FOR ALL GENERATIONS 
The University
Board of Trustees a few years ago was discussing investment policies,
when a surprising realization came over the group. A trustee observed:
"Samford University will never retire or wear out. It has been operating
for 160 years. It stretches beyond our own lifetimes." Most of us
mere mortals think in terms of the one lifetime that is allotted
each of us, but institutions are longer-lived than we are. It was
an impressive moment.
At another Trustee meeting, equally memorable, the topic turned
to what makes persons willing to take on the burdens of Samford
trusteeship? In a moment of out-loud contemplation, one of our long-term,
outstanding businessmen Trustees rose to speak. He is a man of great
success and esteem, now retired, who has made significant gifts
to Samford and persuaded others to do so -- a Christian man, one
not preoccupied with piety (I think he would allow me to say) or
church politics. He proceeded to give a touching personal testimony
that went as follows. He said:
I am not a graduate of Samford. I came on this Board years ago,
largely because my father was a graduate of this school, and I have
to tell you that I have become far more interested in Samford than
I ever intended to be. But all my work for Samford and my support
is because of its Christian commitment. Aside from the Christian
element, Samford is just another fine private university, but I
am not interested in it on that basis.
A silence fell over the group as he spoke
and when he finished there was a chorus of "Amen" and "me, too,"
"that's exactly right," etc. In my three decades of working with
boards, that was one of those prize moments I shall forever hold
in memory.
Two significant points were subtly affirmed with strong conviction:
(1) a university is forever; (2) Samford's distinction lies in
its commitment to being a truly Christian university.
Thinking about the life span of a university, thousands of colleges
and universities have gone out of business, merged, gone bankrupt,
etc. But in our country, Harvard celebrated its 350 th anniversary
in 1986 and, globally, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, often thought
to be the oldest university in the world, has been there since the
900's. Universities have staying power and at 163, Samford is a
mere toddler.
While hundreds of American colleges and universities were started
by churches and with churchly intent, someone has estimated that
now somewhere between 50 and 100 are seriously attempting to take
Christianity into its core processes, to be more than "thinly Christianized,
" (to use Will Herberg's phrase) and only about half of those
are strong, academically. If those numbers are correct, Samford
is one of a very small number.
This institution was chartered in 1841, opened its doors in 1842,
without sufficient funds or planning. Certainly, none of the original
15 founders could have foreseen, either the travail or the success
that their offspring has achieved: its closing during the Civil
War, auctioned off in bankruptcy in 1884; the move to East Lake
in 1887 and eventually, to Homewood in 1957. But not in wild flights
of fancy could they have dreamed of the beautiful campus we enjoy
today, the prestigious rankings that have come to us, the financial
stability that has evolved, the outstanding students and faculty
we now attract. Because no one of us achieved it, and because it
is true, it is not bragging to say that only a couple of decades
ago, no one -- not even our best trustees, friends and supporters
-- forecast the rising status and reputation that Samford enjoys
today.
Grateful as we are for what has been achieved, Samford has many
needs. I hasten to an overview. About 65 percent of our student
population is undergraduate. If Samford added 400 undergraduates,
we could add some teaching positions, make the university more efficient,
and more interesting for undergraduate and graduate students, alike.
That would require about 300 new residence beds. And since we are
not able now to house all undergrads, we would like to add an additional
200 student residence spaces to serve the current enrollment. So,
the net sum of needed residence spaces is 500 at an approximate
cost of $20,000 each, or about $10 million. Over the next ten years,
that is what Samford should spend to become a university of 5,000,
with a stronger undergraduate population.
We want Samford to continue attracting outstanding students -- not
only those with high ACT scores, but students motivated to high
achievement, to sharing the Gospel, to serving others, to making
the world better -- including students with modest means, and from
other nations of the world. Some $20 million in endowed scholarships
will be needed just to keep pace with rising costs.
Twenty years ago, Samford had not a single funded, endowed professorship.
Today we have 17. But over the next decade-or-so, Samford should
establish at least another 20 endowed professorships, costing somewhere
around $30 million.
We wish each individual school unit had a separate endowment. Some
do, but four Schools are at present unnamed, and could be endowed
and named with a minimum of $10 million each -- Performing Arts,
Law, and Business, as well as our evening unit, Metro College. Such
funds supplement operating monies and support transforming measures
of improvement. That is another $50 or $70 million.
