moving stories - Point Loma Nazarene University

Point Loma Nazarene University presents a
fortieth year anniversary of
MOVING STORIES
The move of Pasadena College to
Point Loma
as told by the participants.
I will go before you
and level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
Isaiah 45: 2
Ronald Kirkemo
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MOVING STORIES
The Move of Pasadena College to Point Loma
2014
© Copyright by Ronald Kirkemo, all rights reserved
Published online by Marketing and Creative Services
Point Loma Nazarene University
Except for brief quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior
permission from the author.
For comments, questions or permissions write to:
Dr. Ron Kirkemo
Alumni House
Point Loma Nazarene University
3900Lomaland Dr. San Diego,
CA 92016
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Dedicated with appreciation to
Robert Foster
and to
Keith Pagan
Jim Jackson
Reuben Welch
Ross Irwin
and to the
faculty, administrators, staff, spouses and children
who responded to the unexpected changes in their lives, made
the move whether in sorrow or fear or adventure, and created a new
and better future for their college in service to the Kingdom and to
four decades of Christian students.
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The words of Phineas F. Bresee
In the providence of God, some property was
offered which would make the beginning of a
Bible College a possibility.
But through the good providence of God, the church
was sheltered from ultimate serious harm, and
to…the larger outcome and service of the college.
What was it that the prophet saw,
when God declared “Thou hast well seen”?
That these people had received the promises,
and like Abraham, did not stagger under them,
but looking all difficulties and sacrifices and sufferings,
and even impossibilities in the face, knowing that, with God, all things are possible.
The enthusiasm was that of men who see the certainties of things in divine light,
who distinctly hear the voice of God calling them to heroic duty.
It has seemed providential to change its location. After careful
and prayerful study and examination of the possibilities,
a large and beautiful tract of land has been purchased in Pasadena…
Though the purchase price was $165,000, yet it was providentially cheap.
As I approach El Paso, there is a shadow upon my soul. Here
among strangers, died the best friend I ever had.
And yet to know that a man can go steadily on…glorifies human personality.
There is here a united affection for Dr. Bresee in his illness. It is not idolatry
for a man, but affection for a man of God used for our blessing
Taken from Rev. E. A. Girvin,
Phineas F. Bresee: A Prince in Israel
Pages 349, 436, 349, 419, 350-351, and 453
In these words are echoes of 1972-1973.
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THE WORDS OF DR. W. SHELBURNE BROWN
Excepts selected and arranged by Ron Kirkemo
PURPOSE – “Free Indeed” – Undated, late 1960s - Series on Institutional Purpose - Soul and
Mind: To be a liberal arts college in the Wesleyan tradition. What do we mean by liberal arts?
The end and essence of liberal education is freedom, and responsibility for self and society.
Wesleyanism is the combination of the Catholic concept of holiness and the Protestant concept
of grace. Our “spirit of place” is to have a hungering for knowledge and hungering for God.
Chapel Message – October 16, 1964 – Spiritual Development: It has been about two weeks
since our revival meeting and I’m wondering how you are getting along. About two or three
hundred of you came to the altar that week. But there is a familiar pattern, so today some of you
may feel a little discouraged spiritually. Check the instruments of prayer and the Word of God
and walk on, for if you continue walking with God, He will bring you home safely.
Chapel Message – February, 1965 – Spiritual Development: One of the processes of education
here at Pasadena College is for you to work out your own philosophy of life, until you not only
have it written down in your mind but live by it. The Apostle Paul gave his philosophy of life in
these words: “For to me to live is Christ.” What will you build your life on? If we seek first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all these other things take their proper place.
TASK - “The Thrill of Pioneering” – Undated early 1960s:- Providence:
One of the greatest joys the District Superintendent ever experiences is
received when it is his privilege to blaze a new trail in some needy new field,
and with blessing of the Lord, open up and establish a new church.
Baccalaureate, undated – Isaiah 62:12 – Paul went to Ephesus, home of the
worship of Diana. There was nothing favorable yet Paul said a great door of
opportunity had opened for him. We must not waste time and opportunities.
Time and experience are irreversible. Some people have the daring to attempt
the impossible. Why doesn’t the church?
Last Baccalaureate Service on the Pasadena Campus - 1973 – Isaiah 62:8-9: We have gotten
away from much of the great symbolism of Canaan in recent years. [In one of his baccalaureate
sermons Dr. Wiley] talks about the preservation of the “old corn and the new wine.” The old
corn represents the conservation of the enduring spiritual qualities. The “new wine” represents
exhilaration, the adventurous. The old corn is the truth upon which the soul feeds. The new wine
is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that makes the truth real and alive.
There are some of you who are saddened by the thought of the school moving away. I share it
too. There are those who are delighted with the prospect of the move. What God wants us to see
today is that He has sworn by his right arm—the symbol of His power—that He is able to
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conserve our values, and if we will obey Him, the harvest we have planted we will also reap, and
be able to feast upon it in the courts of his holiness.
Report to the Board – March 1974 - Spiritual atmosphere where God can guide: At Point
Loma College we have come through an historic transition. Only now can we begin to see the
magnitude of what we have attempted and completed. I want to affirm now that I am more sure
of the leadership of the Lord in the whole undertaking at this moment than in any of the months
through which we have passed. Our faith has not all turned to sight, but enough of it has been so
transformed that we build more and more solidly on the basis of answered prayer,
Report to the Board – October 8, 1974- Providence: There are few experiences in life more
gratifying than to step out in faith, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and see God fulfilling
His promises in the events of life. It would seem to me impossible to look at what we have
witnessed without recognizing the hand of God in it all. We just launched into our second year
on this Point Loma campus. I believe it is accurate to say that we are up to or ahead of every
projection we made as we tried to carefully anticipate the future.
MISSION - “Strangers in Paradise” – Faculty Workshop – 1974 - Graceful decency: [Began
with Milton’s words “to justify the ways of God to men” in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”] But an
event of this magnitude [relocation] is pregnant with possibilities for self and institutional
renewal. How much of that potential we have, and will realize, is not yet apparent. College
operations are intensely complex, [the campus is large and we could lose touch with each other.]
Let me express a concern that we all may become strangers to one another in paradise. Our goal
is not to be “Strangers in Paradise” but a holy fellowship. Ours is not a job; ours is not a
profession alone; ours is not another task to be completed; ours is a mission and an ordination
under God. We can do something significant. We can make a better world through youth. We
can write the record in some measure this year as “Paradise Gained.”
Baccalaureate 1975 – Isaiah 62: 8-9 – Hearts and Hands: One out of every 25 persons who ever
lived are alive now. In 1961 the world’s food reserve of grain was enough for 91 days. It is now
down to about 26 days [and] 10,000 die of starvation in Africa, Asia and Latin America each
week. God is concerned about the hungry of the world, and we should be too. Perhaps the
greatest revival the world has ever seen could come about through feeding the hungry of the
world. Is it possible that with the resources we have in communication and transportation that
we could take the Word of God with food for the body to bring hope to a hopeless world?
“What are we here for?” Address to the Faculty – September 18, 1975 – Holiness as
wholeness: We are a Christian college. Does that destroy academic freedom? Not in the least. No
individual lives without a basic commitment of some kind. The words wholeness and holiness
come from the same source and have many facets of identity, [for] the wholeness of life is
created by the living fusion of faith and learning. Watergate: a symbol of moral confusion. What
more cogent, practical, necessary, relevant task could possibly be imagined to challenge our best
efforts than the challenge of sending into our nation a group of young people who have the
ability to make moral decisions, who have a clear view of ethical issues, and whose lives are
characterized by that beautiful word “righteousness.”
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CONTENTS
Words of Bresee and Brown
4
Preface – Vice President Joe Watkins
8
Introduction – President Bob Brower
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Foreword
11
1. Be Still My Soul
The first dialogue of recollections and reflections
17
2. Be Thou My Vision
Bresee’s vision of education, the First Move
33
3. Ponder Anew What The Almighty Can Do
Negotiating the Second Move
59
4. Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
Faculty interviews
89
5. Grace That Blows All Fears Away
Student interviews
132
6. Thy Strength Shall Be In Measure
Interviews on rebuilding the college
161
7. To God Be The Glory
A group dialogue of perspectives
207
8. Afterword
244
Documents
266
End Notes
274
Bibliography
281
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PREFACE
It has been just over forty years since the college moved to San Diego.
It really came to my mind some years ago that we needed to preserve and document the events
as well as the stories of all the people who were involved in the university’s move to San Diego.
Originally the plan was to simply build a set of recordings but as we heard these stories of God’s
goodness and guidance to this institution as well as the individuals, I felt that the stories should
be made available.
These stories really matter to us because people paid a price to leave jobs, retirements, friends,
churches, plans and all the rest, and all because someone else made the decision to relocate. We
need to appreciate what was done for a better future for the college. Moving a Christian college
involves more than moving books and desks; the intangibles of culture and core values must also
be reborn in new circumstances.
The stories matter because they document God’s continuing role of provision in the life and
history of this college, in leading and guiding individuals, in remembering his promise to this
institution through Dr. Bresee and Isaiah 62, and in going before us to open doors.
At a more fundamental level, these stories help us preserve the ancient biblical oral and written
traditions to recount God’s activity among us. Without such preservation the young people who
come in the future, and those who will fill my role, President Brower’s role, and other university
leadership positions will not have any sense of how this came to be. In my mind, therefore, this
is an important book and needs to be written with integrity.
To that end I asked Dr. Ron Kirkemo to undertake this special project. He is a sensitive as well
as skilled writer. As a political scientist he understands structure and decision-making, culture
and future planning. As a writer he knows what is important and how to turn a phrase.
This is a valuable book. Enjoy it.
Joe Watkins
Vice President, External Relations
June 26, 2014
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INTRODUCTION
Presidents deal with choices and the future, and always in the context of a situation. Only to a
few are given the opportunity to make significant change, be it good or bad. The opportunity of
1972 was momentous, the risks high and the outcomes uncertain. President Shelburne Brown
was convinced it was the Lord’s will to move the college to this site, but the obstacles and the
risks were so unrelenting that many believed it would never happen. Sometimes leaders have to
convince others that the good of the institution is worth their personal sacrifice.
A factual story of the move would be valuable, but Dr. Joe Watkins, who was a student at the
time of the move, wanted to preserve the personal stories and the providential reality of the
move. How do Christians respond when they are unexpectedly told the president is going to
move the university? Some were happy and some were distraught.
Dr. Ron Kirkemo is a graduate of Pasadena College. His goal as a graduating senior was to
return and teach here and build what had not existed, a political science program. His was a love
of place and memory and so was opposed to the move. The Lord asked him who he was serving,
that plot of land or God’s kingdom. Dr. Kirkemo chose the kingdom and made the move.
Dr. Kirkemo is fond of asking groups to look out the window and say what they see. Buildings
stand, grass grows, cars run—everything is normal. So the story of the institution’s move can be
told as good fortune flowing from risky decisions on the basis of a president’s personal
persuasiveness.
There is more than the normal here, Dr. Kirkemo says, for God’s presence and purpose are also
here. To tell the story of the move as good fortune is to miss a central factor—God’s providence.
This book is special for it consists of interviews of people who faced the president and board’s
decision and had to find God’s will for their families and futures. And the stories are wonderful.
Dr. Kirkemo completed forty-five years here as a faculty member. He built the successful
Political Science program and raised the funds for two scholarships for the major. Knowing his
field is an art as well as a science, created the Institute of Politics and Public Service which
sponsored speakers, seminars, conferences, and trips to provide students with insights into the art
of public service.
He proposed and led the effort to create the Wesleyan Center, became a member of the
Organizing Committee of the Kyoto Prize Symposium and laid a foundation for Point Loma
Nazarene University to become an official sponsoring university of that Symposium, and raised a
quarter of a million dollars for a new academic building. He loves this school, and the Lord has
blessed his work.
Who better to author this book? As soon as he retired five years ago Dr. Watkins asked him to
join his External Relations team as Director of Special Projects and to write this book. The
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purpose of the book is about more than individual decisions. The move involved change, and the
possibilities for a different and better future.
What will the university be like forty and fifty years from now? Will the fifth president from
now understand the providential nature of the school? Involved in that is whether the move
changed the school in ways feared by the critics of the move. So Dr. Kirkemo was asked to study
the organizational and spiritual values of the school and how, or if, they were re-established here.
Most of the book is built on interviews, and the chapter titles present a providential context—
vision, guidance, grace, strength, glory.
The Afterword is Kirkemo’s conclusion. He invites us to look at a pattern of events that
demonstrates God’s active involvement in this school since its earliest day. He uses the concept
of force-multiplier to explain why the school is so important. He concludes by noting that the
school and it history is a model for each of us, just as God’s movement in our lives is a model for
the school, and the concept for both of us is that God “tabernacles” with us.
May it always be so.
Bob Brower
President
June 26, 2014
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FOREWORD
Shepherds who heed only themselves…are clouds without rain,
autumn trees without fruit and uprooted…They are wild waves
of the sea, foaming up their shame; Jude 12b-13
Children of the heav’nly Father, Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in Heaven, Such a refuge e’er was given.
God His own doth tend and nourish; In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them; In His mighty arms He bears them.
Though He giveth or He taketh, God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely, To preserve them pure and holy .
It is a privilege to write about Christians and the work of the Lord in their lives, especially in a
time of change and stress and hope and responsibility. It is also a privilege to write again about
this college as a means of building Christians and of Christians building the college.
Christian colleges or universities are wonderful institutions for doing the work of God’s kingdom
here and now. Done badly, without the presence and providence of God, they can be clouds
without rain, trees without fruit. Alternatively they can be used for partisan goals and become
wild foaming waves of the sea. But done well, they are a means for building the faith of
generations of young people, preparing them to appreciate the wonder of God’s creation,
providing them a balance to hold steady in times of trial, inspiring them to give themselves to the
least and lost around the world, and equipping them to multiply the work and reach and witness
and appeal of the church. Preparing, providing, inspiring, equipping--a wonderful four.
There is also a set of four. This history concerns the years from 1972 to 1979. That period of
history took place within four other histories. The first is our personal histories of faith and
family, career and church, goals and constraints. Secondly, we were linked to the history of the
college with its institutional history and times of progress or decay. Thirdly, people and
institutions pursue their goals within the larger sweep of natural and social events and processes
of that history, which may be for us fate or freedom. The fourth history is God’s, and he is
present within human history with his purposes, promises, and providence, which may not be
congruent with the times and tides of our lives.
The decision to relocate the college had vast ramifications for personal history. It relied on deep
faith in God’s history, and was a decision of risk because it was a time of price inflation and
political disruption. It invaded and disrupted the assumptions and routines of college students
and personnel. They responded from the perspectives of their personal histories and their
decisions to go with the college or go another way.
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A Foreword advises the reader of what is to come. This book is a series of stories of how
Christians responded to the shock of the unexpected and the search for guidance in a near future
of uncertainty. Where do we find faith and courage, preserve a good attitude, and finally catch a
new vision? What issues and values are central and which are secondary, which require unity and
which allow for freedom?
And so it began. In March 1972 President Brown called a special meeting of the faculty and
announced that the college was relocating. Most of those at that meeting were in shock.
“I remember the meeting. We were about to pay off our mortgage,
we were free of debt, we had a home furnished like we wanted it
and Shelburne Brown says ‘We’re going to move.’ I must say our
home went through a lot of turmoil during that time. We didn’t
know what to do.”
Others were pleased.
“The college was moving and so was I.”
Donors and alumni were in shock. The campus of Pasadena College was holy ground for many
because of the years of hardship they endured so it could survive, the donations to fund the
buildings, and 60 years of campus culture, memories, and meetings with the Lord. Could all that
be left so easily?
Which history will determine the decision—personal, institutional or social? “This will involve
some traumatic tearing up of relationships,” the President continued.
However, the long-term good of the institution seems to fully
merit any hardship we may encounter in the move…
In over 100 homes that evening, husbands, wives and children talked about this unforeseen
decision that would impact them for years. There would be a lot of prayer for some, relief for
some, and a great adventure for some. The discussions also took place within their faith and
calling and sense of service to the Kingdom of God and God’s long-range plans for activity.
God His own doth tend and nourish; In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them; In His mighty arms He bears them
President Brown believed God’s history was determining this institutional history. Brown told
the faculty that day:
I do not know all the details of what is involved in this undertaking,
but am personally convinced that it is a providential opportunity for
the present and for a greater future for the college.
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But there was also human history: the decisions and processes of bankers and lawyers and
government officials, which could disrupt, derail, or even destroy the college and its people.
President Brown also told the faculty at that dramatic meeting, “I have told the Board quite
frankly that there is a risk involved and we might conceivably lose the whole institution.”
Lose the whole institution.
The heart and purpose of all this was the institution. The risk was high, in two ways. The move
might be more costly than expected and the enrollment less than expected, and the school could
be lost. So many people had sacrificed to keep the college viable and comfortable in Pasadena,
and all that sacrifice could be lost.
Others worried about another loss—its culture. This was to be a holiness university. How would
moving from the staid Pasadena to the beach communities of San Diego not lead to the loss of its
Christian values of modesty, seriousness and separation from “worldly values?” What happens to
an institution’s core values when it moves to a different neighborhood?
Was it complicated? Yes. Did everything work out well? Yes. Were these good decisions and
good fortune alone? No. Easy? No. God involved? Yes.
“It was just before our senior year, so there were a lot of questions.
I remember one day making a U-turn on the street and it’s like
suddenly a scripture came to my mind about ‘don’t be anxious for
anything and don’t forget to let God know what your needs are.’
Suddenly a peace came to me about the move.”
“I prayed about it a lot, and one day the Lord laid out two criteria for me.
With those two questions the Lord clarified the meanings of the choices,
and the choice was obvious. Answering those questions brought me a sense
of self and place in God’s kingdom. So we moved.”
The core of the book is a series of interviews with faculty, spouses and students. Since the intent
was not to publish it, I assured the participants that they could talk openly. When the decision
was made to make it available, I did what I could to conceal identities. That was not possible for
the section on rebuilding, so the persons involved read my manuscript for comment. I followed
the story to 1979, just past the year of the 75th anniversary of the college and the year President
Brown died.
The book is called Moving Stories because it was suggested to me as reflecting moving’s double
meaning: the physical move south and the inspiring struggles of moving and rebuilding lives and
the institution.
The center of this book is not the people and decisions, property values and cultural values.
Given the faith-based lives of those involved and the faith-based mission of the institution, the
heart of the events was God. He was a central player. It was through his providence of grace and
guidance they not only made their decisions and moves, but also found solutions to their
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challenges. Through that providence they laid the foundation for a first-rate university, not
for themselves alone, but to serve his hopes and purposes, and to let their lives glorify him.
When the Holy Spirit speaks it is usually like a hymn, softly. When his guidance was sought it
was to know how to live like a hymn of praise to him. Thus, I have used the words of some of
the great hymns of the church as spiritual themes for each chapter. I used “Be Thou My Vision”
for the faculty, but it is also the desire of students. I used “Jesus, What a beautiful name” for the
section of student interviews, but its powerful phrase “grace that blows all fears away” is
appropriate for several sections.
It is my hope that the book will lead the readers to “Ponder anew, what the Almighty can do.”
The writer has enormous responsibilities. People are invested in these events. The most basic
responsibility of the historian is integrity when connecting the dots of evidence and in
characterizing the motives and integrity of people. If wrong, people’s reputations and
relationships can be damaged. If done with a partisan attitude, myths are created about people
and events that could be criticized as cover up. The most basic task of the political scientist is to
define terms and understand decisions. Institutional leaders need to maintain the confidence of
people, and in this history the interests of one institution, the Church of the Nazarene, intersects
with the history of the college. Denominational leaders want to protect an image of sanctity and
unity to protect the kind of “family business” that is denominational leadership, and participants
often have different opinions about the same event.
Twenty years after the move some church leaders still believed it was wrong. A political scientist
has certain assumptions about decision-making which were disputed by some interviewees. In
perspective, interpretations, and insights, the writer makes decisions. To explain some of those
conclusions I included question and answer sections. I also included some paragraphs of
background or interpretation or commentary, and I clearly delineated those to separate my
personal perspectives from the narrative.
I have been in the church since I was a child. It protected me, and formed my basic perspectives.
I remain a believer in its holiness tradition while critical of some of its former methods. My
parents reflected a widely shared belief that Pasadena College was too liberal for me to attend
until my junior year. My dream as a senior in college was to return and teach here, which I did
for forty years. I have known and been close to pastors, district superintendents, General
Superintendents before their elections, and General Board members. I served through four
presidents of differing caliber, four austerity programs, six deans and provosts, and multiple
trustees, some of whom were college friends and some my own students.
The relocation and rebuilding process was providential, personal, controversial and difficult, and
in the history sections I have sought to be honest and fair.
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I want to thank the faculty who consented to be interviewed, and
the former students who returned my surveys. I give a special
thanks to Bob Foster, who was in the middle of it all and helped
me immensely with visits and numerous telephone calls and many
e-mails. His memory, notes and savvy unraveled issues of dates
and purpose and confirmed President Brown’s strong leadership.
Archivist Stan Ingersol responded to many e-mails and telephone
calls.
I also want to give special thanks to Warren Brown,
for his perspective and responses to my persistent emails. A similar special thanks goes to Reuben Welch
for at times weekly discussions. I appreciate all those
who consented to be interviewed. This book is about
them and their stories. I also thank them, for coming
together as a group five times to discuss the issues. I thank them
for their time and effort.
I owe special gratitude to pastor and Trustee Paul Simpson for the
sanctity of his experiences and memories as Trustee in the midst of the year of
Trustee deliberation and decision.
And to Bob Scott and Clari Kinzler, Esther Saxon, Herb Prince, Dale Shellhamer, Dave Brown,
Jim Jackson, Jerry Ferguson, Frank Carver-Cecil Miller-Keith Pagan, Carroll Land, Roger Little,
Joanne Mallicoat, (then below) Vic Heasley and Val Christensen, Craig Furusho, Karen Sangren,
Reuben Welch and Lewis Thompson, Loren and Linda Gresham, and Carol Van Buskirk. Also
to Ben and Sandy Foster, Tom Goble, Bill and Edna Hobbs, and Dwayne Little. These and others
told their very personal stories and helped me see and understand people, decisions, structures,
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concerns, and to them I offer my sincere thanks. I appreciate and
thank those who read selected pages of the manuscript and gave
helpful comments, including John Calhoun, Frank Carver,
Robert Foster, Craig Furusho, Clari Kinzler, Herb Prince, and
Reuben Welch. I also want to thank Barbara Land, Millie
Christensen, Patti Kirkemo, Betty Pagan, Betty Carver and
Betty Prince for telling their sides of the story.
I also want to thank Linda Hasper, PLNU Archivist, for her help.
All of these were a big help. Not all agree with one or more of my ideas, so none are to be held
responsible for any limitations of my narrative, concepts and perspectives.
This book was written with much prayer and I believe the Spirit helped me in my pondering of
several sections. There are books written by Christians about Christians and Christian colleges
which never mention God or the work of the Spirit. For all the dangers involved, I could not
leave out the work of the Spirit in leading and guiding people. The book openly asserts the
participation of God in this move, but to do so leads to unanswerable questions. There is no
transcript or “recording” of such insights to prove their source. The best I can do is to say that
what I have written is my best understanding of people and events that took place within the
providence of God.
I want to thank Dr. Joe Watkins, Vice President for External Affairs, for asking me to do the
project. His concern to get the recollections and reflections recorded was timely, for since I
began this project, four members of that group have passed on to their glory: David Brown, Cecil
Miller, Paul Simpson and Lewis Thompson.
Writing is not a day job with limited and set hours. It requires full-time attention and becomes
a second life, for only when one is absorbed in the writing will insights, meanings, and divine
guidance come, whether working on the material, reading scripture, waiting at a stoplight,
waiting in a medical lounge or walking through a store. When I was a graduate student and
dating a special girl, we were at a dinner when a crucial thought for my dissertation came to me.
I turned the paper placemat over and wrote it out. She still remembers that. She thought I was a
serious person, and married me.
Neither she nor I had any idea that incident would become typical in our
life together. But after six books and chapters in four other books, she was
ready for my retirement. Neither of us knew that I would be asked to write
this book during retirement.
I want to thank my wife for her constant support and who again put up with
a preoccupied husband.
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BE STILL MY SOUL, THE LORD IS ON THY SIDE
Recollections and Reflections – The First Dialogue
September 20, 2009
BF – Ben Foster
JJ – Jim Jackson
RK – Ron Kirkemo
JW – Joe Watkins
SF – Sandy Foster
PK – Patti Kirkemo
LT – Lewis Thompson
RW – Reuben Welch
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.
On May 30, 1972, the president announced that the school was moving to San Diego. Reaction
among faculty was very mixed. Many had homes, spouses had jobs, and memories of campus
years were glowing. It was very unsettling. Be still my soul? It was easier for those with faith in
Dr. Brown, those who rented, or those who were excited about the move. Some struggled, some
criticized, and some were perplexed; then the Lord would speak, and stillness would come. That
happened over and over to both faculty and students.
Be still my soul. Those of us who struggled with the move learned, as the songwriter put it, to
leave it to God to “order and provide” and to be faithful in the changes. Though we may find
“thorny ways,” God is guiding the future as he did the past and one day, all this would lead to a
“joyful end.” So let nothing shake your confidence. That’s a great song of faith, and if we did not
begin with it, we gained it along the way. For the next seven years, until the death of Dr. Brown,
we learned to be still, for the Lord is on our side. It is a lesson for all of us to have faith in God to
order and provide.
This was the first meeting in the Heritage Project: Recollections and Reflections. It introduces
the project and laid the foundation for later individual interviews. The host is Dr. Joe Watkins,
Vice President for External Relations.
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JW - It’s been in my heart and mind for some time that we really
need to gather the history of the move because like Tom Brokaw’s
Greatest Generation, we unfortunately are losing folks from that
season of life. The history in the Christian church is an oral
tradition, but unfortunately that’s only as reliable as those who can
pass it along and as I look across the landscape of our university at
those who were significantly involved in the move, I can only think
of two cabinet members who are still alive. One, Reuben, is here.
The other is Bob Foster. There are just a few Board members left
who were involved in the decision-making process, so when Ron retired I imposed upon him
what we are now calling the Heritage Project, because how you in this room viewed this series of
events and how you responded to them has profoundly shaped this institution. Without recording
this, these young men and women will have no way to have any appreciation for what you’ve
done along the way. When I mentioned to President Brower that I wanted to do this, he was in
full agreement and I mentioned it to Dean Nelson and he agreed with the value of it as well. So,
you are a pilot group for us to test our questions and there will be more follow-up along the way.
Ron, why don’t we start with you. You described a little bit about what your position in the
university was when the announcement was made, but take us back to the moment when you
first heard the idea of the move.
RK – I think it was about two days before the meeting there was the word
moving around campus that there was going to be a move. Not official. I don’t
know where it came from, but at least two days before the meeting there was
word, which was not a happy word for me.
JW – What meeting?
RK – President Brown called a meeting of the faculty in the large room of the
old science building. I can show you the seat where I was sitting. I don’t remember many
specifics of what he said but it was significant enough that I remember where I was. He made the
announcement that we are going to move to San Diego the next year. Cecil (Miller) tells me it
was at that meeting he warned us that it was a very risky thing, that we could lose the whole
institution. One thing I do remember him saying was, “Please don’t go down and look at the
campus. We don’t want to disrupt what is going on down there.” Well, we wanted to know what
we were getting into, so we went down the next weekend to look at it.
We came back from our trip to Cal Western very disappointed. The campus seemed so unkempt.
San Diego was a military town. We drove through Ocean Beach and Mission Beach and didn’t
want our kids growing up near those places. I loved the Pasadena campus, we loved our new
home and church, and it seemed to me it was a bad move. My goal since I was a senior was to
get my degree and come back to Pasadena College and teach political science. That happened
and I was so happy with my dream coming true, so I struggled with the move. I was young
enough that I thought I could go to another college for a better if not bigger career.
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In that process, the Lord gave me three guides, two of which I remember. One was, if I had the
choice of two colleges, one secular and one working for the Kingdom, which would I choose?
The answer was obvious. The other was the song, “Little is much if God is in it.” The third was
like those, and led me to only one conclusion: be still. It was clear guidance to me from the Lord,
so we would go, but not happily, and I remained critical of the move all the next year.
SF - I remember the meeting, but I don’t remember much of what was said. I think I remember
him saying if you can’t go, we will miss you. Did he say something like that?
RK – Yeah, I brought along a letter he wrote to me. I had written him a letter with questions
about the move. His reply is not as bad as I remembered it but it’s the same thing—we’d like you
to go, but if you can’t go, blessings on you, but we are going.
JJ – I remember him saying, “We may lose everything and lose the college and you’ll lose
everything, too.”
SF – But we didn’t have anything to lose. We were so excited about moving to
San Diego. I mean I had the opposite reaction to Ron: well maybe I will stay with
this place a little longer.
RK – We had just bought our first house, had our first child, were deeply involved
in Pasadena First, had a great circle of friends, and I had just written my first
book. I mean those for me are the Camelot years. Those four years I was there
were great years.
PK - Built the new library, and your new office.
JW - Anyone else can jump in with a perspective.
BF – Well I had a little different perspective than Ron. The nine
years I spent at Pasadena College from 1964-1965 to 1972-1973
were some of the best and most important years of my life. I was
excited about the move to San Diego and the tremendous
possibilities it might hold. I had been on the Cal Western campus
many times for basketball and baseball games so I was already
acquainted with this very unique and beautiful campus. I
remember one trip to the campus for a game (that we lost), eating
in the cafeteria and seeing whales migrating along the coast. That night as the bus left the
campus and crossed over the speed bump by the guard shack, I thought, "what a beautiful place
to teach and coach." Another trip including staying with San Diego First Church members,
attending church and visiting with friends. Sandy and I were actually considering a career
relocation to Colorado at the time Pasadena College announced the move. When the college
decided to relocate to San Diego we were glad that we would be able to be a part of the move. I
don't believe for a minute that God moved the college to San Diego for me to have a teaching
and coaching job on this campus, but I am thankful that I was a small part of the Master plan.
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And so the thought on campus, I too had heard two or three days before the meeting that there
was going to be a move. I thought it would be a positive situation and yet it would be a very
difficult move. It seemed that during and after the move there was a sense of abandonment by the
college and by the local churches to the college in the Pasadena/LA area and some of that may
still exist today.
RW –Yeah.
BF – "White flight" was referenced by some folks regarding the move to San Diego and at the
same time growth potential was a huge upside to many. Sandy and I were newly married, young,
naive, living in an apartment and really didn't understand the magnitude of the issues the move
would have on our faculty colleagues. We liked the potential of starting fresh in San Diego .
JW – You three gentlemen were in a different place in the institution than these three folks.
JJ – I’ll begin. I have the longest relationship with the college. In 1938, in the spring, I was living
in a home on Hill Avenue. My job was to be there at night for the man, who had epilepsy. I
served in a little white jacket dinner every night, and the lady was a member of Theosophy. In
the spring, she wanted to go to San Diego to see the Theosophy (Society) and hear the lectures; I
was the chauffeur, so I drove her to San Diego, up onto the campus. There was the temple, and
the other buildings, they were still here, the great dome and all of that, and I parked on campus
while she went to lectures. That was in 1938, when I had no way knowing that in 1973 I would
be here. I don’t know what I’d call that. But the fact is I saw the campus many years before. I
wasn’t thinking like Ben, wouldn’t this be nice?
A second thing, I had a great deal of emotional involvement in
the PC campus. I became a student 1937, I graduated in ‘41
with an AB and ’43 with a masters—six years on campus. A
year after the summer I graduated I met Alice on the park
bench; we sat there under the palm tree and I asked would you
join me in a great adventure? She said yes. It was an emotional
involvement.
Then I was pastoring, but finally the Lord called me back in
1949. So I taught at the campus from ‘49-’73, so I have over 20
years of involvement. I raised money for every new building
on that campus. In 1960, I became Dean of Students, which
meant I had to be sure all the dorms were functioning properly.
This man (Lewis Thompson) came to help me – but the thing
is, I’m telling you I had a lot of emotion going on that
campus—memories you don’t leave easily. So that’s a
backdrop.
I remember the meeting. The thing that overwhelmed us—Alice was teaching elementary school.
She had been teaching for 18 years, had tenure, and was very involved in the district. We had
just recently refurbished our house, remodeled for ultimate retirement. We were up in Kinneloa
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Canyon, an exciting place to live, beautiful. We were about to pay off our mortgage, we were
free of debt, we had a home furnished like we wanted it and Shelburne Brown says, “We’re
going to move.” I must say our home went through a lot of turmoil during that time. We didn’t
know what to do.
So, then, right in the midst of that, I have to tell you another thing. Pastor Lee said to me, “If you
don’t go with the college, we want you on the staff.” I was offered a position. One of the
administrators at Pasadena City College heard we were going to move. He said if you don’t go, I
need you to be Dean of Students at City College. I have the job for you.
OK, add that to the dimension of the decision: Does Alice have a job? Do we have a home in San
Diego? No and no. Do we leave this home that is perfect? That gives you a little bit of what was
going on inside. A lot of emotion. And, how do you decide?
Let’s go back to 1949. The Lord woke me up at night and said, “You ought to be at the college.”
So I resigned the church and came to the college. This is what God wanted. In 1960, I became
Dean of Students. Very soon, Mt. Vernon was being established. They came to me and said, “We
want you to be Academic Dean, to help start the school.” Then the seminary said a little later,
“We want you to come and teach here.” Each time I had to go back and say, “Why am I here?”
I’m here because God put me in this place. This is where I should be.
Remember, I knew Dr. Wiley intimately. I knew (President) Dr. Purkiser intimately. And I can
remember Dr. Wiley saying over and over again, he promised Dr. Bresee that he would always
stand by the college. This became my phrase. That I had to say God called me here. So do I go to
Mt. Vernon? Weighed my responsibilities here. Do I go to the seminary? I’d like to do that. But I
felt responsible to be at Pasadena.
Now, do we go to San Diego? Yeah. Beautiful. I agree with you. Wouldn’t that be great? But
you’ve got a home in Kinneloa, you’ve got family members, you’ve got a job offer in two places,
Alice would still be teaching…what do you do? So, our decision was to stay at the college.
We would drive down and look at houses and discovered every house we looked at that wasn’t
even adequate was $15,000 to $20,000 more than we would get in Pasadena. Alice would cry on
the way home. This is what we went through. But, eventually, the Lord gave us a very beautiful
place. She didn’t have a job and we didn’t know how we would pay for our new home, but in the
meantime we had come down to student services building. How would we use this place? It was
fun in some ways, but then there was the whole moving thing. We spent three months sitting in
the Oak Bridge Apartments because we couldn’t get into a house. All of our furniture, boxes,
sitting around, for three months. School started.
PK – Yeah, we did too, on Mentone Avenue.
JJ – Alice broke a toe. She got up one night and hit one of those boxes.
LT – There was a large group with Pallen Mayberry. How in the world can you desert all the
people who have sacrificed, sacrificed, sacrificed for this place? How can you walk away from
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here? How can you desert? It almost made you feel criminal, you know. They would tell stories
about people putting their homes up for sale, mortgages and things like that you know, and it was
just a load to carry. Just like Dr. Jackson, you had to decide. But I like Ben was just so naïve in
the whole thing; it seemed like a great thing to us. And we did the same thing you did, came
down looking at houses and thankfully God gave us a nice place, and it was right.
BF – Sandy just whispered in my ear that we had it so easy with the move compared to Dr.
Jackson and so many others. I have realized that for a long time and I realize it with even greater
depth today as I have heard you guys share your personal journey. My emotional attachment
toward PC and the campus is ongoing and very real to me. God and through his people in that
very special place changed my life and the direction of my life. I was privileged to be on the
committee for the final alumni event held on the PC campus several years ago. That was an
important and moving task for me to be involved with and I enjoyed it greatly because of my
love of the place and the people who helped shape me. In my mind, some of the finest and most
important faculty members in the history of the university were present during the final years in
Pasadena, the move to San Diego and the early years of Point Loma. The senior faculty, they
were superstars.
JJ – I would just add to that, I moved wheelbarrows of cement to help build the auditorium.
You’d wheel the wheelbarrow up the ramp and then unload it, and it was hard, so…you know,
you look at the auditorium and said, “Hey, I helped build that.” And speaking of investments,
many made by families, the reason we have Klassen (Hall) and Young (Hall) here is to say, “We
still remember these people.” But it was hard, because they said, “You are leaving my
investment.”
LT – And they made a strong case.
JJ – Oh, yeah. Their kids had been there. They’d say,
“There’s no more going to see what we gave.” They’d say,
“Where is it?” and it isn’t there. You meet people who have
invested, and they were almost possessive: “This is mine.”
JW – And you say, in an honorable way, possess it in an
honorable way.
JJ – The other side of that is if you just pull up the roots and leave, you abandon what I did.
JW – Reuben, you want to add any thoughts here? What were you thinking in those days? What
did you experience?
RW – I’m going to talk about the personal thing, because that’s what we all faced, and it was
awful. In two or three directions. The thing that’s hardest was that on the Pasadena campus, I’d
take chapter 3 and start preaching out of I John, what it means to have community, and I really
felt a sense of belonging, and when I spoke in chapel it’s like we knew who we were. And when
I put my arms out it was like I was embracing the community.
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You don’t move a college; you blow it up, and start over on a new track. Nothing here fit. I think
about you guys; I don’t know how you managed it.
JJ – It had a gym and a track.
SF – It didn’t have a Home Ec. building, though.
RW – We had built this moving platform thing, just trying to have something of a platform. We
would roll it out for chapel and then roll that platform back and run to bring out all the (PE) stuff.
I just don’t know how we kept sane in the midst of it. Here’s chapel, we moved from an
auditorium to a gym.
RK – I think I need to jump in here. The thing about it, I look back at the four years after we
came as marvelous years because the student body was so diverse. We’d bring anybody who
could walk as students and they’d flunk out the first semester, but there was such a marvelous
diversity that Pasadena never had. I really enjoyed those years because we had, not weird people,
but people outside our box.
RW – Yes.
RK – I enjoyed those years. They quickly ended.
SF – I enjoyed those years teaching and it wasn’t easy because I remember moving boxes so you
could see, stand there and talk. We didn’t have the facilities we needed, but I was kind of…this
is such a wonderful adventure; aren’t we having fun?
RW – There was a kind of pioneer mentality.
SF – Yeah. I am a country girl and I felt like I was getting out of the city, so I was a happy
camper. I mean we are in a city, but I didn’t feel quite as closed in as I felt there.
LT – No hot water in Young Hall.
JJ – You know we had gas lines that had rusted away, so we didn’t have gas to dorms, for hot
water—they had to have cold showers for weeks.
SF – In classrooms sometimes we didn’t have lights and certainly none of the equipment. I mean
not even an old overhead or anything. It was just like being a pioneer.
JJ - You didn’t have all that kitchen equipment you left upstairs in Neese Hall?
LT – No, in Pasadena you went upstairs to that little room and you saw everybody on campus
everyday.
SF – After chapel.
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LT – In Pasadena, you see them on “the Heart,” and when we came down here it was all
departmentalized. Everybody went to their own department after chapel, so we really didn’t see
anybody down here.
