The Future of Abilene Christian College

The Future of Abilene Christian College THE FUTURE OF
ABILENE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Don H. Morris In these days of uncertainty it would be foolish to attempt to make predictions or to outline the future of such an instituion as Abilene Christian College. It is my purpose, therefore, at this time not to try to tell you what the future of Abilene Christian College will be, but to talk to you about what we should like for the future of this school of ours to be and to call your attention to those things which will determine what it will be.

What should be the future of Abilene Christian Col-lege? First, let me call your attention to the fact that Abilene Christian College is a school, an institution of higher learning. That may not be. the most important thing about it, but it is a school.

We should remember also that Abilene Christian College is a liberal arts college, a college where the arts and sciences have an important place and where the core of the curriculum is made up of those subjects which we have learned to think of as being in those fields of learning which lead men and women in the paths of how to live.

1/ believe that Abilene Christian College can serve many students in a better way if we who have the re-sponsibility of its direction will carefully and delib-erately add to its curriculum some of those subjects which have to do primarily with how to work. We have already made some steps in this direction. We have now a strong department in business administration. We have been offering for many years courses in pre-professional fields. We have offered courses in the practicable working sciences. Now we are making definite plans for the addition of a department of agriculture and animal husbandry. As I have said, such new departments should be added carefully and deliberately to our program of liberal arts studies, but as we do add new departments the school must see to it in the selection of instructors and in the providing of facilities that nothing but the best is offered to the student. The work of a new department need not be extensive. It should be intensive. The college also is making plans for the addition of graduate work especially in the department of Bible. If present plans materialize, graduate work in this department will probably be added by September 1945. From the standpoint of the college the school should conduct its work in such a way and should provide such equipment that it will enjoy the highest rating that may be given by college and university standardizing agencies. At the present time the college is a member of the Association of Texas Colleges and is on the accredited non-member list of the Southern Association of Colleges.

Sometimes, not often, the question is asked whether the meeting of the standards set up by such agencies has any effect on our own particular purposes and ideals here at Abilene Christian College. The answer is that these associations, rather than discourage a school like ACC in its own peculiar purposes, encourage it in attaining whatever ideals and purposes it may have. In fact, one of the methods used by the Southern Association of Colleges in measuring the efficiency of a school is to determine whether or not this college is successful in accomplishing its own ends. The next question we should ask is—What should the future of Abilene Christian College be from the standpoint of its purposes as a Christian college. I speak for the Board of Trustees and for the entire faculty when I say that the hopes and the aspirations of the school must be built here. The college in this particular, in its purposes and ideals as a Christian college, must grow and grow into more usefulness and service. We must—we promise—we must ever keep in mind to guide and determine the activities of the institution in such a way that its students may continue to grow into characters—honest, solid, dependable —who may in their lives exemplify strength and love, and humility and power, wherever they live and whatever they may do. The college must continue to grow in effectiveness as it holds before its students God as God and Father, as it holds before its students Jesus as his Son and Savior, and the Bible as God’s book “once for all delivered unto the saints”. In all Abilene Christian College must give its students the opportunity to prepare themselves for the businesses of life and at the same time for greater service, not leadership—that will take care of itself—but for greater service that they after they leave Abilene Christian College may be used up for the good of man and in the service of God.

Now let us ask the question—What will determine the future of Abilene Christian College?

