Legends in the Hall - In Focus - Azusa Pacific University

APU Life: What were some of the decisions you remember that were pivotal in keeping the university Christ-centered?

Cliff: Two or three come to my mind immediately. One would be when we had a great deal of pressure related to accreditation. We had achieved Bible college accreditation that carried with it specific requirements for Bible units. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges felt that too many of the general education units were taken up by demanding 30 Bible units.

Two schools gave us considerable help: The University of Southern California and Claremont College. They began to accept our units for transfer. And in that process, they really validated our credits. That small act helped us achieve regional accreditation. Compromising then would have been easy.

There has always been an opportunity to compromise in relation to faculty. You want the best trained and prepared faculty, but Christian colleges in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s were turning out missionaries and pastors, not scholars. So it was a question of where do we get our faculty.

Well, we've never compromised, and God consistently raised up solid scholars: Leo Firman and Taylor Jackman, both of whom were at Cal State Long Beach in the education department. God brought them to Azusa Pacific and used them here to begin our education department. Each held a doctorate and long standing assignments at Cal State Long Beach. They both finished their careers at APU.

Another pivotal decision occurred while Dr. Sago was president. We had many international students that were not Christians. The Kuwaiti Embassy approached us and said, "If you want our students, you must exempt them from chapel." So there was discussion, but never that we would agree to let students abstain from chapel. Dr. Sago said, "No, a student that goes to school here will go to chapel."

The Kuwaiti government immediately pulled about 50 students out of school. Well, that's a lot of tuition dollars! The importance of chapel was put on the line, and we said, "God's going to take care of us and you're [Kuwaiti Embassy officials] not going to dictate those decisions. We're not going to compromise."

Hank: Tuition provides 95 percent of our revenue, and the Kuwaiti students' presence was critical to our financial well-being. Our budget was always being stretched. To lose 50 or 60 Kuwaiti students impacted us significantly. These were tough issues to deal with, but the principle was more important than the money.

APU Life: You've seen this place grow from a small Bible college to a comprehensive Christian institution. Where do you think Azusa Pacific is headed in the next 25 years?

Hank: I think that the opportunities for APU are unbelievable. During my 35 years, we have grown from 600 to 6,000 students.

As you look at demographics pertaining to 25 years from now, it is projected that we will have between 10 and 19 million more people in California. There's going to be an ever-growing need for people to go to college.

The Church needs places like APU to continue its growth by training ministers, lay leaders, and Kingdom builders. In terms of attracting students, I believe we could have 25,000 students at this university. The real issue is can we hire the dedicated, Christian faculty who love students and are there to help prepare them to make a difference in the world for Christ.

Cliff: It's also going to depend on the staff at the university. How strongly are they going to respect and support the president, the provost, and the remainder of the administration? We're dealing a little bit with it now in relationship to faculty and scholarship.

We have said through the years that we're a teaching institution, and we're going to find the finest teachers. Well, teachers have to do research in order to remain vibrant. Not, however, to the extent that we become a research institution. We need to be training practical people. I sat beside an associate commissioner for the California Interscholastic Federation. He has a master's degree from Azusa Pacific University. He told me, "You know, the most important thing to me at APU was that faculty gave me the opportunity to find answers to what I was really doing. It wasn't some theoretical thing. It was something that helped me in my work and continues today." I hope we'll keep that element at the university. We'll also have to address endowment in the coming years. We can't continue being tuition driven.

Today, we're wrestling with waiting lists: how do you determine who gets accepted? Is it based just on a GPA and SAT score? If it is, we're going to miss a lot of people who could make a difference in the world today. So how do we make those kinds of decisions? That comes again from the president and that person knowing, understanding, and defining what this university is.

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