified by education and experience. Their example as church leaders is impressive, too.
Gazing at the donor recognition wall in the Morse Center, I realized many generous contributors still support the University. Numerous new donors have joined them. Several years of income exceeding expense, including funding depreciation, is evidence of fiscal discipline. The financial leadership of benefactors and administrative budget restraint is a consequential strength.
The University's faculty has achieved degrees from an impressive variety of notable universities, nationally and internationally. They are a faculty with broad experience to create degrees, craft curricula, develop academic policy, and design internships. They are spiritual mentors as well. Many counselors and directors are life coaches in the residence halls, library, business office, and student life offices. Bushnell students are blessed.
Present-day student leaders continue the tradition of mature, energetic, community-minded involvement that enriches the city and campus. And they are open about their Christian faith.
As I walked through the Goodrich Administration Building, it became clear that some facilities are inadequate. University leaders can overcome some dull resources. However, the campus needs attention, and program areas require growth and enrichment. Of course, campus leaders know this better than anyone.
I am delighted with the people, programs, and plans of the University and pray for God's continued blessings.
From Dr. LeRoy Lawson ’60, former President of Hope International University
In my home church, the children’s choir announced Sunday evening service by singing, “NCC, NCC, we all want to go to NCC!” It might have sounded like blatant propaganda to the adults, but to us kids it seemed entirely appropriate, especially since First Christian Church regularly sent support checks to Eugene to keep open “our” college’s doors.
When I headed for Northwest Christian College, I had no money. My dad lost his business my senior year. I got “to go to NCC,” though, because that same loving church crafted a full-tuition scholarship for me. That’s how much they believed in NCC.
In 1959, North Willamette Christian Evangelistic Association planted Tigard Christian Church. The NWCEA board called this young man from Tillamook, not yet a graduate of NCC, to be the founding pastor. One of our first orders of business was to develop a robust missions program. We made certain NCC was a major recipient. The new church already had some young people who deserved the privilege of a Christian college education.
I’m sharing this bit of biography as a way to express my debt to my home church, my early partners in Tigard Christian Church (now a campus of Northwest Christian Church), and my alma mater. I owe them much. In those days, by the way, the college was considered an integral component of a local church’s Christian education program.
Bushnell University has come a long way from the Bible college I knew in the 1950's. But if NCC hadn’t morphed into NCU and now Bushnell University, it would not exist today. These days, change is not only inevitable but essential. We simply can’t do college now as we did it back in what we old grads like to call “the good old days.”
I’m grateful that Bushnell’s leaders are facing the future, determined to remain true to NCC’s vision and values while becoming ever more responsive to today’s academic, cultural, and spiritual challenges.