First, the future of the college will be determined by the kind of board of trustees that it has. The Board of Trustees is the policy-making body of the school. At the present time there are thirty-five members of the Board, all of whom live in Texas. These men, all members of the Lord’s church, are on the Board because they are interested in serving humanity and the cause of truth through the college. As Brother Cox has just told you, the charter of the school guarantees that all board members must be members of the Lord’s church and in good standing in their home congregations. Brother J. B. Collins as president of the Board has just told you of the plans that the Board has for the future of the college. In the second place, the future of Abilene Christian College depends upon the faculty of the school. The faculty carries on the detailed work. It carries out the policies of the Board. It is the policy of the Ad-ministration of the college and the Board that faculty members should be selected with the greatest of care both from an educational and from a Christian standpoint. We realize full well that “as is the teacher so is the school.” In the third place, the future of Abilene Christian College will be determined to a great extent by the kind of congregations of the church that we have in the future and the kind of homes that make up those churches. It is these homes and these congregations from which our students come. Our records show that at the beginning of school each fall semester more than eighty percent of our students are members of the church. A part of the other twenty percent come from church homes. It is difficult to estimate how much such students from such homes contribute toward the making of a school like Abilene Christian College, but we do know that they do contribute much toward the building of the school. The students determine to a great extent the tone of the campus. They are what we work with. They live in their homes among leaders of their local congregations for sixteen or seventeen years. They live here at Abilene Christian College for one or twro or three or four years. Now you can see how the homes and churches have much to do with the school. It should probably be said in addition that of the twelve thousands ex-students who have attended Abilene Christian College approximately eighty-eight percent now are active members of the church of Christ. In the fourth place, the future of Abilene Christian College will depend upon your helpful interest in the school. It will depend upon your good will and your suggestions and even your criticisms which we wel-come. And in the fifth place, the future of the college depends upon the financial support given the school. A school like Abilene Christian College must have money. This money should be spent wisely and well. As to how the school carries on its business from a financial standpoint I give you as reference any banker or businessman in Abilene.

Let me say here that those of us who work at the college appreciate more than we can say the financial support that has been given the school. During the past thirty months approximately ten thousand individuals have made contributions to the college. During its history probably between $750,000 and a million dollars has been donated to the college. Since of the twelve thousand ex-students eighty-eight percent are active in the church, it means that the college has cost its friends between $75 and $100 per person for its part in one lifetime of Christian service.

What does Abilene Christian College need? I am sure that I could convince any person in the audience this morning that the college could use now, or immediately after the war, and wisely, at least a million dollars. You know that we do have on a campaign to raise $325,000. Contributed at present in bonds, cash, land, and in good pledges we have approximately $83,000. This past week we learned that the college will be a beneficiary in a probated will and that this will amount to approximately $10,000 which means that we have approximately $93,000 of the $325,000 goal which we must reach at the earliest possible time. Can Abilene Christian College realize these worthy ambitions? Can it grow in equipment so that it may better serve its students and can it grow in the great purpose that it has to teach students the way of Christian living? Yes, this can be done if all of us will believe in and consecrate ourselves to the great cause for which the college stands and if all of us will lend ourselves to the building of its future.

Brother J. S. Burgess is one of the most respected and popular men on the Abilene Christian College campus. A part of the time he tends the shrubbery on the campus and at other times he serves as night watchman for the school. Recently he told me this true story.

Many years ago the Sheriff, as the students call him, lived in the hill country ten or twelve miles south of Abilene. In the same community lived a young couple with their little son two or three years old. In those days there were plenty of rattlesnakes and real wildcats in that area. One day the little boy wandered off from the cottage, or dugout, where its parents lived. The mother missed it and searched for a little while frantically for the child. Mr. Burgess, now the sheriff, was called in, and then other cowboys came. There were fifteen or twenty of them, one going one way and one the other. Finally the sheriff called them all together, told one man to get on his horse in one place and another man at his place twenty-five or fifty yards distant and then the next man on at about the same distance. They lined up on their horses, each man at his place in the line, and they went over one of those hills ffl an unbroken line and then over another until finally just as the sun was going down the man who told me the story stumbled up on the little tot and picked him up and carried him back to his mother.

Now that is the way the future of Abilene Christian College will be made. Each man in his place, all of us working together for the continued building of an efficient and effective college that is a Christian school. Let us hope and pray that all of us may do our work in such a way that it will be pleasing unto Him who has blessed the institution throughout its years.