SF – That was good.
RK – To me that was a good thing. There was such a social hierarchy in Pasadena that was
blown apart here.
LT – But I didn’t see Ken Frey in those days.
SF – The other thing, we never intended to be in Pasadena forever, or even in California. I was
living my life in Texas and that was that. I just had the adventure of coming to school in
California. But I do remember that when we moved down here the faculty was so scattered. We
used to always have people come over after ball games, but they lived so far out or just were not
coming to ball games because they’d go home and not want to come back in. I really noticed
that, even though I had not been on faculty that long, there was no sense of community around
the school. And I missed that.
JJ – One of the serious things that happened to us.
BF – The division that you are talking about, Lewis, happened when we moved from divisions to
departments. And Reuben, I remember there were good times after chapel in the gym over here
in what was Culbertson at that time. We still had a sense of place to meet and I think we lost that
when we moved and built Brown Chapel over here as the departments became more spread out
on campus…
RW – Yes.
BF – …with one end over here…
RW – Like coming from Goodwin it would take you all the time.
BF – …so we missed out on that fellowship and camaraderie that I think built community.
RW – That’s true, yes that’s true.
JW – Let me ask a question here – you know I was a student in the move. I worked for Carroll
(Land). I was Steve Riddle before Steve Riddle was born. That first year here, I managed the
athletic facilities, totally oblivious to all this. As a student, I had even less attachment than Sandy
did. In your mind and your view, will you talk a little bit about the social fabric of the campus
and how it changed and adopted after the move? What were the characteristics that sustained the
college during those days of upheaval? What is it that keeps us going down the path?
JJ – One thing I’m sure of is Reuben talking in chapel. I would hear youths and faculty saying, “I
am so glad that we go to chapel,” as Reuben was trying to reach us and bring us in, in spite of the
24
way it was. We sat on this side. Somebody over here would talk to a friend, and somebody
would start reading the newspaper; it was terrible, but faculty began to say, this is one place we
come together and understand our mission. Out of Reuben’s passages it helped.
RK – That is my sense, too, that the main thing that held us together is Reuben, not so much
because we met together, as his sermons were so blasted good. I mean, you didn’t gain anything
in church—I went to church when I went to chapel; it was just good stuff.
JJ – He was doing a series…
RW – I really am grateful you said that, but I’ve come to the conclusion that a Christian college
is the faculty; chapel can help, but it cannot sustain the community. When I think about all that
you had to do, hassling this stuff, day by day, these guys are studying and teaching, I think that
what happens…
SF – That’s what I would have added. And for new faculty and watching them model what this
place was, and they believed in it, so when you ask what sustained it I just don’t remember
chapel. Isn’t that awful? (laughter) I mean, I went on purpose. What you were saying Reuben is
that here’s these people, and we had kind of a little sense of what you sacrificed, but you still
believed it should go on, it should be here, and it was the right thing. I do remember thinking, “If
they can do that, and they had to all this extra, then this must be the right thing and the right
place.” So I think it was the senior faculty that came and then did their modeling of getting
through it and making the best of it and encouraging.
BF – And those were the one I called superstars. Those who made this transition possible.
SF – Yeah, Lewis Thompson chased Benny all over campus when he was a student but he came
back and he welcomed him with open arms.
LT - …but you cannot discount the commitment, the commitment underneath all of this, and you
saw it coming through. People who were going to make it, that was their decision, and I dare
say…
JW – That’s an interesting point you make Reuben, that those who didn’t come were respected
and highly regarded. I know it is secondhand, but what knowledge do you have of those who did
not come?
RW – We don’t.
RK – I never talked to Tom about it.
JJ – I remember (Dr. Fordyce) Bennett; he would have come down but his wife stayed in
Pasadena. He would come down and stay with (Dr. Beryl) Dillman and then go back.
LT – Harold Young
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JJ – So some of these people, I don’t see how they did it. To make that transition.
SF – And for several years.
BF – Bennett driving down early to get here for early morning classes. I remember talking about
all his coffee stops along that way. That’s when the roads were not nearly as good as they are
now.
JJ – I don’t think I could have done it. I think we would have said this place or the other. Two or
three families broke like that.
JW – How many families lived in that kind of bifurcated environment?
JJ – Hazel Dillman, didn’t she teach in Pasadena for a while, and he came down? I think he had
an apartment; I’m sure she kept hers in Pasadena. These wives who were teachers were losing
everything.
LT – Cecil Miller, Irene taught over in LA.
JJ – Yes, I think she stayed up there for a while. So you’ve got Alice, 18 years of teaching, and
when she got down here there were no jobs.
PK – Yes, there was no seniority, you lost all your retirement.
JJ – A testimony – six weeks after school started Alice got a call for student teaching, which was
elementary, just opened the door. It was third grade, she liked first.
JW – You know, isn’t that amazing?
LT – It is.
JJ – We didn’t know what we were going to do down here. She sat at home for six weeks
watching kids go to school, and would say, “I wish I could be teaching.” But others stayed with
their jobs and some came down.
RW – I keep coming back to this idea of commitment, and steady, keep on doing it…a Christian
college is like that.
RK – You knew you were going to come, a lot of turmoil but you knew you were going to come.
It wasn’t a question.
SF – We were happy to come.
JJ – You made a commitment, Ron. You found a formula that said this is what I ought to do.
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LT – And you said, what will we do with those who don’t come? I remember Tom Andrews. He
went to Westmont, didn’t he?
RK – Jim Hedges went to Azusa Pacific.
JJ – Several went to Azusa Pacific
JW – Let me push the conversation a little bit; I’m honored to be listening, but what was your
sense of what was taking place in the administration through all this, to work with the Board of
Trustees and make the decision, now to say to you, we’re going to move, hope you can come, we
will miss you if you can’t, but the response of the administration to orchestrate this move? I
don’t know how to say it, but there’s another world here, and some of you touched it because of
your dual roles.
JJ – OK, well I felt they knew our hurt. For example, it was through the college that we began to
put houses on the market. Now we’re talking 30 houses going on the Pasadena market. We didn’t
know what that would do to prices—but the college was saying we want to support you in this.
Then also getting the moving van and all that; the college worked on how we would move, and
when. There was support, and I don’t remember all the details, but there was, like you, there
were a number of people who had just bought a home. How did the college react? They said we
understand your hurt, so there was an administrative reaching out, trying to say how can we help
you make the transition?
LT – I remember they told us to sell or get rid of all our heavy furniture because they didn’t want
to pay the movers. We had a Drexel redwood dining room set that Barbara just loved and we
walked around that thing and we finally decided, “Too bad Shelburne, it’s going.” (laughter)
RW – You know Joe as you say that, what immediately comes to mind…I don’t know any other
president who could have pulled this off. It was his integrity.
LT – Well, you do remember that this was over a period of time. It would be on and it would be
off. And four, five, maybe six times it was scheduled and then it was removed, it was scheduled
and then it was removed, and that was the other thing that kept everybody just in a state of…
PK – Couldn’t make a commitment.
RK – I don’t know that he said we could move but just thought it couldn’t happen. I don’t
remember Shelburne ever saying, “We can’t do it” but…
SF – There would be a new legal battle…
PK – Yeah, well (USIU President) Rust was just a crazy person.
RW – Yes.
PK – We just never knew if he was going to accept our proposal.
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RK – And then we just moved in spite of not having finalized a deal with him.
PK – Yeah we did.
JJ – This is why he said we may lose everything…
PK - Yeah.
JJ – …because the financing wasn’t there…the whole thing was uncertain.
LT – The interest rate was so high.
JJ – We moved in and didn’t really have anything settled.
PK – We did not own a thing when we moved down here.
LT – Until February wasn’t it?
RK – It closed the end of December. Had it come to January everything would stop and we
would start all over again, from the beginning. That’s my understanding.
JJ – You know what is tragic in this whole thing about Shelburne that Lois (Brown) after he died
said, “You know, the move killed him.” To me, it is so tragic that Lois felt this. And all of us by
that time were saying, “see, it is working.”
SF – Yeah.
JJ – And Lois was saying it killed him. We don’t appreciate what he went through.
RW - I don’t know if we could have made it without Bob Foster. He saved
our bacon. And also the way that Dr. Brown led the effort. I think that in
those early days, the way he was the leader, and then the way he died…it
was really something.
BF – Joe, when you asked the question, the things that popped into my
mind was the way there was respect and trust for the man, in Dr. Brown. He
had this ability to relate to all kinds of people, the students, and every
department, and the faculty person, and seemingly there was always a smile,
just pointing us in the right direction. We saw it on this campus, too; you
would see him walking all over campus. I mean, if basketball practice was at
2:30, at 2:15 he would show up many days in his tennis shoes and workout
gear, and next thing you know, he’s running layups with the basketball team
out there. He just wanted to be where the people on this campus were, to be
involved in their lives. All the other things that have gone on, you know in
terms of presidential responsibilities, the needs and everything, to me it just
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gave me a sense of trust and respect for him and I probably would have followed him to the ends
of the earth.
SF – We had basketball, we had retreats for the team, and he was always there, and you just
knew him; maybe that’s the key, you just felt like he knew you and he knew who you were. And
that goes a long ways for relationships.
RW – And he was the one who could enter the San Diego community…
RK – And be respected.
JJ – When he died, we lost much of the impact of moving into San Diego.
PK – Yeah, nobody ever picked up that until President Brower. Nobody ever cared as much as
he did.
BF – That may be one of the greatest setbacks in the history of the school, his death, and what it
did to the outside community in bridging that gap.
JJ – I was part of Point Loma Rotary and he was known and respected in the downtown club. He
was building people from the community into important contacts, and the next man unfortunately
decided that this is not the way to go and built walls, and we lost it. It has taken a long time to
get back into the community.
RW – You know, colleges are like babies.
SF – And they go through developmental stages don’t they? (laughter)
JJ – Let’s see now, where are we? (laughter)
JW – The other component in this move is the Board. In addition to the faculty, administration
and students, there is the Board. What was your perception of what was going on with the
Board? Were they active, were they present, were they absent? They made the decision, as the
legal owners of the institution.
RW – I have no response to that.
JJ – My response would be that Shelburne was the one they listened to, that he had the Board
behind him and the only time I felt people were very upset with the Board was when they voted
to put Nazarene in the name. That is when this campus said, “Who is this Board; who do they
think they are?”
JW – And how many years after the move was that?
JJ – This was during Draper’s term.
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RW – Probably ’86, ’87.
JJ –You know Shelburne took a lot of flak because we were Pasadena College, Point Loma
College. All the other places I went, all the other colleges were saying, “Why aren’t you
Nazarene?” I said, “Because we have been Nazarene more than any of you.” They would say,
“You just don’t want the name.”
RW – You know when you don’t have it, there is an acceptance over time, but if it is in there and
you take it out, that’s when…
BF – Another superstar comes to mind and that was Dr. Culbertson. I can remember him being
so strong in his faith and he said, “Nazarene is a noun; it is not an adjective.”
JJ – You know, I still protest calling us a Nazarene church. We are not. We are the Church of the
Nazarene. It may be language, but I am not a Nazarene; I am a member of the Church of the
Nazarene.
JW – So, 36 years later, what do you think? Right decision, right thing? If we could do it all over
again, would you do it again?
RK – My sense is we had to move to grow, or stay and atrophy. When I was writing the book
there was a lot of opposition to the college from the neighbors, especially one guy because the
college sought to have the neighborhood designated as blighted. I drove around and looked at his
house. It was not bad. The plan to designate that neighborhood blighted was politically stupid
and morally, to put it mildly, suspect. When we first came and talked with a real estate agent she
asked where I worked. I told her and she turned her nose up and just said, “Oh.” On top of that,
especially with inflation going up to 17%, I believe we could never have built out the Master
Plan in our lifetime while attracting another thousand students in the meantime.
RW – This school is better…
JJ – Many people were worried that we were moving from a school of say, 60% Nazarene to
45%. I think the mix was good for us; it opened us up to ministry, to leadership. I would say this
college, this university, has given a great deal of value to people. I discover they have a
background and I say, “Oh yes.” People they have met up with say this school is doing a lot of
good work. People who don’t know, when they discover I’m connected, they will say, “Oh
really, that’s a great college.” Now, that to me says…
RK - Compared to Pasadena, where they didn’t know who we were or where we were.
RW – I think, for me, when you are a Nazarene college you don’t worry about a lot of stuff
because there is more intentionality in being who we are, and of our spiritual welfare. Jim
Hamilton was the first chaplain, but he was Dr. Finch’s voice. When Dr. Brown became
president we all gathered and he often spoke but he did not consider himself to be the spiritual
leader. I think that’s the first time that the president was not in charge of chapel. When I became
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chaplain, I’d go see him and say, “What do you think about this?” About the third time he said,
“Look, don’t ask me what ought to be done; do it.” And so he released me to do whatever.
JJ – He said that to us, after the control of (President Russell) DeLong and (President Oscar)
Finch…
RW – It took me a long time to believe it.
JJ – This is what faculty meetings began to hear—each one should do what they should do,
BF – Ron, back to your earlier point about diversity. When we reached the cap on the number of
students on this campus, I think we are getting better students, better GPAs and SAT scores, but
something else has happened. The admissions office and those involved in recruiting are doing a
better job of articulating who we are, what we are, and the kind of people we want here and I
think it shows in the makeup of the student body. Certainly it’s far more diverse, and as for
denomination agreement, I’m sure there are some good and bad on both sides of that, but really I
think the cap has kind of freed us up to say this is who we are; we hope you come on board.
RW – I really agree with you on the mix; it’s really a good mix.
JJ - When I came down one of my jobs was to get jobs for students; we had run it out of student
services. In Pasadena we had contacts, here we did not, so we began, some of it before school
started, began to make contacts, and these people said, “Who are you?” But after about a year I
began to hear this: “You know, your students are different.” One man said, “I was losing money
and now with the student I have working, I’m not losing money anymore.” What’s going on
here? He began to tell me your people are beautiful. These are working people. The irony is you
can trust them; they do what they say. This is the impact. Our nurses are wanted, our teachers are
wanted. It is great.
JW – Let me ask one final question, I think all of you alluded to how God moved in your
personal circumstances, when you made the move and the transition down here. Any
observations or insights into God’s provision for the institution as a whole? Ron said to the
Board of Trustees a couple years ago, “This is a special place.” And he tied it to God’s provision.
I’m always very cautious about claiming God because of somebody who is not experiencing it,
that dimension in their life, but somehow we have to be OK with what God does for us. As an
organization, a college, an institution. Is there any sense of God’s work, provision on that scale?
JJ – We have to go back to Isaiah 62 – the college still talks about it, I can remember over at LA
First Church, Wiley speaking in chapel over and over again that God is with us, opening up the
doors; God is still working.
LT – We were much more accepted down here and another a private school, USD, was here, so
we were not all that unusual, not that different. But when we came in where (USIU president)
Rust had been there was a change. I remember an incident, we were having a group come in and
they would stay in the dorms and we didn’t have any excess linen, and I was talking to
somebody over at USD and they said, “How many sets do you need?” I said we need 40. “Send a
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truck up.” And they loaned us 40 sets of linen. They cared whatever we were doing here and it
seemed to me that kind of thing happened often for us down here.
JW – Anything else you want to add to this?
BF – Mission statement I guess – how many times have we rewritten that and studied that? I
remember going through that exercise many times and what always comes back to my mind is
reputation and character. John Wooden said to be more concerned about your character and
reputation. Reputation is what other people think of you, while character is who you are. And to
me, the mission statement and character go hand in hand and I think that’s what we are trying to
project, to be community out there: this is the character that’s Point Loma, these are the people
who are going out there. I just like to take the mission statement and personalize it and make it a
character statement.
RK – That is such a good idea Ben.
RW – This has been good for me, at this point, to be just be together like this.
JW – Well thank you for spending the afternoon with Ron and me; it’s been a delight.
JJ – I sit amazed that you were a student and I’m alarmed that the first graduating class of ’74
was 35 years ago. Isn’t that amazing? I can look back; I joined the Church of the Nazarene in
1935. The church was only a few decades old and I’m totally amazed…
LT – And to see such success; it is so gratifying.
JW – And to have walked with all of you in the dimension of a student and now as an employee.
The responsibility is significant, knowing the investment you all made. It has not been lost on us
as we sit as the administrative cabinet in this room…to think about enrollment and admission,
are we delivering what we promise, are we going to have a full class? That is very close to Dr.
Brower’s heart and he is the kind of man for this season. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
Post Script:
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
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2. BE THOU MY VISION
Vision, Rescue and Interlude
My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for
the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. Ps 45:1
[A] highway shall be there, and it shall be called
the Way of Holiness. Isaiah 35:8
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking
for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went
away and sold everything he had and bought it. Mat 13:45
Abide in me and I in you…I am the vine and you are the branches. John 14:4a, 5a
[Why] do you submit to its rules? “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human
commands and teachings. Colossians 2:21-22
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself
with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Colossians 3:12
May the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will,
and may he work in us what is pleasing to him. Hebrews 13:20-21
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature
and in favor with God and man. Luke 2: 52
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdRs9osxAkg
The Irish Tenors sing that song with serious intent: Be Thou My Vision. The life of Bresee was
wrapped up in this song as it says “be thou my”…wisdom, best thoughts, battle shield, high
tower and through it all, be “heart of my heart” and “Ruler of All.” That vision came not from
“religion” or “the faith,” but from the reality that living “ever with Thee and Thou with me,”
God in me dwelling and “I with Thee one.”
Phineas Bresee
More was at stake in 1973 with the move of Pasadena College than just moving chairs and books
and boxes of chalk. There was a vision and culture to be moved. To understand the stakes, one
must understand the experience and vision of its founder, Phineas F. Bresee.
Phineas Franklin Bresee was born in 1838 and grew up in Iowa in the Methodist church and was
saved as a teenager. He felt called to be a preacher when he was just a little boy, so at just 18
years of age, he became a circuit-riding preacher in 1856. Bresee was an entrepreneur in that he
worked hard and with determination. He had success, but it was a family, career and intellectual
Christianity, and after several years he felt unsettled. There had to be more, something that
would melt and mold him, open heaven to him, and transform him into a settled and satisfied
whole. One night in desperate prayer he let go of his life as a mover and shaker. The Lord was
there and Bresee found the Lord to be a living presence. Belief became experience. The kingdom
of God ceased being a scripture verse and became a living fellowship. The Lord had brought his
kingdom into Bresee’s life. Bresee later came to understand this experience as holiness. 1
Education was important to Bresee because we bear the image of God and God is not narrow or
shallow. He read constantly and developed poetic imagery in his sermons. When he was only 25
years old, he was chairman of a committee to decide what to do with a Methodist academy.
Wesleyans believe the foundations of truth are wider than just sola scriptura. Truth’s
foundations need to include reason and experience, so the committee made it a liberal arts
college. Thus began his future in higher education. Bresee served on the board for 16 years, and
through turmoil over religious issues he learned the value of graceful decency in collegiate
relationships. 2
California beckoned and he moved to Los Angeles in 1883 and pastored churches in Los
Angeles and Pasadena. The Methodists were creating the University of Southern California, and
his experience led to his being named chairman of the trustees of the College of Liberal Arts.
That college was financially precarious and backward academically, so Bresee again was
involved in fundraising and curriculum building. Through all these changes and hard times,
Bresee saw in the leadership of President Joseph Widney a model of leadership by influence
rather than domination as Widney walked the campus, visited with faculty, and gave advice and
counsel. 3 Bresee found that collegiality and leadership style to be central operating values of
education, and reflective of the call to be clothed with compassion, kindness and patience.
The holiness movement existed in a variety of denominations but they were new wine in old
wineskins and those in the movement either came out or were put out. Bresee was part of that
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movement and his commitment to holiness alienated him from the denominational leadership.
After deep prayers about his future, he left the Methodist church with “almost unbearable
sadness,” and “much prayer, and with many tears.” 4 It was 1895 and he was 57 years old. Had
he reached the peak of his career? Was he now past his prime as a person, facing a decade of
drift?
From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.
And from the one who has been entrusted with much,
much more will be asked. Luke 12:48b
No, Bresee was about to become the founder of two major organizations. One was a new church.
He had many supporters from his holiness preaching in Los Angeles and Pasadena, so he
gathered them together and formed a local church to preach holiness. In one year, membership in
that local church went from 85 to 350, and in eight years to 1,500 members. Groups in other
cities requested Bresee meet with them and then sought to join him. Soon there were Churches of
the Nazarene from San Diego and Upland to Berkeley, Portland and Seattle, and even Chicago.
He traveled a lot speaking in independent churches and revivals, and organizing new churches.
THE IMPACT OF FEAR
Bresee, like Paul, understood that sin is a wrong way of being before it is a wrong way of doing.
Though others in a more prosecutorial attitude insisted on telling men and women how to think,
but also how to dress to avoid fashion and exhibit Christian simplicity. Bresee thought that was
misguided because it missed the central principle. “Simplicity which is on exhibition ceases to be
simple and becomes a pose…I prefer that you be recognized by your temperament, which should
be at once series and kindly rather than by your collar of excessive height and your skirts which
hang below the knees.” It was a position carried on by some, such as Hardy Powers who
proclaimed that the “experience of holiness should be evidenced by a heart made pure rather than
the excesses of legalistic demands as outward evidence…” 5
Institutional culture became a high value after Bresee died as the church moved to Stage 2 of an
institution’s life cycle, the stage that defines and protects the institution. 6 That led to rules in
1923 defining and enforcing how holiness women should look and live. While Jesus criticized
the Pharisees for judging by human standards (John 8:15), the church took a more prosecutorial
view of human standards toward women based on I Timothy 2:9. As Westlake Purkiser put it,
the behaving side of Christianity is as important as the
believing side. The world little cares what we believe;
it is much concerned with the way we live. 7
Bresee wanted his university to cultivate a certain kind of person, but as Timothy Smith put it,
the first generation feared the spiritual decline of the second generation and so put in new rules
against most means of entertainment. 8 While the church affirmed the equality of women and
ordained them as ministers, the culture insisted on female modesty, and opposed using makeup,
earrings and other jewelry. Membership now required behavior as well as belief and belonging.
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Bresee’s emphasis on freedom would keep the church from assuming its rules were grounded in
revelation to which members had to practice “religious submission.” Bresee was not interested in
teaching people to live under authority. However, as Sam Powell wrote, a church needs to stand
for a particular mode of life or it cannot function as a moral community. Its rules reflect the
practical wisdom built up over generations about what is inherently destructive and injurious to
our journey along the road of holiness. And yet, he continues, each generation will insist on
discovering that wisdom for itself in the context of changing cultural mores and technology and
will develop their own boundaries. 9 In that generational change, as well as in the institution’s
changing phases of its life cycle, one must know primary and secondary rules, or even television
will be prohibited and young people will vote with their feet. The church tried to differentiate
between the General Rules and Special Rules, but that distinction was never addressed to young
people. The struggle between moderates and radicals came to a head in the 1950s. Though the
moderates prevailed, rules against females wearing “jeans or other clothing pertaining to men,”
as well as men and women going to the beach together, still remained. 10
Jim Coté in his book Man of Influence has a chart which he designed to show “the natural
degeneration of morals” from the “absolute standard” of morals fixed by the first generation
through the second generation’s “cultural compromise of behavior and beliefs.” 11 The danger is
for that absolute standard to cover a spectrum of cultural values far too wide to be sustained over
time. Usually such advocates do not go back to the standards of the Puritans, but to the culture of
their grandfathers. Where is the “absolute standard?”
As late as 1965, the Church of the Nazarene was defending a fear-fed “freedom” from normal
social activities by emphasizing the worst of social activities—the unsavory nature of circus
thrill rides, the inciting of fleshly desires in a dance, and the evil influences of movies. 12 For
adults living in Christ, guidance by the Holy Spirit is better than rules. But for young people not
yet in that experience, the implicit assumptions were that if you let students have fun they will go
to the devil, that the Holy Spirit is powerless against human nature, and that maturity comes from
inexperience. While one could preach sermons that lead people to touch the divine and be
emotionally blessed, it was easier to be against designated dangers, easier to “ramp up a crowd”
preaching fear and “throwing stones.” 13
Bresee represented an inward wing of the movement, one based on the internal reality of living
in the Kingdom, living daily in the spirit, and being guided by God’s grace and goodness and
providence in one’s life. The life of holiness was a life of discovery, discernment and discretion.
PACIFIC BIBLE COLLEGE
In 1902 he established Pacific Bible School at the strong urging of a group within his church.
There was a need for a training ground for preachers and pastors in this new Nazarene outlook,
and a Bible College would be a quick and safe way to fill the need. Bresee did not want a Bible
College but his church could not afford his university. Supporters were convinced that colleges
are not safe, for professors are like vipers who threaten the simple faith of students by forcing
them to use critical thinking and questioning ideas. There is also a common belief that it is better
not to teach students to think for themselves then to risk the emergence of doubt.
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The school was established in 1902 in Los Angeles. It worked well but Bresee wanted more, a
real university and he “constantly worked toward that goal.” 14 In 1906 Jackson Deets, a wealthy
member of the Bible School’s board of trustees, provided funds to purchase land in a growing
residential area of northern Los Angeles near Melrose Avenue, now known as Hollywood. The
church held a celebration service at the property and made plans for establishing a university.
The opportunities of the next year were shaken when a group of teachers who believed Bresee
was not demanding enough of people and tolerated sin among college officials, tried to wrest
control of the Bible School away from Bresee. They wanted a school of more rigid conformity.
They failed, and left. The move to the new location had to be delayed for another year.
THE FIRST MOVE
Bresee knew what he wanted and now in late 1909 he had plans set to build an
education building on the Hollywood site for classes to begin in September 1910.
Then William Columbus (W.C.) Wilson called on Bresee. Wilson had come to
California from Kentucky and its strict behavior rules where he was not allowed
to attend his elementary school graduation because it was held in a skating rink,
nor hear a free concert for students because the person sang in the opera. He was
converted and sanctified in the Methodist Episcopal church and became a circuit
rider and revivalist. When he conducted a holiness revival in a Baptist church, the Methodists
expelled him. He heard of Bresee, who had left in order to preach holiness, so he moved to Los
Angeles to join with Bresee. He pastored the Upland Church of the Nazarene and in 1909 moved
to the Pasadena church. In Pasadena he saw the Hugus Ranch for sale and when he stepped on
the grounds, he told Bresee, “he knew it was God’s will for the school to move here.” 15
The house was classically Victorian, with wood doors and
arches and staircase. A large stained glass window at the
middle stage of the staircase bathed the house in color and
fine art. 16 It was dark and neglected but could be lovely again,
and be an uplifting building for students and faculty. They
could never build a new building in Hollywood with anything
like the spirit of this building. It would work very well for
offices and classes, and there would be 50 acres for a new
university and 80 acres for selling to establish an endowment
At $165,000, the price was too much said John Goodwin, who had joined the church
in 1901 and organized it in Pasadena, Upland and San Diego by 1907, and did “all in
his power to prevent the transaction.” 17 Goodwin, a man of great capabilities, was
elected District Superintendent in 1908. He and Bresee were very close and Bresee
relied heavily on him for advice and action. This was a high stakes pivotal moment.
Wilson argued that for five times the price of the Hollywood site they would get 25
times more land. The area was rapidly growing so they could subdivide 85 acres and
sell home sites to pay for the mortgage, the way Bresee did at USC. We could build a “Million
Dollar University,” Wilson told them.
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Whatever Wilson said or did not say about his guidance from the Lord, Deets, Goodwin and
Bresee opposed the change of location. Wilson persisted to the point that it got to “very
unpleasant” 18 On one level it seemed wrong; even if they could afford the mortgage price they
would need a lot of additional funds to remodel it, build a dining hall and dorms, and put in
streets and infrastructure for the subdivision. On another level it seemed right; the house was
inspiring, the timing right, and funding daunting but plausible.
Vision of benefits or rational calculation of caution? Was it even necessary? That question was
also being asked by students as well as adults. Bresee had an academy attached to the Bible
school and a young academy student was among those who were pondering and praying about
that question. Should he stay, given the difficulties of this fledging school? There were other
options, other more established Christian schools. He was convinced they existed for their own
glory. Then he received Isaiah 41:18 as an assurance from the Lord that this was his will, and
Bresee gave students “his promise to labor, to deny himself, and to pray night and day.” So in
1910 this student stayed in the academy, graduated in 1913 and entered Nazarene University. 19
Bresee later wrote in the Nazarene Messenger that after prayer and careful study, and the fact
that the price seemed “providentially cheap” the decision was made to purchase the Pasadena
site. That student and so many others were grateful for the day when Bresee finally said to the
realtor, “We can’t afford it but we’ll take it.” 20 They sold the Bible College building on January
1, 1910 for a $25,000 down payment and on January 4th took out a $140,000 mortgage from
First National Bank. For the other funds they arranged a $50,000 2nd trust deed with San Gabriel
National Bank, half due in first year and the second half the next year. Three years earlier,
Bresee said to the First General Assembly what could easily be repeated now:
Our Lord has called us to this work. His own hand beckons us on.
He opens the doors, and it must be our business to enter this land
of promise and possess it for Him and His glory. 21
Beginning one year later, 1911, the first movie studio opened in Hollywood. Had the university
opened there to witness spiritual life and service to the poor, by the next decade it would be
within the glitzy and glamorous capital of films; if it chose Pasadena, it would have space and
potential endowment but would open with a huge debt. Bresee could not know what would
happen in Hollywood in the future, or in Pasadena.
The land was bought, Nazarene University incorporated, and classes began. Then payments.
WHATEVER BEFALL
Faith and reality now collided. They were in over their heads. Lots sold quickly initially, but
slowed down while expenses increased. In 1911, they could not make the payment of $25,000 on
the trust deed when it came due, and the holder threatened to foreclose.
Bresee was 73 years old and he did not need this stress. Goodwin found Bresee “white with
anxiety” over the coming loss of it all. Why had he agreed to this purchase? Why had he listened
to Wilson?
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There is a big question here. Why was the university that important? He had successfully
overseen the rise of a new nationwide denomination committed to spreading scriptural holiness.
That was a life work of enormous service to his Lord, but he was stricken with anxiety over the
loss of the university.
Why was the university that important?
The answer: the university was the key to wholeness in a sanctified life, not just depth in
commitment but also in breadth in understanding, and success in life. Christians are no longer
“of” this world of self and sin but they are “in” this world. Neither the image of God nor holiness
are for narrow people alienated from the world, but for people who seek the fullness of the image
of God as they live with others in a world of unbelief, social and scientific complexity, cultural
change, and tragedy. Within its first decade the university had to hold the faith of the young
generation to a God of grace and goodness in the midst of the tragedy of World War I, and then
the flu epidemic of 1918 that killed 700,000 Americans. 22
To believe in God is to believe in the supernatural, the sacred, and mystery. As science pushes
back the boundaries of mystery and explains more of nature, it erodes those beliefs. To be a
whole Christian one cannot ignore science and religion or conduct a battle with each other. A
Nazarene University is not a threat to religion. It does what a church cannot do, to take science
and religion seriously and bring them together to find a Christian intellectual whole. Then the
young people of the next decade could make sense of the optimistic faith in a holy God in the
midst of the portrayals of science in Einstein and Darwin.
The church is important as the people of God, but the university is just as important for the ideal
Christian, one who increases like his Lord in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and
man. Bresee turned to John Goodwin, who met the trustee at First National because that bank did
not want San Gabriel to force a foreclosure. Goodwin negotiated for two hours, and finally asked
for one more week and got it. 23
Deets, who had opposed the purchase and was mad that the Hollywood site was sold for a loss,
finally signed a note after Goodwin promised to fundraise full time to repay it. Goodwin
sacrificed his church office and fulfilled his pledge to the 76-year-old Deets, who died just two
years later.
Deets had supported the idea of the university but disagreed with the move to Pasadena. Should
he stay with the college? It was the question everyone had to ask for themselves. He had resigned
from the board but now stepped up and covered the debt.
One year later, 1912, the second payment on the 2nd trust deed came due and the college only had
a third of the amount. Deets was ill, could not believe the university was again on the brink, lost
faith in Bresee and his vision, and removed his endowment from his will. But the land had
doubled in value and the San Gabriel bank likely wanted it, so it demanded full payment in 30
days or it would foreclose. The days seemed to pass quickly and the end of the last week arrived
and the school did not have the funds. The loss of the whole project, school and subdivision,
39
would come at 10 a.m. Friday. The school held an all-night prayer vigil. So much had been
providential; how could it be lost now?
Bresee could not go to the campus but prayed and prayed at home. He had not been unfaithful to
the providential purposes of God. There was no enormous salary for Bresee and neither he nor
his children had lived a lavish life style that ate up all the funds. Would this important part of his
life be lost? He had done his best and it was going to fail; why not just let it go?
In the creation of the church he was certain that “the evidences of divine guidance and overruling
providences have been beyond question.” 24 But the university? His work at Simpson and USC
had led to this effort and it was an integral part of what he was doing. He could not let it go; the
university was a mountain of work, but a mountain that had to be climbed and conquered. In a
world of the sectarian and fanatic, Nazarene University would be a modern, moderate, and
magnetic place of living and learning in the presence of God and Godly men and women faculty.
But all the projections of funding were turning out wrong, and now the bankers were at the gates.
He may have turned to the lament Psalms and prayed the words of Psalm 31—distress, sorrow,
and anguish, then refuge and rescue, and the Lord preserves the faithful. Perhaps it was Psalm 20
and the assurance “the Lord will answer you when you are in distress” and “make your plans
succeed.” The Lord had a different passage waiting for him.
He must have also been asking what would happen when he was gone. He could not let it go.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you. Ps 143:8
Normally, in times of great stress, when it seems one’s world is crashing or being destroyed,
when business and the law combine in overwhelming fate like the Babylonians at the gate,
people resonate with apocalyptic passages. Instead, the Lord led Bresee to a different passage,
and more than 100 miles away, he disrupted a man’s sleep.
BE THOU MY WISDOM, MY TRUE WORD
Between prayers, Bresee searched Isaiah, and when he read Isaiah
62, a chapter that had all but escaped his preaching ministry, the
Holy Spirit of God said to his soul this is my promise to you. A
great awe filled his soul as he read verse after verse of providential
promise and destiny. The Lord had just promised to protect and
bless the school. He looked at the chapter, read it again and again, then gripped the pages tightly
and prayed a passionate prayer for the Lord to save the college. Stains of sweat, the physical
marks of that passion, discolored the Bible, now on display at the university. 25 The university
vision was not delusion.
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
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Whatever befall. How was the promise to be fulfilled? They were just hours away from
foreclosure.
We walk by faith not by sight. 2 Cor 5:7
As Bresee and the school prayed that Thursday night in Pasadena, 130 miles south in San Diego
William F. Hill was not able to sleep. He had been saved in 1904 in Nebraska,
retired and moved to San Diego and joined the San Diego Church of the
Nazarene. When the university opened up its land sales in Pasadena, Hill
bought a parcel. That night, he was kept awake by the Lord impressing him
that something was wrong at the college. There was a sense of urgency, so he
left San Diego at 3 a.m. and drove six hours at the 25 mph speed limit and got
there just after 9 a.m., May 22, 1912.
The Business Manager was John Goodwin. He had given up church planting for a year to help
the university. He was in his office with a heavy heart when Hill arrived. “I’m W. F Hill,” he
said to Goodwin. ”I’m from San Diego and I was not able to sleep last night, impressed that
something was wrong at the college. What is wrong?”
“What’s wrong? We are going to be sold off at 10 o’clock today,” Goodwin told him. The annual
$25,000 mortgage payment was due and the college was out of money. It had made a $7,000
payment but could not do more, and this time the bank was insisting on at least $6,000 or it
would foreclose. The bank had given several extensions but now gave a deadline: 30 days or it
would foreclose. Time had run out; foreclosure would take place at 10 a.m. today.
“We had an all-night prayer meeting last night, asking God for a miracle” Goodwin told him.
“I think I can help,” said the stranger.
He wrote out a check for a portion and then called his bank for additional credit. Goodwin rushed
him to the bank and paid the debt 10 minutes before the 10 a.m. deadline. 26 Once again the
school was saved. Bresee took heart that the Lord was pleased with the university they were
building. 27 It was providence once again, God leading, people in their freedom responding,
needs met.
John Goodwin would later be elected General Superintendent. When he retired in 1940 he
returned to Pasadena to teach. He built a home and donated it to the college in his will, and was
instrumental in raising funds to liquidate the debt in 1943.
For the last three years of his life, Bresee “devoted much of his time and thought to the
management and up-building of the Nazarene University”…and “attending numerous meetings
of the Board of Trustees.” 28 At some point he told the now president H. Orton Wiley that he
was dedicating Isaiah 62 to the college as its chapter, and Wiley preached on it at the 1915
commencement. Bresee likely heard it, and in his last days in November 1915, told Wiley to
“stand by the college.” The next year at the 1916 graduation, President Wiley said Dr. Bresee
gave Isaiah 62 to the college as its chapter. Wiley said he did not know why, and so preached
another expository sermon from it.
41
But Bresee knew why. It was a providential promise. In that dark night in 1912, hours away from
foreclosure, the Lord directed him to Isaiah 62—For Zion’s Sake I will not keep silent… the
Lord will take delight in you…I have posted watchmen on your walls…you will be called
Sought out, a City Not Forsaken.” A special promise to Bresee: whatever the struggles, the
college and its potentials would not be forsaken.
FOUNDATIONS OF BRESEE’S VISION OF A NAZARENE UNIVERSITY
What a promise! What a privilege. If education was that important, it had to be done well. What
kind of Christian education was represented by Bresee and Nazarene University? In its basics,
Bresee’s vision for Nazarene University was founded on three ancestors—Erasmus, Galileo and
Wesley, and six words—freedom, moral, modern, experience, grace and dialogue. They overturn
the ancient belief in a cosmic order that underlay monarchies, collective identities and uniformity
which was still evident in those denominations based on deductive reasoning.
Erasmus was a Renaissance priest, humanist and theologian. As a humanist he recognized the
importance of a classical education of history, literature, poetry and philosophy to expand and
shape a person’s moral and ethical life. He was a priest who believed scripture was important
and people should be able to read the scriptures themselves, so he translated the scriptures from
Latin to Greek so more could read them, and corrected some errors in Jerome’s translation. That
personal emphasis reflected his belief in human freedom. As a theologian he argued that people
are not predestined to salvation or damnation, and life is not like a cosmic puppet show. People
are free to make their own lives, to choose God or not, and to create good history or wretched.
Bresee understood the moral and ethical values of a broad education for people who are free, so
the role of a university was large. The university was for the people of God; it was to broadly
educate the mind as well as develop the soul, but Bresee broadened it further by insisting it was
to prepare young people to have compassion and care for the least and lame as well as the lost.
