State of the University

 Note: This address was presented to the faculty and staff of Ohio Valley University at the opening session of the 2011-2012 school year on August 17, 2011.

O. P. Kretzmann became president of Valparaiso University, a Lutheran school, on Oct 6, 1940. The world was deep into war. America was doing all it could to stay out of the conflict. It was a dark time. The Great Depression haunted every business and affected every school. Supplies were flowing to the Allies across the north Atlantic.

As Kretzmann stood to give his inaugural address, he said it was like entering the world’s winter, not knowing when or if the springtime would come. The world seemed under the power of the barbarians. It was not a good time to become president of a Christian university. Then he said, “I can only say that I am persuaded that lost causes are the only ones that are finally never lost.”

During one of the initial interviews that I had with the search committee at OVU, the issue came up of why I would want to be president of this university. I forget now exactly what I said, but I can tell you the reason why I came. During that discussion, Professor David Hamm said something. My wife, Sally, and I have talked about his comment a great deal. As the discussion of that question wound down, David said, “Schools that struggle for their very existence depend more on God.”

That day almost 61 years ago, Kretzmann reminded his audience that God is not on the side of the strongest armies. He said, “He may not balance the scales of history every day, but when He does, the weight of the universe is on the side of truth and mercy and justice and faith and hope and love.” If God is with an institution, they cannot lose. If God is with us then no power on earth can hinder OVU from accomplishing its mission.

As I take the driver’s seat of this university, I promise to drive it on the road to our eternal destiny. I have absolute confidence in that destiny. There can be no other.

The task before us this fall is to transform lives. From the beginning to the end of Scripture that is God’s primary task. He wants it. He does it. He empowers it. He makes it happen.

We are a small school. In all the ways that count, our size makes absolutely no difference to our mission. We are not interested in quantity, but quality. There is no point in producing 100 mechanics who know how to use a screw driver if not one of them knows which way is the right way to turn it. It is one thing to train a thousand people to drive a car; it is another to train people to drive the car who know where it’s going. Because we are small does not mean we make no difference. We dream that the lives transformed here will be of the quality that they will exert more influence, make more progress, open more doors, and achieve greater heights than they might have otherwise done.

It is possible to hear this as overconfidence and prideful. I apologize for that improper impression. OVU is not the light; at best we are a mirror. OVU is not the water of life; at best we are a pipe. OVU is not the bread; at best we are the plastic bag in which it is delivered to the world’s kitchen.

We send out students with a respect for truth. We give the world men and women who value integrity, respect, hard work, and responsibility. We seek to train young adults who admire diversity, who have experienced the work place under an well-trained guiding hand, and who value the worth of all human beings.

Speaking about mission can lead to over simplification and even sentimentality. We know our task is difficult. In the thoughts of Kretzmann, how do we produce people who are committed to truth and still open minded, who are deeply spiritual but highly intellectual, who are not of this world, but know every inch of it. Many would say we are an oxymoron for thinking such poles can meet, but we believe they can, see that they do, and promise that they will.

One of my teachers, E.H. Ijams said that ideas are more powerful than bombs. Bombs destroy a building, maim a body, and tear up a road. But ideas can destroy a civilization, cripple a soul, and block the road to any good future. We have no explosives at OVU, but what we do can empower a new world. We have no power as the world sees power, but what we do can transform a nation.

Despite the secular nature of our culture and the irreligious approach of our educational industry, the biggest and most discussed questions of our day continue to be the spiritual ones. What is the nature of God and can we continue to believe? What does it mean to be human? What do I do with these spiritual questions that continually come to mind? Those are not the add on things we debate in this university, but the core issues we discuss.

Some would say that the greatest concerns this university faces are finances and enrollment. Those are critical issues. They could spell the end to this or any school. Yet if we set ourselves to the task of saying we are on a quest to integrate faith and learning, to do it within a high quality academic environment and within a strong Christian community, that we are owned by and exist for the fellowship of Churches of Christ, I believe that there are people who believe in that dream, who will join us at our side, who will write the checks, send their children, and pray to the God of heaven that OVU must succeed in its dream.

All Christian schools debate the intersection of Athens & Jerusalem. How do we maintain integrity with our chosen discipline in Athens, keep our professional memberships, accurately reflect the academic requirements of the land and yet be people of faith in our Jerusalem, honor our religious heritage, and worship God? Why is it that we are here? What makes us distinctive? What is our vision?

Let me propose the following as the immediate vision for this university. It need not be our vision forever, but it is one we can achieve, it is one we must achieve, it is one that we are well on the road to achieving.