A significant advantage to every school and department, is regularly
to bring in outstanding scholars and teachers to allow our students
and faculty to dialogue, gain insights, become familiar with their
research, their methods and scholarship. As endowments, these opportunities
can be made available every year. If we had 25 such established
programs, endowed with about $100,000 each, it would support instruction,
stimulate students, and encourage our faculty. The price tag for
such a project is $2,500,000.
We all celebrate today's students' concern for lifetime physical
fitness and conditioning, but that calls for more playing space,
and a proper fitness/wellness center. The Student Government Association
has helped plan such a project and has done excellent research.
To combine an arena for recreation and athletics, and for holding
Commencement and special events on campus, encompassing a fitness/wellness
function, would total $25 to $30 million.
We hope soon to begin construction of an essential music recital
hall with attendant facilities for instrumental music. We need renovation
of Robinson Hall, renewal of Brooks Hall, to finish renovation of
Ralph W. Beeson University Center, to remove or re-build J.D. Pittman
Hall, re-plumb and re-wire older structures -- these and other requirements
total over $100 million.
You can see that the future is already making demands. The outline
of this plan we announce today, approved by the Board of Trustees,
is threefold. First, we build upon the basic elements of this institution,
which are not buildings. A few years ago, we participated on campus
in a national series of Roundtable discussions with our own faculty,
staff, and students, sponsored by the Knight Foundation. The guest-facilitator,
a newly retired president of a major institution in California,
chosen by the Knight folks, had no previous knowledge of Samford.
When the process was over, he told me that on the different occasions,
three words dominated all discussion. They were academic, Christian, and community. To
that visiting president, those three terms surfaced repeatedly in
what he regarded as a remarkable demonstration of unity of purpose,
a fitting essence for Samford. I was highly complimented. In consequence,
the Board of Trustees has approved "A Promise" printed in your
program today, to state the bedrock elements of Samford University's
identity and mission to guide our future. As a matter of trustee
policy, these three words, thoroughly consonant with what our Baptist
founders intended, constitute a commitment to coming generations.
Secondly, during this spring semester I am appointing three task
forces of students and faculty to review how Samford can best make
significant advances in the next decade, reviewing each of these
three areas of "Promise," and reporting to me by May 1. These
task forces should offer practical insights that will guide the
next decade of forward movement.
Thirdly, Samford is today launching a new effort, intensifying
its public presence, more prominently claiming the public's attention,
and aggressively gathering resources, both short-term and long-term.
Some time ago, I was advised that Samford is far too shy and reserved
about telling its story. A friend challenged me to confront the
public so it knows how important Samford is to this community, the
state, the region, and to the nation. Almost every state has at
least one strong, private-non-government university that contributes
to the quality of life, to choice among the college-going public,
while having a significant role in the state's livelihood. Clearly,
Samford is that university for Alabama. Most regions of America
have at least one strong academic and seriously Christian institution.
Clearly, Samford is that university for the Southeast. Within the
next couple of months, you should notice Samford more prominent
in media and in the public visage.
Of course, we have to have funds. I have recited a list of millions
of dollars-worth of pressing needs that cannot be filled with the
wave of a magic wand. And they will be required over the next 10
to 20 years. New intensity will instill our fund-raising.
Now, you may ask, is he announcing a capital campaign? The answer
is "No." Campaigns, with extreme goals and creative accounting
to reach those goals, are popular in our time, but usually last
about three years and then campaigns end -- and a new campaign must
begin. That is monotonous, if not tiring, to donors and to the public.
Rather than end one campaign just in time to start another, we will
seek to be in a perpetual campaign mode. I call this new effort,
a "harvest," because we seek to harvest the tangible expressions
of love and loyalty that have been planted, watered, and cultivated
over the years.
We have a great case. Samford is a special place, an alternative
place. This is a university of life-long, life-changing significance.
More than can be measured on any scale, lives and destinies are
shaped here. One outstanding young man who graduated in '94,
has just returned to Alabama. Especially bright, from here in Birmingham,
he accepted a scholarship at a high-profile private university in
another state. Before his freshman year was up, he phoned me to
say he had made a wrong turn. That institution was a disappointment,
its students preoccupied with the party lifestyle. He wanted to
transfer to Samford. Here, he found a more supportive environment,
more easily engaged faculty and fellow students, met the young woman
who would become his wife, refined his hopes, went on to Harvard
Law School and to clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, to work
in a major Washington law firm, and now, with his wife and young
son, has just returned to this state as Alabama's Solicitor General.