That is, the school should also sensitize the heart for the poor and homeless, and prepare the
hands for doing works of service. It was Erasmus and Bresee, or the school and the rescue
mission. Education was more than providing students with the information to qualify them for a
specific job and make them willing to live under authority. 29 A college that simply prepares a
student to get a job is what Bresee called “mechanical intellectualism.” 30
Bible College for training leaders is not enough; the people of God need the fullness of life—the
awe that comes from science, the self-reflection that comes from literature, the transcendence
that comes from the arts, the compassion that comes from the humanities, and the character that
comes from philosophy and ethics. That fullness allows us to begin to know the mind of God and
push back the shadows. Bresee said it like this at Nazarene University:
There is to be the receiving of the intellectual, the broadest and completest
of human thinking, together with that which might, even without deep thought,
stir the heart [and] experience the Divine…It is this which pushes back the
shadows of the world…lifts and glorifies personality…and presses men toward
42
the mark of their high calling in Christ Jesus…How great, how all-comprehensive
this is! 31
Galileo was not the first to believe the sun was the center of the solar system, but a simple
reading of Genesis and watching the sun move across the sky convinced church leaders that the
sun moved around the earth. It was a deeply held belief, simple and scriptural, and they enforced
that view. Believing people should know the truth, Galileo used technology (a telescope) and
reason to prove the sun was at the center of our solar system. The church authorities refused to
allow reason, mathematics or even observation to change a church opinion; rather, they intended
to stop ideas that did not conform to theirs. Since “truth” lay in scripture filtered through
tradition and the church, Galileo was convicted of heresy and placed under house arrest for the
rest of his life.
Scripture alone is not enough. As the second ancestor, Galileo represents a commitment to
reason and experience; that is, seeking and testing, as sources of truth about this world, and about
change and progress in understanding. Education must be modern, and it rests on the
independence of the seeker, yet the respectful dialogue among scientists when the test results of
one are questioned and tested by others. 32 As we learn more, our understandings change, and
changes our ability to use our understanding for improving life, such as the medical fields.
Bresee understood his world of 1910 was modern and changing. In the previous three decades,
new ideas and ways of living had led to the invention of the electric light bulb, the Kodak
Company, the Ford Motor Company, and the first flight of a motored flying machine. Segments
of the church world feared modern ideas and urban cultures. Many church colleges were
organized in rural areas with rules to avoid contact with the city. 33
Some went beyond detachment. During this decade and the next, a fundamentalist movement
arose in the nation to tighten down belief, resist modernism in science and scriptural
interpretation, and commit to premillennialism and predestination. Though the intellectual
foundation for fundamentalism came from Princeton University, it was largely a rural protest
movement, and freedom and change had to be resisted. Wheaton College represented one side of
a polarizing movement, as it developed a statement of belief that “committed the school to a
fixed theological position” to guard against change, while Richmond College represented a
counter movement to apply scholarship to beliefs. Though there was agitation within its
membership, the Church of the Nazarene emphasized its holiness culture and stayed away from
the demands for belief in premillennialism and inerrancy. The first would sap the strength of
social justice concerns, the second would preclude the ability to understand the world.
As we shall see below, Wesleyan holiness theology grants the Holy Spirit (the Counselor who
will lead us into truth) a prominent role in guiding the believer’s understanding of scripture. The
Bible “is an instrument of revelation, not revelation itself.” By emphasizing the work and
experience of the Holy Spirit, the Nazarene colleges were “not rent and torn by discussions of
modernism and fundamentalism.” 34
Nazarene University was not established as part of rural protest. Bresee understood the city,
especially a big city like Los Angeles, was where one had influence. The modern was where life
43
was going and the church needed to go with it. Bresee’s vision was an urban and modern
university, able to help students, as Einstein put it, to peel back the mysteries and see more
clearly the mind of God. 35 Bresee agreed when he said education should push back the shadows.
John Wesley, our third ancestor, was a product of the Enlightenment; an amateur scientist, a
university professor, and an ordained minister. He understood the importance of reason and
experience as approaches to truth, meaning faith is not belief alone, but belief and a personal
experience or relationship with Christ. Holiness is not a Sunday go-to-church add-on to regular
life, but a journey of being filled with his grace, that is, the Holy Spirit, and living “in Christ”
like a vine on a branch, or like God’s grace welling up within us like streams of living water.
Thus we live on a high spiritual plane where God blesses and guides our individual lives. Not
perfection; we will continue to have foibles and failures, but God’s grace changes people and
they can grow in devotion and good works. This is the journey of holiness.
With freedom, grace, and change comes devotion and discipline. There is no room for a secret
life or moral hiding place. It is like a marriage ceremony in which, when the preacher says
“forsaking all others,” the groom does not turn in disappointment to previous girlfriends and
apologizes for not being able to be with them any longer. Holiness is saying, “Yes!” to the Lord
and easily forsaking all others. It is based on the trust that he will not deceive, demean or forget
you. God’s grace is his goodness and good purposes for us. Devotion is not demonstration, grace
is not an escape from reason, and living in the grace of God does not create a new band of
apostles. On those grounds Bresee opposed the Azusa Street revival as going too far. 36
That spirit of goodness broadens our heart and character. This life of holiness is beyond what
Bresee called a “sociological religion” of externals. 37 Bresee despaired of those who claim God
is vindictive to those who slip, and those who “find people to condemn.” He was not concerned
with a second-rate issue of how women dressed but with the primary and essential reality—the
sanctity of their soul. Christ pours the stream of heaven through the person’s thinking, living and
devotion until he or she is transformed. That sanctity is kept fresh if we allow God’s Holy Spirit
to be our daily bread and a well of grace springing up in our lives. 38 Life can to tough even for a
transformed person, but the choice to keep open to God’s grace is the means to prevail.
While Erasmus emphasized our moral senses and Galileo emphasized our physical senses for
observing the natural world, Wesley represented our “spiritual sense,” the God-given ability to
see, hear, and feel God and his actions. Now, bring those together—freedom, modern,
imagination--and add personal experience and the importance of being moral to them, and there
will be differences in perspective. Put those together with the position of Erasmus and Wesley
that life is not predetermined, and add Galileo who demonstrated there is much more to discover
and learn, then one realizes that there are no final answers. Dialogue becomes the graceful and
decent way to discuss issues. Theological opera like Galileo’s prosecutors, or like the Melian
Dialogue where one group tells the other to submit to its views so others will not get wrong
ideas, must be rejected. 39 It was that kind of “dialogue” with Galileo that held the church back.
Bresee’s conception of a Nazarene university is for honesty, openness and boundaries. The belief
that what exists is not necessarily God’s will, frees one to help the poor, to develop new health
remedies, to explore what is and imagine what could be, and to devise means of changing
44
conditions of injustice. Now, all of that will bring differences of opinion and perspectives. Every
twenty years or so successive generations of students will bring their own perspectives on life.
Dialogue then becomes necessary and beneficial. Dialogue requires respect, a graceful decency
in discussion. Dialogue does not mean everything is uncertain. On a few essentials Bresee would
say with Martin Luther, “Here I stand.” Dialogue raises questions but many have no easy
answers. Dialogue is not about winners and losers but about bringing together Erasmus, Galileo,
and Wesley, the moral and physical and spiritual into discussion with each other. Dialogue
brings together the different modes of thinking. It brings together denominations and
independents, faith and reason, space and boundaries.
INSTITUTIONS
Bresee was building two institutions--a national church and a university. Institutions have
purposes and operations that assign roles and structure relationships, and leaders seek to create
an organizational culture that is efficient but also moral. Institutions can be empowering or
controlling, so the nature of their organizational culture is crucial. Back to Erasmus--Christ does
not destroy individuality and neither should institutions. Back to Galileo—institutions can be
wrong and repressive, so Bresee insisted on institutional cultures where there is unity on the few
essentials, liberty on differences, and love in everything. Disagreements must not become
conflicts, as Bresee experienced at Simpson College. Back to Wesley—Bresee understood that
life in Christ does not turn us into fanatics with Christ-only powers of healing but will keep us
balanced between the cross-currents of religious fundamentalism and Pentecostalism on one side,
and secularism and Babylon on the other.
Universities did not develop until the medieval period when they were created by the king
(especially Charlemagne) or the Pope (particularly Gregory VII who mandated cathedral schools
which evolved over time into universities). For the latter reason many call the university as a
concept, and the specific universities of a denomination, a “child of the church.” 40 But they are
different. The university is not immature and dependent. At the risk of corrupting the concept of
the trinity, it may be that as Jesus is the head of the church, the Holy Spirit, as Counselor and the
one who leads us to truth, provides the spirit of the universities. It may be more apt to call the
university a “cousin to the church.”
A church may create a college to propagate its particular perspectives within a modern liberal
arts curriculum, but its spirit must be different; intellectual rather than evangelical, academic
rather than pastoral. Both institutions share those four, and the university has an important
pastoral role for inquiring and troubled young people, but the emphasis is different. Cousins.
Both need each other; both serve the same God, but are different.
The Church Growth Movement of the 1980s and the Seeker Friendly strategy of the next decades
diminished distinctions and distinctiveness of churches. Many denominational churches had
reached Stage 4, a weekly routine of self-satisfaction, and sermons on personal guidance rather
than authoritarian preaching against culture. Generation Y looked for authenticity in independent
churches, with authoritarian preaching and few rules. Denominations became static or declined.
45
The culture of the Church of the Nazarene was changing. Not only had the church “lost the battle
over earrings” as one General Superintendent lamented, but a 1982 study of students at Nazarene
colleges revealed the church lost the battle over movies. Not only did students attend movies,
their parents did too. 41 The church was on the downward slope of growth rates. In 1960, and
within the United States, the denomination grew at 66%, two decades later is was 23%, and two
decades later it had plummeted to 5.6%. In 2007 it was 0.6%. It was a forty-year slippery slope
downward within the U.S.
The university is a place of breadth, depth, and dialogue, of reason, evidence, and testing, and is
more reflective of, and involved in, its current society and culture. A Christian university has a
tripart aspect, spiritual, intellectual and public, and as a university grows and matures, as faculty
teach and write with a depth that can be life-changing, the universities may save the church. The
“atmosphere” of a Christian university is both spiritual and intellectual. If one is missing, a
Christian university loses its way. It should also have a third aspect, a public face and role.
Too often young people come to college from their churches with no intellectual or theological
understanding of their faith. They are not told the meaning of the historic Nazarene position on
“plenary” inspiration of scriptures as opposed to “inerrancy” for example, unless their churches
have strong fundamentalist programs to tell them what to think before they get to a university.
Whatever the value of the preceding paragraphs and concept of cousin, there is no doubt that the
university is, or at least can be, a “force multiplier” of the church by pushing back the shadows
of outmoded thinking, providing an intelligent Christian view between fundamentalism and
secularism, stimulating moral sympathies and imagination, and using the new knowledge to
develop new capacities of service for the prosperous and homeless. Thus equipped, Christians
take the reality of God and his purposes into the vastly diverse, complex, and rapidly changing
world. A holiness university is a crucial institution for sustaining the historic doctrines of the
church, and for bringing faith into the increasingly secular and technological education of young
people, and their changing world.
Dialogue is also important because institutions are structures of power, responsibility and
decision, with mission, organizational and personal stakes. From the combination of issues,
power, and personal ambitions come six types of people. The “preservers” want to hold onto
the past and the “moderns” seek to modernize it. Some people in institutions are “satisfied” and
resist change while others are “entrepreneurs” seeking to build better means of service. There are
“zealots” who want the institution to be domineering with a culture of legalism, “agents” who
also represent another institution or donor. A few are “artists” who can take institutional means
and cultural elements and blend them into an institution of grace and beauty.
Some leaders try to bring most of these types together through consensus-building while others
believe autocratic leadership is necessary. In a Christian institution the values employed in
administration and planning, personnel, and fundraising operations must be ethical and
ministerial. Through his faith and experience, Bresee learned the value of two operating values:
graceful decency in relationships at Simpson College and collegiality in leadership at USC.
46
BRESEE’S CORE VALUES FOR NAZARENE UNIVERSITY
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…
You my brothers were called to be free…
So I say, live by the spirit…if you are led by the spirit
you are not under the law. Gal 5:1, 13, 16a-18
The freedom in those verses requires a spiritual presence or atmosphere where the Holy Spirit
could bless and guide. That spiritual atmosphere had to be Bresee’s primary core value. That
presence of the Lord leads and guides individuals, committees and clubs. It helps protect the
institution by providing a moral perspective for people and leaders, administrators as well as
students. It brings a unity to the campus, a perspective when viewing secular information, a
blessing as individuals find their futures. It also brings an operating value, a genial atmosphere
of kindness, a culture of kindness and patience, of graceful decency toward others.
“But we do not live on atmosphere alone,” Bresee said. “In this atmosphere we have
arrangements for intellectual nourishment.” The second core value was academic quality. God is
the author of beauty and meaning, so Bresee said that to be our best selves, and to have a full
vision of God, requires the broadest of human thinking, a stirring of the mind and heart, deep
thought with experiences of the divine. 42 As at Simpson and USC, at Nazarene University, a
commitment to faith and reason through a liberal arts program is the core of being Wesleyan. 43
A liberal arts curriculum at a Christian college demonstrates many different forms of thinking,
expands an appreciation of complexity, and shapes intrinsic values. A fully developed person
needs to be well read but also comfortable with the great works of the humanities, the sciences,
and the current ideas of the social sciences. In that tradition Bresee told students and parents,
“We do not fear philosophy. We delight in mathematics. We cultivate the sciences.” In
academics, as in the spirit, the purpose of education is not
“to settle matters of doctrine. On the great fundamental we are all agreed.
Pertaining to things not essential to salvation, we have liberty. To attempt to
emphasize that which is not essential to salvation, and thus divide forces, would
be a crime…bigotry, from which the spirit of holiness withdraws itself.” 44
Some colleges were discarding philosophy courses, Bresee told a group.
But philosophy—what men have dared to think and dared to
hope in all ages, percolated with the divine glory, will help
everybody. All the branches of knowledge, God helping us,
we purpose to teach to men and women, that they may be at
their best advantage to God…and fill the Earth with the highest
ideals and the richest glory. 45
God’s world is vast and complex. Humans dream and achieve. A secular university accepts
what it sees and teaches what is known but is a vacuous world of self and proof, an education
47
detached from God and his purposes and participation in life. Churches can create their own
universities but often they are for indoctrination rather than exploration, for the past and present
and fearful of the future. Their concern is to tell people how to live and what to believe, that is,
to conform to their narrow ideals and shallow beliefs. With a lot of rules they want to avoid the
turbulence so normal to adolescence. 46
Bresee wanted Christian students to become whole. He wanted leadership to be collegial. As
part of the Erasmus, Galileo and Wesleyan traditions, Bresee and his Nazarene denomination
intended the Christian life to be lived not in a monastery but in the world, close to, or proximate
to the culture but with boundaries of faith and discipline. That was the Bresee Balance.
Bresee wanted a Nazarene university that accepted Galileo’s world of reality. For example there
is no necessary war between science and Christianity, his close colleague John Goodwin said.
We are bound to accept the demonstrated facts of science even though they may upset theories
and shade time-honored creeds. 47
Bresee wanted a church of purity but he feared sectarianism, which leads to shortness of vision,
to the effort to impose one’s own notions on everybody, and to regard as heathen those who do
not think and act according to their prejudices. 48 The university was to be intentionally and
intensely denominational, but as an operating principle, all young Christians were welcome at
his university.
Spiritual development was an important operating value. Wesleyans do not believe in
predestination or eternal security, so revivals were important to Bresee as means of salvation
and sanctification, for rescuing the “back slider,” and for spiritual growth. The goal was not
“perfectionism” but in love and intent to “be perfect” (Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
father is perfect. Matt 5:48)
To sum up, six important values are central to Bresee’s vision of a Nazarene university. The two
core values were 1) a spirit-filled atmosphere where God can call and guide individuals into a
life in the spirit and a life of good works, and 2) an academics that is honest in dialogue and
discussion rather than indoctrination, and that is serious in being modern rather than mechanical
within the wide boundaries of Wesleyan theology. In pursuit of being a holiness university,
Bresee brought four operating values: 1) graceful decency in relationships, 2) a denominational
but not sectarian culture, 3) a collegial rather than autocratic governance structure, and 4)
revivals and other means for spiritual growth. These values are like pieces of a symphony
representing the highest and best in devotion, creativity, relationships and growth that one lives
as a life of worship.
What, then, is a Nazarene university? He was not seeking an institution that would be a
“masterpiece” to “grab the imagination of sophisticated and successful people,” nor was he
trying to develop a new “mind” to save and transform Western culture. 49 To put it in Bresee’s
own words, the work and purpose and identity of a Nazarene college or university is to lead
young people to a special divine relationship until they are filled with the fullness of God, perfect
in love, devotion, tenderness and gentleness, furnished with proper ideals so they will not be
48
fanatics or Pharisees, while also receiving the very best scholarship so they may be at their best
advantage for God. 50
God’s grace, intellectual dialogue and ethical relations--that institutional culture respects both
students and scholarship--is crucial because students come to college with virtually no
theological discourse on the big questions and ideas of life and creation. The university becomes
the intellectual “space” where students can find their “place” in Christ and in the world.
FOUR LESSONS, THREE SIDES AND TWO STAGES
What can we say of all this? First, why start with Bresee and the First Move? Vision. Whatever
the university is today is derived from Bresee and his vision of holiness and education. In the
move of 1973 the school needed to take not just desks and chairs, file cabinets, chalk and
typewriters, they needed also to take the core values, the vision. What was that vision? A
university of spiritual atmosphere and power, intellectual nourishment, and a healthy
denominationalism. His vision was a university in the center of a triangle. `
A Nazarene university is like a triangle with three sides—revivalism,
institutionalism and academics. 51 The heritage of the university was both
19th Century holiness revivalism and serious Wesleyan academics, and
built on the foundation of an institutional goal of freedom, progress and
impact. There are tendencies and pressures to push one side or the other
to extremes. Too much emphasis on revivalism will disparage or distort academics; too much
emphasis on academics will ignore or isolate spiritual life; too much love of the institution will
become sectarian and legalistic. The true Bresee position is in the middle of that triangle, the
Bresee Balance, through which Nazarene University would be spiritually magnetic, academically
modern, and institutionally moderate.
One example of a one-sided college was Taylor University in the 1930s. President Thaddeus
Reade wanted the school known for spiritual fervor, so he emphasized revivals and gave “only
secondary attention to its curricular and extracurricular activities.” The academic side was lost.
Yale University was founded as a Christian school, but in the aftermath of World War I the
school developed a sense of duty to the nation. With an expanded institutional purpose it
accepted students without church backgrounds. It soon found it could not require support of a
particular faith from a national student body and continue to educate the nation’s leaders. 52 Its
spiritual side was lost. The first lesson is the importance of triangular balance.
A second lesson--people are important: Jackson Deets, W. F. Hill and John Goodwin were three
stellar men who represented college needs and God’s supply. Bresee, Widney and Wilson, three
men of the highest values. A private college rests not on the foundation of vast sums of
government money but on such men and women of faith, vision and service.
On the other hand, believing that building the university is providential can lead to the belief that
it will move along a line of unbroken progress. The Christian life, however, is not about success
and prosperity, but about faith, obedience, and sacrifice. The vision is about service, not building
a modern Tower of Babel. The two crises of 1911 and 1912 and God’s last-minute rescues
49
remind us that the school is his. He protected it as he promised when the leaders were helpless.
Perhaps as a confirmation of his promise, a revival broke out on campus two years later. The
Lord was at his college and his presence was manifest for weeks, and Wiley said people came
from hundreds of miles away to be there. 53 Consider Psalm 73 about struggles of the Christian
leading to envy of those who seem to be strong and free from burdens and struggles.
My feet had almost slipped...surely in vain have I kept
my heart pure…all day long I have been plagued…’till
I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their
final destiny. Ps 73: 2, 13b, 14a, 17
Fourth, these events also remind us of the temptations of greatness. If we are building something
for God and God is in it, we want to make it the best if not greatest. When we do that, we are
tempted to personalize it, so its purpose, as Oral Roberts put it, is to “perpetuate my ministry and
multiply it thousands of times.” 54 Moreover, its greatness tempts its leaders to use it to become
great and wealthy. 55 With Nebuchadnezzar we would be tempted to say:
Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the
royal residence, by my mighty power and for
the glory of my majesty? Dan 4:30
Building a holiness university is both personal and providential. Wilson, Deets, Goodwin and
Hill had been captivated by Bresee’s dream of service to Christian young men and women and
would not let it go. God said to help, and they did heroic work.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
God’s providence, that is the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and circumstances, works
through such people. In the words of Bresee, we can say now as he did 60 years earlier:
The enthusiasm was that of men who see the certainties
of things in divine light, who distinctly hear the voice
of God calling to heroic duty. 56
Hollywood would have been a glaring mistake. Yet the school would remain with a crushing
burden of debt for the next 20 years. The banks regularly made 90-day loans at 7% interest
because the property was increasing in value. In 1910, the land was bought for $165,000 but in
1916 it was worth over $475,000. 57 These crises and those yet to come took sacrifices by faculty
and staff, and during the 1930s they were often paid nothing.
Some projects need faith beyond measure, patience without end, capability beyond the normal,
and responsibility to respond. Yet the sacrifices they made to keep PC alive would become
“sacrifices of praise” when the opportunity came for the Second Move.
50
Churches and church-related colleges have stages of growth and changes of culture. They are
created by passionate leaders and begin small and may stay small. If they grow they will
institutionalize. The passion quiets and energy is placed in promoting and protecting the
institution with rules and rituals and culture. In a drive toward maturity the church emphasizes
purity and separation, while the college in its second stage moves toward sophistication and
participation in society as it prepares young people for careers in that society.
In the process of that movement toward participation one person may arise in opposition, seeking
to reclaim the passion of the founder, only with greater intensity and wider demands. Rev. Seth
Rees, pastor of the campus church and Trustee of the university, brought a high-handed approach
to judging and expelling people when he considered their theology insufficiently pure, including
a president and two deans at Nazarene University. Rees himself was later expelled from the
church. In 1956, another zealot, Glenn Griffith, a District Superintendent of the Church of the
Nazarene, pulled out of the church because he believed it was compromising with secular society
by allowing members to wear wedding rings, wear shorts, and watch television, and urging
preachers to preach on the positive side of the gospel instead of the negative. He believed God
was calling him to form a counter denomination, more adamant in its opposition to culture and
more authoritarian in its preaching.
Bresee, Griffith, Rees and Goodwin. Interestingly, Griffith wrote:
The will of God is always the greatest challenge that can come to a person.
It is no different now. A misunderstanding at this point or a drawing back will
not only defeat the individual but it will bring hardship upon the whole group
to whom the challenge has come.58
Bresee asked for God’s vision, one of wholeness and unity. The visions of zealots are for conflict
and division. Some succeed, some fail. Griffith organized the Missionary Bible Church, with
disappointing results.
INTERLUDE: TWO ERAS IN SEARCH OF A THIRD
Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.
Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.
Revelation 2:11-12
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
The years of the 1920s and 1930s were the church’s second stage of institutionalization, a stage
of fear, and withdrawal for protection. The leaders feared the second generation might water
down “their” church so they moved to institutionalize their faith into behavioral rules. Instead
of progress the university was downsized to a college. Appealing to a very small population of
students, enrollment was less than 200 students and static. Twenty years after the move
something significant needed to be done to stimulate growth. Relocation was considered but the
local pastors pledged church funds for a new central building if it would stay. That decision was
51
made and Nease Hall was constructed just as the Great Depression hit. The expected income to
pay for it evaporated and the local pastors who pushed for the building moved out of the area to
new churches. The District Superintendents stayed and ensured the districts supported the
college financially.
President H. Orton Wiley, in whom Bresee had placed his hopes, returned for a third time as
president in 1933 and served until 1949, leaving a double tradition. His character, plus the
college’s small size and economic fragility, defined a post-Bresee culture that was far different
from Bresee. Wiley presided over a humble era, devoid of ambition or vision, luxuries the
leaders could not afford. Another discontinuity was that Bresee’s freedom was lost in a campus
culture built around the pressure enforcing the “behavior codes loved by Nazarenes,” 59 rules not
uncommon at other Christian colleges, and Wiley acquiesced in them as a good “churchman.”
The second legacy was Wiley’s continuing commitment to the Bresee Balance, the equal
commitment to spiritual experience, academic quality and denominational loyalty. While Wiley
allowed evangelists to hold revivals twice a year, he nevertheless firmly established the
Wesleyan academic tradition. In 1938 Wiley organized a Jubilee Week with the theme of “A ReEmphasis on the Founder’s Ideals.” 60 As World War II was ending Wiley realized he had to get
the college accredited for it to qualify for the G. I. Bill, so he began a modernization program to
upgrade the quality of the faculty.
Wiley retired and his successor was unable to deal with the implications of new ideas in new
faculty, leading to a crisis in 1957. Rumors were promoted that the college was liberal and not
Nazarene. Four faculty were let go, and a president in the Wiley mold was replaced by a
president in a new mold—autocrat.
The DeLong era could have established a second post-Bresee alternative, a counterculture era of
fear. The General Superintendents instructed the board of trustees to elect Russell V. DeLong,
despite the fact they would not nominate him to be the president of the seminary because he was
a “self-promoter” who put “his own interests first,” and was “autocratic and authoritarian.” 61 If
one believed institutional values and control should be made dominant over the other two sides
of the triangle, then the choice of DeLong made sense.
In his first meeting with faculty DeLong told them he did not hire them and could replace any of
them in 45 minutes. 62 Moral imagination, academic integrity, mutual affection and graceful
decency were gone. He treated students, who he called the “unspanked generation,” the same
way. Obedience replaced creativity. In California, leaders have to earn respect. DeLong’s
personality and his Midwest tradition combined with the denomination’s interest in preserving its
beliefs came together in a view that people were to be taught to live under authority. Faculty not
only sorrowed at the “torpid” atmosphere that replaced graceful decency but had to do “damage
control,” trying to keep disillusioned students from leaving. 63 Why would the General
Superintendents do that to their own young people? It is a question that haunted a generation, but
even 30 years later, church leaders who came of age in the 1940s considered it disloyal to raise
that question. 64
52
DeLong was highly successful in fundraising. The Trustees liked the new buildings he built,
the first since nearly forty years after Nease Hall, and they seemed to tolerate his treatment of
students and faculty. But while the General Superintendents assumed an autocrat who “put his
own interests first” was appropriate for Nazarene young people, the Trustees, when he tried a
power play on them, fired him on the spot. 65
His successor did not want his hands tied to budget constraints, so there was no budget, and no
formal balancing of income and expenses; he was “borrowing” money from scholarship
endowments to pay current expenses. He built the administration building and the science
building but both so cheaply the floors creaked and the air conditioning never worked when it
was needed. He was retired in 1964. For a college that had not yet reached a point of high
quality, “these two,” a department chairman said, “did not move the school forward.” The locust
years ate away at Bresee’s vision, and the promised blessings of Isaiah 62 seemed more literary
than real.
Then a new cloud came.
There were six small but growing Nazarene colleges across the nation in 1960, but they faced a
denominational leadership opposed to strong colleges. In the 1960s, a college had to have more
than 1,000 students to support more than a marginal curriculum, which indicates what a great
institution would have emerged if Bresee’s goal of 2,000 in 1910 would have been met. Funded
by a Lilly Foundation grant, a commission headed by Dr. Les Parrot was created to suggest a
future for the denomination’s higher education colleges. The study proposed two new two-year
colleges, recommended that all the colleges remain small and not to seek university status, and
not to build a Bible School. Two more colleges would drain students away from the older ones
and keep the curriculum marginal. Unofficially, strong colleges were becoming a power base
within the institution’s electoral processes for the highest church offices, and a general number
of 1,000 students became to ideal size, for more than that would dampen the teenage emotional
vulnerabilities and no “real revivals” could occur. 66
If “real” and highly emotional “evangelical revivalism,” with evangelists yelling and singing
“Almost Persuaded” over and over, could be maintained in the colleges, then graduates returning
to their home churches could be a source of renewal to the church.
The Assembly accepted the proposal for two new junior colleges, which rapidly become four
year colleges, and in a surprise, also authorized a Bible College. In a death knell for their
founder’s vision of quality university education, the denomination formally adopted an
alternative vision of Nazarene higher education. The institutional side of the Bresee Balance
was artificially restrained, which would in turn restrain the academic side. It would take another
hero to bring Bresee’s vision back to life at Pasadena College while the church moved in its antiBresee direction.
A NEW ERA ARRIVES
Rev. Shelburne Brown, District Superintendent and Chairman of the Pasadena College Board of
Trustees, was elected President in 1964. He knew the condition of the college, telling Frank
53
Carver, “We are only one year away from closure.” 67 He predicted
accurately that the decision to build two new colleges could be a lethal blow
for Bethany Nazarene College, which had just dug itself out of financial
trouble and fought hard against creating a competitor college. When
Bethany lost students, and 20% of its faculty left to establish the new
college, Bethany faced a threatened future and did all it could to survive,
including allowing some students to attend without full payment. General
Superintendent V. H. Lewis absolved the General Superintendents of any responsibility by
accusing Bethany of committing suicide. 68 While attending a General Assembly just after his
election, Dr. Brown found it clear that the denomination, having made its decision to weaken the
existing colleges, would not help them to make adjustments. 69
Brown was a man of style and sports, known to his detractors in the denomination as “Mr.
Hollywood.” He was a new kind of president, young, modern and determined to improve the
college. He brought back the cultural values of grace and collegiality. He moved with ease in the
business and social worlds. He loved the college, his own alma mater, and considered fields
other than theology also important. He loved students, walked the campus, met students and
learned their names. He dressed with style, drove a Mustang convertible, quoted poetry in his
chapel talks and shot hoops with students in the gym. To demonstrate his identification with the
college, he entered a doctoral program, completed it, and held a real, not honorary, title.
Upon his election, his first priority was budget control and cost reduction. In a master stroke he
convinced successful businessman and trustee J. C. Wooton to be his new Business Manager.
Wooton agreed to serve one year at one dollar and imposed for the first time a budget on the
Wooton
Foster
Gresham
Welch
college that forced the balancing of income and expenses. Dean L. Paul Gresham led the effort to
reduce the size of the faculty. The number of courses taught by a single faculty member was
increased by changing from two semesters to three quarters. In 1969, Wooton’s successor was
Bob Foster, a former official at Bank of America. He developed and held to an austerity
program, and by 1971 the college was solvent.
Second, Brown moved toward quality in chapel and the faculty. He chose Reuben Welch to be
chaplain, inaugurating an era of chapel excellence. Time, change and experience had brought
two different perspectives on how one achieves holiness. 70 The crisis perspective derives from
the revival tradition and believes one is made pure all at once, that the sin factor is exterminated,
annihilated, eradicated and cleansed instantaneously. That position downplays Bresee’s emphasis
on continuing spiritual growth. The empowering perspective sees unrealistic expectations from a
single event; instead, holiness is a right relationship in which one walks with God in a dynamic
54
relationship of giving one’s self to God in a persistent journey of growth in grace and love as the
approach to God and others. 71 Welch had moved beyond the simplistic formula and talked to
students about the journey of their spiritual lives in ways that was real to them.
The college was static with a torpid atmosphere, ready to begin a downward slide. He did not
intend to preside over a third-rate college and was determined to change that condition. He set
out to upgrade the faculty, making recruiting trips to other colleges and universities while Cliff
Fisher and Don Hall recruited students. To successfully modernize the college would take more
and better programs and therefore more students. The college needed to grow in size, dorms, and
academic buildings to increase its capacity for students and its academic program. The ongoing
effort to buy up property around the college was going well. The college now owned 130
properties surrounding the college, with rents paying the mortgages. To replace the homes with
new academic buildings would eliminate the monthly income and require funds to build the new
buildings, as well as a highly political process (because neighbors would oppose it) of closing
streets and gaining building permits. That was their option if they stayed in Pasadena.
The third issue was the future. The history of institutions like churches and colleges lie
somewhere on a bell curve of growth, peak of quality, and decline. The upward trajectory is
like a S curve, the peak like a plateau, and the downward curve like a reverse S curve. Some
institutions plateau on a growth side, others peak and move down a decline side. The
denomination was on that downward slope, so the number of students from Nazarene churches
would become static if not decline.
President Brown lived in the present and the future, never the past. He looked to the long run and
the future looked bleak. In the 1960s, the youth culture was changing, especially in big cities like
Los Angeles. Pasadena was changing as realtors engaged in “block busting,” moving black
families into white neighborhoods. As studies projected the future, many parents, already
believing the college was “liberal” would begin looking elsewhere. Dr. Paul Benefiel, pastor and
professor of sociology, advised Brown not to build any more buildings. 72
In 1966 a semi-serious proposal come to merge Pasadena College with Azusa Pacific College, a
Wesleyan college that was growing through mergers with other Wesleyan colleges. 73 Mr. Hank
Bode, AP’s Chief Financial Officer, was in a MBA program and used the topic of a merger for a
thesis paper and discussions with Bob Foster. The proposal had potential merit and plausible
possibilities, but could never have happened unless it was a merger of APC with PC. 74
Move the institution? Relocation was an alternative option if the right location was found. Brown
and his advisors looked at property in several places, including Chino and Diamond Bar, but
each would require enormous outlays of funds to construct the needed buildings. Could they sell
the cramped Pasadena campus, a single-use facility, and if so, could they sell it for enough to pay
for the construction of a new campus? Brown also knew the college had to be located in or near
an urban area so students could get jobs. A leader looks to the future, but as Brown pondered the
future and sought divine guidance, there seemed to be no good choice. He needed a vision.
Be thou my vision, my best thought, my wisdom.
55
Was the promise of Isaiah 62 fulfilled in 1912 when W. F. Hill rescued the university? Perhaps
Brown turned to Jeremiah’s writings about a people living in an uncomfortable city, where
Jeremiah said to not look to other dreams but stay and pray for the peace of the city. Was it to be
Bresee’s dream of a holiness USC—a Nazarene University in the midst of fast freeways and
changing neighborhoods? Or perhaps it was verses 10 and 11 about rescue and God’s other plans
that would prosper the college and give hope and a future. Which verses? Were the promises of
Isaiah 62 to Bresee now fulfilled? Are the promises of God tied to circumstances? Why was
there just silence? Where was Isaiah 62:1? “I will not keep silent.”
O God, do not keep silent; be not quiet,
O God, be not still. Ps 83:1
Since there was no other choice, the dreams of Brown and the trustees for a new start had to be
let go and a good future at the Pasadena campus had to be envisioned. Perhaps they came to the
point of Deuteronomy 26:15, asking God to look down and bless his people in the land he gave
them 62 years earlier, when it was flowing with milk and honey.
Perhaps. So an architectural firm was hired to lay out a new campus, and that became the Master
Plan. The existing triangular campus of 16.4 acres would become a 35-acre campus. The college
already owned 15 acres of homes and would need to buy up some more. The plan would guide
development of a larger campus. It offered hope for the future, hope that the college could
become a serious institution of Christian higher learning.
Perhaps. In 1971, the Trustees endorsed the Master Plan and a
model of it was constructed and placed in the administration
building. The first step to that new future was a new library. It
would cost $999,036. The state of California set aside one-third
of that amount, subject to matching funds on a two-for-one basis.
The college launched a three-year fundraising campaign and
raised close to the required amount, but short of it, receiving only
74% of the amount pledged, which was less than the two-third minimum. Therefore the rest of
the funds had to come in the form of loans. The library was built
in 1971 on the north edge of the campus and faced outward,
facing Elizabeth Street and toward what was expected to be the
heart of the enlarged campus. Then a long-time and wealthy
friend of the college, Gladys Cooper, agreed to fund a new
religion building.
Now, with enrollment growth, new faculty, the new library built and the Master Plan adopted,
the Board of Trustees at its March 13, 1972 meeting, granted Dr. Brown a three-month vacation
in honor of his outstanding service to the college.
Three weeks later, Dr. Rust of California Western College in San Diego called President Brown,
and Dr. Beryl Dillman came to see Brown in his office.
56
Questions and Answers
Q. Who was Dr. Bresee?
A. He was not a Brigham Young establishing a new religion. He was a reformer seeking to
reestablish the idea that God wants to transform and glorify one’s life. That reform was not in
the Robert Schuller tradition of dreaming of becoming a “great preacher” preaching “positive”
sermons about feeling better about one’s self while raising money and finding an architect for a
“world class” building. 75 Bresee was about the Farewell Discourse, living “in Christ” like a vine
to a branch, empowered by the Holy Spirit to be like streams of water springing up in one’s soul,
transforming one’s life into the “image of God” and so changing from an alien to a friend of
God.
Q. If God gave a great promise to Bresee and saved the school from foreclosure more than once,
why is it not world-famous?
A. That is a good question and the basic answer is that it never had the numbers, that is the funds
or the students to be anything other than small and strapped. Bresee grew the denomination
through mergers, and many of those groups had their own colleges, so the denomination could
never concentrate its effort on making one school a national school. The move to San Diego
changed the numbers which now provide the base for having an institutional goal of becoming a
nationally prominent Wesleyan voice.
Q. One last question. You said you were told it was inappropriate to ask why the denomination
would force a Board of Trustees to elect a person like Russell DeLong as president. Why was
that considered an inappropriate question?
A. That is a good question for the next chapter. Briefly here, District Superintendents are part of
the leadership structure of the denomination and are responsible for its interests, which are wider
and more complex. That can cause a conflict of interest. Plus, churches are voluntary
organizations so leaders want the image of unity, not disagreement. Third, only clergy can be
high church officials so the temptation is for DSs to act like the insiders of a family business, so
the decision process is to be opaque and what is decided by them should not be questioned. If
someone does question the integrity of decisions, or oppose the policies of a president put in
place by the top leadership, that person, despite being a member of the denomination for six
decades, a regular delegate to the General Assemblies, and “called” or elected to serve the
college, is “not a good churchman.” It was a 1940s attitude that is now largely gone.
Q. I still don’t understand why the church needs colleges.
A. The Church of the Nazarene is a wonderful organization. Each church and church member is
part of a large and comprehensive mission to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. So it
supports colleges and missionaries and relief works around the world. Part of that mission is to
57
help young Christians become their best selves. As I was finishing this book I attended the
groundbreaking for a new science building located right across the main campus walkway from
the Religion Department’s building and the library. One of the speakers was the student body
president. He is a religion major and said how appropriate it is for the two buildings to be just
across from each other because students are not isolated in their own departments but are part of
a collegiate whole, so both science and religion majors have to deal with the issues each raises
about the other. The church and the college want each student to take on the full image of God,
which is not spiritual alone, for Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and
man.
This book is about the move in 1973, and it is important to preserve a record of the legal and
financial difficulty in making the move possible, as well as how individuals dealt with and
adjusted to the need to move. But one cannot fully understand the move without understanding
what was being left, what had to be preserved, and what the school has become.
Q. You have written about stages, triangles and a bell curve. What about generational change?
A. Yes. The college was basically built during World War I and the Lost Generation. Bresee’s
successors built the external rules to shield the church’s teens and young adults from the
“Roaring Twenties.” Since then we have seen the Builder Generation that came out of the Great
Depression and World War II with the values of loyalty, duty and responsibility to institutions.
They rebuilt the country in the 1950s but left cultural shadows of racism intact and took the
nation into a war in Vietnam that seemed devoid of purpose beyond national power. Those of the
1960’s generation looked not to institutions but to reformers and found them in John F. Kennedy,
Earl Warren, Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John XXIII, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. There
was a cultural clash in the 1960s and 1970s. At Pasadena College, Dr. Brown was from the
Builder’s generation and shared its values but cared for students as persons and trusted
academics as an endeavor and as people. In that context of generational overlap came the years
1972 and 1973, when trust and faith in the leader and the led had to be strong.