Our vision is to do integration of faith and  learning better than anybody else. We all know some of the schools who do it so well. Let’s do it better than they do. Let’s do it better than Calvin College. Let’s do it better than Wheaton and Abilene. Let’s excel beyond Baylor and Valparaiso. Let’s be the best school in the nation that integrates faith and learning.

We may not be big, we as faculty and staff may not have gone to what world considers best schools, we may not have best campus, we may not have most majors, we may not draw the top SAT scholars, but we can be a fully integrated Christian university better than anybody else.

All universities deal with words. This university deals with the 1,010,649 words in the English language. But we deal with them based on the Word become flesh. Hydrogen and Oxygen make water here just as they do at Marshall, but here we begin with the realization that all water is made by God. Botany and Zoology are part of our curriculum, but here we know that plants came on Tuesday and animals on Friday. There was a plaque outside the building that housed the Theology and Philosophy departments at the school where I took my doctorate. The inscription debated, “Is philosophy the mother of theology or is theology the mother of philosophy?” At that school philosophy was on the second floor and theology on the first floor. At OVU we don’t need a DNA test to determine maternity.

Transforming lives in an academic community that integrates higher learning with biblical faith and service to God and humanity is our mission. If we excel in staying on task, several things will happen.

First, students will be transformed. God will do his work. Incorporate faith and service into higher learning and God will add the increase. It works. Most of us can tell stories of our own personal transformation. We can regal each other with tales of former students who came in with a chip on their shoulder and left with Christ in their hearts. They arrived to cause trouble and they left to change the world. God will do his work.

Second, if we stay on task, people will notice. We will attract more students. People of means will want to partner with this institution. A fully integrated Christian university is like a magnet. It pulls in. It attracts. After all it’s our mission that bonds us to our constituency. Our Board of Trustees, our President’s club, our donors throughout the nation do not align themselves with us because we have the best buildings or the highest degrees, but because we are about transforming lives through the integration of faith and learning. Do it well. Do it better than you’ve ever done before. Let’s be the best school anywhere doing it. As the word spreads, so will the support.

Third, if we maintain our focus, if we take every opportunity in every single class, in each conversation with every student to fully connect faith and learning, we, too, will be transformed. Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great says the first task in building a great institution is to get the right people on the bus and make sure they are on the right seat in the bus. I believe we have the right people on the OVU bus. I’m glad you are here. I think we have the right people in the right seats. I’m delighted you do what you do. Once you have the right people on the bus and have them in the right seats, then the bus can move on to its destination. When we arrive there, and that arrival comes in stages as we witness this transformed coed and then this changed ball player and then this converted freshman, when we see that happen, we are filled with satisfaction, fulfillment and a sense of accomplishment.

Why is it so easy to misplace the mission of the university? Maybe it’s not so much misplaced but misappropriated. Meeting the demands of consumerist society and students raised in that environment constantly push us away from the road on which we were meant to travel.

The road we follow is the one less travelled. It is not the four lane super highway with roadside stops, and big green directional signs. The road we travel is often overgrown from lack of use, occasionally washed out from financial landsides, and sometimes filled with potholes from attacks made by the dominate culture.

Often our partners make demands on us that push us off our narrow dirt road. Driving the university down the big four lane makes better press, attracts more attention, seems more relevant and contemporary. Why not aim to have our school on American Idol program in order to enjoy a moment of nationwide attention? Why support a university that takes the back road through the rocky terrain when the bulldozers of modernism and the work crews of post modernism have cleared the way on the freeway.

We do well to remind ourselves of the pointed observation of Jesus that the broad roads continually beckon, fill with happy travellers, and offer fewer obstacles on the way. Most GPS systems don’t even have the narrow road, if one should happen to find it, it takes a steady hand to keep on course, and he says we encounter few fellow travelers.

Our goal is not to be effective. We will be effective. Our goal is to be faithful. Our mission is not to train young people to be qualified for the best jobs in the land. We will train young people for the highest level jobs. Our goal is to prepare their lives for eternity. This is not a monastery where students come to escape life. This is a launch pad from which students rocket out to change lives. This is not a market place where all goods are available for the lowest cost. This place is a store that offers only the genuine article. We have no $10 rolodexes and no $1 illegally copied DVDs. OVU is the real thing.

I want to spread the news about a hidden treasure I’ve found on this hilltop in the Ohio Valley. For me, there’s no better time to be alive and no better place to be than OVU.

The task before us is great. Our time is short. We must approach it with commitment. We must remain humble. We must trust God. We must single-mindedly and relentlessly drive toward the goals which we have set under the guidance of Almighty God.

The students are about to arrive. They bring with them all sorts of issues and concerns. I say bring them on to OVU. They are about to be transformed.