I think of a young MK ("missionary kid") from South
America who came to Samford in the late '80's, met an attractive
young lady and today they are married with a family, they live abroad,
and he has responsibility for a multi-country territory for the
International Mission Board.
An older alumnus in New Jersey phones me periodically -- his way
of keeping in touch with his Alma Mater. He loses his
composure when he recalls a wonderful history professor, who totally
re-directed his life here more than 50 years ago. When I review
the roster of retired faculty members, I ponder the total of persons
they have touched for all time and eternity, even while laboring
here for modest salary, and an even more modest retirement.
I have reached that stage of life where I walk across the campus
and think of those of an earlier generation, persons I have been
blessed to know so well, who have left their fingerprints on Samford,
though now gone: Ben Brown, of Ben Brown Plaza fame; Dwight and
Lucille Beeson, Ralph and Orlean Beeson, of the remarkable Beeson
Family; and others less well-known but extremely important: Lucille
and Steve Dorroh, Paul Piper, whose funeral I assisted with only
last week, and many others still living -- thank the Lord -- a number
of them here today.
Only a few months ago, Samford received the proceeds of the estate
of Mr. and Mrs. Enos Cuthrell, a quiet Baptist couple, who never
went to Samford, never had children. Our Dr. Charles Carter was
their pastor at Shades Mountain Baptist Church. They ran a small
business and out of a deep sense of Christian stewardship, they
decided years ago that, when each had finished the earthly journey,
all they possessed would go to Samford. Mr. Cuthrell passed away
in 1974, and Mrs. Cuthrell died last spring, at age 92. Their significant
life estate will be supporting Samford and its students for all
time to come.
In this country, every one of us takes advantage of a free and
open society bequeathed to us by others. As the Book of Deuteronomy
says, "We drink from wells we did not dig; we are warmed by fires
we did not kindle." (Deut. 6.11) So, we enjoy a Samford that is
the result of sacrifice, the "blood, sweat and tears" of other
generations. In their time, honest, hard-working people supported
this place, prayed for it, encouraged its leaders, kept it going
and growing, and today, we are the beneficiaries. If we are not
freeloaders, who take but do not give, each of us wants, in our
time, to take a fair share of the responsibility for Samford, so
it will be strong for coming generations.
The New York Times Magazine said some time ago that if
you are a member of an average, American, college-graduate household,
you are richer than 99.9 percent of the human beings who ever lived.
In blunt terms, the Magazine said, "You are stinking
rich." We, the comparatively rich of this world, have a responsibility
for those causes in which we believe.
What I have outlined today are not plans that will be accomplished
in weeks, or even a couple of years. This is a marathon and not
a sprint. Some may ask: Look, Corts, you've been at this for more
than two decades, why choose now to make a heavy-duty effort at
sharpening Samford for the future, intensifying public awareness
and aggressively seeking such large sums of money? Well, it is clear
to me that there is "a season for everything under the sun." One
unfinished season for Samford, in this generation, is for Samford
to be granted its rightful share of attention, appreciation, and
support. Participating in a university is like being in a relay
race -- our generation has the baton for a few laps and then we hand
off to another. That is the way the Lord's work gets done. Like
many faculty, staff, trustees here today, I have given (and am
giving ) this University the best years of my life. I do not
begrudge a minute of it. I would cheerfully do it all over again.
But the achievements earned to date did not come by coasting -- they
came by hard work, creative thinking and sacrificial giving. We
cannot rest on the attainments of recent years and simply fade into
the sunset. Beyond personalities, Samford, the university that will
outlive each of us, must boldly grasp the destiny within its reach.
It has taken many generations for Samford to become a thriving,
strong private university. We cannot allow it to slip in
our time.
If you believe in Samford and are willing to support this special
effort, I ask you to stand just now as an act of affirmation and
dedication.
THE PROMISE
Samford University will be an academically vigorous Christian university
that coordinates a strong, effective educational program and encouragement
of Christian belief and service, within a community that respects
its individual members and encourages each to highest and best levels
of performance and conduct -- academically, socially, spiritually,
physically.
The above statement entwines the aspirations of the original Baptist
founders with those of succeeding generations in the hope that future
generations of Trustees will remain true to the Promise.
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