Q. What was Dr. Brown’s sense of Christian higher education?
A. He was after the same atmosphere as Bresee. The ‘spirit of place’ at the college was to
combine the hunger for knowledge and the hunger for God. He loved students, was a students’
president, but worried about the changing culture, so emphasized responsibility. Like Bresee, he
told the students that the end and essence of liberal education is freedom, and to live in freedom
is to be responsible for self and society.
58
3. PONDER ANEW WHAT THE ALMIGHTY CAN DO
The Second Move
You will be called by a new name. Is 62:2
When they were gone an angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream….Matt 2:13
When the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed
against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and
put their trust in him and in Moses. Exodus 14:31
Paul and his companions traveled through the region of Phryia
and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching
in the province of Asia… During the night Paul had a vision of a man
of Macedonia standing and begging him “Come over to Macedonia
and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision we got ready at once
to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to
preach the gospel to them. Acts 16:6-7
Praise to the Lord, who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
THE DREAM RESTORED
As Dr. Brown entered the administration building, he had to pass the model of the Master Plan
for the “built out” campus on the way to his office. Once there he could look out the window
onto the “old campus” and see how inadequate it was for the future. As he pondered the future,
he also knew the new section of the campus would be nice, but always surrounded by smog and
neighborhood hostility. He was caught. For 60 years, the college persevered through economic
strains and social change. It had not prospered, but it had survived and served several generations
of students.
In 1971, President Brown faced the best future that seemed possible, but not great. There was
little room for imagination. That was about to change, and in the next couple years, Dr. Brown
would need the Lord to “prosper his work and defend him.” But how could change come?
59
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
God reached out in love. Can we say that? Peter wrote that God cares for us, but for a college? If
not, all significant events are purely cause and effect, or artificially engineered, or random, and
the spirit’s presence is hostage to fate. We can say God reached out in love; given the college’s
history, we can say God knows and cares about this institution. Through the four decades
involving bankers, zealots, war, depression, crisis, criticism and an autocrat, the college
survived. A father cannot control all that happens to a child, but fathers can care, guide and
protect. Then, when a great opportunity arises, he will do all he can to make it happen. There are
those who would apply this scripture to the college:
The Lord your God carried you as a father carries his son,
all the way you went until you reached this place. Deut 1:31
Completely unexpectedly, “out of the blue,” in the spring of 1972, Dr. William Rust, President of
California Western University, called Dr. Brown. New people came into play.
Cal Western was located on the Point Loma peninsula of San Diego, an outgrowth of Balboa
College, which had been granted a zoning variance in 1950. Rust wanted the enrollment to grow
from 2,400 to 10,000, but the near neighbors were strongly opposed. To grow to that number, the
college would need to expand on land it owned down to the bluffs, but the city would not give
the permits necessary for that expansion. On March 14, 1972, the city and university hit a
stalemate on the sale of the coastal property of the college.
Dr. Rust was ambitious and visionary, talking in the 1950s of internationalizing the curriculum
and creating a multicultural and interdisciplinary education that would produce world leaders, so
he opened campuses in London, Mexico and Kenya and a new law school at home, and took the
name United States International University (USIU). It was a structure built on loans that needed
rapidly rising enrollment to make it work. Rust had a driving personality and a valuable vision
but poor management style, resulting in some friends and hosts of enemies, and by 1972, USIU
was on a financial brink of collapse. 76
The only option was to relocate to a site where he could grow, so a group of friendly investors
purchased surplus government land near Scripps Ranch and leased it to Rust. He built some
buildings there and opened a minimal campus in 1968. The Cal Western campus still had the
main facility so it remained in operation, but at some point the college would move to the
Scripps Ranch site and the Cal Western campus converted to non-educational uses. However, the
costs of the five campuses drove the university to deep financial trouble. Not wanting to lose his
international campuses, Rust saw the only way out was to sell the Point Loma campus. 77 If he
was going to relocate to Scripps Ranch to ensure a better future, he had to trigger a relocation in
another college.
Dr. Brown was president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and knew
the presidents of colleges in the west. He also often accompanied the basketball teams on their
away games. It’s likely he met Dr. Rust at one of those games and commented on the beauty of
60
the campus. So when Rust started thinking who to call, he called Brown, said he planned to sell
the campus for $13 million and asked if he might be interested. Brown indicated that he was.
They talked and Brown left things open with Rust, but soon called back and said it was not really
possible. Brown thought and prayed about that call, and did not feel good about his call back to
Rust. Should he, he prayed, pursue it? He decided “to do something Biblical and ‘put out a
fleece’ that if Rust called him back he would take it as a prompt from the Lord to pursue this
possibility.” 78
On April 10, 1972, Professor Beryl Dillman returned to campus after being at Cal Western and
hearing it was for sale, and went to Brown’s office to tell him the news. 79
Then Rust called back.
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
granted in what He ordaineth?
Dr. Brown’s son, Warren, said his father basically believed the Lord led Rust to call back, so
they decided it was time to talk. 80 It was too early to consult with the whole board, but with the
meaning of that second call in his mind, he called Rust to set up an appointment. Then he called
Wes Mieras, who was a pilot with his own plane, and invited his son as well.
Wesley Mieras and Shelburne Brown became close friends as students in Pasadena College. Into
the 1960s they remained the closest of friends, even though Wes Mieras did not golf. Brown was
the District Superintendent and then President of Pasadena College; Mieras was an attorney and
Secretary of the Board of Trustees and its legal counsel, and a member of the denomination’s
General Board. Brown considered Mieras a legal genius and relied on him as a close confident.
The three flew down to San Diego on the appointed day, drove to the campus and found a place
to park. Even though the sky was heavily overcast, they could see the campus was spectacular,
the atmosphere open and free, and it was nearly three times larger than the college’s Master Plan
anticipated in Pasadena. The president’s imagination was released and he could see something
like Bresee’s original dream for Nazarene University becoming possible here. “As I walked the
grounds,” Brown later recalled, “I began to dream of Pasadena College here. A strong conviction
gripped me that our future was here.” 81 Here was the chance for a significant S curve upward to
a much higher level of quality.
After the brief drive through the campus the three found their way across town to the Scripps
Ranch campus where the two leaders met with Rust to discuss things in general terms. Rust said
he had to sell the campus. Brown knew his administration had just gotten the college out of a
deep financial problem. He also knew the Master Plan would always run into trouble with the
city planning commission and city council. That initial discussion went well. The next step was a
step up in seriousness. Brown set up a formal meeting with Rust for two days later and took
Board President Dr. L. Guy Nees, Business Manager Robert Foster, and Wes Mieras, who flew
them all down to San Diego.
61
While Brown began to investigate the possibility of buying the campus, another group was
organizing to buy it. The Cal Western faculty loved their campus and did not want to be evicted
by having it sold to outsiders. So a group came together headed by Provost Carroll Cannon. A
couple significant San Diego leaders, Col. Irving Salomon and T. Claude Ryan, supported them,
and if necessary, they would try to wrestle control of Cal Western away from Rust and USIU. If
they purchased the college they would surely fire Rust as president since they neither trusted nor
liked him. For his part, Rust wanted to keep that group preoccupied and in the dark and did not
want his faculty to see strangers on campus. Therefore, he would not meet Brown and his
delegation on campus. They met at a restaurant on Shelter Island. Foster needed numbers and the
Cal Western officials were not prepared to provide a budget, but did give him some figures on
operating costs. 82
Returning to Pasadena, Foster, knowing PC’s expenses, did some parallel projections over a fiveto eight-year period of expenses if the college moved and sold the Pasadena campus, and if they
did not sell it. Then he ran a forecast of enrollment income. As they looked at the figures, the risk
was clear— “the first initial reaction was, we can’t move unless we have some resolution of
Pasadena.” 83 USIU had to take it as partial payment of the purchase, it had to be sold to
someone (difficult for a single-use set of facilities) or it had to be rented.
Now the attention of the three—Brown, Foster and Mieras—shifted to evaluating if this was
something seriously viable or a flash in the pan. Until they knew more, they had to control
information and keep this tightly held or it might not happen. The faculty, whose lives would be
disrupted, could create opposition, just as was happening on the Cal Western campus. In those
days a denominational leader like a General Superintendent could stop it, so Brown did not
inform them of his hopes and negotiations. There would be criticism for this approach, but
without it, the effort could be stopped early. On the other hand, he could not reach any serious
agreement with Rust without the knowledge and approval from the Board of Trustees.
Normally, before a Board meeting President Brown would meet with the Board’s Trustee
Council to prepare for the larger meeting. To do so now would result in leaks, especially calls to
Kansas City, and perhaps even opposition to taking it to the Board. He had to call the Board to a
meeting with only minimal information, a meeting about moving the college with no packets of
information, no committee analysis, not even pictures. Could he convince even a bare majority to
open formal negotiations? There was a way that might work, high risk, but maybe he could. He
had to try. He called for a special executive session of the Board of Trustees.
Brown arranged for the Board to meet in San Diego at the
Travelodge on Harbor Island on May 22, 1972. Executive
session. Just across the highway from the San Diego airport, the
hotel displayed the glory of San Diego. Full of optimism and
enthusiasm, President Brown told the Board about the Cal
Western campus, not flat barren land but an existing college
campus with buildings and dorms, sitting on the bluffs
overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He told them of his discussions
with President Rust, and about this opportunity being perfect. It
was the larger campus they needed without the political processes, delays, neighborhood
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opposition and all the rest that would occur from trying to build out the Pasadena campus. This
opportunity, this singular opportunity, was a perfect answer to the college’s needs.
That all sounded good but a bit abstract. Brown anticipated that so
had six cars waiting. They left the hotel and drove to the campus
in a caravan. They drove onto the campus and up to the first stop
sign at the crest of the point, and the ocean view opened up in
front of them. They turned left and drove through the heart of the
campus, past the buildings, the modern gymnasium, the Greek
Amphitheater with the ocean and blue sky behind, and a series of dorms. They were likely
frustrated because they could not stop and get out of the cars and look in the buildings. Then they
went back up and past the science building and out, returning to the Travelodge. What could they
say? This was a spectacular campus unlike they had ever seen or dreamed about.
The tour, brief as it was, had left the members dazzled. Meeting again in private, Chairman Nees
called the meeting to order and prayed about their discussions. Then he called on the president to
explain where they were. Brown, in one of the prime times of his life, told of his discussions
with President Rust, of a basic deal to purchase the campus in part by USIU taking the Pasadena
campus as part of the price. The price was too high yet, but Foster presented a plausible budget if
the campus did not sell and Mieras discussed the negotiations and the possibility that an
agreement could probably be reached within two weeks.
There are pivotal points in an institution’s history that can be missed because the wrong people
are in play, and providence is not always simple or easy to see. This Board of Trustees
recognized the opportunity. A motion was made to authorize Brown to open formal negotiations
to purchase the campus and relocate the college. Then they prayed. They recognized the
immense task and risk but historic opportunity. When they were through, the entire Board voted
approval. There was unity and members expressed appreciation and support for the president.
Most everyone wanted something better than the Pasadena campus, and this was beyond their
hopes.
Praise the Lord, the Almighty,
the King of Creation
An uptake in activity did not go unnoticed and rumors of a move began to develop among the
attentive faculty. Brown knew he had to tell the faculty now. He could not be like Rust; his
leadership had to have integrity so he would be trusted. Though nothing was finalized, Brown
decided it was better to be open with the faculty than to have rumors circulating that could
disrupt the process. He called a special meeting of the faculty for Tuesday, May 30. He went to
this meeting full of confidence and enthusiasm, but also with trepidation because he knew the
impact his announcement would have on the lives of faculty and staff. It was relatively easy for
Board members to vote to move the college because the move would not affect them. Not so for
the faculty. They met in the recently remodeled Winchester Hall. The former Reading Room
with ornate windows, high-beamed ceiling and painted detail had been transformed into an
auditorium with a stage and theater seating replacing tables and chairs. The remodel of this
former library was possible because a new modern library was just completed the year before.
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Brown began by announcing that the Trustees, “with unanimous and vigorous action,” voted to
open negotiations to purchase the Cal Western campus. If negotiations are successful, he said,
the college will begin full operations in September of the next year. The campus was ideal,
fronted the ocean, and was largely a finished campus in terms of facilities. “It is conservatively
estimated that we will save ourselves $10 million in the next 15 years in capital expenses by
making this move.” Then he continued:
This will involve some traumatic tearing up of relationships. However,
the long-term good of the institution seems to fully merit any hardship
we may encounter in the move….I do not know all the details of what
is involved in this undertaking, but am personally convinced that it is
a providential opportunity for the present and for the greater future of
this college…I say to you earnestly, there will be some more austerity
budgets ahead…I have told the Board quite frankly that there is a
risk involved and we might conceivably lose the whole institution…
For me, I much prefer to spend my energy and the resources of the
institution in doing something bigger and better than we have dreamed
before than to face the status quo.
It was all there—the ideal setting, the personal impact and efforts to mediate it, the providential
nature, the risk of losing the institution, and the historic opportunity to escape the guaranteed
difficult future for a dream future.
It did not go over well with everyone. Warren Brown was there. He had seen the campus and
was shocked that the faculty was not immediately excited about it, but quickly recognized why.
Today, the faculty who were there still remember not only that they would have to move away
from their established lives, but also the president’s warning that it was a risky endeavor
financially and the whole college could be lost. There were a few questions and Brown explained
that the college would help with the selling of their homes and the cost of moving their
furnishings. Then it was over. Some faculty were pleased the moment they heard it while others
went home intrigued with the coming new adventure, and some went home in dismay and began
the process of decision.
Like Joshua, Brown had toured a land of great promise. Now, could he acquire it, and would the
people follow?
Negotiations became serious, so that within a week, on Saturday, June 3, Brown, Foster and
Mieras were in San Diego and reached an agreement. They returned to Pasadena, where Brown
went home to help prepare for the Open House he and his wife Lois were having before the
Alumni Banquet later that night. On Monday June 5, the Board of Trustees met in special session
at the Los Angeles International Airport and approved the proposed offer to purchase the Cal
Western campus, and the USIU Board met and accepted the offer. The next day Brown made the
agreement public.
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The Carroll Cannon group was stunned, saying they made an offer and
would increase its value, and they threatened to get a court injunction to
delay the sale of the campus until USIU negotiated seriously with them.
A Pasadena College committee noted that Rust pulled the rug out from
under the committee by not dealing with them, and expressed concern
that the college make some kind of rapprochement with the members
because “their goodwill will be needed later.” The student body
president said “half the campus was walking around with tears in their
eyes.” 84
“It looks like we are on our way,” President Brown wrote the faculty in
a memo on June 6, though he noted there was still “some percentage possibilities that something
might fall through (but) it seems very positive at this time that we will move on the schedule
announced to you earlier.” It would not be easy for the faculty, so the president offered a maxim:
“Ask not what Pasadena College can do for you, but what you can do for Pasadena College.” 85 It
would not be that easy for Brown either. The price was still a stumbling block, but worse was the
dire financial condition of USIU and whether President Rust, ambitious, manipulative, and now
financially cornered with his whole life’s work at stake, could be trusted.
Now with the decision made, offer accepted and announcement made, Brown flew to Miami,
Florida. There, from June 15-23, the Church of the Nazarene was holding its quadrennial
General Assembly to hear reports, pass legislation and elect leaders. Brown was there with his
optimism of the future and enjoying all the energy and bustle and networking. Then two
unexpected events impinged on him. As a complete surprise, Rust contacted him in Miami to ask
if he could put a lien on the Pasadena campus so he could get a loan to meet his payroll. That
was out of the question. To finalize the rejection he later took the request to the Trustee Council,
which rejected it and set the price for the Pasadena campus at $7,500.000. 86 Could Brown deal
with this man?
Then balloting for a new General Superintendent began. There were some clear favorites and
votes for Brown rose rapidly; he was facing the possibility and opportunity of election to the
denomination’s highest office, which would be the culmination of a career in the ministry and
the church. To leave to become a General Superintendent would open a future of importance and
admiration and without the stress that could cause health problems. If he stayed with the college
he would be subject to all the uncertainties, work and stress of the move. Leaving would also
leave in doubt the move and its potential destiny for the college, and it would leave the faculty in
a kind of limbo, having been shown a better future and then abandoned. He was asking the
faculty to put the interests of the institution above their own. Now his personal interest was at
stake. Other men had clearly sought to use the presidency of a Nazarene college as the stepping
stone to the top, and some had little regard for faculty, always suspect because they were not
men and women of the church but belonged to their own narrow academic worlds. That was not
Shelburne Brown.
The move would require a leader with the ability to make a difficulty and risky decision and
stick with it.
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During a recess between votes he sought out General Superintendent Dr.
Samuel Young and said he needed to announce that he could not accept an
election. “We’re in the middle of the move. I can’t pull away from the college. I
can’t leave the faculty after convincing them to move.” Young, knowing the
delegates from certain regions of the country would never vote for the stylish
college president from California, told him “Wait just two or three more ballots
and then we’ll talk again.” In the end, the delegates went for a compromise
person and Brown returned to Pasadena with a clear conscience and an even greater certainty of
God’s blessing on the move. He also returned as a person of integrity and responsibility, known
to put the interests of the college ahead of his own personal opportunities. 87
Off campus, negotiations with USIU continued, usually with Rust and Brown alone, other times
with Mieras and Foster, but were not reaching a conclusion. Rust was insisting on $13 million
but Brown knew the college could not afford that price. On campus, an earlier planning council,
the Council of Educational Policy and Planning (CEPP), was reactivated as the structure for
planning the move, the policies, and the utilization of the facilities at the new campus. The CEPP
had 25 members, including administration, faculty, trustees and a student. There were eight
committees and numerous subcommittees. Most of the faculty served on one or two committees.
Chemistry professor Vic Heasley served on the CEPP and remembers listening as
“Shelburne and Mieras talked about it, and they realized it was a very hazardous thing
financially. And then there was a lot of discussion about whether they could make it. It
was not a discussion of a slam dunk operation. It was being considered by one very
worldly businessman, Mieras, and also a very accomplished intellect in Shelburne….
They talked back and forth about the huge gamble they were getting into.” 88
There were wheels within wheels in the larger environment. As summer moved into fall the
excitement was wearing thin. The move to Point Loma seemed at times on track, at times
problematic and always a major risk. On campus, faculty attitudes were diverse, some seeing an
adventure, others considering leaving. While they contemplated their personal future and carried
on their full-time workload, they now had the added responsibility of considering institutional
purpose, structure, program, public relations and more, and a lot of detail. Alumni were divided,
some in shock. Close friends and strong supporters of the college wondered why it would move.
Major donors were offended that the results of their giving would be left behind. A key
influential trustee, J. C. Wooton, had always opposed a move. Wes Mieras flew him to San
Diego and toured the campus before the historic vote and he became a strong advocate because
“the value was there.” Malcolm Mequire thought the college should move to Orange County, not
San Diego. Most PC students were excited about the adventure and only 40 did not return in the
fall. A USIU campus newspaper wondered how the staid students and college would harmonize
with San Diego.89
Three local churches, Bresee Avenue, Pasadena First, and Central Church, relied heavily on
college faculty and students, and relocation could be a lethal blow to the existence of two of
them. They discussed merging, but Pasadena First indicated it was moving. Central Church was
in decline and had an opportunity to merge with Bresee for a new future. It was its pivotal point
in time, but too many members were committed to the past and it was turned down. Several
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years later, the church died. Bresee Avenue was hit hard and faded, and then revived as an
intercultural church. 90
Not Pasadena First Church. It was rapidly ascending and looking to
relocate to relieve the pressure of overcrowding of the church facilities and
having three Sunday morning services. Pastor Earl Lee had a social
function at his home one Sunday evening and overheard a conversation
between President Brown and Mieras and realized they were talking about
the college moving away. The loss of 150 families would take the pressure
off the church. After the college moved and those members were gone, a
fresh group of leaders came forward. They caught a new vision. They built
a new larger church campus a few miles away, relocated and grew more. 91
DOMAIN OF DECISION
The decision to move or not to move would be a group decision by the Board of Trustees.
Boards of Trustees are governing authorities, and trustees hold the best interests of the school
in their trust. The board makes policy; it does not administer the college. It sets the mission of
the school, selects the president, and lays out what they expect, the benchmarks, and oversees the
budget and personnel.
From its beginning the board was always balanced with half of the Trustees as elders and half
laymen. The process in 1972 for electing Trustees was for a nominations committee of each
District Assembly to place people on the ballot; a District Superintendent may control the
choices, or the committee selected names of people and pastors known and popular in the
district. The Assembly then elected an assigned number of each, and the Board of Trustees
officially elected them to membership. Those persons were pleased to be on the Board and
to do their best for the best interests of the college, but the college had no control over who
became a Trustee, and no ability to get people with the qualities a college needs in its Trustees.
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The context in the Fall of 1972 was a bright opportunity with the risk of uncertainty of financial
and institutional costs. Given that uncertainty, they would need to use realism and reason in their
decision, and reflective responses to actions and decisions of other officials, lawyers, bankers
and courts. In that context reasonable people will differ.
The board does not meet often, so in between times the development of assessments and
projections and negotiations would fall to the president and his personal advisory group,
particularly Wes Mieras, Bob Foster, and Jack Morris. Yet the board is not the president’s
advisory group. He works for them, charged with leading the college within the bounds of their
policy. When Brown and his advisory group needed trustee counsel or approval, the Trustee
Council would meet and respond.
All of those considerations could be said of any corporate or non-profit organization facing a
serious decision. For a Christian college, however, there is assumed to be the additional factor
of the spiritual realm. Lacking any formal means of organizing and institutionalizing a means of
divine guidance as an additional factor, guidance from the Counselor is normally sought through
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a short opening prayer, or prayer before a vote, and then members act on what they consider
good judgment for a Christian college. Some Trustees likely prayed seriously about the question
often and may have found guidance for themselves and became convinced of the nature of sound
judgment, and some may have come believing the weight of sound judgment was too heavy and
they must reach beyond it to faith. That was the position of Shelburne Brown and he tried to play
that role in the board meetings of 1972 and 1973.
The districts from which the trustees were elected were diverse—coastal, agricultural,
technological, desert, urban, metropolis, The trustees of 1972-1973 were all men of goodwill,
with varying degrees of expertise and accomplishment, and representing a spectrum of personal
commitments to freedom or cultural conformity, from supportive of the college to opposition and
fear. Some understood their commitments as Trustees while some thought of themselves as
elected representatives from their districts to the board, speaking for their concerns and back in
the district confirming the district’s views. Within the board was a special select group, the
District Superintendents. They are the middle management of the denomination but are not just
superintendents of independent districts; they are “assistant general superintendents” and bore
responsibility for the interests of the denomination and its leaders, a role they could not leave at
the door. 93 Some then saw themselves as the agents of the denomination within the board and
worked to reconcile the two as they felt they could, so bloc votes were unusual.
The Board’s decisions in 1972 and 1973 were for the highest of stakes, and Trustees without
expertise in education or finance would look to the opinions of those whose background or
position made them influential. Some Trustees were hopeful and ready to accept the risks of the
move. Businessman J.C. Wooton had come to California from Texas and built a thriving car
dealership in the midst of the Depression. Then he became a financier and developed
subdivisions. Wooton became a strong supporter after seeing the property and understanding its
value and was very influential. Some felt less confident, especially given the fragility of USIU
and fluidity of negotiations.
Likewise, Wilbert Little was a medical doctor and close friend of Dr. Brown. He was so well
respected that he was elected Board Chairman in 1974, the only layman to ever hold that
position. He supported the move, but his removal was later engineered for not supporting the
agenda of Brown’s successor and an issue the General Superintendents wanted done.
Dr. Paul Benefiel understood the college needed to move, that Brown had caught a vision or a
dream beyond his day, and supported Brown’s decision to move because he felt the value of the
Point Loma land meant there was no risk to the college. 94
At the opposite end from Wooton and Little was Brown’s persistent critic, District
Superintendent and Trustee Dr. E. E. Zachary. He was an adversary of all colleges, even
Northwest Nazarene, and was executor of Mrs. Cooper’s will, which gave him influence within
the administration. Zackary was a powerful person and acted accordingly and had an ally in one
of the pastors. Twice Brown was subjected to humiliation at Northern California’s District
Assemblies. Zachary initially campaigned against the move behind the scenes but he soon found
he had no support. An ally who usually voted with Zachary was Ken Vogt, the District
Superintendent of the contiguous Sacramento District. 95
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There were also Trustees who would later seek the blessing of the next president imposed by the
General Superintendent by criticizing Brown, saying that they had been concerned that the
college was becoming too liberal and secular but could not do anything about it because the
board only deals with policy. 96
In between was District Superintendent Nicholas Hull. His judgment and vote were important
since the college was going to move into his district and he was torn. He and many of his pastors
had long been critics of the Religion Department but Hull loved Shelburne Brown. He lacked
formal education, did not trust the college and worried about all the new highly educated elders
moving into his district. He was a large presence with a kind of Arkansas roughness. Like
Abraham Lincoln, he dealt with his conundrum with his own humorous excesses that were often
misunderstood. Though he could be an enigma, he had real heart. Before it was broken up, the
Southern California District was large with the potential resources to plant churches and build
strong programs. He would get “blessed” with the plan to reach a million people and supported
his pastors like a coach. The college would be a wild card and a college church would be a
competitor to his pastors.
Hull could have blocked the move. He did not; students and faculty could help build existing
churches. So when the decision was made to move, he appointed a district committee to organize
a Welcome Banquet for the college, and told them to spare no expense. He told the crowd he had
not wanted the college to move to San Diego but was now proud to have the college. A year later
he became very ill and had to resign. 97
DECISIONS AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL
From the summer into the fall Brown worked with his team who were investing their lives in
this effort. He was confident but was becoming dismayed with the reluctance of the faculty.
Brown was focused on the future with an “artist” perspective of what could be achieved while
some of the faculty were “satisfied” with where they were and what they had, and others fearful
of Brown’s warnings, so were dismayed, and disagreed with the move.
The Trustees wanted to make the move. Everything about it was better and Business Manager
Foster continued to argue that the deficits could be handled and the Pasadena campus rented if
it was not sold. The price and need for USIU to take the Pasadena campus as partial payment
continued to bedevil the negotiations and there was a growing feeling within the board that the
financial commitment was too large. 98
For some Trustees the enormous advantages made the risk worth taking, while others were not
going to risk the institution for a hoped-for future, and they continued to raise serious questions.
Giving credence to their fears was the loud background noise of uncertainty--the national news
of a 10% inflation rate and the Watergate investigations. Was Brown up to dealing with the
desperate President Rust? Were there unknown problems with the Cal Western campus?
The contrast and future possibilities between the two campuses were so great that the first
decision had been easy. Now, as negotiations ran their course and events came and went, and
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arrangements for the move and purchase finalized, more decisions would come, some about the
distribution of benefits, some about the fate of the college, and some about the nature of the
academic culture. The implications of these coming decisions would have increasing gravitas for
the college as an institution and a culture, for constituent groups, and for individual Trustees.
Now decisions would be made by each individual, by influence groups, by committees, and by
the group as a whole.
The full Board of Trustees met October 9 and 10, 1972. The sheer size of the undertaking was
becoming clearer, especially when viewed against sixty years of debt and shortages and survival
and a couple new buildings twenty to forty years apart. The Trustees were from the Wesleyan
tradition, which included ideas such as: the freedom to make decision, God’s efforts at guidance,
and the consequences of bad decisions. If this was a divine or providential opportunity, only the
president seemed to sense that in the documentary record. There were no Bresee-like assertions
that God was involved in the move from any committee. These were Trustees of the fate of an
institution designed to serve the church, an institution with a past of doing little things.
The president was upbeat in his public role. “The attention of the denomination has been
arrested,” he said. “It could be that we are pioneering the way for one or more of our other
institutions to take a similar step.” There are moments in history, he continued, when decisions
impact history, and “such are these days in the life of this institution.” Yet the days ahead will be
difficult and with a danger; “we could lose the entire college as a result of attempting this bold
step forward,” but the alternative is “worse than the risk itself.”
He described the additional costs for the move and refurbishing of the campus, and did not know
where the money would come from, though he listed corporate donations, increased student
enrollment and districts paying their full budget. He ended by saying the gigantic task will cause
some trauma, anxiety, hardship, and sacrifice, and misunderstandings will surely arise. Board
members, he said, will have to stand tall and will need thick skins, tender hearts, strong hands,
and sacrificial spirits.” 99 It was to a higher plane, to heroic churchmanship.
Most of the Trustees had great respect for Brown and for Business Manager Robert Foster, but
some of them were not going to jeopardize what they considered a child of the church and one of
its six prize possessions. Brown always said he believed it was the Lord’s will that the college
move, but there was no indication that the trustees took this as more than the normal “God talk”
of religious leaders. At this meeting the Trustees looked at four issues. One was a committee
report that children of Nazarene pastors should receive a 15% discount on their tuition, not funds
from “any scholarship fund, but rather a discount from the student’s tuition bill.” The second
report expressed the continuing concern about the lack of any Nazarene church close to the
campus. Nick Hull, the District Superintendent of the San Diego area, was opposed to a church
on campus so the report recommended that the Board “look with favor” on a church on campus
and, to make it more attractive to district leaders, that if the district leaders decide to establish
one, the college would provide the land free to the district. The third recommended that student
expression be curtailed in the student newspaper, and the fourth reported the belief that there
would be advantages gained by inclusion of the denominational name in the new name of the
college.
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The Finance Committee heard Bob Foster present his budget and said that in his three-year
projections there would be deficits, but “if the campus did not sell it was still a doable plan.” 100
Not selling the campus was not something that would stop it (the purchase) dead in the water.”
Still, some felt there was a much higher risk if the campus did not sell. The President also
mentioned the need for corporate donors, and for some Trustees, reliance on corporate donations
could threaten the denominational integrity of the school. The committee brought forward a
recommendation to proceed but to conclude the purchase only when USIU gave written
assurances that it would purchase the Pasadena campus, or if the campus was sold.
Faith or Funds—which should prevail? The discussion was apparently intense. Though all
wanted the move to take place, the President had said again the entire college could be lost. To
pick up the debts of Cal Western required more cash flow funds, or a financial stretch that could
be too far and lead to collapse. “There were different levels of concern and support,” Trustee
Bob Scott said, but “there was no effort by the trustees that I know about to stop the move.” 101
Unless, that is, a motion was made to vote on the resolution ad seriatim, to vote on each part of
the now five-part resolution separately. Thus, the portion of the motion that stipulated the
purchase could be made only if there was a disposition of the Pasadena campus that was
separated out and voted on by itself. A sale of an aged campus within eight months was highly
unlikely. The vote tally is not recorded but passed, likely by a combination of Trustees who saw
it as a “safeguard” and others who saw it as a “red line” that demanded a risk-free relocation.
The president saw the vote and seemed to read that decision to vote ad seriatim on each part
separately, to insist that the single-use campus be sold within the year, as a “killer amendment,”
turning the resolution into a “no,” vote on relocation. 102
Move or Stay—how much sacrifice could each family sustain? While the Trustees wrestled with
their question, many faculty were still assessing their dilemma. There were plenty of other
colleges close enough that one could stay and not be too inconvenienced, whereas a move to San
Diego could well mean a dispersal, a clogged freeway commute and higher mortgage payments.
While some faculty were ready to move, some were deciding to stay, and a small core agreeing
to move but grousing about it. Brown was becoming disappointed with the recalcitrance of some
faculty and claimed he had less power every day. 103
Insular or coastal, traditional or changing values—which should prevail? Inside and outside the
Trustees were those “churchmen” who identified the holiness culture of the church with what it
had been in the 1940s and were convinced if it moved, the “behavior codes loved by Nazarenes”
would be lost and the college would become, as one General Superintendent put it, a “Godforsaken place.” 104 Old men of the church, past their youth and in black suits, were unnerved by
the sight of young girl’s legs and convinced a beach culture would destroy decency and
discipline and they must be judge and jury of those who did not conform to their rules of dress.
The dream and the better future were there to be taken, but there was a combination of
reasonable, parochial, denominational and personal career calculations that could stop it. As
Brown later told his good friend Floyd Jones, “It’s tough going when you feel in your heart that
you are doing what God wants you to do, and you have such stiff opposition. Sometimes you
wonder.” 105
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Shakespeare would put it like this, from Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene III:
There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a sea are we now afloat /And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our venture.
In theological terms, was this opportunity a kairos moment, a moment pregnant with opportunity
in which the Lord was present and active? Brown could feel the tide building but there was no
swelling tide on campus. Was the tide real? That was the essential question and one rarely knows
the answer until later when looking back. The interviews will describe the multiple ways in
which people interpreted the leading of the Lord in the past and for the future and made their
decisions. If the critical mass of trustees and faculty decide to go, there could be a swelling tide
carrying the college to the future. The decision not to go, to set the criteria for moving too high,
would take the college back into shallows and years of misery over the missed chance as they
moved down the wrong side of the bell curve of the institution’s history.
PROVIDENCE, KAIROS, AND LEADERSHIP
Providence is not God’s enforcement of a pre-planned blueprint of time, decisions and fate.
Providence is God working in the mind and spirit of individuals to see and take opportunities to
enhance the college and promote his purposes for it and through it. Their decisions and actions
are not guaranteed and at times God will have to increase his level of guidance, hoping people
will respond. When that opportunity can be an historical pivot point and God’s purposes
advanced or perhaps finally realized, that opportunity is a kairos moment.
Brown went to Hawaii the next month for a Preachers’ Meeting and as usual had lunch with his
friends Kimber Moulton and Bill Stone. As they were walking across the parking lot, Brown
lamented to them that, “There are times when I feel like I am standing alone and nobody cares a
thing about what I’m doing.” 106
The words seem stunning, so contrary to his image. Why? As President in an era of “risk if
you do” move and “decline if you don’t,” Brown like all top leaders was operating in multiple
worlds. Being in charge is a public world, for to the outside the leader is the one to whom
constituents complain, and on the inside is the one who has to keep lieutenants and experts
committed despite their doubts. Leaders carry the responsibility and burden for the
consequences, and must keep a degree of detachment from even their closest allies. 107
“It’s lonely at the top” is an axiom of leadership. That is the personal world. The leader carries
the stress of bearing the burdens of the personal nature of decision; the inability to trust even a
confidant to understand presidential perspective; and the artificiality of needing to always be
“on” and positive in the midst of delays, difficulties, and double-dealings. There are also
“midnight moments of aloneness,” the moment when responsibility, risk, and critics come
together in one’s mind and lead to a time of “self-doubt, second-guessing, and deep anxiety that
is reserved for leaders.” 108 Those can be rare, but they can be paralyzing or a trial from which
one emerges more convinced and determined.
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Given that world, leaders need a third world, a private world where they can release expressions
of frustration. The people involved are too well known and the uncertainties and the process too
long to even confide in a spouse. A few close friends completely unrelated to the leader’s job or
the decision provide an environment for relaxation and safety for speaking deeply personal
words. That is an indispensable world Brown found with his friends in Hawaii.
Shelburne Brown also lived in a human world of social and institutional hierarchies, and they
can be full of surprises. The October meeting should have been more positive, more supportive,
The same year that Brown was working on this historic opportunity, President Nixon surprised
the world by going to China. Then tragedy--the Olympics were stunned when some Israeli
athletes were taken hostage and killed. Then Governor Wallace was shot and crippled. Tom
Eagleton had to withdraw as a Vice President nominee and the Senate began the Watergate
hearings. Those are background noises that make a leader even more sensitive to his or her
situation, suspicions and surprises.
Finally, Brown lived in a spiritual world of devotion to Christ and openness to his guidance. He
had been called to the ministry, embraced the Lord’s kingdom values of humility, integrity, and
strength of character, including the priority of responsibility over personal ambition, which he
displayed at the General Assembly. He was an educator and at heart, a minister.
Brown was living in five worlds and needed to find a higher sense of purpose to unite those
worlds and sustain him through the ups and downs and setbacks of the coming months. He
needed to see providence, God’s involvement which made this not merely a corporate real estate
opportunity but a kairos moment. The Lord was about to do that. While in Hawaii the Lord had
an encounter with Brown. Perhaps Brown was having one of those “midnight moments” like
Jacob in the river, or perhaps, like W. F. Hill sixty years earlier his sleep was disturbed, or
perhaps he was sleeping easily.
The description of the Hawaii encounter comes from one of Brown’s closest friends, Lewis
Shingler, who said Brown told him he was awakened out of his sleep at 3 a.m. by the presence of
God, and he heard the Lord tell him to move the college.
The instruction of the Lord was so real and so specific. I believe
he told me to call the board together and tell them that we had to
move the college to Point Loma. 109
That event was verified by Kimber Moulton, who said Brown told him he received a “direct
word from the Lord that he was to make the move.” 110 For Brown, this was no longer his move,
it was the Lord’s move; it was not his personal ambition or faulty calculations that were risking
the institution. This was providence capitalized, the Lord’s project, and must not fail. Given the
obstacles about to come, Brown would need all his skills and goodwill and the Lord’s going
before him.
Brown did not mention this divine encounter outside his circle of closet friends. The most
common reaction of anyone when told about such an event is disbelief and dismissal. People
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rarely believe someone saying, “God told me to…”—especially such a dramatic event and for
such an important issue. In 1907 Bresee could speak of the Lord’s hand opening doors, but that
language is not apparent in 1972. The marginality of the college for decades was a more
pressing reality than a college chapter that now seemed like a public relations scripture. The risks
or seeming impossibility of the task will make some people dismiss any reference to your belief
that your vision is God’s will. Trustees would likely see it as a means to short-circuit their
discussions and vote against their best collective wisdom. Trustee Bob Scott said that,
“Shelburne was too smart and too spiritual to resort to the ‘spiritual’ recourse.’” 111
But, if he ever had any of the so-called midnight moments of self-doubt, they would not come
again. So later, when escrow problems continued to arise and the relocation looked doubtful,
Brown told his friend and trusted trustee Bud Smee that, “If this fails, I’m going to have a lot of
questions when I get to Heaven.” 112
The encounter melted and molded the five worlds of Shelburne Brown into one. The worlds of
law and banking, church hierarchy, and city government in both Pasadena and San Diego could
frustrate the move through their normal processes, but that view of the normal missed seeing
what Brown now knew, that God’s purposes and actions would be part of the processes. Grace
was a player in reality again.
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
That augmented reality was not a guarantee of an outcome. Brown had the confidence that God
was with him, but he and his team still had to make it happen. If “doors” did not open, he would
kick them down. This verse does not mean San Diego, yet it did apply.
Do not fear…for it is your Father’s good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. Luke 12:32
Brown returned from Hawaii determined that the purchase was going to go through. At that point
the biggest obstacle was the price, so he went to see Rust to “lay it on the line” that Rust’s price
was “not a viable option.” USIU owed $9,446,000.05 to four lenders, close to half of that to
Connecticut Mutual. Again in 1973, USIS could not pay its faculty. Rust wanted cash from the
sale of the campus but he had only one buyer and Brown would not meet his price. The easiest
way out for him was just to get rid of the debts. Hence, the final agreement with Rust was that
the college would purchase the Cal Western site by assuming those four obligations for their
values at the close of escrow. No cash would be exchanged. Brown returned to Pasadena with
Rust’s agreement to a $9.1 million price and took the lead, telling Bob Foster, “We’re going to
do it.” 113
Robert Foster came to the college in 1966 in a time of financial stress and stabilized its finances.
