In Focus

As I Prepare to Leave the Helm: A ‘Thank You’ and a Challenge

Today, as I write my final Focus column, it is President’s Day, the holiday on which we celebrate the birth and life of two of our greatest national leaders, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Washington’s Farewell Address was the most eloquent and memorable piece he ever penned. In it he spent little time rehearsing and defending his accomplishments over his 45 years in the service of his country, but he challenged his fellow citizens to continue resolutely to build a nation upon faith and morality. He thanked them for the privilege of being their president. Then Washington concluded with fervor “to beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils” that might flow from his mistakes and failures.

Washington set out a fine model for my own “farewell” column after 45 years of service in Christian higher education, 33 of those years at Bethel. I, too, wish to express my deep and sincere gratitude for the privilege of serving as Bethel’s president. Thank you. I most certainly w

ish also “to beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate” the consequences of my own considerable mistakes and failures.

I hasten to say, however, that though my name is also George, I am not so presumptuous as to compare myself to George Washington or, for that matter, to Abraham Lincoln. But I do challenge you “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work” of Christian higher education, especially as we seek to fulfill Bethel’s mission and to operate in accord with our core values.

What are some of those challenges of work yet unfinished?

Sustain enrollment gains—and core values.

Over my 33 years at Bethel enrollment has tripled and diversified, student retention is at an all-time high, and through our high graduation rates we have achieved elite “Medallion” status as an institution. It is far more important that these bench marks have been achieved while we held firmly to Bethel’s evangelical and pietistic identity and have operated intentionally with our core values before us. In the near future, though, in light of demographic changes taking place such as declining high school graduation rates and increased competition, it will be very challenging to sustain those enrollment gains. It will be tough, yet our core values must guide Bethel’s recruitment strategies and admission standards as we seek to find the best and brightest who wish, as Christ-followers, to become salt and light and world-changers.

Select and support excellent faculty.

Another challenge Bethel University will face is to enlist faculty members and deans, and coaches and conductors who are passionate evangelical believers but also persons who care deeply about students and who are highly effective scholar-teachers and mentors. My first recruit after I came to Bethel as college dean in 1975 was Bob Suderman, director of the library and learning resources, and he has been one of my best ‘hires.’ But tomorrow I will recommend to the trustees the appointment of four remarkable young scholars, holding their doctorates from places such as Cambridge, Ohio State, and the Stanford University Medical School, women and men who readily embraced our mission and core values. Their testimony to the transforming power of the gospel in their own lives is powerful and will be easily grasped by their students. I am confident that 35 years from now they, too, will be valued as highly as Bob Suderman is today.

My challenge is that you support, pray for, and encourage the work of such women and men who understand that it is God’s purpose for them to invest their lives preparing Christ-followers who love His Church, who view the world with global perspectives and are ready to be agents of reconciliation, and who will carry their faith convictions with civility into the public square on His behalf.

Meet ongoing facility needs.

The University Commons, Bethel’s most ambitious and urgently needed project, is now under construction—on time and on budget. The trustees are preparing to adopt an exciting Campus Master Plan to construct the next set of needed facilities in attractive, environmentally sensitive ways that will preserve the natural beauty of the campus. No tuition dollars are ever used for construction costs so generous donors must step forward to fulfill this plan. Related to this is the challenge of reaching new levels of stewardship, as called for in the current comprehensive resource campaign.

Keep Bethel within financial reach.

Still another very big challenge is to keep Bethel affordable and accessible to the very students for whom Bethel exists. The challenge is to provide the endowments and scholarships that will make it possible to meet the financial needs of all the students who wish to be prepared for kingdom service at Bethel.

Pray for Bethel. Live with purpose.

Finally, I want to challenge you to pray for Bethel University regularly and faithfully that we may continue to fulfill our mission with integrity to our core values. And I want to challenge you to live out your own lives with purpose according to those same biblical principles.

God bless Bethel. God bless each of you.

George K. Brushaber
Fourth President of Bethel University