It was a career change that brought his talents out of the world of commerce to the world of
Christian education. He developed a close relationship with the president and Brown relied on
him and his banker’s conservative perspective for institutional stability and strength for carrying
out the Master Plan. Now, with Brown returning from Hawaii committed to a risky relocation, he
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recognized this is where the Lord wanted him; his talents were a necessity for such a time as this.
He had financially positioned the institution to withstand the stresses of a coming period of risk,
so now he dedicated himself to work with Brown to make the new future happen.
From that point on, Foster said, “I had done all I could do to lay out a plan, to be open to take a
risk, and to be as open and positive and progressive to make it happen. So for me personally, the
potential of what was out there was exciting. I mean it was really a ‘10,’ a great potential you
just couldn’t turn your back on. And so in that whole process I just committed myself to try to
make it happen.” It could be a tough sell to the Trustees. “Most everyone I had contact with were
excited about the potential, but deeply concerned whether we could pull it off. And so we were
walking that fine line of trying to keep it on track but yet do it in a way that would make it
viable.” 114
BACK ON TRACK OR BACK AWAY
Brown called the Trustee Council together on November 21, 1972. They met in the morning, and
that evening had dinner with key Board member Jack Morse and the college architect/planner
Rick Conklin. The decision had been made to go. The personal Hawaii encounter affirmed
Brown’s imagination for the future and solidified it with his determination, skill, and will for
both public and private negotiations, and for steadfastness in faith and courage with the Trustees
and the seeming endless delays and uncertainty. The college still owed $2 million on the
Pasadena campus, so President Rust, who was scrambling to try to get his price, told Brown
there was a donor who perhaps could help cover the purchase and expenses.
The problem of the price was gone; now the problem was how best to use the Pasadena campus
as a monetary asset to the purchase agreement. President Hugh Glouster of Moorehouse College,
contacted Dr. Brown on January 8, 1973 to inquire about purchasing the campus, but there is no
other information. In February of 1973 Perimeter Properties sought to purchase the 17 acre
campus plus Young Hall to convert the campus to apartments. 115
The Board of Trustees met on March 13 and the Finance Committee reported that a group
desiring to purchase the campus to create an American-Armenian International College
discussed their hopes, but there was no firm proposal. Item number 1 in the report of Finance
Committee was the motion by L. Guy Nees that “we proceed with the execution of the escrow.”
After “extended discussion,” Wilbert Little moved that motion to the floor. Kenneth Vogt called
for the question and it carried, 30 in favor, 1 opposed. The option of conveying the campus to
USIU was mentioned, but there was no mention this time of selling the campus prior to a move.
The basic decision had been made. 116 The killer amendment was gone; the move was back on
track.
Back on track. Feeling uplifted, the President called a special faculty meeting that evening to
report on the Board’s balloting for the new name, and then expressed his deep appreciation for
the spirit of unity among the Trustees. He also noted their concern that the next year’s salary
increase would not keep up with inflation, and that they would provide to faculty members
assistance of up to 5% of the selling price of their homes to compensate for any losses. 117
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Back on track. Everything seemed to be staying on track so the President met the faculty again
on April 13 and reported that escrow should close in two or three weeks.
Things might have been back on track, but there was another looming danger ahead. Mieras
began to understand that USIU was so far in debt and its cash flow so inadequate that it was
“extremely unlikely” that USIU’s bankruptcy court would allow USIU to take the Pasadena
campus and its outstanding debts, which would derail the project. In October the move depended
on what the Pasadena College board did; now in March the fate of the opportunity was shifting
to bankers and lawyers in San Diego.
To make it worse, another bank was involved. U.S. Financial Corporation held a second
mortgage on portions of the campus, and it went into bankruptcy, which complicated the escrow.
Mutual Insurance filed a notice of default against the university, giving it 120 days to finalize
everything.
President Brown told the trustees that Mutual assured him it intended to see the college would
get the campus, but he knew if foreclosure happened, negotiations would have to start all over
again. Time was running out; a deal of some kind had to be made to get the college on the Point
Loma campus by the fall, and protect it once there. There was the June 2, 1972 purchase
agreement with USIU, modified over time, and now was the time for serious legal scrutiny of it.
But more importantly, options had to be devised in case the court did act against the sale
agreement.
The President had Bob Foster put together a high-level committee. Mieras was a natural choice
as an attorney and the one deeply involved in the negotiations, so he and Foster would be the
insiders. Jack Morris would bring high-level corporate and strategic insight. Outside legal advice
would come from J. Wesley Reed, a highly respected Superior Court Judge, and savvy
understanding of business dealings from Larry Whitcomb. Morris, Reed and Whitcomb were
also Trustees.
They met in Palm Springs on Friday evening, April 27 and all day Saturday, April 28. At the
evening meeting, Foster and Mieras laid out the history and issues; the hopes it represented for
the college; the assumptions, agreements and arrangements that had been made; and the dangers
even with a good agreement. They cited the Pasadena campus as an asset and the financial plight
of USIU as an increasing obstacle.
The next day, the five men brainstormed ideas and strategies, out of which developed seven
possibilities. The first four were the obvious ones: 1) sell the campus to a third party before the
move, 2) keep it and sell it later, 3) keep it and operate it jointly with someone else, or 4) keep it
empty and sell it later. The first was preferred, but there was no other serious buyer, and if it did
sell later, it might have to be at a lower the price than expected and the college would have to
make up the difference. Beyond the first alternative, costs mount. The fifth was worse—escrow
collapses and the college remains in Pasadena. There would be a widespread negative reaction,
students might not return, and some of the faculty had already sold their homes. Perhaps (6) they
could persuade bankers to extend the escrow a year until the Pasadena campus sold, but it was an
unlikely option for the creditors, and the Point Loma campus would deteriorate. The final
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alternative (7) was this: if USIU’s problems become so intense that it had to downsize and
retrench to the Cal Western campus, perhaps Pasadena could purchase its new Elliott campus.
They also considered how to react to the fact that, having agreed to the lower price, Rust now
started trying to sell additional land to the city to raise cash. The western portion of the road
down to one of the dorms and the western slope were lost to the city. If the city acquired the
road, it might well shut it down. Should the college try to resist that? It was agreed not to do
anything that could jeopardize the purchase. Later, the city did try to close the road, but the Fire
Department vetoed that to keep it open for emergency vehicles.
Out of their discussions the committee decided that 2) and 4) were not acceptable, and 6) and 7)
were not worth consideration at the time, so they should develop plans for 1), 3), and 5).
Whitcomb believed that they wanted to make the move but did not see how they could finance it,
so had a full consensus to recommend against the move. 118
President Brown had not attended the committee deliberations, so Foster and Mieras met with
him on Sunday and described their deliberations. The detail of the ideas of the brainstorming
session was impressive and would provide a detailed roadmap for whichever alternative was
chosen. Only 1), 3) and 5) looked possible and 5) was the worst possible, so they could not let
that option happen. Instead, Foster urged that they pursue 1 and 3 and laid out strategies for each.
The President recalled Rust’s idea that a donor might give a gift. Was there such a potential
donor or was that another of Rust’s ways of stringing Pasadena along? 119
The next month, May 1973, the anticipated danger happened: USIU’s bankers would not allow
Rust to purchase the Pasadena campus. Now, what had been assumed, and considered an
absolute necessity, was gone. Could the whole thing fall apart? Were the critics and doubters
emboldened? At one chapel during the spring, President Brown spoke about the move and the
discouraging state of the negotiations, and asked students and faculty to join him at the altar to
pray. Student Michael Mata remembers many did and Mark Ballew knelt near the President and
heard him “pour his heart out.” 120
Brown was becoming discouraged over the critics, as Chemistry Professor Vic Heasley
discovered in a meeting with Brown after that chapel. “I’m probably going to have to resign over
this,” Brown told him. “I’ve got so far out on this limb that it is being cut off behind me.”
Heasley protested. Knowing there was no opposition on campus, he told the President, “You’ve
got a bunch of faculty who will stick with you through anything.” 121 Brown’s concern was two
District Superintendents who seemed to work as a team, one of whom looked for ways to
criticize his leadership of the college.
There was worry among some Trustees, and they felt the weight of their responsibility to protect
the institution. Certainly other Trustees simply thought it good sense not to gamble with such
long odds. They had no visitation from the Lord in which to place their trust and move against all
odds, so while they all wanted this move, it had to “pencil out.” A key issue became whether
Rust could produce a key donor.
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Time was too short to let Rust drag the college along; there had to be an answer so a reasonable
decision on the alternatives could be made. Thus, a special meeting of the Board was held on
May 14 at the International Hotel next to LAX in Los Angeles. The President described the
status of the escrow and the inability of USIU to take the Pasadena campus. Foster presented a
summary of the committee discussions and the financial implication of each.
A key issue was whether Rust’s purported possibility of a million dollar gift from a donor was
real. A variety of proposals and four different resolutions were tried in an effort to find a way
forward. Could they take out a loan, based on the possible donation? Was that wise? So another
proposal was made. Then another. Finally Mieras made a motion that if the campus was not sold
or leased within one week, the escrow should be terminated. J. C. Wooton seconded that motion.
Mieras and Wooton were two close allies of Brown, both brilliant strategists. It is unlikely they
turned against the move; it was more likely this motion was intended to force the issue of Rust’s
purported gift. There was “extensive discussion” about the motion, some likely on whether or not
the college should use such a tactic, but it passed. 122 One week.
Three events followed. Brown called a special faculty meeting the next day to keep them
informed and described the major options and financial costs.
Second, during chapel on the May 21 day of decision, in an act of inspiration, Sophomore
President Linda Pembroke presented President Brown with 600 signatures of students pledging
prayer and support “during these uncertain times regarding the move” and saying they were
“willing to support any decision” made by President Brown and the Trustees. 123
Third, the week ended and there was no gift, but the escrow was not terminated. With that
decision delayed, Wes Mieras and his family flew to Oregon to meet with his sister, Ruth Ernst.
After nearly a year of negotiations and the Palm Springs meeting, Mieras himself had at least
some doubts along the way. The day before he left he was talking with attorney and Alumni
President and Trustee Ross Irwin about a new name for the college. To his fellow attorney he
confided, “I think this is all irrelevant because I do not think it is going to go through.” 124
Sometimes we live in the blessed and predictable garden of Genesis, and sometimes in the
dangerous wilderness of Job 39. The wilderness danger exploded into
the normal and predictable life of the Mieras family and the Trustees of
Pasadena College. Within a mile of the Oregon airport, the plane
developed engine trouble and crashed; Mieras and his family were
killed, except for one daughter who had not made the trip. It was a loss
of untold value to the local church, the college and the denomination.
The Trustees had to appreciate the potential of danger to the institution.
The memorial service was May 30. After the service the Board met to discuss the move. It was
a tough meeting. They were still stunned by the loss of their colleague and all his detailed
knowledge of the deal, plus the emotions of the service. “There were certain things that had to
be determined,” Ross Irwin said, but “it sounded like it wasn’t going to go, as Wes had felt.” 125
Also the board was not operating in a vacuum—there was concern in high church levels about
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moving the college from staid Pasadena to a beachfront site. That beach culture would certainly
erode the standards of modesty expected in Kansas City, the seriousness necessary for study, and
the degree of detachment from the world necessary to make revivals and holiness important.
There was a proposal from an Armenian group wanting to purchase the campus. The bid price
was too low unless Rust would agree to a significant reduction in price, The Board voted to try
that, understanding it was an impossible request. Rust would not agree, so the Armenian
proposal could not be accepted, so the purchase of the Cal Western was dead. The Board
adjourned, knowing the dream was over. It had been a wonderful dream but seemed always
just out of reach. Now the only responsible thing to recognize that reality and accept it.
Brown dismissed the meeting and the Trustees went home. Then he called Rust with the Board’s
proposal to rewrite the escrow. Rust rejected it as the Board had expected, but Brown was not
going to let the opportunity for a new future die that night.
Trustee Clari Kinzler remembers that it took about an hour and a half to get home, and as he
arrived his wife met him at the door and said, “You are to go back tomorrow for a meeting at 8
a.m.” Looking back Kinzler believed “In that hour something had reversed in Shelburne and Bob
(Foster) and then that night they pretty well stayed up the night, the two of them, two brilliant
guys, and they started pulling it out during the night.” 126
PROVIDENCE, KAIROS, AND UNITY
May 31. Apparently the morning meeting could not be put together on such short notice so they
met in special session at 7 p.m. In the afternoon, President Brown told the faculty at their regular
meeting that they should meet at 9:30 in the evening for a “further report on the move of the
college to San Diego.” It was discouraging enough that Music Chairman Chet Crill called
Reuben Rodeheaver, who he had hired to begin teaching at Point Loma. “I don’t know whether
we are going to the San Diego campus or not,” Crill told him. 127
It was a dramatic meeting, Trustee Kinzler recalls. Brown said he had called Rust the night
before and Rust had rejected his proposal to rewrite the escrow. That was not a surprise. Brown
said the original proposal was still in effect. The trustees knew the basic danger of ending up
with two campuses remained, with the consequent dangers. Brown had Robert Foster to review
the cash flow projections. Given certain assumptions, like an increase in enrollment in the next
couple years, gifts from donors, and tight budgeting, not selling the campus “was not something
that would stop it dead in the water, cold. In other words, it would be a risk.” There was no
certainty when the campus would sell so they could not have the confidence that it was “a nobrainer.” It certainly was not in that classification. “It was high risk,” but “we had a lot going for
us and it probably could be accomplished.” 128 He was with the President in wanting to make the
move but it was not his place to express that opinion, so when he was asked about the danger of
moving and not selling, he told them it could be done. He projected an annual deficit of $800,000
but said the school could handle that for a couple years. But how long? And who wanted to buy
an old campus?
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“It probably could be accomplished.” In the face of heavy risk, heavy responsibility and no clear
direction, it was the perfect time for the Lord to move.
Though he had spoken his opinion over and over for the past year, the Trustees had great respect
for Shelburne Brown and needed to hear the President say whether they should end the effort as
they did the day before, or go forward. Someone asked Brown what would happen if the
Pasadena campus did not sell. This was the hour of decision. The antiseptic minutes record that
he “expressed the opinion that the providential events convinced him the college should take the
risk and purchase the San Diego property and move now.” Trustee Paul Simpson remembers the
pressure. The president asked Bob Foster to give the financial picture and Simpson remembers
Foster wanting to be positive but the figures not encouraging.
Somebody from the back of the room spoke up, and I don’t remember who it was, I wish
I could remember, “What would happen if we don’t find a buyer by a particular date?”
And I’ll never forget as long as I live, Shelburne took the question, he was standing by a
window, and it seemed like he stood there an hour before he answered, but it was, it was,
it was the decision time. And he turned and looked at us, and he said, “Gentlemen, we
could lose everything.” And then he said, “But I believe it is God’s will that we move.’
Never forget it as long as I live.” 129
If it was so risky, why did the Board vote to move? Simpson added:
“Ron, oh boy, it was not listing the assets that were at risk. It was, well I have spoken of
this and what it meant to me, I have said that he told us that we might lose everything, but
I do believe this is God’s plan for our school. And there was no logic, there was no
review of data, it was the most profound silence that I have ever been in in my life. When
he said, ‘Brothers I believe this is God’s will for our school,’ I think that was it. I don’t
have a doubt in my mind. I was there. And it was profound. I’ve talked to Bob Foster
after I talked to you and he remembered it pretty much the same way. He was ready, he
had the data on all of our debts and our assets, and it was not a bank-approved decision,
man. He had heard from Heaven, and we just believed that.” 130
Profound silence. “He had heard from Heaven, and we just believed that.” Why did they believe
that? The answer goes back to a previous question: Why did someone ask that question since
Foster had already discussed it? The pressure was unbelievable and they had to hear it from
Brown. At one level those moments of silence were profound because as Brown paused, they felt
something significant and momentous was happening. For two or three minutes they waited. At
another deeper level these were the culminating moments of Brown’s life, as he knew he now
bore the full responsibility for the future. They were asking him what to do, not for information
but for leadership. Perhaps as he paused the spirit of the Lord brought back the reality of Hawaii
and he knew what he must do despite any risks.
He likely breathed a prayer for help and at a deeper level the spirit bathed him with an
earnestness, for as he turned and faced them, and as he said, “we could lose everything, but I
believe this is God’s will for the school,”
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One trustee felt he “answered from his soul,” while another felt there was nothing more than any
group of godly men and women might “muse” in the overall decision making process for calling
a pastor or “the sale of a Sunday School bus.” But for Simpson and others, it was a profound
moment, for in that moment the Holy Spirit moved upon them and they became one. It was
dramatic before; it was profound now. The Spirit confirmed Brown’s words to them and united
them as one behind the decision just as he had at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). United them.
Roles melted away as God’s Holy Spirit brought unity of purpose to business people, attorneys,
pastors and District Superintendents. They voted, and it was a unanimous vote. Unanimous. 131
A unanimous decision—you wouldn’t expect it. This moment in time, 8:15 p.m. on May 31,
1973, was a precious moment in the history of the college. Applause and joy after the vote? No.
It was quiet as the Trustees realized the weight of what they had decided. Bob Foster said, “I’m
just grateful to God every day that I had the opportunity to be there, to experience and see the
blessing and providence of that move.”
The President joined the faculty at 9:45 p.m. and reported the Board voted to finalize
arrangements for the purchase of the Point Loma campus. The minutes of that meeting record:
An extended discussion followed with many expressions of support
for our esteemed president, and thanksgiving to God for a “year of
miracles” in the complex and exhausting negotiations.
That was May 31, and the college was scheduled to take possession of the new site on July 15. A
public event was planned for a ceremonial turning over the keys. Mayor
Pete Wilson was scheduled to speak, major donors to Cal Western were
invited to sit on the platform, and a plaque with a symbolic key was
prepared as a lasting memento of the event. But it was not to be.
PROVIDENCE: TRUST, TOUGH, TRIUMPH, THEOLOGY
A new issue arose and the close of escrow was postponed. The ceremony had to be cancelled. It
was rescheduled and cancelled again. What a public embarrassment. The Lord had guided and
worked and visited. Now this was a time for trust and toughness, trust that He works ahead of us,
and the toughness to hold on. Consider these 1973 events and newspaper headlines:
Events
April – City Planning Commissions approves use permit and expands the boundaries
April 14 – PC Officially notifies USIU of intention to turn the campus over to them
April 17 – Palm Springs meeting
Newspaper Headlines
May 10 – USIU short of funds to pay faculty salaries; university shaken by fund crisis,
Bankruptcy court refuses to allow USIU to take Pasadena campus
May 14 – Trustees vote to terminate escrow if Pasadena campus not sold
May 16 – College may delay purchase for one year
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May 23 – Pasadena College still plans San Diego move, says president
May 30 – Board agreement not to go
May 31 – Board votes to move
June 2 – Board affirms PC (Nazarene) shift to S.D.
June 5 – Path cleared for move of Pasadena College
June 6 – Pasadena College move set
June 6 – Point Loma campus rite set July 17
July 17 – Cal Western site transfer again delayed
July 26 – USIU given more time to match U.S. funds
August 14 – Brown tells Board of escrow problems that will delay closure;
Board votes to authorize a one-year lease of the campus
August 21 – Trucks move from Pasadena;
USIU faces $378,778 tax lien
September 1 – Company may foreclose on USIU lands
September 24 – College opens
September 28 – Special chapel and luncheon with Welcome Committee
October 3 – University land sale hits snag
December 10 – Bankruptcy Court approves transfer of USIU debt to Pasadena College
December 12 – Last hurdled cleared over USIU land deal
December 22 – Conn-Mutual threatens foreclosure on December 27
December 31 – Escrow closes
Refusals, delays, threats, snags—how do you manage through these times of constant
discouragement? “You keep your head down,” Robert Foster said, “and you just keep going.”
Classes had to begin in September, but where? They had to begin in San Diego; the relocation
had to move ahead.
Providence. The future is not predetermined; God does not force decisions and events, put things
in the right places and make things happen. What he does through grace is to influence and
persuade to do good and to respond as he hopes. The college was moving toward a new future.
You shall be called by a new name…
No longer will they call you deserted…
But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight)
They will be called the Holy People,
the Redeemed of the LORD Isaiah 62: 2b, 4a, 12a
Bankers, bureaucrats, Trustees, officers—it was like a wilderness where they all had the freedom
and responsibility to make individual decisions, and all those decisions were interconnected. All
in time made decisions that slowly opened the way for the college to proceed.
God moves in mysterious ways. An agreement with USIU was reached in August for the college
to take possession before the close of escrow, knowing that in January, Connecticut Mutual, a
major lender, would foreclose on the property. L. Miles Harvey, attorney for the company, later
said that if the transaction with Pasadena College had failed, his company would have taken
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possession of Cal Western’s land and all but the nine buildings financed by HUD. If that
occurred, the college would have to start all over seeking to purchase from a new owner. 132
The college moved and opened on time: Point Loma College: An Institution of the Church of the
Nazarene. There was great rejoicing. But it did not own the land. If escrow did not close in time
and the banks foreclosed, what would happen to the college? Alexander the Great and Hernan
Cortez both led small forces against greatly unequal odds. To ensure there would be no secondguessing or retreat, both ordered their men to “burn the boats.” Despite the odds, once Brown
moved the college completely out of Pasadena, it would be nearly impossible to move back.
Brown said in effect, “burn the boats.”
Escrow problems kept arising. The U.S. Navy had given three acres of surplus land to USIU but
the university could not transfer it without authorization from Washington. Then the IRS filed a
nearly $400,000 tax lien on the campus. The university had to sell the Cal Western campus in
order to survive. Attorney and Trustee Ross Irwin flew to San Diego often to deal with problems,
and found the USIU attorney, Emanuel Savage, very helpful in getting all the USIU issues
consolidated and coordinated, and he dealt with the lenders. Problems continued until the very
end. Finally, triumph: in the words of an exception in the title policy, escrow would close.
Because of certain inabilities to close transaction with respect to
properties being conveyed to the city, all the closings were postponed
until Monday, December 31, 1973, when they will occur simultaneously
at 8 a.m. The title companies will confirm on Monday morning, December
31, compliance with the conditions stated in the letter of instruction to the
title companies.
December 31. It was done. As Brown and Rust shook hands for the last time, it was a warm
expression of gratitude. Rust did not get his hoped-for cash from a $13 million sale, but he had
rid himself of $9 million of debt, with the added satisfaction that he prevented the Carroll
Cannon group from getting the campus and the satisfaction that Connecticut Mutual did not get
the campus either. He withdrew in satisfaction to his Scripps Ranch campus and was fired by his
own Board of Trustees 13 years later.
Providence. In theological terms, God had a special providence for Pasadena College that
cannot be explained or justified by normal calculations. The purchase of the Cal Western campus
represented an opportunity for the college to grow strong and be blessed in ways it never could
in Pasadena. The move was a risk for everyone. Wiley never understood Isaiah 62; Brown did.
God moves in mysterious ways. His hopes and leadership rested on the work of a few leaders.
Brown could falter under the pressure of the difficulties, his business manager miscalculating,
his chaplain not “connecting” with the new students. Given the difficulties of the sale, the
college took possession of the campus in the fall of 1973 but did not yet own it. The sale could
collapse; the college would lose the campus and have to return to the old one. Brown and his
team would be discredited; faculty would flee to other places. The sale might take place but the
operating deficit might be impossible to end and the school would collapse. It would take
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extraordinary leadership to keep the college afloat until it grew. Under similar circumstances,
King’s College went bankrupt.
After the move, the hoped-for offer by the Armenian group was
unacceptable and that potential sale fell through. The Trustees now
had the dreaded possibility: two campuses. Brown prayed and Foster
worked the budget. Some trustees were growing restive over the cost
of refurbishing the run-down condition of the campus. 133
Brown was seeking a larger vision on the new campus than just
a small liberal arts college as the denomination envisioned. The
Bresee vision might well be possible here, but it was hard to have a vision of the future yet. At
times, Simpson said, “I think we were just overwhelmed, the magnitude of paying bills, the new
(Pasadena) library, and nobody knew what the change of location would bring.” 134
-----------------------------------------------------------PRESIDENT BROWN
All of us realize we are still walking by faith in a great measure. One of the things we did not
want to do was to find ourselves owning two campuses. As you know that is exactly where we
are now. In our first meeting here in San Diego I said that there was an element of risk in the
venture. We would be taking the risk of losing the whole institution in a relatively short period of
time. Offsetting that was a conviction that, to continue as we were, would be to face the
probability of a slow dissolution and eventual meaningless existence. We still live with that
element of risk that was suggested at the first meeting. However as your elected representative to
lead the college I want to affirm now that I am more sure of the leadership of the Lord in the
whole undertaking at this moment than in any of the months through which we have passed. Our
faith has not turned to sight, but enough of it has been so transformed that we build more and
more solidly on the basis of answered prayer.
Report to the Board, March 1974
-------------------------------------------------------------TRIUMPH
Two years after the school was moved to a new location,
facing an uncertain future full of risk, the atmosphere changed.
The college had been reestablished, had grown and was almost
solvent. Everyone loved the new location. It seemed to Ron
Kirkemo fitting for the faculty and staff to celebrate the
success and express their appreciation to Dr. Brown for his
leadership. As the second year ended in the spring, he called
for an informal gathering on May 29, 1975. Reuben Welch
expressed to Dr. Brown, to the Lord, and to all of us our
appreciation that the opportunity was taken. Ruth Wiese, a
professor of home economics, created a cake that mirrored the structure on the amphitheater. It
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was informal but a formal expression of our gratitude for his leadership in making this new
future possible.
Five months later, the Board of Trustees met for its regular 1975 fall meeting. It was a heavy
meeting and, finally over, the Board chairman closed it and the Trustees were preparing to leave
when President Brown stood up and asked them to wait. A guest came into the room and Brown
introduced Ralph Winter, who had asked to come and talk to them. “We were ready to go,”
Trustee Simpson said, “some of us had planes to catch, and this little fellow came in wearing
something close to tennis shoes. Out of respect for Shelburne we sat and listened. All o f a sudden
we were listening to a prophet. We were listening to a man who had a burden and a vision for
Kingdom work, and he needed our (Pasadena) campus.” 135
Winter was a Presbyterian missionary who developed a new strategy for
global missions and then taught at Fuller Seminary. His presentation a year
earlier at the 1974 Congress for World Evangelism in Lausanne, Switzerland,
was a watershed moment for global missions. In 2005, he was named by Time
magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
He had no funds but a plan and the vision of a prophet. He met with Brown,
Mieras, Foster and Wooton and pleaded for them to consider him. The group
said he needed some cash and he asked for one year to raise a million dollars. They agreed.
Wooton, unknown to anyone at the time, gave him $10,000 as seed money to begin his
fundraising program. It was the initial down payment on the campus and “a great step of faith on
Jim Wooton’s part,” 136
It was an agonizing two-year process while Winter raised the funds, but the purchase was
achieved. The second campus was gone. And paid for. In God’s providential time and hopes,
another person with a vision who needed an existing campus, appeared and bought the campus.
Now Foster’s budgets went from red to black. Triumph!
The college reached its 75th anniversary in 1977. A very nice
celebration was planned for the spring semester. In December,
at a campus Christmas party, Dr. Brown said he was having
difficulty seeing and had an appointment the next week.
Cancer was discovered. Quickly the celebration was reoriented
into a “top of the line” celebration in the city’s most exclusive
ballroom. It was a faculty-sponsored event, paid by faculty,
and provided a formal means of appreciation. Whatever our
feelings about the move in 1972, in 1975 and in 1978 the
faculty wanted to thank Dr. Brown for the new context and
new future of the college.
The event, held February 4, 1978, included numerous tributes to the President. In his tribute to
Brown as administrative leader, Keith Pagan said when “obstacles and faltering faith” in the
move came, Brown “almost alone at times, displayed great courage with inspired vision.” He had
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faith in God and faith in people, Pagan said, and that “faith, openness and trust permit a climate
of freedom that enables fellow workers to realize their full potential.” 137
When Brown died on October 3, 1978, he had the peace of knowing the college was operating
without a deficit. He had been right. He had not destroyed the college but had laid the foundation
for a much better future.
To move a college is no small matter. Despite the fears and hardships, those who moved could
look back and see they had been part of a unique event—God’s major intervention in history for
the good of the college. In that dark night of 1911 God promised he would protect the college,
that it would both flourish and be sought out, and it would flourish in spirit and as a bridegroom
rejoices over his bride, “so will your God rejoice over you.” This college is “the Redeemed of
the Lord.”
THEOLOGY
What does this tell us about God? Think about these six. First, he keeps his promises. Second, he
uses opportunities that offer possibilities. Third, he guides and partners with those who will
follow and act to reshape fate. Fourth, sometimes his guidance is soft and melodic, sometimes a
direct encounter. Fifth, sometimes he goes before us to make the adjustments of the near future
smooth.
Sixth, providence is not God laying plans for individuals and institutions generations before
their time, and then with irresistible influence, make them carry out his plan. Instead, we have
freedom of choice and God has hopes for us about our lives while we make small and large
decisions. God exists in our time and circumstances but rarely acts to move people and
institutions like chess pieces on a board. But there are times when through the Holy Spirit he will
seek to move our history toward his hopes through guidance and calls and encounters. In the
uncertain future of the college, and the lives of the people associated with it, he did so in 1973,
and we have found a future beyond what we were then able to imagine.
Why? First, for the glory of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us
is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all
we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus to all generations. Eph 1:20
Second, to extend the message of holiness—we do not need to be reconciled to our sin; we are
reconciled to God, and his Holy Spirit works to transform us.
Even if the promise God gave to Bresee is 100 years old, the task is not—to build a highway to a
better world; to remove the stones of shallow and dogmatic thinking, fear of change and despair
over the future; and to raise a banner or proclaim the news that God’s grace is infinite in all
directions. As he says in Isaiah 62:
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Pass through the gates,
Prepare the way of the people
Build up the highway
Remove the stones
Raise a banner for the nations. Is 62:10
Questions and Answers
Q. The Hawaii encounter – how do you know that is true?
A. I am very concerned not to write something that creates a myth. I thought about the veracity
of that story for a long time and questioned whether I should include it since I had only one
source. I knew there were good reasons why he would not tell faculty or Trustees, and I know it
is doubted by some. As Trustee Robert Scott told me, “Shelburne was too smart and too spiritual
to resort to the ‘spiritual’ recourse.” For me the key came when Kimber Moulton said Brown
had told him something very similar. It was reaffirmed for me when Jim Jackson said the Lord
woke him up at 1 o’clock one night to say he needed to be at the college.
Q. Your concept of providence seems a bit weak. Bresee thought God had a plan for all of us.
Is the work of an individual, a church or a Christian college simply a matter of dollars and cents,
of rational calculation, of secular weighing of pros and cons, of chance opportunities? Or is God
at work for his purposes? Are opportunities mere chance or are some kairos moments? And how
does one know?. How can one know that a particular decision is no different from buying a
church bus? How can that be communicated in today’s language without being told “Don’t use
such arguments.” If the Lord speaks, does he speak only to presidents? Leadership is
complicated. Group decision making is complicated.
In fairness to the trustees, they could not make a decision on the basis of “If we are wrong, God
will rescue us.” Their role as trustees was to use wisdom and prudence. Their role as Christians
entrusted with the fate or future of the college was to pray with silence and without verbs, to pray
and listen rather than to pray and then act. At that May 31 meeting there was prayer, a question,
silence, answer, and profound silence. It was in the silence that the Lord moved, and then action
was taken.
Q. The Trustee meeting on May 31. How did you come to your interpretation?
A. I don’t know if Brown would have had a majority to vote to relocate. The stakes were so
high and the pressure so intense that I am sure it would have been a majority vote, but not a
unanimous one. I considered several interpretations of why someone asked him that question
after Foster had made his presentation. Was the question hostile, designed to sway votes against
the move? Was it a desperate search for an influential answer in a setting of high pressure? Was
it the Lord’s doing in order for Dr. Brown to say his words and the Holy Spirit move on the
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group? My interpretation came down to the fact that the vote was unanimous, which I would
not have expected in that situation, and from my understanding of the spirit’s role at Antioch and
Jerusalem, Act 13:2, 15:18, which is to bring unity.
Q. You are a political scientist, trained to expect conflict. Your term “killer amendment” seems
too strong.
A. The Trustee minutes are sparse and not intended to explain. My decision to use the term
“killer amendment” in the October 1972 meeting derives from impact and reaction: it would
have stopped the move. The campus did not sell before the fall of 1973, so we would have lost
the move and lost President Brown—that’s a killer of the move, of a better future lost, and of
morale for the next several years. Second, despite the fact that Mr. Foster’s projected budget
allowed the college to carry a deficit for two to three years without a sale, the motion to vote on
the requirement of selling the campus separately increased its significance; the college was not to
move without a sale of the Pasadena campus. Third, Brown’s reaction to it.
Q – You give a lot of credit to Dr. Brown, as though you are in awe of him. Was this move a
one-man operation?
A – No, it was not a one-man operation, far from it. But yes, it was a one-man operation in the
sense that he was the indispensable person. No other President would have done it or could have
done it. We are not Shelburne Brown University but we are the result of his vision, his courage
(and it took courage for he alone would have been blamed for failure if the move failed or if we
moved and collapsed). His determination in the face of doubt and obstacles, and the fact that he
was a quality person who people could trust, made him a kairos person.
It has been forty years. Three successors worked to shape the university
toward their agendas, and deal with their current issues. Brown remains a
person of the past. His name is on the chapel building but the memory of
him as a person is kept alive by a bust of him in the chapel. Some
students think that is inappropriate. Not for any of us who made the
move. That chapel and church building is a witness to God’s interest in
this institution, and that nothing is impossible if God is in it. That
sculpture is there so the memory of him and what he did will not be lost
to history, and as a tangible reminder that God works through people’s
faith, reason, courage and determination. Let us all be more like him.
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4. GUIDE ME O THOU GREAT JAHOVAH
The Faculty
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward
you will take me into glory. Ps 73:24 NIV
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you
and make you a light for the Gentiles Is 42:6b
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing. Is 43:18-19a
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you. Matt 7:7
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously
to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him . James 1:5
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA24kNXdhrM
“Why are you here?”
In the early years of the college, that question had to be faced again and again as the institution
experienced years of financial stress and personal strain. The answers always revolved around
those given by the President, who had to face the strains and stresses over and over. For H. Orton
Wiley, the answer was always twofold. One was responsibility--the founder of the college asked
him to “stand by the college.” The other was because the future of the church lay with the
mission of the college.
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In better years, the question could still be asked and some answers were disappointing.
It was a chapel service early in the 1971 academic year and new faculty were being introduced
and asked to respond to why they chose Pasadena College. The young teacher said he had sent
out 20 applications and Pasadena was the only college that hired him. He was gone the next year.
We interviewed several people for a position teaching history. When the dean asked one
published scholar about his Christian experience, he said his grandmother had been a Christian
and hoped that would be enough.
As a fellow faculty member and I discussed our relationship to the college, he marveled at my
devotion to the institution. “To me it’s just a job,” he said.
In 1972 and 1973, the question could be revised to, “Why did you stay?”
It was a serious question to those faculty members who heard President Brown announce that
he was moving the college. The answers represent the best of hopes and dreams, sacrificial
responsibility to a call, dedication to a special place, and dedication to the church. Those
commitments trumped economics and inconvenience, and accepted the risks of an uncertain
future.
What follows are 20 interviews about the move. The variety is interesting. President Brown said
one should never look back, yet I think the variety of responses can be instructive about
encountering God.
“Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah.” All of us needed guidance or assurance or blessing about our
decision. All of us sought for God to “lead me all my journey” and to bid any “anxious fear
subside.” When it was over, it was songs of praise that we would always give to him.
While the information is important to history, I hope the reader will find something helpful here
when we faced with a serious challenge to the future we assumed was settled. In those times, you
may find:
I am weak but thou are mighty
Hold me with thy powerful hand
Lead me all my journey through
Songs of praises I will ever give to you.
It is a great song, the way to go forward into the unknown, to which we all can testify.
During the interview, each participant was assured they could speak freely for there would be
nothing published from the interviews. The decision to publish a manuscript was made after the
interviews, so none of the following summaries identifies a specific person.
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There is one exception to that. I lead off with the interview with Bob and Wilma Foster. His role
as Business Manager gives important information about the negotiation process, so I have kept
the interview format.
INTERVIEWS
Once in a Lifetime. Bob, you were involved in constructing the Master Plan and renting the
130 properties we had purchased near the college. We were beginning the process of closing
streets and Mrs. Cooper had pledged to fund a new religion building. We had just built the new
library facing toward the future heart of the campus.
BF – “Yes. The potential for expansion was there. We could have done that. We were going to
begin expanding, which meant dealing with closing down streets, and all the planning that’s
involved doing that. So we headed in that direction when Dr. Dillman came to Dr. Brown with
the news that the Cal Western college campus was for sale. He was at a conference down in San
Diego and said, ‘Are you aware that the faculty is trying to buy this campus?’”
A campus for sale; the Point Loma option opens up. Some hard questions?
BF – “Yes, so we were faced with a whole different perspective, dealing primarily with the
financial issues, and the operations of the physical plant and that kind of thing. At the same time,
we had all the properties in Pasadena, we had the campus, we had debt against those properties,
and the question was, can we handle a transaction like this? The assignment was given to me to
make some assessment of what could be done.
“We began the process, the need to get many decisions made, particularly pertaining to whether
this was a viable option to pursue. Dr. Brown and I and Wes Mieras felt whatever we did had to
be kept very close to the vest; otherwise it might never happen. In retrospect, I think it was a
wise decision. When you talk about what you went through and what others went through,
dealing with the shock. I don’t know if we had it any other way, it may never have happened.”
Yes. I was caught up in the present. Everything was just right for us. Linda Gresham said the
role of a president is to look into the future. That was true for me in graduate school, but then I
got the job I wanted and was satisfied. I would not have supported a move if there had been a
vote!
BK – “Yes, his mindset was the future, and the vision of the future.”
So, you went down to San Diego to meet with Dr. Rust.
BF – “We went down to San Diego and met with Dr. Rust and some school officials. We had to
meet at a restaurant on Shelter Island because the faculty was trying to, literally, take over the
school from him. They were trying to organize, so he was very sensitive about anybody showing
up on campus.”
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He wanted a $13 million purchase price and you couldn’t even go on campus. What was your
sense? Could it be done?
BF – “I asked for some operating statements. Knowing our own operation, I did some parallel
projections, over about a five- to eight-year period. We obviously had to sell the Pasadena
campus, or rent it if we had to, or have Dr. Rust take it over. I made some projections; what if
we do go and we keep the campus? We did forecasting of enrollment, how much we might lose
or gain. As we looked at it, the risk, the first initial reaction was, we can’t move unless we have
some resolution of Pasadena. So we went to Dr. Rust and negotiated with him, and said, here’s
where we are.”
So rational calculations said it just can’t be done at his price and having to keep the Pasadena
campus. I remember there were ups and downs, negotiations would be going well and then a new
problem would arise. I remember thinking, in fact I even told you once, that I thought it would
never happen. In the end you guys prevailed and open up such a better future. What happened?
BF – “Dr. Brown was off in Hawaii and had pretty well prayed through on this thing. I think God
gave him some insight at that point. When he came back from Hawaii he had pretty well set a
course and drawn a line that was $9 million. He just came back and said to Dr. Rust, ‘It’s not a
viable option.’ Well that’s when Dr. Rust, you know he was between a rock and a hard place,
finally got down to $9.1 million and that opened the door for us to go forward. That was when
Dr. Brown took the lead, and said, ‘We’re going to do it.’”
What was your sense of that?
BF – “From that point on I had done all I could do to lay out a plan, be open to take a risk, and
be as open and positive and progressive to make it happen. For me personally, the potential of
what was out thre was exciting. I mean it was really a ‘10,’ a great potential you just couldn’t
turn your back on. And so in that whole process I just committed myself to try to make it happen.
I’m just grateful to God every day that I had the opportunity to be there to experience that.”
Well it certainly turned out well. Beyond your responsibilities, how did the move impact you and
your family?
BF – “I came in ’66, so I just had bought a house and got settled. I knew what this was going to
mean to us. We sold the house and I moved to San Diego. I moved into the home (current
Alumni House) alone, but then later Dan and Linda (his daughter and son-in-law) moved in with
me, so the three of us lived there.”
You moved down, but Wilma, you stayed in Pasadena until your sons finished high school?
WF – “Yes. The college had bought the Colonial Apartments just across from it. It was for
married students and one of the apartments was empty. We had sold our house so I just moved
over to that apartment while the boys finished school.”
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This was the time of gas rationing. I remember the long lines at gas stations and you could only
buy gas on those days when your license plate ended either in an odd or even number. I’m glad
you guys were there. Bob, you are one of the three or four heroes of the move. You kept the
school financially solvent in those early years in San Diego.
BF – “This was not just any routine transaction. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. As traumatic
as it was for everyone, it is such a joy to see the blessing and the providence of that move, and
the fulfillment.”
2. High Drama. The President announced the move to San Diego in 1972. What did you
think?
“I had already signed a contract with Greenville College.”
What?
“I couldn’t stand the smog. I said I’m not going to put up with this. Shelburne was like a father to
me, and I talked it over with him and I think I decided it wasn’t anybody else’s affair. I had to
deal with my own family and I wasn’t willing to raise them in that kind of chemical soup. So I
decided to move.”
What happened?
“Then Shelburne called the meeting and said ‘We’re moving,’ so I just called Greenville and
they backed out of it. I really didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay connected to this place.”
That’s quite a story. So what do you remember about the year 1972?
“I was on a committee, I think it was a preliminary committee to talk about the move and
whether it was a good thing to do financially, and I was relatively new. I had about 10 years
there. I probably just listened more as Shelburne and Mieras talked about it, and they realized it
was a very hazardous thing financially. There was a lot of discussion about whether they could
make it.”
That must have been fascinating. Brown and Mieras!
“It was being considered by one very worldly businessman, Mieras, and one very accomplished
intellect, Shelburne. They talked back and forth about the huge gamble they were getting into.
I know the price was high, too high it seemed. Yet USIU was so financially insolvent, surely they
had to make the sale.
“Something came up and I think the President (Rust of USIU) began to get cold feet and it
looked like he was going to back out of it.
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That is cutting off the limb! That must have been February or so since we had already
announced the move. If it failed, Brown’s son told me, he would have to resign as President.
“Shelburne had a chapel service where it looked like the whole thing was going to fall through,
and you may have been in that chapel service, and he talked about the move to the students and
faculty who were there, and he said it looked like there was no way to pull it off, and if so, I’m
probably going to have to resign.” Then he ended by saying, “I want to go to the altar and pray
about this, and I want all of you to pray for me.” And he and faculty and students went together
to pray.
After the chapel service, this professor went directly to Brown’s office.
“You can’t resign,” he said “You’ve got a bunch of faculty who will stick with you.” He was
slumped in his chair and said, “Look, I can’t make it.” He said, and this is a quote, “I’ve got so
far out on this limb that it is being cut off behind me.”
You can’t resign, he said. He had been here before when Brown fired a professor. “Who ought to
run this place?” Shelburne said. He told him the situation and asked, “What do you want me to
do?” There was no alternative, so the professor said nothing and left. But there were strong
critics of the move among alumni. There was a lot of criticism from local churches for whom the
college was their base. And a couple District Superintendents who had been opposed to Brown
and his modernization of the college since he was first elected. After one was in his office
complaining about a student bumper sticker, he said you would have to look for a bumper
sticker. “How do these guys do this?” he asked me.
“It was one of those seminal moments in one’s life. I knew O. J. Finch and I knew the kind of
men who wanted this job, and I knew he was one in a million. The first time I ever heard
Shelburne, he was a DS and he came to chapel and he quoted Walt Whitman, and I thought this
is impossible, this guy would be a great President.”
I appreciate this inside look at the man and the issue.
“I don’t know what you are going to do with this project, but I think it should show that this
move was a highly chancy operation. And it would not have happened without the courage that
Shelburne had and his friend Wes Mieras.”
No doubt.
“There was the move, but I think the real thing, I was going to say fear, the real drama was
before any thought were put together about how the move was to be done.”
I know Shelburne put together a small group of friends to study it, and they voted not to move.
“Yeah. That happened. But he went over them. He said he has some responsibility for running
this place, and he went over them for one reason. He said this college will die here.
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“I know many of faculty feel they had trauma and difficulty, but he carried the burden and the
responsibility for the risk to the faculty and to the future of the institution, and he pulled it off.”
And because of him, the college lives. Thanks for staying. We needed you.
3. Toward the Vision. You came here in 1968 and we moved in 1973. Did you think or feel
the reason you came might get lost? How did you come to make the decision to make the move
for you and your family?
“The college was my highest priority, regardless of where it was going to be. There was no doubt
in my mind, never any question on my part. I enjoyed Pasadena, and lived in Altadena, the
foothills, and enjoyed it there, and I knew we were hemmed in. A little tiny campus, and we were
buying up properties all around it. I knew San Diego to be at a place where there wouldn’t be so
many higher education institutions. You know, within a 40- or 50- or 100-mile radius.”
So there was no struggle for you over the move?
“I was really thrilled about it, really thrilled about it. For me I was the right thing to do, never
any doubt about it.”
Could we not have stayed?
“That’s a hard one to say, but I know we were having a hard time holding on to an enrollment of
around 1,000 to 1,100. I think I’m about right on that. So I think we would have had a very hard
time growing like we’ve done down here. I was happy because we had a better chance to fulfill
quite of bit of what Dr. Bresee had wanted, by being down here where we would have room to
expand.”
What was Dr. Bresee’s vision?
“He had more of a vision than just a small private school. He had a vision of a university. He
certainly had been a part of a big university and he knew what it was like and I don’t know if he
ever envisioned that we would be a USC or not but I think he used that as his model. So I really
had a great vision for it. I think making the move down here made that much more possible than
to have stayed up there.”
Do you think we will reach that vision?
“There were many on our faculty who had a different vision and felt we are a Christian college,
not a graduate school. Even at the time they changed the name from college to university, even
by then there were a lot of people who still said we are really not a graduate school, we are a
small private Christian college. But there are some schools who have kept a vision like Bresee’s
and become good schools.”
What impact did the move have on your home or family?
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“It really had a good impact. I had a daughter that was a freshman at Pasadena and it worked out
well for her to make the move. My wife was teaching at a very fine private school in Arcadia that
she really loved. And so I (commuted and) didn’t really make the move to San Diego
permanently until 1975.”
What are your reflections about that time, that season, that experience?
“Let’s see. Well, timing. Most of us could not have made the move a year later. We were selling
our homes in a depressed market. And buying down here in a higher, growing market. I got my
condominium for $33,500 and it got up to over $400,000 in value. If the move had been a year
later, most could not have moved.
“The faculty had to help carry the load. I don’t want to say no raises, it might have been a year
when there were no raises, but the faculty knew we would have to help somewhat with that load.
So we really didn’t get the pay increases the first couple years down here that we might have
gotten otherwise had we not had the expense of the big move. But I think most of us felt we
could handle it and at least that’s how I felt about it; we’ve got to do our part.
“And third, Dr. Brown. We were so fortunate to have such wonderful leadership at that time of
Shelburne Brown, you know. If he felt we shouldn’t make the move, it wouldn’t have been
made. Because there was a time when the deal did not go through, there was a time when the
Board felt we cannot go into that. ‘You mean we’re going to move and we don’t even own the
property? And we’re going to own two college campuses?’ He must have had a tremendous
vision himself. Yeah, I remember those days. Of course, I did not know all that was going on but
it came out later and it is wonderful. So we have had excellent leadership.”
And Dr. Bresee’s vision?
“I am glad we are now offering different master’s programs, quite a few, and I’m glad to see
that. And some day maybe we’ll feel it’s OK to offer the doctorate.”
Well, thank you for your service to the university.
“I’ve been happy with the assignments I’ve had, and I’ve tried to give back some part to the
college.”
4. They Wanted to Come. Introduction: It was graduation. This young man was not sure
what he was going to do next, except he always had job offers for short-term jobs as a meat
cutter. His dad was a Trustee and he had appreciated the Christian atmosphere of the college. His
name was called; he walked up to the platform, shook hands with the President and while
receiving his diploma, the President said, “How would you like to work for me?” It was that
providential moment. He met with the president the next day and accepted a half-time contract.
Thus he came to work for Pasadena College and began an illustrious career. Later, when there
was an unexpected resignation one month into the school year, he was asked to take that person’s
place. He told the President, “I know you don’t have any choice at the end of the school year. I’ll
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try to serve long enough that it will make your choice look like it was a good one.” He served in
that office for decades.
Your wife had a good teaching job, and you must have been happy in your work, so how did you
react to the news that the college was going to move?
“We thought if we can afford to do this, great,” his wife said. “I was thrilled. We had lived in
San Diego when he was in the Marines and I thought it was just wonderful. We were living on
Hill Street with small children and I knew we were going to have to move from there. So it was
exciting and we wanted to come.”
He agreed. “So it sounded like a great move for us, and of course I was probably biased because
the facilities were absolutely zero in Pasadena. At one time or another Dr. Brown said we’ll have
a new facility in eight years and when we left it was still projected for eight years, so that eight
years was a moving target.”
You must not have had the trauma that some felt.
“I’m not sure that is totally true. I did go in and talk to Dr. Brown and told him we’d love to go
but we didn’t think we could afford it unless there was some guarantee for my position.”
Arrangements were made but the reality was still stark. With the salary secure, “we made the
decision that we were going to go to San Diego, and put our house up for sale.” They called up
his wife’s retirement funds from the 12 years she had worked in the Azusa School District, “paid
off every bill we had, and managed to have a few thousand dollars left, and made the move to
San Diego. And with that we were about $90 a month in the hole, so we drew that out of the
savings we had for about five months.” Some equity from selling their house in Pasadena would
have helped. “Our house did not sell so we created a rent-to-buy contract. We got virtually no
money out of our Pasadena house. That was a bust altogether.”
They could not go on like that for very long. Where was the will of the Lord and the goodness of
providence in these years?
Jobs for spouses were crucial for most moving faculty, and not having a job was a real drawback
to the move, she said. But he added, “The really miraculous story” of their move was his wife’s
teaching job.
“Alice Jackson was the one,” she said. “She pushed herself into substituting and then she would
call me almost every other day and say you need to get on that substitute list. And the minute I
got on, then the Lord really provided a job.”
He agreed and said “teaching jobs in San Diego were not available at that point. My wife signed
up as a substitute and she got a call to go substitute for a kindergarten teacher out close to the
house where we lived in Mira Mesa.” That turned into an extended time, and the teacher visited
the class several times and observed her teaching. When she came back, she urged the principal
to make my wife “our number one choice when we need a substitute.” When the teacher
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unexpectedly had to move away, she lobbied the principal to make my wife her replacement. She
stayed there until she retired eight years ago. “We needed a higher income” to stay, and “things
fell into place.”
“Things fell into place.” I like that phrase. So did you ever think of going somewhere else?
“I never really thought about that aspect. My dad, having grown up in a family of 14 and coming
through the Depression always just kind of had a ‘can do’ philosophy epitomized by his saying
‘That’s no hill for a climber.’ So everything was kind of positive, with philosophical stability at
home, and just meet challenges head-on; when they come you keep moving.”
Keep moving. Yes.
“Once I made the decision to come I guess I just didn’t think about what could happen. I guess I
thought if we can get down there, we are going to make it.
“There were some good things that occurred. One, everybody was so busy we didn’t have much
time to pay attention to what was going on in every aspect.”
And the students. “One of the joys of what I teach is the extended time you are allowed to be
with students.” I get to help students at their age of maturity to “tie into the greater things in life”
and promote “those motivations where much greater service takes place. I paid particular
attention to, not every day, do a devotional routine of spiritual concepts. Sometimes I would tie
them into the major, which is a way of getting their attention, but most of the time just quality
living, what you are called to do. I’ve had the opportunity to influence and be part of the lives of
young men. It’s an incredible opportunity, but, more than that, a tremendous responsibility."
Before I got my major, I used to always talk about the “primacy of the classroom.” When I
started advising students about their careers I understood that a college education has to be
about more than just the classroom. The university provides a good education, but I found to
make it excellent, you have to take initiative and build the programs your major needs. Some
colleagues agree but want the school to fund everything, and if it cannot, they drop the program
the major needs. I decided if a program was needed and the school would not fund it, I would go
out and raise the funds myself. You have been like that.
“When my wife and I got married I joined the work-a-day world with shopping bag markets as a
meat cutter so she could finish school. Both of us came from families where the mode was to pay
your own school bill.” When they came down here there was a lot of work that needed to be
done on his program’s facilities but the college had other important priorities, so he set out to
raise the funds. He called on friends and made cold calls. “I stopped at (a location) one time
without an appointment and made a cold call and they committed $25,000.” Another time, “we
raised about $300,000 through jog-a-thongs and various gifts.”
Fundraising is tough.
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“Persistence is important. If the person is right and you think it is the right way to go, you stay
with it. Call them back the next day.”
Persistence and providence—those are two words that go together. Initiative and ministry are
two other words that reflect his career. No more hopes that are actually moving targets. He did
what was necessary when there was no chance anyone else world, and he sanctified his time with
students to strengthen their faith in ways related to the real world.
5. My Place is With the College. Introduction: This person attended Pasadena College and
majored in philosophy and religions. Seamlessly he went to seminary and became a pastor. He
was reevaluating his career in the late 1950s. “What do you want to do?” his wife asked. “I’d like
to preach and write and teach.” That hope did not seem likely to be an option. Then came the
telephone call from Pasadena College. “Out of the blue” he said. There was a vacancy in a
department and they did not have a replacement; could he come and teach part time?
Coincidence? Providence? He accepted the offer and the part-time assignment worked into his
dream career.
Was it good?
“I never will forget the sense of being in the classroom and teaching stuff, and the overwhelming
feeling that this is my native land; this is where I belong.”
They bought a home near the college and he remodeled much of it, finishing just before the
announcement of the move. But he sensed a deeper loss. A Christian college is not just books and
test tubes and dorms. It is more than common areas for meeting and talking. A Christian college
is a community of friends and common values and sharing Christ. It is the difference between
fellowship of Christians and Christian fellowship. The latter is hard to build, and for the former
pastor, the campus Christian community of students and faculty was precious as well as
important. It would be lost in the move and difficult to rebuild. So, he did not believe in the
necessity of a move, and feared it.
“Theologically I did not agree with his premise, “We can’t be what we ought to be here. This
place is going down and we shouldn’t be here.”
If you didn’t believe that, and thought a lot would be lost, how could you move if you thought the
President had made the wrong decision?
“That was never an issue. The President was a good man; it was never an issue of trust.”
Did you ever ask yourself, should I go?
“I never thought about that question. It never entered my mind. Not for a second did we consider
anything else. I was so into the college, so much a part of the campus and the ties so deep, that it
never crossed my mind.”
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Find the Lord’s will? He knew the college was a place where the Lord was at work, and where
he was home, so he would stay with that work, whether in Pasadena or San Diego. But for him
and everyone else, it was going to be hard. There was the process of selling, moving, finding,
buying, and reestablishing his family. Teaching was different because the students were more
diverse, some loving the move, others coming mainly to surf. Some of his colleagues were so
pleased about the move and others were still angry. And the campus—how different. Too many
friends did not make the move so the school had to hire a dozen new people. Everyone was
spread out, water pipes kept breaking from deferred maintenance, offices had been torn apart by
those leaving, and many had to make long commutes, sometimes in marginal cars. And there was
an accusation that we were being materialistic!
It was hard. It could have been depressing. Several who thought the decision was a mistake were
angry, irritable, critical and divisive. Some recognized that attitude as a bad habit and got over
it, and others ultimately left.
For some, like him, it was even harder. There were second-order or unexpected costs. When any
new force hits a family, different members are impacted differently, and that was a cost that was
not uncommon among the moving faculty. Pasadena First church was so vibrant and his
children were deeply involved in its activities. It was like the anchor they needed outside the
family, an anchor in society that helped hold them to the faith. No Nazarene church in San Diego
even came close to the Christian world that was Pasadena First. A parent can make allowances
and deal with a less than vibrant church, but that can be like the loss of an anchor for a young
person, who then drifts away. How did you get through it?
“Two things. I keep coming back to this idea of commitment, and steady, keep on doing it, and
second, to have “the confidence that God is with us.”
There is providence. In one’s life in Christ, he was saying, you find where you belong, and stay
with it, knowing God is there and with you. So have hope and don’t quit.
There is no “call” to a job; God’s call is to himself and his purpose. Look at Ephesian 4, he said,
which begins “I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling in lowliness, meekness,
forbearance, seeking to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.” Moreover “grace
is given to each,” and “He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his
will, according to his purpose, which he purposed in Christ…for the fullness of time…to unite
all things, things in heaven and things in earth.”
“God’s purpose is unity. I mean, that’s the Ephesians…and my fundamental premise, I guess my
whole premise is that, to gather the whole thing. So the theme becomes God has a cause and we
have a calling. And that calling is not empty…” It is to be a part of God’s great purpose.
I asked him about a calling because I told him I was never “called” to be at the college. It was
what I wanted. So when I was dealing with my decision, I felt free to go elsewhere. The Lord
made clear the implications of the choice. I still had a choice but it was clear what He hoped I
would choose and I responded to that. But I still would not call that a “call” the way my son was
called to the ministry.
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His response was important. “I was never called. In the New Testament there is never a call, but
ever since Luther and Revelation we have used the language of the call to a secular vocation…
there’s a dark side when you are called to be a rich businessman and I’m called to teach in a
Christian college,” or “if I am called to be a General Superintendent, and you are called to be a
bi-vocational pastor.” The call of Ephesians is to God’s cause, which is to unite all things.”
Some left and built different kinds of careers and lifestyles lives for themselves.
He stayed, and many were blessed.
6. Leadership Loyalty. Called to the ministry while a student at Pasadena College, this
person was pastoring when the Lord called again.
“The Lord woke me up at night and said ‘You ought to be at the college.’ So after confirmation
from several other sources I resigned the church and came to the college. That is what God
wanted.”
He changed his career, came to teach at Pasadena College, went to USC and pursued a
graduate degree at the same time, and served at the college for over 40 years. He was deeply
and emotionally tied there. His wife taught in the Pasadena public schools for 18 years and had
tenure and a retirement system. They owned a home in a fine section of Pasadena and after
several years remodeled it to be perfect for their future.
Did you remember the meeting when President Brown announced he was going to move the
college?
“I remember the meeting. We were about to pay off our home mortgage, we would be free of
debt, we had a home furnished like we wanted it and Shelburne Brown says ‘We’re going to
move.’ I must say our family went through a lot of turmoil during that time. We didn’t know
what to do.”
He and his wife toured homes in San Diego and returned each time in deep disappointment.
“We would drive down and look at houses and discovered every house we looked at that wasn’t
even adequate was $15,000 to $20,000 more than we would get in Pasadena.” There was silence
and distress on their way home. “This is what we went through.”
He was offered three high level positions at other institutions, two of them locally so he could
keep his home. It was not just the higher costs in San Diego that were troubling. The move
involved the high risk that he would lose everything if the college collapsed. In the midst of the
turmoil:
“I felt responsible to be with Pasadena College.” Each time an alternative offer came, “I had to
go back and say, ‘Why am I here?’ I’m here because God put me in this place. This is where I
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should be.” He also had the memory of one of his heroes of the college, Dr. Wiley, whose life
revolved around “standing by the college” and that became his phrase.
“I’ll never forget the meeting when Dr. Brown said we are going to move, and we may lose the
whole thing.” If that were to happen, the faculty would also lose everything. “I moved knowing
we might lose everything.” The reason he moved to San Diego: “I made a commitment to a
calling back in 1949, so I’m going with the college.” He accepted the costs in response to the
call.
He was appreciative of the efforts of the administration and Trustees to
help. “They helped market our homes, they got the moving vans and
worked out how the move would take place. I felt they knew our hurt and
reached out, trying to show they could help us make the transition.”
So you came to Pasadena College because the Lord called you to this
place, and you were emotionally tied to the campus. What about the move
itself? Did you have any sense that the Lord was behind the move out from
that campus?
“We have to go back to Isaiah 62.” He believes that chapter is God’s promise to the college and
in the difficulties of the negotiations he was certain God was working and would open the doors
for the final purchase of the site.
They came. They found a nice home, his wife found a good job, he finished out his career
building a stronger department and noting how appreciative employers were of our students.
7. Guidance and Transformation. I understand this young faculty member was mad
about the move and thought about leaving, so I asked why.
“There were going to be sacrifices, and I had no sense of a ‘calling’ for being there. I was there
because I wanted to be. It was only later that I saw God’s providence in my life.”
What do you mean by providence?
“Connections and pattern. I was a poor student in high school. I wanted to go to Pasadena
College because it was in a big city, but my parents thought I was not mature enough for that, so
I went to a local state university my first two years. While browsing the library stacks one day I
found a thin textbook on a subject within my broader major. Took it home and fell in love with
the subject. That book shaped my life.”
So you were on your way to a teaching career?
“No, I was conflicted with three alternatives until I took a class from a professor and knew—I
wanted to be like him. So I began thinking about graduate schools. There was no one there to
help me. I was interested in several but settled on one and applied there. One. Can you imagine,
only one? No one told me the risks, that I should be applying to several, including one that I
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knew I could get into. If I had not been accepted by that one, I would never have had this career.
It was years later that I came to see the Lord helped me choose.”
So you think the Lord guided you without you even knowing it?
“Yes, exactly, but only years later when I began to see connections, like finding that book, being
miraculously saved from drowning one summer while in college, connecting with that professor
and getting into the only graduate school I had applied to, and then having a teaching slot open
up at Pasadena College at just the right time; looking back I certainly have a sense of providence.
God had no great plan for me but cared about me and helped me get what I wanted and use it for
the church.”
Why did you react so strongly to the President’s announcement?
“In my mind I was where I wanted to be. I married the girl I loved, got my degree, got the
teaching job I wanted, bought a house and welcomed our first child. All was right in the world.
Then Brown announced the college was leaving my beloved campus and moving to San Diego.
Worse, the Point Loma campus was in terrible condition and housing was twice the prices in
Pasadena. Worse still, President Brown said the college could be lost! I thought it was a terrible
mistake.”
“I know the feeling,” his wife said. “I was just devastated. I was enjoying my home and didn’t
think I could ever equal that again. And not just me. We tried to preserve the Faculty Women’s
Group we had gotten together in Pasadena down here, but it didn’t work. It died in a couple years
because faculty were so spread out.”
They were not alone in such thoughts and President Brown was aware that the costs of the move
were creating unease among the faculty, so he invited Nazarene historian Tim Smith to talk with
them. “I was anxious to hear Smith, until he spoke. It was not a good choice.”
Smith was a highly respected historian among Nazarenes for the books he had written, including
a history of the denomination.
“I knew he began his career teaching at a Nazarene college, but soon left, teaching at two state
universities and working his way to the top at Johns Hopkins University. He had two homes
including one on Martha’s Vineyard and two cars including a Mercedes convertible, and he came
to urge us to sacrifice ourselves, to pay the price of the move and just live with smaller houses
and tighter budgets. With his houses and cars because he left a Nazarene college for a better life,
he was not the one to tell us to sacrifice. The whole thing made me feel like even the church
thought we were second rate if we taught at a Nazarene college. Respect comes when you leave
and teach elsewhere. It was counter-productive.”
So you continued to struggle and looked at the option of leaving the college?
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“The college was leaving, so I could leave, too. I was not ‘called’ to be there. It was my choice to
be there and I could move on to a larger, more prestigious secular institution where I would have
wider influence. Smith did it, and was highly respected.
“I prayed about it a lot, and one day the Lord laid out two criteria for me. ‘If you had to choose
between a secular college and a college serving the Kingdom of God, which would you choose?’
Then, ‘Isn’t a career with little influence enough if God is in it?’ With those two questions, the
Lord clarified the meanings of the choices, and the choice was obvious: not respect, not the
church, but the Kingdom. For a decade he had helped me get what I wanted and then asked who
I was going to use it for. Respect is the wrong criteria; service is the criteria. Answering those
questions brought me a sense of self and place in God’s Kingdom. So we moved.”
“And after three days, we just loved San Diego,” his wife said.
Three days.
“Yes, just three days. The city, the campus, the sunsets, the coast, they all seduced us by their
beauty. That made it easier to put up with the hardships of the move. We still love it.”
8. Assumption About Other Ways to Serve. Introduction: Another faculty member was
also dismayed and struggled over the personal consequences of the move. He was steeped in the
campus, having gone through the Academy, the Nazarene grade school on campus, as well as
four years at the college. He was finishing graduate school and teaching part time at the college.
He and his wife had three children under the age of 10 and their house worked perfectly for the
family. All seemed well. A move to San Diego would not affect his academic career, but when
he and his wife came to San Diego looking for a home, what they found made the move seem
wrong.
“We’d bought a house of 1,800 square feet on Highland for $24,000 and most faculty homes
were in the $25,000-$35,000 range. When we went down to San Diego to look, most of the
places were $50,000 to $60,000, around 1,200 square feet and quite a ways out from the campus.
It didn’t seem possible to do that; houses in San Diego were two-thirds the size of ours, yet twice
the price.”
Trading a comfortable home for an expensive home too small for them did not make sense. Not
moving would not jeopardize his career, for there were other institutions where he could teach.
He contacted his friend at another local college and was hired to teach part time at its branch
locations and build a specialized collection in the library. They decided not to move.
Did you ever talk to Dr. Brown about moving or not moving?
“Yeah, I went in and talked to him when I got this offer and said I don’t think I can make the
move. ‘Well, we don’t want to lose you, but you have to make that decision,’ he said.
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“I assumed the Lord could find other ways to use me. I had intended to make a full career at
Pasadena. I thought that was the Lord’s will, and maybe his will has been in the variety of what I
had done.”
In retrospect, he is sure he made the right decision. Housing prices were depressed in Pasadena
when the college moved, but then they inflated, his home jumping in value. “You missed that,”
he told me. By staying he was able to cash in the value and move to a home near where he was
working. “We sold the house on Highland in 1977 for three times the amount we paid for it, and
that’s just four years later. The faculty who went to Point Loma saw someone else make that
huge increase on their behalf. People would feel that loss in their possible equity, that it went to
someone else. We are the ones who won.”
I told him that one faculty member talked about Bresee’s statement to Wiley to stand by the
college.
“Old school. Did he talk about the finances? What it cost him?”
He said he didn’t lose.
I told him that the early years were desperate years for us. We were in desperation and no local
bank would help so I went to see Mendel Thompson at the Nazarene Credit Union and he came
through; he was the only one.
This person went to other institutions, and then returned.
“I thought coming back I would be a researcher and writer, but…”
“They’ve kept you too busy,” his wife said. “They keep giving you new projects.”
He called one person’s commitment to come “old school.” It was those in the old school who
went, paid their own costs, and built the foundations of this university.
9. New Opportunity. Introduction: This faculty member was pleased as he looked out the
window of the new home he and his wife had just built near the mountains behind Pasadena. It
met their needs perfectly now and in retirement. His wife had a job she loved at Pasadena
Christian School. All that would be lost if they moved, as well as 20% of their equity.
“My first reaction,” his wife said, “was that it impacted my job at Pasadena Christian. It broke
my heart to leave there. But I knew the Lord would lead us and we would be OK, everything
would be OK.”
That is a big financial and emotional loss, big enough to make a decision to move difficult, and
already had led some to stay. Was there any question about whether you should move?
“No, not for me,” he said. “We did not look at is as a sacrifice, but as an opportunity and
adventure.” God was doing a new thing and he wanted to be part of it. God was intervening into
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the history of this college and he found that exciting. They could find a house; moving the
college to a new and better future was exciting.
Still, he had options and there could have been something better elsewhere. In the providence of
God, one could have hopes linked to a career ladder to a more prestigious and important school.
Did you consider going elsewhere instead?
He had been interested in the ladder, and had hoped for a couple years for an invitation from
elsewhere, but those openings were filled “by men who were far better suited to the role than I
was.” On reflection, “over the years I was grateful that I was able to spend my whole career here.
It is a privilege to teach, to open new worlds to a group of 30 or so students. It is a privilege to
watch them open up, grow up, and find their place of service. Moreover, it takes time to find
your rhythm in teaching at a particular college, and to realize the students are your first priority.
“We lost plenty on our house but what we lost now is peanuts. I lost more than that on the
market last month. I was all for the move, excited about it for the college and the department, a
new building in a new place.”
How did the move impact his family?
His wife said, “My daughter was unhappy with Dr. Brown. She was in her junior year in high
school, going steady with a doctor’s son. She did not want to move; it’s very hard for kids,
especially high school. But she made it. She got in the first year of college down here and did
well. She finally loved Dr. Brown.”
There was also a set of second-order consequences, flowing this time from the dynamics on
campus but felt with colleagues, both generally and departmentally.
“We were still a family that began to fall apart when we moved down here very rapidly. We used
to have those social gatherings of the faculty and they went down the tubes. At the department
level, I didn’t have any idea of the psychological changes and modus operandi that would make
it down there. We brought the old curriculum and we did our best to make it work.” He described
one of his biggest battles with his department, trying to keep one program going. “I fought for
that against the department for a long time. The way the thing worked up there, I couldn’t keep it
going the same way...you just couldn’t get the cooperation we got up there.”
So it was one more burden on the others?
“When John Knight was President of Bethany Nazarene College, he gave me an invitation to
come. Dealing with that invitation, I knew that I belonged here.”
That phrase, “I knew I belonged here,” is characteristic of so many who made the move. I’m
sure that realization made them smile in their hearts, and I’m sure God smiled, too.
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10. Service Above Self. Introduction: This faculty member had been a student at Bethany
Nazarene College and was disappointed by how poorly a subject he liked was taught. “I don’t
think it was taught well. In fact, I didn’t think it was even taught adequately in some areas.”
Unsure of what to do, his father urged him to go as far in education as possible. So believing that
was his responsibility as a person, and that he could be of service to the church, he pursued and
gained his doctorate.
Was it worth it?
“I did not enjoy the long nights and weekends; it is not something you do for pleasure, but it was
a service to God and his kingdom and the mission of the school, and that rare student God would
direct into my life.” There “was intense loyalty to that, to be open to it…being alert to what my
role will be, yes, loyalty to that on a religious basis.” Teaching here has “a service to God
element to it, and a feeling like I was part of a bigger picture of God directing people here and
there…if that didn’t all merge, I would have walked out.”
So the disruption of the move must have made things worse.
“Not really. The anxiety started developing after. I remember coming down with you and
looking at those places where Hobbs is, and one or two others are now, and kind of being
discouraged because I thought the $22,000 or so that they cost was so expensive, and so the
longer we looked the more the reality settled in. At first it was kind of, OK let’s do it.”
Given the costs of housing, did you ever consider going elsewhere?
“That didn’t even enter my mind, because I guess I just wasn’t interested in going anywhere else.
Also I had, I think from my first year of teaching, a strong sense of obligation to stick with it,
and didn’t consider (leaving).”
But others did.
“Well in fact I would joke about it. A lot of faculty consider (teaching here) like a used car lot,
you know, they’ll be there until they sell a few cars and then move on. And that seemed disloyal
to me.”
Disloyal. Did you feel a calling to teach here?
“I remember that coming up in some of our retreats—is this a calling or just a job? And I
remember sharp differences of opinion among the faculty. If there had not been a loyalty to
the church component I wouldn’t have been a teacher.”
So it was less a calling than your own love and loyalty to the church and the Kingdom.
“Yes, going as far as I did in education I did for church loyalty reasons. My childhood home
church won over my parents, trained me into a Christian lifestyle, instilled a respect for BNC
(higher education) as a goal, and so much else that I still feel indebted to the denomination and
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its churches and universities even in my elder years. I was ‘gifted’ with so much; I'm compelled
to do good to others for as long as I can in return. My motivation to teach at a Christian college
was based on a personal feeling that I could contribute in some way. Maybe not be the star. I
didn’t want to be the person up front, you know, department leader or something. I felt I had a
calling, but not in a direct sense that I felt God wanted me to be a teacher; I just felt I could
contribute. If I couldn’t I’d leave, and thought about it a few times. I would have had more fun in
some other careers.”
You were new at Pasadena, worked in a new building and had bought you own house, so did he
have any struggle about having to move to San Diego?
“Struggle would not be anywhere near an accurate…other than, how in the world can I afford a
house in San Diego? And that grew, and continued to grow as the time of the move arrived. That
part of it was a struggle…I guess the only worry I had was how in the world am I going to be
able to buy a house because (his wife) couldn’t find work. In explaining all of that, about trying
not to have anxiety, I think I just leaned on the leaders with trust and respect. If we were on a
tight budget we were going to have to carry our share but not more than anybody else.”
With his loyalty to the college and the risk President Brown was running in moving the college,
what did he think of Brown?
“Since you asked I have been thinking about it. The atmospherics that Shelburne created, and the
kind of team he drew in, were a shield, a cover, a mother chicken hen wing kind of thing that had
a security, I mean, that’s the way I’ve been thinking. He didn’t treat us like a mother chicken; he
treated us with respect, dignity, even pride. I think he understood our strong points and believed
in us, communicated that, and I just knew he was going to deal with all the issues that needed to
be dealt with. And that wasn’t blind; I think everybody felt that way, or nearly everyone.”
Rotary International has a motto of “Service above self.” That could certainly describe this
faculty member. He gave of himself to serve God’s Kingdom in the form of students through this
college, and his loyalty to that life and trust in the administration overrode the difficulties of
rebuilding a program at another location. Service above self.
11. Wanted to Move. Introduction: This couple wanted to move. She was raised in
Oklahoma and moved to Texas where her husband had a job. “It was nice, but if I can explain
the feeling, it didn’t seem like the people wanted to stretch out and be adventurous; it was just
the same ol’ thing all the time.” He was recruited from industry and took a 50% pay cut to teach
at Pasadena College. That was a decision of commitment to the college and its progress and fate.
Unable to buy a home, they rented near the school for 13 years.
“When we left Texas and the humidity and the mosquitos, when we drove into Pasadena and
Altadena where we were renting, I thought ‘This is just heaven. I don’t want to leave here. I
don’t want to go anywhere else, this is where I want to live and die.’”
How did she react to the news the college was moving to San Diego?
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“Can’t be any better than this…so let’s go,.” He was ready to go, too. “I was positive about the
move when I first heard it…because I had become bearish on the future of Pasadena. And
consequently, the potential of the college to exist there. There was no struggle about whether to
relocate with the college. The college was moving and I was going.”
Did they have any sense of providence in the move?
“My husband said Shelburne Brown believed with all his heart that this is what God wants me to
do.”
He added, “I don’t remember Shelburne ever talking about that. The argument was that we are
moving because it is a good thing to do. I didn’t ask the Lord; I just followed.”
So you assumed the Lord was in the move and everything would work out for you.
You (his wife) had taught in Pasadena, so you gave up your job. Was finding a job in San Diego
very difficult?
“I had just started at a Christian school. It was the first year and so when we found out we were
moving, I talked to the principal and he gave the name of a principal down here in the Claremont
area, and it was a Christian school. I came down and interviewed for a teaching position, and I
got the job.”
Housing was a different issue; it took a lot of work. She said her husband was very creative. He
took a seminar on dealing with distressed properties and learned how to “flip” houses.
“I didn’t know a trust deed from a debenture,” he said. “I made half a dozen trips to San Diego
and I pretty well knew almost all the distressed properties in the whole metropolitan area.” He
purchased several new housing starts, held them for a short time and then resold them. “I didn’t
put much money in any of them, so I moved into three houses in about three months. You make
a little bit on each one and you don’t have to pay income tax; you roll it over into the basis for
the new one. That was the rule at the time. Can’t be ‘a worry wort.’ We rented with an option to
buy, bought it and sold it, and then we did that again in Mira Mesa.
“We couldn’t find anything large enough for our family on the Point that we could afford, so we
chose here even though it was an 18-mile drive back and forth. But we didn’t mind because we
liked the house. So we’ve been there ever since we moved down here.”
My wife clued me in that there are a lot of other considerations and choices that have to be made
when you move—doctors and churches. How did that go?
“We tried out a couple of churches with the boys and we said we’ll choose the church they
enjoy, they like and where they find friends.” They found all that at First Church, she said, “so
we stayed with First Church. It was more important for them to enjoy. As for a doctor, we visited
Scripps Hospital and when you walked in it seemed clean, it seemed comfortable, it seemed
inviting, so we said let’s find a doctor here.”
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They found their better future through the move.
12. Calling and Loyalty. Introduction: This person grew up in Oklahoma and experienced
two calls from the Lord. He was teaching at a Nazarene college and working for an insurance
company where he was offered a position at three times the salary being paid by Nazarene
colleges, plus a car, office and secretary. He felt the Lord calling him to a specific field, so the
question became whether he should go full time into insurance sales, or go to graduate school
and become a teacher. “It was a hard decision. But the Lord had called me to this field, and
college teaching was an avenue for that.” He was singing in church services in Indiana when he
felt the Lord call him to Pasadena College. “I felt the call to come and never felt the call to go
somewhere else.” He met the President of the college at the Indianapolis airport, discussed
teaching at the college, and agreed to come.
Now in 1972, the President said the college will move to San Diego. What did you think?
“I never questioned the decision, but went with the move with all its implications. I was
confident that I had been ‘called’ to this institution regardless of what happened.”
So you never considered leaving for elsewhere or something more lucrative?
“No. Not really. I didn’t have any visible ‘signs’ or ‘voices in the night,’ just that feeling of
commitment and calling, so I stayed with the institution. Like others, I am reasonably sure I
could have followed up on inquiries from other schools successfully and relocated in a more
normal fashion, had I desired to do so. On more than one occasion I was offered a position (at a
statewide level) with a substantial salary, perks, benefits and some prestige. I was never really
tempted…but as we struggled with the financial realities of the impact of the move on our family
life, there were many times when the contrast twixt the two potential roads was brought into
sharp focus.”
Those must have been attractive alternatives!
I was 100% committed to the rebuilding and strengthening of the college I loved and served.
Shelburne told some of his friends that he believed with all his heart that the Lord wanted him to
make the move. Do you remember him talking about that?
“Shelburne never talked about that openly in faculty meetings. I got it from other people who
said when he was in Hawaii that the Lord talked to him. I accept that…I think it is pretty well
accepted that there was divine assurance…(but when I first heard it) it struck me as almost an
apology or a belated rationale. Still, I never heard him say that the Lord told him.”
Some people are not sure about that story, believing God does not “speak” in such direct ways.
“The Lord may or may not have visited Shelburne, but Shelburne visited me more than once.”
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The President called a special meeting of the faculty, and insisted that everyone be there, and
there was some talk that it was about a move. Had you heard any of that?
“I was somewhat stunned. Not many weeks before I had asked Shelburne point blank, ‘Is there
any thought of moving the college?’ He assured me there was NOT. I still have difficulty
reconciling the statement.
“I had borrowed money to rebuild the kitchen in our house. I was standing there with a paint
brush and a can of paint, finishing the last stroke to wrap it up. The doorbell rang and I went to
the door and it was Lewis Thompson. ‘You won’t believe this, but Shelburne is going to
announce that the college is moving to San Diego.’”
I remember it, too, and I was not happy about it. Warren Brown, his son, was there. He had been
to the Point Loma campus and thought it was a really great place and was shocked when the
faculty was not immediately excited about it. What was your sense of the general reaction to the
announcement? Mixed?
“It was far more negative than that because everybody was happy in their church situations, and
they could walk to their friends’ houses. Property values in Pasadena were in sharp decline, and
here (San Diego) they were in a very sharp incline, so you were selling in the worst of times and
buying at the worst time for a buyer.”
What was the impact of the move on you? Did you have costs to pay?
“When I moved I cut my family income in half. My wife had a full teaching load and I had rental
property. I had to sell everything to buy down here. I converted all my investments into the
residence. And took about a 60% pay cut.”
“I thought it was the end of the world,” added his wife.
What about the college itself? Did it suffer costs? I have said the college died somewhere on the
freeway.
“My illustration I think is still a good one. It was like we took the college, like it was a crystal
vase, and dropped it on a rock and watched the splinters go.”
There were questions of whether we could survive in San Diego.
“Yes, because of the extreme cost, both of the move and the refurbishing of the campus, and the
fact that we were leaving our base, we were leaving our constituents; from being sort of in the
center of the educational zone we were now on the far edge. Moreover, I was very anxious about
the move’s impact on the very nature of the school. The hasty recruitment of faculty, the absence
of any Nazarene visibility or presence in the area, the total disappearance of any faculty
homogeneity, and other factors were very heavy on my psyche.”
And some church people did not even want us down here.
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“I remember the District Superintendent’s speech at our welcome dinner when he said, ‘I don’t
want no college in my district,’ repeating what he’d said in an earlier meeting as he pounded the
table.”
A pastor friend of mine said that was true, but once the decision was made to come, the DS said
he would make it the best experience possible.
“Perhaps, but a few of us started having church on campus, on their own, in Goodwin Chapel. I
was in the room when the District Superintendent said, ‘We will not have any unauthorized
worship on this campus.’ There was the ‘silent contract’ with the District Superintendent and the
San Diego pastors that we would not attempt to develop a church on campus, even though there
was a chapel building sitting here and potentially ideal for us.
Yes, instead he wanted the faculty to be dispersed around most of the churches in the area. The
trustees were always concerned about starting a church on campus while the DS did not want us
here, so the “silent contract,” as you call it, must have been the price Shelburne and the board
had to pay to get Nick’s approval for the college to move into his district.
There was the direct order from Dr. Brown that we were not to “gang up” in any locale or
church, but scatter as widely as practical.
Trustees are supposed to hold the interests of the college “in trust” but sometime a DS may
come with his or her own agenda that required a distribution of benefits. So how did the college
survive?
“What is the one thing that is in common with those who made the move and stayed?
Denominational loyalty. It was the Nazarenes who came in the move. I think there is a sense of
investment, ownership, whatever the right word is, that all of us had, though we may never have
verbalized it, I think we sensed it. To make sure this thing went.”
Looking back, what is your sense of providence?
“Most of us take the college’s growth and strength, and even its survival to be an indication of
God’s blessing. It may be that His will for the expansion of His Kingdom could have been
served, with his help, at either location. We can know we must continue to make decisions
within the framework of ‘His will’ as we are able to discern it. We can also know that His calling
and His will can be ours if we are sensitive to His leadership.”
Very nicely said. Even if we did not get a campus church, it is because of people like you that the
Lord’s presence has been in this place.
13. Trust in the President. Luther developed the idea of a calling, that every Christian has
a specific role in life. Were you called by the Lord to teach at Pasadena?
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“Luther’s ideas must yield to flexibility in living out one’s life. In my opinion every Christian is
not necessarily called to one specific form of calling, although there may be some who are. What
is done is influenced by circumstances, personal experience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit
(as all of that can best be discerned). Today, creativity, contingency and freedom must also be
considered.”
About to receive his graduate degree, this faculty member had offers from two other Nazarene
colleges. How could he find God’s hopes for him? He considered Pasadena academically
superior to the others so wanted to teach at Pasadena and inquired about a position. Shelburne
flew to meet him and talked for about two hours. He went through the interview process and
from that came an offer and “an inward impression that was comforting and assuring.”
The next year he heard the announcement about the move. Having just made one move, he was
now confronted with another. On top of that, the President said “We could lose the whole
thing.” That must have given you pause, and led you to ask if you had made the right decision.
“Though President Brown said we could lose the whole enterprise, I just didn’t think it would
happen. And I think that’s because I had faith in Shelburne…I think what helped me was
theology—you know, if you really believe in God and God is in this, Shelburne was convinced
God was in it, well, that’s OK.” Theology substituted for encounter.
That’s a lot of faith in Shelburne, especially when he said they could lose the whole thing.
“Well to me, for lack of a better word, to me that was theory, a possibility. I just didn’t think it
would happen. And I think that’s because I had faith in Shelburne. See I knew Shelburne Brown
when he was a DS because he would bring stuff to be duplicated to Pasadena First and I would
do it for him. So at least I knew who he was, you know not friends or anything like that, but I
knew who he was, the District Superintendent.”
That sounds more like an acquaintance.
“That may be true, but I knew he was a church statesman.”
Church statesman. That’s a high placement.
“It popped into my head one day because I knew…and I may have it out of historical sequence –
he headed up the committee on the divorce issues for the church at large. He had Carver write up
a theological document to support it. It got turned down. The very next Assembly it got
approved. The church changed its stance. Not that they encouraged divorce, but they at least
recognized the reality of it. Anyway, I’ve never been able to forget that, for it means here’s a
person who saw the larger picture and what needed to be done. He took a stand on a
controversial issue and it hurt him, I understand.”
So you were never conflicted by the move.
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“I don’t recall struggling spiritually, with regard to either about the move or when we got down
here. I think part of it was just because I was still teaching new classes. It’s not just the first year
you go through that. Remember, we didn’t own a place and didn’t have a whole lot of
commitments. Sure the move itself involved decisions with respect to housing, what school our
oldest child would be in, church to attend, etc., but that is all part of what it means ‘to move.’
Again, to repeat, we had only been at the college for two years so it was not really a big deal for
us. In fact, we bought our first home in the move to San Diego, so in a way it was, so to speak,
‘progress’ to make the move.”
So it was never an issue of the “will of God” or providence.
“When I said yes to the invitation to come to PC, coupled with a desire to be a part of this
community of believers, it made it easy to say yes to President Brown’s decision to move. In that
context, asking the question directly as to whether this was the will of the Lord for us was
already a done deal. To move was no struggle on our part.”
“I was excited about the move,” his wife added, “because we were getting out of the smog. We
had two small children, and every morning down here when I got out of work I’d stand on the
steps and say ‘thank you, God.’”
A lot of us do that in our own way.
14. The Suggestion Changed My Life. How did you hear about the decision?
“It was my senior year and we were in chapel one morning. There had been rumblings of this
thing that were starting to happen, and the thing that was a little bit different for me was, I was a
transfer student. It was such an unexpected idea—how do you move a college to a new city?
How could they call it Pasadena College when it was located in San Diego? The questions seem
silly now, but a lot of students were asking them.”
You were a Baptist when you transferred in from Pasadena City College. How did you go from
being a transfer student to becoming a part of the Pasadena College world?
“I knew very little about the denomination. I had grown up near Casa Robles in Temple City and
saw the bus of the local Nazarene church transporting children to church, so I went to the library
and checked out a copy of the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene. I was impressed that so
many of the tenets and practices of the two denominations were the same. One had written them
down in manual form, the other made them expected practice. I had yet to learn about the
Wesleyan vs. Calvinist perspectives!”
How did you go from being a transfer student to becoming a part of our art faculty?
“The quality of the program fell far short of what I had experienced at Pasadena City College,
but for a Christian the opportunities were absolutely wonderful. The teachers prayed in class! It
was Bob Bullock who, when I was walking to class the first month, asked me what I wanted to
do with my art major. I said I wanted to be a high school teacher and he said, ‘Would you want
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to think about teaching in a Christian college?’ That was way beyond my career goals. That
conversation changed my life, that simple challenge changed my life.
“Noel Fitch was one of my first teachers; I told her that Mr. Bullock suggested I consider
teaching at a Christian college, and by then the thought of the school moving had already started.
Sitting in her office, I said, ‘I think I’d like to teach at a Christian college.’ And she said, ‘Why
don’t you try and teach as an adjunct while you are going to graduate school? Why don’t you
come with us to San Diego?’
“It was amazing. And I kept thinking, ‘I’m a Baptist. Why do all these people care this much?’
That was the bottom line with that, and Noel was such an inspiration, such an inspiration. I
applied for my master’s degree program at San Diego State. Once that was approved, I knew I
would be making the move with the school and that’s when I got involved with packing up the
department with everybody.”
The program had to be completely rebuilt in San Diego. I’m sure Dean Paul Gresham was
delighted.
“Yes, and me. He hired me to teach art and design courses, which led to a teaching assistant
position at San Diego State, so he made it possible for me to begin moving toward my goal. I
went from there to a Ph.D. program at the University of Oregon.
“I remember being in Oregon and seeing an advertisement for the Pasadena College campus.
Literally, I did. And it was when that odd group was renting it, and my first thought was, ‘Oh, it
pains me.’”
So you get your degree and return to us. One of the things I’m interested in
is how you carried the core values down from Pasadena. Pasadena College
died somewhere on the freeway but we want to rebuild it here. What was
your experience in efforts to build a Christian culture on campus?
“The transition years contained some rich time of fellowship. Faculty was
scattered on the campus and off, and Bible study groups popped up in that
first year; I was in a Bible study with Frank Carver, and so there was a real interest in keeping
connected with each other. There were probably 15 of us who gathered up. There were also all
the Bible study groups on campus that came and went a lot.”
“And chapel. Huge, huge, huge. Well the chapel programs changed my generation. It was that
ministry of grace, it was something that was a very new experience. It has its pitfalls, definitely,
but it has a means of elevating. Faith ultimately has to be a decision of the heart. And it has to be
something you’ve experienced because an experience of the head doesn’t make sense. That has
come out of my Pasadena College experiences.”
In that vein, did you as a student or faculty member ever pick up that it was more than just a
good opportunity, that somehow the Lord’s movement was in it? Did Shelburne ever talk about
that?
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“Good question. I think we had to trust that it was happening. That was especially true when we
heard about the airplane crash in Oregon, killing PC’s attorney and his family, for we worried we
might not have complete documentation.
“News of President Brown’s brain cancer spread quickly, even to Oregon. I think we heard more
of that in retrospect, when he was sick and dying, and the toll this whole process had taken on
him and his body…that sense of vision was as much Godly as it was advantageous for the
institution.”
How about yourself? Why did you return to Point Loma after you got your Ph.D.?
“I was asked to apply by another Christian college and probably should have applied to some
larger state universities. But I prayed about it and felt God was clearly leading me toward
graduate school and work at PC. My fellow graduate students were quite envious of my seamless
move into a full-time teaching position. The providence of God—as both a Baptist and a
Nazarene I had a sense of calling to teach in Christian higher education.”
15. We Were Glad. These two faculty members both taught at Pasadena College and so
each had a vested interest in the move.
What were your reactions to the big announcement?
He said: “Before the college moved to San Diego, we were talking about relocating out of the
LA area. We were exploring teaching opportunities in Colorado and thought a career relocation
might be the best thing for us. We wanted to get out of the LA area.”
But the Cal Western site was OK for you?
He said: “I had been there many times over the previous nine years, and thought what an
unbelievable place to teach. I really felt like there was some tremendous potential and I was so
young and naïve that I really didn’t understand the magnitude of the move and the impact it
would have on so many lives. We were living in an apartment with no kids so we didn’t have
to deal with the kinds of problems and issues others confronted. We were excited about the
potential of the move.”
So moving away from Pasadena was easy.
He said: “Easy? No, the emotional attachment to Pasadena College, you know, is strong. I feel
that same emotion. That place and the people in that place, through them God changed my life
and the direction of my life and so it’s extremely important. I was involved with the Alumni
Committee that planned the last event on the Pasadena campus in 2001; that was an emotional
and special assignment for me.
But Cal Western was OK with you?
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She said: “Moving to San Diego made me feel much better about living in California and being
part of the whole adventure.”
He said: “Like I said, I had been here before it was announced, several times, and thought it
would be nice to be here. I remember going to First Church and staying with Bill Bremner and
those guys over here and after the game…and so we’d actually come down to San Diego and
driven across the campus.”
So if relocating is an option, you have to get it right. How did you find the Lord’s will and decide
on Point Loma instead of Colorado?
She said: “It’s more a matter of going with what you believe than what you feel. You make the
best decision you could, and if God is directing your life, that is where belief and trust come in.”
He said: “Discovering God’s will for your life had always been somewhat of a mystery to me.
Were you supposed to hear this big voice from on high or was bright light supposed to engulf
you and proclaim a certain direction for you to follow? If not, does that mean you are not
spiritual enough? I heard Patrick Allen (former PLNU Provost) say one time that God’s will for
our lives lies at the intersection of our abilities and our opportunities. I liked that; it was
something I could grab hold of and feel like there was meaning and direction. I feel like God not
only expects but requires us to develop the abilities and talents he has given us and maximize the
opportunities he allows to come our way. I feel when we seize the opportunity and maximize the
abilities God bestows on us, his will for our lives becomes more clear. Maybe in that context, it
was God’s will for us to move to San Diego.”
That leaves a lot of space for choice. You faced a basic choice once before.
He said: “I had a defining moment. After college I had some amazing opportunities. I failed at
both and then I had some nice international opportunities that I tried and did not take. I came out
of this experience with a bad taste in my mouth and knew I was not to be about business and
money, and opted for a teaching career.”
So you had the abilities but you did not have the right opportunity.
He said: “Yes, I had some ability and several opportunities, but those experiences made it pretty
crystal clear to me what I was supposed to teach. Teaching and coaching was the direction I was
supposed to take; the when and where was yet to be determined. Of course I am thrilled that it
was Pasadena/Point Loma Nazarene University.”
She said: “The struggle with knowing God’s will came much easier for me. When I agreed to
come to Pasadena to teach it was after a real struggle of knowing what was God’s will. I had
basically tried to say ‘no’ but only gained a sense of peace after I said ‘yes.’ So the decision to
move was exciting because the concept of God’s leadership in my life was very connected to me
being at the college. It was part of the adventure. I remember we talked about (finding the will of
God) in Sunday school, and someone said, ‘You are just too simple. It’s not that simple.’ And I
thought ‘OK, that’s fine’
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“I heard about the move two or three days before it was announced and thought it would be a
positive situation for us and yet it could be a very difficult situation for others. I don’t believe
God moved the college to San Diego for me to have this job, but I’m sure glad I was able to be
part of this huge plan.”
Well if in fact he moved us just so you could have this job, I’m glad to be part of that plan, too.
16. Christian Education. How did you come to the college?
“I was not a church insider and had no desire to teach at a church-related school, believing they
were for the most part anti-intellectual and intellectually dishonest. I was recruited quite
vigorously by Brown, however, and finally responded after the third phone call from him with a
request to meet. My view of the school changed dramatically after meeting what were to become
my future colleagues: you, Hybertson, the Fitches, Andrews, Lown, Hedges, Strawn, Prince,
Shellhamer, just to name the ones who stand out to me and who totally changed my view on
Christian education. My Gosh, what a collection of brilliant minds, all coming together at about
the same time.”
What was your reaction to the announcement?
“Well, I had no personal tie or bonding to the college, nor to Pasadena and I felt there was future
for a first-class Christian university. I was, therefore, ecstatic when at the faculty meeting I shall
never forget, the official announcement was made. I was totally blindsided by the announcement,
as I had head no rumors and I perceived others around me had not as well. For my part, I
believed it was a great move for the school (and the church) and I applauded -- even while others
around me were in shock, and some in tears. I truly understood the pain for them in breaking
with an emotional past, but I thought Brown was a visionary.”
You did not relocate to San Diego?
“No. For my personal part, I did not feel secure at all. I did not have my dissertation done at the
time, was not Nazarene, and certainly had no claim to a long-term commitment by the school.
We had just bought a house a couple months earlier, and we just had our first child. My wife’s
job was far more secure than mine, so I did not feel able to make the physical move. Instead, I
commuted for five years, despite the fact that another local college was recruiting me at the time.
I had just overcome my thoughts about church-related higher education in coming to Pasadena,
but Azusa would have been too much of a step down for me.”
But it was more than that. Some considered you too liberal. It would have been safer for you to
go someplace, even if not Azusa.
Yes, yes. Yet, I have been named Professor of the Year eight times. Plus, PLNU has been a
marvelous place to be—staggering location, great colleagues, wonderful students and marvelous
teaching environment. And in those years I was never subjected to any kind of censorship.
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Where was Literature located in those years?
“It was in Taylor Hall, both offices and classrooms. Not mine. I had a closet in Starkey, because
they didn’t have enough offices for everybody.”
When I got down here I can’t remember anything except the fun it was. It was a new campus, I
had a new house; it was fun but it was a real adventure. Since you did not move down, what was
your sense of those years?
“I’d say it the same way. Watching the move and seeing the boxes going through there to the
various locations, it was like moving into a new house and unpacking. There are things to do,
who gets which room and who gets which office, and that was exciting. I think my best memory
though was, first, I was young. We’re the same age. For us it was different than if we were 40 or
50.”
That’s right.
“I was 27, 28. But the students who came here then were exciting. I just remember there was a
breed of students in the mid-‘70s who just made my life dynamic.”
I always tell people the first four years were the best years of my teaching because there was
diversity on campus then. I know there were drunks; I know there were surfers. The surfers
didn’t care but there was a nice diversity to teach political science. Those were good years.
“I still remember them quite fondly. Maybe it was because of my youth and I was so energized
by those students that it was just a great atmosphere and a potential for the future, it just seemed
like we were going to keep expanding, not expanding but growing.”
Related to that, there were a lot of non-Nazarenes. The percentage of Nazarene students declined
over the early years. I assume in those years a lot of students came from churches in other
theological traditions, as well as Calvary Chapel and other independent churches that are
mainly fundamentalist. There was even the Jesus People in the mid-‘70s. Did that make any
difference in the classroom?
“Oh yes. Our best students as a rule came from the Nazarene community. They have traditionally
been eager learners, tolerant of challenging thought. Indeed, even if conservative, they were open
to new ideas and approaches. It was the kids from other conservative religious backgrounds who
tended not to be so open and to me more confrontational.”
17. It was Good for Us. I am sorry your husband is no longer with us, so thank you for your
time. How did you hear about the decision to move?
“I’ll never forget he came home for dinner one night and when dinner was over he said ‘Family,
I have something to say.’ He said, ‘The college is moving to San Diego.’”
What was his reaction to the announcement? Was it a traumatic decision to move?
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“No, his traumatic decision came earlier. He was a teacher and counselor at an Anaheim school
and taught Sunday school. One Sunday, Dean Paul Gresham attended the church and sat in on
his class and was so impressed he went to the pastor and said he wanted him to teach at the
college. An offer was made, entailing a drastic reduction in salary, but he made the decision to
move to the college, and was always glad about that decision. He began in 1969 and taught until
a sudden and untimely death in March 1996 when he was 65 years old.
“So, we just took everything in stride. We felt that he was not always happy about the way it was
facilitated, the way it was done, but he felt it was the right thing. I think he was very gung ho,
very excited about it.”
But you did not move down. You lived in Buena Park and Fullerton and he commuted down
every couple days.
“He remained at the Pasadena site to allow students in the program to finish and I can’t tell you
right off the top of my head how many years he did that. And then when that was over, that
assignment wound up, he went to the Point Loma campus.”
So he commuted to Pasadena, and then later commuted to San Diego?
“We had never moved to Pasadena, so in a sense he’d kept his independence. Not that he was
being stubborn or perverse, but it just fit into our situation, my public school teaching and our
own life, so we just stayed in Buena Park, and then the reason we moved to Fullerton was that
the park next to us became a drug dealer’s haven and we just wanted a different location. So he
kept his independence in a sense; he was kind of willing to be a rolling stone and do whatever it
took to make it work.
“We moved to Fullerton in 1976. His commuting didn’t disrupt our lives all that much, except
when the kids were both gone and I was alone. I stayed alone a lot when he was in San Diego,
and that was OK. I was still teaching in Orange County, and it amazed me how it all worked out.
“I’ve been recently going through some old files and finding all these little slips from some of
those “flea bag motels” on Rosecrans where he stayed. I think it was Econo Lodge and
Miramar...I don’t remember the names but I found receipt after receipt after receipt after
receipt. So he stayed in a lot of motels down there, and then he, Fordyce Bennett, and Mike
McKinney used to stay overnight in some building on the Point Loma campus.
“He never complained about the commute, the miles he put on his old cars. He told me one day
that he never tired of his ride to San Diego. And eventually I found these little recorders with
tiny reels; he evidently would record stuff on them, and had time to think and pray. That trip
along the ocean, he said he always enjoyed it.”
Now at some point you were in a condo down off Nimitz.
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“Yes. When I took early retirement from public school we bought a little condo so we could stay
down through the week and then we would come home to Orange County for the weekend. And
we maintained our Long Beach church relationship. So it wasn’t hard; we adapted.”
What was the impact on your family?
“It impacted our family tremendously. It was a wonderful experience for our kids. My daughter
was not going to go Pasadena College because of the smog, so she was happy. And it was a great
experience for me to end up my public professional educational career there; I took early
retirement and decided I would take half. It cut my retirement in half, but I decided if I retired
five years early I would live 20 years longer.
“I retired in 1988. I finished my doctorate, and it was a wonderful experience for me to finish up
in higher education. Although I had worked part time on the Pasadena campus for several years,
night classes and summer school classes, it was wonderful to end up my career in higher
education.”
So it was good.
“It was good for him, it was good for us.”
18. From East to West. Remind me where you were before you came to Pasadena.
“I came from Eastern Nazarene College. I had this wonderful offer from Shelburne Brown with
an increase in salary and a promotion. We were able to sell our home in Quincy to make a little
profit, so we had that to move on. Just enough to make a good down payment on the house we
got.”
How did you hear about the move?
“Well actually Beryl Dillman and I were instrumental in that. It’s a great story. On a Friday
afternoon and Saturday at Cal Western (April 7-8, 1972), we were down there for the private
college group that became AICCU, and they hosted it. While we were there, three or four of their
professors who we had gotten to know through the private association said their President was
trying to sell the campus. Beryl and I came back on that Saturday and called Shelburne Brown to
tell him. He met with Beryl and me that Saturday evening. (April 8) and said, “Tell me what you
know.” We said the Cal Western campus is going up for sale and so on. And then he called us
again on Sunday.”
Wow, that fast. So you knew about it during the faculty meeting when all the rest of us found out
about it.
“Yeah, I remember the very meeting and where it was. There was excitement but boy there were
a lot of questions, and some reaction from the old time Pasadena people.”
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What was your reaction to it? Did you find it very positive and never considered going
elsewhere?
“Yeah, we were really happy in Pasadena. Of course we had only owned the house for two years
and just finished putting a roof on, and painting it, so we took a pretty good loss…yeah, we lost
almost all our equity. We could not sell the house; we got renters in there in a lease for six
months or something, but we could not sell it for what we bought it.
“We were young and happy to be with the college, so we went down to San Diego to look at
various property; we wanted to be out by the college someplace. My doctoral advisor had just
moved into a new property in the Bird Rock area of La Jolla and said they have units there but
they didn’t allow anyone under 21 to live in the building. They went to the board to see if our
daughter could be exempt from that, so we moved into the building on Chelsea Boulevard and
leased a unit for a short time. Then about six months after we leased it, the people leasing our
property in Altadena asked if they could buy it. I decided we were not going to get a better deal,
so we sold it to them. Then, since we liked the place we were leasing, we were able to buy the
lease and make the property ours.”
Did you find much difference between Pasadena and San Diego in any terms such as students
or church or campus culture? I still tell people those first four years were the best years for the
college because we had diversity, surfers, Jesus People, many non-Christians, and so on.
“I agree with that, Ron.”
It became a big change from what was in Pasadena. The college grew in size while the number
of Nazarene students held steady. It was bound to worry some of the Trustees. But the bigger
reality is that the larger the numbers, the higher the quality of education.
“Early on I thought I started noticing a difference, that there were more ‘non-Nazarene.’ I
remember a couple people, Board members, saying, “Well you bring all those people on
campus” and it will make it less Nazarene but not less Christian. Not less quality people. And
you know what? I wasn’t concerned. As far as I was concerned, you know I was born and raised
in the Nazarene church, father a Nazarene minister, etc, and I love Nazarene people overall for
sure. But as far as the colleges becoming less formal or having the governance it should have,
that should have happened 25 years ago and it would be a healthy place. The one thing the
church did that you have to applaud them for was they believed in higher education, or some
did. They started a number of colleges.”
It has impressed me that the Board, well most of it, accepted the change in the institution. We
have a much broader mandate now, much more impact on the church world and on the wider
world. Bresee did not want us to be sectarian, and it is impossible now. How about churches?
“There was a big thing about all of us getting into one of the Nazarene churches, and we were
going to La Jolla Presbyterian. As I remember our conversation early on was with Paul Gresham.
He was good about it. He wasn’t strongly doctrinaire on the thing. Shelburne Brown talked to us
about it and we said we were coming to the campus church some. He didn’t tell us what church
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to go to, but said Board members had raised it. We didn’t want to be a problem for him, it wasn’t
a problem for us, and actually we kind of enjoyed our time at the college church. I was on the
Board for a while and my wife also.”
This has been helpful information. Thanks very much.
19. Serving Students. The two of you came in 1970. Did Dr. Brown recruit you, or Dr.
Gresham?
He said: “Shelburne wasn’t it? I’m trying to remember how he did it. He was pretty blunt about
it. He had a pocket-full of reasons why I should come.”
She said: “I think Shelburne had a recommendation from Bennet and Dillman. And he called one
day and said, “I want to fly you out here.” So he did. He flew him out and before he came back
home he had a house bought. In the Meadows, and it was a nice place.”
He said: “I knew I wasn’t going to stay at Olivet, and the other option was to go back to teaching
at a university. I could have gone to Purdue, which meant another move, a serious move, but
there were jobs. I had looked around and there were jobs. And there were jobs where all I would
have to teach was one graduate class, which I had done before and which I liked because it keeps
you up to date in your field. It allows you to know enough to teach well.”
And the students are serious.
“”Yeah. I would never have gone to Pasadena if it had not been for Shelburne. I didn’t need a job
bad enough to lie, so I laid it out on the line. This is what I want to do and this is the kind of
place where I want to teach, the kind of faculty I want to work with, and so on. He didn’t blink.”
Wow, so how did you make that decision to go, especially when you had options to go
elsewhere?
“It was the type of student, wasn’t it? There is a sense of serving students when they are making
hard decisions. There is also a situation where I didn’t need to fight for what I wanted as a
curriculum. And in colleges like that, people will fight against anything that has pizzazz or some
solid stuff to it. I didn’t have to do that. “
Boy that’s a great answer. So Shelburne personally recruited you and agreed to support your
curricular and faculty needs, but you really came here because of students. Were you Nazarene
in the past?
“Oh yeah. Both.”
And the ratio changes, 60 to 30 percent.
“You mean as far as Nazarenes are concerned?”
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Yeah. It plateaus at 800. The first few years we brought in “everybody.” Do you remember any
difference between a Nazarene and a non-Nazarene student?
“I can’t say that I remember the church being a factor. Now it’s possible that some students
might have had an idea about doing this or that.”
One of our colleagues talked about Nazarene students being more open and less confrontational.
Those are the years of the Jesus People. He may be remembering those in literature and raising
all kinds of major issues, and he might have invited it. The church of course is quite concerned
over changes in the Nazarene campus culture and I’m just trying to sense if there is any
difference.
“I can’t remember any students who were seriously interested in mathematics that had a warped
sense of religion. Most of them came from professional families. Usually when you find people
with a strong career, they are usually not warped in their religion.”
That’s good. It was fun in political science because of the diversity. The kind of students the
school didn’t want. A different subject: you were involved in the Faculty Council?
“Yeah. It wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing. I didn’t enjoy it. Except if you get in
there, you learn some things you would not know otherwise. And sometimes there an occasion to
change something.”
I consider it remarkable that Shelburne gave up being the head of the faculty meetings. Dwayne
Little was very concerned about structures like that, having been burned at Olivet. I told him
once, “They would never do that here. Did the Faculty Council grow out of anything specific or
just a general desire to be in control of faculty meetings?
“I got involved because we had something similar at Olivet. It was necessary there. I mean there
are just certain necessities you’ve got to have in order to have a real institution. Dwayne was in it
there. We had some administrators at Olivet who knew what was going on. The problem was that
at Olivet the President was so ‘conservative.’ There was a lot he did that should have been done.
He was not just a dodo who managed to get in there; he knew what he was doing. He did some
really good things. I don’t know about others; the Faculty Council got going and the President
allowed it, and I think without overstating that I knew how to approach him better than others
did. So we got his approval to set that up, and let the faculty vote it in. It was a different world
then at Olivet because the President had been the administration.”
I remember at Point Loma, the issue was the ability to bring up issues the administrators would
not, to get them on the faculty floor.
“The Faculty Council had to walk a line between the administration and the faculty, because
there was no reason to have it if the faculty didn’t get something out of it. Like Olivet, the
faculty was never going to get some stuff they should have with the administration. And that was
a large part, but that was what the Faculty Council was all about. When we put it together we
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chose carefully and set it up, and got approval from the administration, which some sense took
away some of the things they were doing.”
There is always the danger it will become a vehicle for the disgruntled.
“But we couldn’t have got it going with people who had been cutting a wide swath, running
down the college and the administration and so on. We couldn’t get that thing going with
negative stuff. I don’t know what they are doing today, if the situation is under control.”
Were there other Nazarene colleges with anything like it?
“I didn’t know all of them, but I think at Eastern, the situation was totally different. It seems to
me they may have gotten things set up where faculty had a role in suggesting things, salaries,
too.”
I remember the austerity years and I know you did a detailed salary study and proposed a fouryear plan, and it was accepted.
“Yes, and one thing you worked on was the female faculty salaries.”
Their salaries were a blot on our history. So you were able to build a department of modern
quality with faculty who were good teachers, and you helped create the Faculty Council and the
Four-Year Plan. What a benefit and blessing you have been.
“Yeah, but it didn’t seem easy then.”
Glad you came here. You helped solidify a collegial structure and graceful decency among us.
The timing of you leaving Olivet and Dr. Brown becoming president and seeking to build a much
better college seems providential.
20. Bad Timing.
The president announced he was moving the college. What was your reaction?
“I was surprised, especially because there was a lovely new library, and we had all be a part of
the book brigade moving the books to the new building. Knowing the cost and effort it takes to
build such a structure, it seemed questionable to just leave that behind.”
What did you think?
“Well, the rationale for relocating to a much larger space, escaping from the near proximity of
northwest Pasadena, and the new challenge of a campus that could never be duplicated in the
open market—all these seemed to provide basis for suggesting this was a ‘God-ordained’
opportunity to take a leap of faith and watch God’s blessing on this wise move.”
Nicely said. Yet you did not make the move.
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“No, I was not Nazarene so there was no pull of tradition and association to remain with the
Nazarene college, though I had certainly enjoyed the years there, and felt some kinship with the
holiness connections.”
Did you feel like you were expendable?
“No, no. I appreciated the invitation from Dr. Brown to join in the move; he was most gracious
in assuring me I would be welcome to come along.”
So there were other factors?
“Yes. My wife was pregnant with our third child, and would be delivering in June of 1973, not
the best time to be looking for housing and all the other issues affecting relocating. We heard
about the inflated home prices in the San Diego market, so we were pretty certain we could not
afford to match our current housing with what would be affordable at that time.”
“For another thing, I was in the midst of my dissertation, doing research at writing at the
Huntington Library. They had first edition of the Anglican preacher I was studying, to say
nothing of all the secondary materials also important to my work. It would have been
significantly more complicated to complete my work if I were not close to that Library.”
You had compelling reasons to stay.
Yes, so my decision not to go was predicated almost purely on family issues, economic issues of
the cost of moving, and career concerns about getting my dissertation completed and accepted. I
was sorry to leave behind friends and colleagues I had come to appreciate and respect…
So it was just bad timing for you. Did you ever consider changing careers?
No. I knew that Christian higher education was my ministry, a satisfying career of encouraging
students in their quest for knowledge and critical skills in writing and thinking, and I stayed true
to that ministry.
How do you see the two decisions?
Well Dr. Brown was right in his assessment of staying or leaving Pasadena. I also recall his
conviction that this move was “of God” and was a one-time opportunity to envision a larger
future for PC that the Pasadena campus could ever accommodate. For me, the decision not to
join the move to Point Loma worked out in wonderful and fulfilling ways for me. I have taught,
helped build a department of a hundred majors, served in leadership positions, and have an
annual lectureship established in my honor. So my decision worked out as well for me as yours
did for you.
You spent time in both colleges; was there a difference between them?
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Azusa has a strong religious core in its campus culture, but we don’t require students to profess a
faith in order to attend, as Biola did. So there was room for evangelizing our own student body. I
don’t think Azusa was significantly more “spiritual” than PC was, but it may have seemed more
overt. APU did not have a single base of support, one supporting denomination and so we had to
appeal to a wider range of students and independent churches, which required us to be quite
visibly spiritual, but not too doctrinally narrow.
Between the individual and the institution, God works his will with different priorities for
different people. Your experience is very important. Not all people at a Christian college have
the same dream. Several did not make the move for several reasons. For some, the job at
Pasadena College, and even the move, was but a transition location while building a business.
Your “space,” that is your ministry, was foremost and had to take precedence over “place.” You
stayed true to your ministry in broadening the understandings of young people, and the Lord has
blessed that.
21. A Realization. You were teaching at Pasadena College in 1973.
I was part time for the 1972-1973 school year. I was still finishing up my graduate work. The
graduate students had a flying club with their own airplane. So I’d get up about 3:30 in the
morning and if the weather was marginal or not very good I’d jump in the car. If the weather was
fine I could take my time, read the newspaper, have breakfast, go down in pre-flight gear and fly
to Hollywood-Burbank, where I kept an old car.
So, did you make the move that summer?
During the summer when the campus was moving, I went back to finish up my thesis.
Were you at the meeting when Dr. Brown announced the move?
No, I was teaching part time and was not there.
How did you hear about it?
It was a Wednesday night when we learned about it. My wife was at a prayer meeting at the
Nazarene church and I was working on my research when a fellow student came and said ‘Hey,
you’re going to San Diego.’ I said no. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Come up and look at the newspaper.’
And sure enough, that’s how I found out about it. My wife was at church at a prayer meeting and
learned of it there. She was anxious to tell me and I was anxious to tell her.
So the Dean did not tell you at the time?
No. Now they hired people the year right after that, but they told them, ‘Hey we’re planning to
go to San Diego.’ So really, I was the last one hired for the Pasadena campus.
What was your reaction?
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Well, when I began teaching I thought I would give it a try and then look for a real job, as living
in Pasadena did not excite me. Pasadena in those days had a fair amount of smog. And so I felt
going to San Diego was a plus.
What did you think? Had you heard about the risks?
Yes, I did hear some of that. A lot of people had to sell their houses, and that was traumatic.
It was not for you?
Well, there was a recession going on, and it was hard to get jobs. In fact, there was a competition
going on among the graduate students as to who could get the most rejection letters. When I got
a job, some students were very upset.
Was it worth the risk?
Yeah. Well, my other option was industry, which I could have done, and made more money.
Money brings up housing. How was the problem of finding housing for you?
My department chairman called me up on a Saturday night and said, ‘You know, they overbuilt
condos down here, but this weekend they are letting you buy a condo and move in for $225.’ Or
something like that. That was just a little more than a down payment for a rental, so we got up
early Sunday morning and drove down to Penesquitos, bought a condo and drove home. Inflation
was high for a number of years and so we made out OK. We had it for three years and then sold
it and used the money to buy the house we are in now.
Another phone call of providence. You were planning one kind of career, and an unexpected call
came to suggest you teach part time at Pasadena College. So you just moved smoothly into
serving the Lord at the college?
I grew up in a rural valley in Pennsylvania. My parents quit high school after the eighth grade to
work on the family farm. The area was depressed and as a high school student I saw no future
and never considered college. I worked for a neighbor and had no plans for the future. I was sent
to an isolated farm by myself and my task took three days. Since I was alone I used those days to
pray for guidance. I wanted to serve the Lord but did not know how, so I prayed and prayed that
the Lord would find a way to use me in his service. There was an answer but no details, so I
lived in the assurance that in due time it would be revealed.
Not knowing what to do after graduation from high school, I joined the Air Force and took some
evening classes. I found a subject I liked, and when I was discharged I finished up college at
University of California, Irvine. Then I went to graduate school and planned to work somewhere.
I never questioned but just followed through doors as they opened. Then that call came,
completely unexpected.
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After a year I suddenly realized the Lord had answered my prayer. In my case I would say the
Lord led me to Pasadena-PLNU
What a wonderful story. It seems to me that while you lived by faith, the Lord had the pleasure of
moving all through those years to help you achieve your interests and to fit those into his larger
purposes.
22 – They were determined to make it work. Staff members did not move unless they
were the spouse of a faculty member. This is the story of a staff member who moved with the
college:
1972 was a tough year. People had to rethink their future, and make a decision. You worked at
the college, your husband had years of benefits in the local school system. You could have
stayed. But you considered it and made the decision to move.
So our decision was made, depending on my husband getting a job down here.
Yes.
And because we had two children in college already. They wanted to move down if possible and
I was offered the employment. I was working for Don Hughes and I was offered that if my
husband could get a job. So he put in his applications down here. He found out, after a while,
that he probably could get employment in the Grossmont School District at Grossmont High. So
after applying he found out he would be temporary for a year but there was a possibility he could
be hired full time at Valhalla when it opened. So we put our house on the market, and it was
advertised with the rest of the professors. He got the job, we sold our house, and we decided to
make the move. It all worked out.
The two kids were getting a discount on their tuition, so that was another incentive. So we got
down here and I began working full-time. In Pasadena I was only working four days a week – I
wanted to be home with the kids. When I moved down here they said “You will need to be full
time.” I said, “That’s fine.”
Who did you work for down here?
I worked for Don Hughes because he was here for a year. And then Jack Scharn came and he
took over from Don.
And what was Don’s role?
He was doing alumni and news services. Then in about half a year Dr. Brown asked me to come
and help him and Dr. Paul Gresham.
So the school helped you sell your house, putting it in the brochure.
We didn’t get any help financially.
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Did anybody?
I don’t know.
I don’t remember getting any financial help. We got help selling the house and moving the
furniture. (After this interview Keith Pagan confirmed that faculty received $500 each to help
with relocation expenses)
You got help moving the furniture?
Yes, they arranged the moving.
Well not for us.
Oh really? I am sorry.
Yes, that’s why it was a major, major thing for us.
That is a “major” thing. Plus, it seemed we were never sure if we were going to move. It was on
and then off, and then on again, and then questionable. I told Bob Foster once that I didn’t think
the school would ever make the move.
Yeah. We would lose a lot of retirement once my husband would resign.
Boy I had not realized how common that was.
That was another major part of our decision. We needed to know if we were going to go, so my
husband kept in touch. He kept asking “Is it a go or not? We’ve got to make a decision.”
Yes. That indecision is not in the Board minutes.
It was a pretty scary thing as I remember now.
I remember it was touch-and-go but I was not close to anybody.
It was pretty “iffy” for a while. It was such a tragic thing that happened, in the midst of
negotiations, to have that plane crash. Oh my.
Yes, the death of Wes Mieras a week before the final decision. It was like a novel. Here is a list of
newspaper headlines. You can see the difficulties.
Wow. So, still bad in October?
Yes. It seems like once we made our decision in May, then everything fell apart for Cal Western.
It is one thing not to move, but it is something else to move and then lose it.
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I guess I didn’t realize that either. Wow, I didn’t know all of this. Of course I was working…
Oh yeah. As you can see we moved in August but escrow did not close until the last day of
December. We moved to the campus without owning it.
I did not know that.
Did you see the Key that was supposed to be handed to Brown by Rust? Here is a picture of it.
I have never seen that.
So, the decision was finally made and we moved down. Then we had to find housing. Did you
find a house relatively easily?
Well when we first moved down here we rented an apartment. We later bought in Tierra Santa.
Then we found some land on Mendocino (Mendocino Street in Point Loma) and built six units
there for faculty.
Well I am glad it worked out.
We were determined to make it work.
Nicely said. Thank you.
-------------------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENT BROWN
“There are few experiences in life more gratifying than to step out in faith, under the leadership
of the Holy Spirit, and see God fulfill His promises in the events of life. Such has been our
privilege as a Board during these past two years. Such has been my experience with you, in
relation to the difficult and dramatic steps we have undertaken for the Kingdom of God. It would
seem to me impossible to look at what we have witnessed without recognizing the hand of God
in it all.”
Report to the Board, October 8, 1974
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee;
I will ever give to thee.
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5. GRACE THAT BLOWS ALL FEARS AWAY
The Experiences of Students
Fear not, for I have redeemed you
I have summoned you by name
You are mine. Is 43:1b
I sought the Lord, and He answered me.
He delivered me from all my fears. Ps 34:4
Grace and peace be yours in abundance
through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 2 Pet 1:2
Jesus, what a beautiful name, Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb that was slain
Joy and peace, strength and hope,
Grace that blow all fear away
Jesus, what a beautiful name
Jesus, what a beautiful name, truth revealed, my future sealed
Healed my pain, love and freedom, life and warmth,
Grace that blows all fear away,
Jesus, what a beautiful name.
Jesus, what a beautiful name, rescued my soul,
my stronghold, lifts me from shame.
Forgiveness, security, power and love
Grace that blows all fear away
Jesus, what a beautiful name. 138
Beauty, joy, fear—students experienced the first two and some all three. The campus was a
beautiful place. The coming college years would be bounding in joy. Some students, however,
particularly those in pre-med near the end of their programs, feared the move would complicate
finishing their pre-med curriculum, yet to transfer could make finishing worse. They had specific
programs to complete and exams (MEDCAT) to take to qualify for medical school. And there
were married students who found the housing situation much more difficult than in Pasadena.
Jesus, What a Beautiful Name captures those emotions. Beautiful is usually the first word when
someone sees the campus for the first time. “I was thrilled to think I was going to such a
beautiful campus by the ocean,” wrote Lois Hopkins.
The value of graceful decency in offices and dorms meant students found love and warmth.
Some found the Son of God, Lamb that was slain, and through Him forgiveness and a new life in
Christ. Forgiven, a rescued soul, lifted from shame, now living with joy and peace.
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Students were caught off guard, and while nearly all were excited, others were troubled. Like
John Moore, they prayed. John wrote, “suddenly a scripture came to my mind about ‘don’t be
anxious for anything; instead pray about everything, and don’t forget to let God know what your
needs are.’ Suddenly a peace came to me about the move.” Students like John found the “grace
that blows all fear away.” Those like David Ragsdale, fearing they might have to transfer, found
“strength and hope” that blew away their fears, and they stayed with the college.
Many students, like Rob Songer, came with their future unclear and found God’s call, and their
future sealed.
I sent surveys to 1974 and 1975 graduates, and I interviewed others. To avoid a formal interview
style, student responses are in quotes, while my questions are italicized.
EXPERIENCE
John and Vicki Beecher Moore ’74, ‘74 Field Strategy Coordinator for Australia/New
Zealand on the Asia Pacific Region
How did you hear about the decision to move?
Vicki said: “We were walking with friends to Bresee Church for an
Andre Crouch concert and someone asked if we’d heard the rumor.
Our jaws dropped to the sidewalk. NO WAY!! We just got into the
library—couldn’t be!”
John said: “It was just before our senior years, so there were a lot of
questions because we were put in that geographical area, so what do we
do? Do we go to Azusa, do we move with the school, yeah, there were a lot of questions. I
remember distinctly being stressed out about whether or not to move to Kansas City and finish
back there at Mid-America and then do the master’s degree at NTS, to stay and do something
there in Pasadena, or to go with the college.
“I remember one day making a U-turn on the street there by the college and it’s like suddenly a
scripture came to my mind about ‘don’t be anxious for anything; instead pray about everything,
and don’t forget to let God know what your needs are.’ Suddenly a peace came to me about the
move. And then I shared this with Vicki, and from then on, it was ‘Oh, we’re just going to move
to Point Loma.’”
Was the U-turn important?
“The U-turn had nothing to do with the verse itself. I just needed to head in another direction.
But it was while I was turning the van around that the strong impression came that we were to
trust God, not worry and move with the college. Just a coincidence.”
What did you know about the Cal Western campus?
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Vicki said: “We took the first opportunity possible to drive to Point Loma and look around the
campus. We walked down toward the cliffs and were introduced to naked surfers. They didn’t
seem to be bothered by us at all. We noticed the dilapidated condition of the buildings—
especially the dorms. Beyond that we saw the incredible possibilities that far exceeded what was
available in Pasadena. We were ready to go!”
How was your experience with the new campus? You were just married also, so I’m sure that
impacted your experience.
Vicki said: “Yes, we were married by the time of the move and there was no married housing so
we had to drive in from Mission Beach. We missed the small community feel of Pasadena. Some
of that was just the change in general, but most of it was a real difference in culture between the
two places. Pasadena was a closed/enclosed enclave; PLNU was vast by contrast. As seniors we
were as lost as freshmen. We plugged into a church immediately and found a warm sense of
community there. We found this to be a greater connection than in Pasadena.”
You were part of a travel group?
Vicki said: “Yes, and as part of one of the travel groups from the school we had fairly close
access to Dr. Brown. That was helpful and reassuring. For me it was Reuben who was the glue
that held us together. That connection never failed us. But Dr. Brown was the watchman on the
path, showing us the way forward. I just really admired him. And we watched him liaison with
San Diego leaders, because he was trying to do that at that time. He used the travel groups to
travel with him, so we got to watch him do some of that, and that was part of our education.”
Do you have any reflections on the move after 40 years?
Vicki said: “We were just at PLNU last weekend. We LOVE being on campus even though we
had only one year in SD before graduation. All three of our children attended there. It is home
for us. As we walked from Mieras Hall to our car, I said aloud, “God bless Dr. Brown.” And I
meant it. He was a courageous, visionary leader. We owe him and his wife a great debt. He
provided us, as students, a model of godly, humble, bold leadership that keeps on talking. Has it
really been nearly 40 years?”
John said: “It was an incredible step of faith. It was like when we planted the first church. It was
the excitement of something new. And you know you’re involved in something that’s going to be
good but you don’t know where the good is going to come from. But little by little you begin to
see it. Kind of like you said after three days on the campus you look at the ocean, you look at the
beauty of this place, and you ask why would I want to go back to Pasadena?”
They gained something even more important, a perspective when they are faced with big
decisions in their career.
Vicki said: “The move is a benchmark or plumb line when considering what direction to take.
When the task seems insurmountable, my mind often turns to the PC-PLNU move. If that was
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possible, what might God have in mind in this situation? It was quite an audacious thing to
attempt, but the right way to go!”
Melvin Shuster ’76 Chemistry/biology; taught at Simpson University for 20 years
How/when did you hear about the plan to move?
“I heard about the move spring semester of ’73. I clearly remember Joel
Miller telling me outside the men’s dorm. I was at first shocked. Then I
thought he was joking. I then began to wonder what the move meant for
me.”
How was your first year at Point Loma different from your years at
Pasadena?
“I liked it much better in San Diego than Pasadena. As I think about it, I think the difference had
a lot to do with the weather and environment. I hated the smog in Pasadena. I also felt more at
ease (safe) with the surrounding community in San Diego. Having come from the coast, I greatly
enjoyed being so close to the ocean. I took advantage of all the coastal opportunities, scuba
diving, trying my hand at surfing, snorkeling. The air was so clean. I liked San Diego better than
the L.A. basin. Dorm life was better in SD but that could be true for a variety of reasons. The
science facilities seemed better in SD. The dorms were nicer in SD. The overall campus facility
was nicer in SD. I think the church experience was much the same.”
Any reflections on the move after nearly 40 years?
“I think the move was inspired. Dr. S. Brown was truly in tune with God’s will on this move.
Those three years in SD were some of the best, if not the best, years of my life.
“I worked at the Pasadena campus during the summer of ’73 helping load the school onto
moving vans. I was very involved in helping to move the science facility. After being so
involved in the move on the Pasadena end, I was particularly excited to see where all that stuff
ended up, especially the science stuff. I ended up helping unpack some of it on the SD end.”
Lois Hopkins ’75 Cardiac rehabilitation nurse
Were you a Nazarene?
“I was raised my whole life in the Long Beach Nazarene church.”
The school moved in the middle of your college experience. Did you consider going elsewhere?
“I was thrilled to think I was going to such a beautiful campus by the ocean. It was so beautiful.
In 1973, there were not as many rules in place as came later. We science students found we could
walk out on the roof of the science building and see all the way from Mexico to La Jolla on a
clear day. A couple times, I remember going up there and I broke out in song because the whole
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scene of God's creation was soooo beautiful. I felt like Julie Andrews singing on top of the hills
in the sound of music.”
There is a song that talks of a place of freedom, warmth and my future sealed. Was the college
anything like that?
“I prayed for what my major should be when in high school. I felt the call to be a nurse before
there was a nursing program. I was accepted to the school and then I got the news that there was
going to be a nursing program. The timing of when the nursing program started at P.C. was a big
miracle in my life.”
Did you find spiritual help at the college? If so, from chapel or advisor or friends?
“Reuben was a great chaplain, as you know. So whatever spiritual advice I did need individually,
I mostly got from friends but the leaders were helpful to create a God-centered environment.”
I’m glad.
Doug Sayers ’80 U.S. Navy
You did not move with the college. How did you hear about us?
“I had been accepted at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as a graphics art major. My brother and I were
riding motorcycles and drove down by the baseball field and I fell in love with the campus. I
changed my major and got accepted.”
What did you change your major to?
“Philosophy and religion.”
Had you grown up Nazarene?
“No, Wesleyan. It was Skyline Wesleyan. I grew up there and didn’t follow them when they
moved. I didn’t like how conservative it was, seemingly unnecessarily strict. We didn’t go to
movies or dances; we didn’t do anything but go to church five times a week. Revivals and all
that hard-sell stuff and the knocking on doors. I just bristle at that.”
I had the same experience and have bad memories of using teenagers.
“I’m glad to hear somebody else say that. I ended up working at different churches around town,
and actually ended up with a lot of old Pasadena and Point Loma alums at different churches I
worked at. And how often they slipped into talking wistfully about Pasadena College.”
Yes. David Phillips who graduated in 1973 before the move visited the new campus two years
later and said some students talked about how much the missed parts of the Pasadena campus.
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“People I talked to really missed it.”
How did you find the institution? Gracious? Overwhelmed?
“Well, remember, I was married in 1978, so during my college years and masters I was married,
had kids, working full time, and going to school full time. I remember sitting in the bleachers and
looking down on the floor where they had everything. If I tried to hide in the upper bleachers or
behind one of the supports to try to keep up with all the study, they had chapel police to gently
remind you to focus more on the chapel. To a kid who grew up in the church it was a bit of a
shock; I’m peddling hard here.”
When we arrived we found few attributes for forming a community, no central student commons,
no chapel facility, and dorms a “thousand miles away” from each other.
“And compounded by the fact that you were already in an isolated area. The folks around here
are either very wealthy or Navy; many live, breath and die in Point Loma. The gym was not the
answer but there weren’t any buildings large enough.”
We had the amphitheater but it was either too hot or too cold. It just didn’t work.
“Great place, but you know one of the design features was that you could hear the speakers
relatively well without amplification, but they could hear you. Sound travels in both directions,
which was not conducive to having a more intimate gathering because people are going to talk
and whisper and it becomes a sonic mess.”
Well, Doug I’m glad you took that motorcycle ride and decided to come here. And thanks for
your service in the military.
Cliff Fisher 75 Project Manager, Spawar
What did you think about the move?
“I thought it was exciting. I had George Fermanian for a business class. I
remember I had looked for houses down here with my dad and I was
actually looking for a house I could buy inexpensively, fix up over the
summer and sell it and hopefully make some of my tuition. I picked one
somebody suggested. I thought I needed to ask Mr. Fermanian about that.
And I somehow went and talked to him and he said, ‘That is a bad deal. Do
not do that. He’s taking you to lunch.’ So I thought OK; I went out and
found another one with another realtor and took it to Mr. Fermanian and he said, “Nope, nope,
nope. That’s not a good deal either.”
Wow.
“I thought OK, all these professors are moving down here and they’re going to get taken to the
cleaners because there’s nobody to help them who’s honest. So I decided to get my real estate
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license and help all these professors. The problem was it took me three months to get my real
estate license and by the time I was ready, everybody had moved.”
How about the campus?
“The campus, oh there was a lot of angst.”
Cold showers?
“I did have cold showers. Young Hall had leaking gas pipes so they turned off the hot water, and
said we could go up to the upper dorm to shower. I didn’t. I figured I was surfing every morning
so I didn’t need it. I did get a staph infection on my legs, boils on my legs.”
I talked to Brad Oliver about the broken pipes and bad floors and he said, “We didn’t care how
bad it was. It just was, and we enjoyed it.” He was just glad to be there.
“Well I wanted to be in Young, on the third floor facing the ocean. That’s the best real estate I’ve
ever lived in. If you woke up and heard the waves, you grabbed a board at 5:30 to get an hour of
surfing in before we had to be ready for our 7:30 class. My whole group, which was Mel Shuster
and a bunch of those guys, did this. Yeah, I was in with a bunch of pre-med guys, so it was a
fairly quiet unit because everybody had to study. I really did because I had changed my major
and had already signed a contract for the Air Force so I had to try and graduate in two years.”
One of my concerns is how you carried the values, the core values from Pasadena to San Diego.
Who did that, and how? Did we replicate Pasadena College in terms of culture?
“Obviously not, since students are spread out. We were all right there together on Pasadena, but
in San Diego we still had the main gathering places of chapel, and you sat on the grass across
from the cafeteria and it was kind of the hub of the whole place.”
The kick-back area.
“Yeah. Where everybody would sit and watch people go by, or talk, or whatever. And I think we
maintained some cohesiveness because we didn’t have cell phones and had to talk to each other.
Because there was a lot of walking involved it probably helped our overall physical fitness just
by having the hills to climb. And not many of us had cars.”
Were you aware of the diversity of the student body?
“I was. My dad had talked about it in student recruitment, and he was working with Southeast
San Diego and preached there for a while during the transition and tried to get several people
from there. We had several students from there and he was working to try to get more than just
the Nazarene kids. I think I just took that for granted. I had not lived in Pasadena. Before I went
to school there I had lived out in Chino and was, as I said, a minority student, so it was not that
big a deal.”
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Church leaders said we were not doing enough for our students.
“I remember we had Reuben as chaplain then, and he’s good, he’s always been good. We had
worship times out in the dorms with our dorm RAs or whatever they are called, and I remember
one of the revivals, a whole week of services a couple times during that time, and several of my
friends got help during those times. I didn’t see that as a problem. I may not have been aware of
it.”
You have been a pastor and Assistant District Superintendent. What perspective does that give
you?
“The university is larger than any of the districts. The regions (or education zones) have been
structured around the universities, and that becomes the regional identity for the churches. That’s
a new thought.”
Dr. Brown was a District Superintendent and knew about buying property, and risk.
“Well I understand this was a great risk and a great adventure. It is a fairly unusual thing for a
university to do. I remember the angst. I think if we understood the future and all the pain it takes
to do big things, we’d never get started. And what’s the next big thing the school has to do to
move into the future?”
I don’t know but I did learn from that move that change is part of life. Sometimes, major and
unexpected change, and one of my interests in this project is how Christians react to unexpected
change and how they find the will of God. As we responded we found our future sealed into
God’s great purposes here.
Bob Borbe Superintendent of Forestville Union School District
You were near graduation—what was your reaction?
“I was excited about the move. I did not consider transferring to another
school. I went to Pasadena/Point Loma because it was the college I wanted
to go to.”
How different was it?
“Church was a disappointment. The churches in SD were not as strong. It is a hard act to follow
Earl Lee. Also I remember that General Assembly was that summer before the move. I was
proud of the idea. I remember the reaction of some at GA was, ‘that liberal California
Pasadena/Point Loma.’ The buildings were pretty bleak.”
Was the atmosphere on campus gracious?
“I really appreciate the forward thinking of President Brown. I cherish the words of Reuben
Welch. Again, I did not realize the greatness I was given at the time. One of the people who was
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a blessing to me was Carmen Grant. She worked in the Business Office. My mom had died two
years earlier. I finished two years at the local junior college. A college education was not a
priority with my father; I was on my own, but I did have the support of people in my church. I
received student aid in a variety of ways at Pasadena/Point Loma. I am so thankful for that
financial assistance.”
I’m so glad that Carmen, like many others, brought love and warmth and service to students in
need.
David Ragsdale ’76 Department of Entomology, Texas A & M University
“I immediately started checking out state schools in the area. I had a great
paying job that I could work around my class schedule and it made going
to PC a possibility. I really thought I’d have to jump ship. But being in my
junior year and moving to San Diego as a senior really limited my options.
Trying to transfer to another school and finish a biology degree just didn’t
make sense. After all, you take MEDCATs and GREs in the fall quarter of
your senior year. This means you really have already taken most of the
courses in your major and your senior year is a time to catch up on those
required courses you needed to graduate with just an occasional course in
your major. To transfer and graduate from another institution, you typically had to take some 60
credit hours (more than a year) to be a graduate of another institution.”
So you had no choice.
“Fundamentally I had no choice. To make it work I ended up commuting to LA to work for six
months on the weekends. The oil crisis then hit and gasoline went all the way up to $1/gal (up
from the low the previous year of $0.199). So driving to LA to work just didn’t make sense; I
stuck it out through the Christmas break, but had to quit in January.”
Wow. That must have been tough. How did you find life on campus, such as students and dorms?
“Everything changed the summer before my senior year and the move because I also was
married that summer. So almost everything you mentioned would have changed anyway because
I was no longer single, living in an apartment or dorm, and I was ready to move on and get done
with my B.S. My sole purpose was to graduate in May 1974. I already knew I was planning on
graduate school and was anxious to move on.”
Any reflections on the move after nearly 40 years?
“The move made great sense. Even as students living in a dorm we could see the possibilities at
Pasadena really limited the school’s growth. The campus at San Diego allowed for planned
growth and of course the location was a real draw as I discovered when both daughters wanted to
go to PLNU – some 2,500 miles away from our family home. One graduated, and the other
sought other opportunities following 9/11, when she felt very isolated and in need of being closer
to family.”
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That’s a great story David. We were so privileged of God to get this campus and grow. Thanks.
Dan Royer
“I remember I first heard of the move to San Diego while eating lunch with a group in the
cafeteria. Another student came up to me at the table, asking me if it was true. Now, I had just
finished my term as ASB President and it was understandable if any student would be ‘in the
know,’ it should be me. Well, I couldn’t have been any less in the know. So I suppose my first
trivial reaction was some personal embarrassment for being so unaware.”
After three years and being ASB President you were pretty tied
emotionally to the Pasadena campus.
“No doubt, there must have been some sense of loss knowing there
would be no returning to the campus and reliving the many memorable
moments I experienced there. But it didn’t affect me in any significant
way. And thinking back, if we had been given the opportunity to vote on
the move to the Cal Western campus, I’m pretty sure I would have voted
‘yes.’”
Had you seen the Cal Western campus before?
“Yes. Being on the baseball team for four years gave me the opportunity to go to Cal Western
multiple times and see the remarkable setting. Actually, when the announcement came, I
remember wondering how in the world we had the money to buy that campus. I also remember
driving through downtown Pasadena, looking at the ornate early-1900s office buildings near
Colorado and Fair Oaks thinking how different Pasadena must have been at the time. It had
become a blight and that seemed to affect me.”
How did your friends react?
“Some understood we do not live in a vacuum and are largely defined by our history. Others
prefer to live life looking through the windshield, not the rear window. Each of those
perspectives seems completely valid. How we viewed the move probably reflects which of those
perspectives we leaned toward.”
Mark Ballew ’73 Insurance business
What was the reaction to the announcement of the move?
“The announcement was my fourth year in college. There was
curiosity and personally I wanted to find out more about it. In my
mind it all happened in one school year; the spring of ’72 was when
they held the election when I was elected study body president. I don’t
recall the timing of everything.”
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Mark went down to visit the campus and was surprised.
“We went into one of the men’s dorms and the walls, I’m talking about in the hallways, they and
the ceilings were painted black and they had neon like a bar-type environment. Other buildings
were in bad repair; the students did some damage.”
I mentioned the uncertainty all during the spring as to whether we would move, and when we did
we did not even own the campus.
“I know not everyone on campus was in favor of the move, and I remember feeling sorry for Dr.
Brown at the time, and the difficulties he was going through. I respected Dr. Brown, and really
liked that he made the effort to know the names of students.”
I don’t remember how often he discussed the move in chapel.
“I remember some chapel where a lot of issues were communicated. There was uncertainty, and
they had a time of prayer at the altar.”
You remember that service? And Dr. Brown asking for prayer?
“I did go to the altar, along with a number of others, including Dr. Brown.”
My memory of revivals was that many of the speakers got people to the altar and then stayed on
the platform to talk with the pastor or somebody when people agonized at the altar. But you said
Dr. Brown went to the altar to pray.
“He came down and went to the altar, and I have a very vivid picture in my mind today of that
altar time and his being there. I remember the unsettled feelings I had around the idea that he
might leave as President if the move did not work out, and there being a sense of uncertainty
about the details of the move. I have a specific memory of Dr. Brown on his knees praying out
loud, really pouring his heart out, and my being close enough to him to hear him pray, and it all
seemed very sincere to me, mind and heart, and I felt bad about it.”
Mark, thanks for that memory. He was such an authentic person. I’m sure he found what he
needed: Strength and hope, grace that blows all fears away.
Randy Skidgel ’74 Professor in the University of Illinois
College of Medicine and Director of Graduate Studies for the
Pharmacology PhD program
You were in the pre-med program. Did you ever think of moving?
“I never considered transferring. Again, being from San Diego, I
liked the city, my parents still lived there; overall I had a positive
view of the move.”
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Your friends?
“It was mixed. Some were really tied to the old campus and thought it was a foolish use of
money to move, others were excited about the prospects and some were ambivalent.”
How was your first year on the Point Loma campus different from the Pasadena campus?
“There was some difference, in that the Point Loma campus was more spread out, and the hills
provided more division. The lack of a central ‘heart’ as in Pasadena resulted in less opportunity
to run into people informally. However, being a senior, I already had established friendships and
it wasn’t any more difficult to maintain those. Dorm life wasn't too much different, but the
longer distances between dorms meant less interaction among dorms.”
Any reflections?
“Every time I go back on campus (which I do once or twice a year), I think to myself what a
tremendous decision it was to move to Point Loma and what a ‘steal’ the campus was at the price
USIU sold it to us (although it seemed a lot at the time). I am convinced it was the right thing to
do and President Brown and the leadership had a great vision to take the leap of faith to
accomplish a great thing. The new buildings and renovations over the years have greatly
improved the campus and helped facilitate student interactions. A new science building will take
the sciences to the next level.”
Gary Scroggins ‘75 USAF and American Airlines pilot
What was your reaction to the announcement about the move?
“I and my friends were delighted! This is a new adventure. A new campus next to the ocean
would be a very, very positive thing. I was happy with the school and had no reason to go
elsewhere.”
How were the two colleges different?
“In Pasadena, the main attraction was the spiritual and academic aspects of attending there. Point
Loma, while still having that at aspect, suddenly had a lot of students who were there for the
location and brought different lifestyles. Surfers, beachgoers, and partiers without Nazarene (or
even Christian) values seemed to suddenly be a large minority. It had a significant negative
influence and, to my recollection, did not improve by the time I graduated.”
Do you think the move changed the core values of the college?
“I don’t think the mission, purpose and values changed so much as they became harder to
implement. In addition to the beach, geography and attractions of the San Diego area, just trying
to adjust to the entirely new campus and environment was a top priority.”
But what about the beach culture? Didn’t that diminish the spiritual values of the campus?
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“I think it broadened my world experience. Many of us grew up in conservative holiness church
families and therefore had little exposure to how the rest of the world thinks. The open nature of
the San Diego campus forced us to interact with those who had radically different ideas. Not
only did we have students who were attracted to the school for entirely new reasons, but the open
nature of the campus itself allowed more ‘non-insiders’ there. This exposure opened my eyes to
views I had never understood or considered.”
But is that not dangerous? One trustee told me he did not care if any non-Nazarenes ever
attended here.
“I suppose for some, this could be viewed negatively since many exposed to these new ideas
readily adopted them without really thinking them through. For me, it expanded my
understanding and stimulated my interest in how other people viewed the world. I believe it even
strengthened my own views by forcing me to deal with these new and foreign ideas.
“It’s an interest that stayed with me throughout my life and career. Visiting 40-plus countries all
over the world and interacting with people of every imaginable ideology, I have a much broader
understanding of the thinking and motivations of people and therefore, world events.”
What do you remember about Reuben or Dr. Brown?
“I don’t think the sense of community was restored during my two years at Point Loma. I was
never a huge fan of attending chapel, but I remember looking forward to chapel at Point Loma as
it seemed my only connection with the part of the student body that existed outside my personal
group. My brother and I were inadvertently assigned the same chapel number during my senior
year. I could have ditched almost all of them. Instead I looked forward to chapel services and
missed none, or very few.”
Michael Mata ‘75 Nazarene minister for 17 years, two years on a
seminary faculty, and currently works for World Vision
What was your reaction to the move?
“While there seem to have been more facilities and different kinds of dorm
situations, the spatial layout really meant you had to really want to connect
with others -- make the trek up or downhill or across the campus. I felt a
sense of ‘community’ was lost, or it took a different path. Some of kinds of
activities that were popular on the PC campus did not really take at PLNU;
you couldn't just walk out of your dorm and take a few steps to get to, say, an ice cream social.
You really had to think about time and effort.”
So there was a lot of change.
“I felt we had moved from being an enclave in an urban environment to an enclave in a suburban
beach environment. There seemed to be more students who were really there for the context, i.e.,
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the beach and its culture; I felt I met more who were not necessarily faith driven in their decision
to attend PLNC. But I also was pleased to see a slightly more diverse student demographic, not
ethnically or racially but socioeconomic.
“Probably because I lived on campus my junior and senior years, I came to realized there were a
variety of different student or group identities, more than I had experienced while in Pasadena.
At least, relationships or ‘cliques’ could form and thrive because there were many places that
kept them out of the mainstream campus life. I felt there were many more on the fringes: nonNazarenes, surfers, international students, and people of color.”
Have you ever been back to the PC campus?
“I get a chance to visit the old campus from time to time for a variety of reasons, mostly to
interact on some basis with its current residents. Not much physically seems to have changed,
expect the prayer chapel is now at PLNU and the music conservatory is gone. But I sometimes
wondered what kind of presence the school could have had not only in the immediate Pasadena
neighborhood but in the LA area, now that urban ministry/studies is important in evangelical
thought once again.”
That is a great perspective, for impacting the LA area was certainly Dr. Bresee’s hope for the
college, but it turned sharply inward after his passing.
“While I rarely visit the Point Loma campus, I know it has radically changed, from my
perspective. The incredible green space that I truly enjoyed (better landscape for Frisbees than in
Pasadena) is not there. It is obvious that having more buildings took a priority for a while. I don't
know if the move hampered or encouraged a more culturally and ethnically diverse student body,
but the immediacy of such opportunity was certainly there in Pasadena.”
Was it a good move?
“Overall, I would say yes for the institution but not the community it left behind.”
Mike that is a very important statement, very congruent with Dr. Bresee’s concerns. And yet
Bresee saw that to be a university it had to move out of downtown Los Angeles. That is not to
negate your concern, and the school must be concerned with the heart and the hands,
compassion and service, just as the University of Chicago was in the 1920s, But its nature is to
be an intellectual institution, not a mission.
Still, I wonder what kind of presence the school could have had not only in the immediate
Pasadena neighborhood but in the LA are, now that urban ministry/studies is important in
evangelical thought once again.
Mike, thank you for that. We have a wonderful setting for a university, but we cannot allow the
setting to turn us into a socially-unconcerned elitist university. And thanks for your service in
World Vision, an organization created by a graduate of Pasadena College
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Lorraine Thomas Doramus ’74 She and her husband spent 23 years in inner-city
ministry, and retired to Idaho
Did you come from a Nazarene church?
“Yes - San Francisco First.”
What was your reaction to the announcement about the move?
“I was in student government and involved in visiting the Point Loma campus when it was
USIU. I was also involved in publicity regarding the move. I was excited for the change and
thought it would greatly increase attraction to the college. Most of my friends were fine with the
move - looked at it as a new adventure.”
Moving from 17 acres to 90 brought some change, some positive, some loss.
“I think personally I lost some sense of community - on the larger campus and with friends in
dorms spread far apart. Also, as a senior many friends were off campus. The campus culture was
in ‘transition,’ meaning older students were adjusting to the change, and new students were
excited about the beach location. I do not think the San Diego community caused any strong
influence at first, but as San Diego is more of an urban/ military environment, eventually the
culture of the city allowed students more off-campus choices (good and bad).
“In Pasadena, it seemed you could connect with other students going to a local church and
develop a church network. It was definitely harder at Point Loma to connect with students
attending a particular church, and to find a church that seemed right. Many students did not go to
church because getting there was difficult.”
Any reflections now about the move?
“I believe this move was God-inspired and I appreciate all those professors, leaders, and students
who made life changes and sacrifices to make the move.”
How about its core values?
“The expansion has allowed greater/broader education and presented a location that attracts
many people. When visiting the campus a few times over the years, it seems so much bigger,
almost too big for me. It definitely has a university flavor now and in that enlargement may have
lost some of the previous clear Christian community dynamic. My daughter did not choose Point
Loma because it seemed too big and overwhelming to her; she opted for a small Christian
college of about 850 students. But I also believe God has continued to bring great leadership to
Point Loma and the progress is part of His plan. I will always be very thankful I had the
opportunity to attend, and gained precious lifelong friends and deep Christian values.”
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Marti Maynard ’75 Bi-vocational Nazarene pastor, piano teacher and tuner
What was your reaction to the announcement about the move?
“I was attending the college in Pasadena and working security. I was involved in the process.
We were preparing the campus before the other students arrived. I was excited. I did not consider
going to another college. I was involved in the music program and was one of the first people on
the new campus in the summer. Some of the buildings and areas were in need of repair.
However, it was a beautiful location.”
What do you remember about the reactions of your friends?
“It was mixed, some were excited about the move, and some couldn't leave the Pasadena area.
There were some students who were new and came simply because the college was close to the
ocean. The programs I was involved in had many of the same students still in them. Working in
security, I was aware of some of the problems with the surrounding community used to an open
campus and we were setting up a closed campus. I found a small Nazarene church to be involved
in. I originally came from a small Nazarene church.”
Any reflections on the move after 40 years?
“The move has proved beneficial for the large capability of enrollment. Although the college
is centrically located in the zone, the Los Angeles churches lost a sense of community with the
moving of the college. However, the San Diego area has gained a sense of community with the
college being located there.”
Jeanne Windoffer ‘74
“In 1972, I was getting ready to go to France so I’m not sure anymore where
I heard about it. Maybe I heard about it from friends while I was in France. I
was just surprised, a little sad, I guess. I'd really enjoyed the PC campus, the
new library (hated to think of losing that beautiful space) and newer dorms
and had been looking forward to visiting friends there when I returned.
“Some seemed to be anticipating the move--interesting location, bigger, but
sad to leave PC. Have to say I'm still nostalgic for the music building, library,
even my ‘unit,’ from PC, and the campus there in general; that's where my
college memories are. But I appreciate the new campus and opportunities that
seem to be available in San Diego. It sounds like they are moving ‘into’ the community there,
and I hope that's true. Always wonder what might have developed in Pasadena ...or perhaps a
different location. Did I read somewhere there had been a thought of moving to Santa Ana? That
would have been interesting (at the time). I did (and still do) feel the campus is a little isolated on
the Point, which I suppose can be good or bad for students depending on how outgoing they are.”
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Cheryl Bouzek ‘74 Director of Student Health Services, Evergreen Valley College
You were in a new nursing program. What did you think of the announcement of the move?
“I was in my third year of the nursing program the year before the move and we were kept
updated by various forms of campus info and our instructors. I was OK with it because it seemed
to be a great opportunity for the college and we were told we would stay for our last year. Our
classes were to be in the library and we would go to the medical facilities where we already had
agreements in place.”
The state would not allow the nursing program to move immediately. Did you consider changing
majors or moving?
“I never thought of changing because I needed to complete the RN program. It was a fabulous
program. There were no adverse effects on those of us in the nursing program because our
program continued in Pasadena. We were well trained and I have always felt competent in my
role as a nurse. I remember it was a weird feeling to be graduating on the San Diego campus but
having friends who were also graduates helped.”
Artie Larson ’74 Artie was raised and attended Faith Lutheran in Pasadena, and he was
recruited to be a student-athlete and came to play hoops and get a
degree in teaching and coaching.
You were near graduation--what was your reaction?
“I attended for my senior year and had mixed feelings. Pasadena was
my home (part of why I selected to attend) and the Pasadena campus
and new library was a great place to go to college. The campus held
an intimacy and a lot of good memories, even in the first three years. I was excited about the
move to the campus in SD, as it had a great gym (for basketball) and was going to be closer to
the beach and a bigger city.”
So you never considered changing schools.
“I did not really consider changing schools as I wanted to graduate in the next year. I felt the
college was still my college, just changing addresses. I had moved a few times as a kid and never
believed the new house was not my home, just a new place to live.”
What do you remember about the reactions of your friends?
“As a whole all were pretty excited with the move. Basically, all the kids in my social circle
made the move. Remember thinking a little about a few professors who did or could not leave
the Pasadena area and how it might be impacting them, like Dr. Andrews.”
What was the San Diego campus like when you arrived?
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“It was in rough shape from a building, landscaping and equipment standing. One exception was
the gymnasium, which was sort of a centerpiece and in relatively good condition. One comment
here I would make. As anyone who has been on campus can plainly see, the facility is
spectacular in nearly every visual way. I had three children who attended for part of their college
experience and one who spent all four years and graduated. They all thought the campus was
nice. I have reflected many times that the facility means much more to the parents, alumni and
donors than it does to the students. I believe for most college students it is more about the people
than the dorm, desk or landscaping.”
Interesting. Did you see changes in the school’s values on the new campus?
“From my perspective, not that much changed in terms of the campus culture or the dorms that
first year. That came later and continues to change—for a plethora of reasons that you are well
aware. There was a change in terms of community from Pasadena to SD/Point Loma. We both
gained and lost in this regard. Pasadena was smaller and the college had a real history in the
niche above Washington Blvd. that was created by time and the church presence. There was a
physical, social, emotional and even spiritual bond with that community that was different in SD.
In SD, there was no real college church (especially for students) and the size of the community
itself changed the dynamics, again impacting students the most as we learned our way around
and chose off-campus places of interest. There was also an adjustment the community had to
make for its new neighbor.”
What do you remember about the role of President Brown and Chaplain Reuben Welch?
“Well, President Brown was a personal friend of my father-in-law, Carl Ponsford, and a
big basketball supporter so I had some interaction with him other students may not have
experienced. He was great from a charismatic and leadership perspective. Reuben Welch
was a solid rock of continuity for the college. He had it a little tougher that first year with
chapel because on the new campus it was a lot easier to skip and also a little more difficult
to hear in the setting of the gymnasium. For me, Dr. Jackson was a strong leader who aided
students and transition that first year.”
Any reflections on the move after 40 years?
“From a business/investment point of view, it was obviously a successful move. I love to go to
the campus and see the changes and what that move has meant to the school, which is wonderful.
Educationally, it has been a positive in terms of attracting staff and students. Spiritually, maybe
some things have been lost. This is a discussion for a larger forum but I think one could say the
world has moved on and so has the college (now university), but has
that been a good thing?”
Stephanie Moore Daniels ’77 Former Campground Hostess at
California Land Management
Stephanie, you were not a Nazarene at Pasadena College, so did you
consider moving to another college after the move was announced?
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I had just entered college in 1972. It was an amazing first year so I never considered changing
colleges. Moving was OK but sad; our campus was so beautiful.
You experienced the social and religious atmospheres at Pasadena before the move. Did those
atmospheres or culture carry over into Point Loma?
The move was very exciting and probably distracting from a spiritual point of view, so much to
explore and discover in a new place. We were against mountains in Pasadena and a quick walk
through the laundry and hamburger joint. In San Diego it was the beach. You had to have a car to
get off-campus services. It was a bigger campus so we weren’t as close geographically as before.
That contributed to a different atmosphere. Great ocean views from everywhere but the food was
not as good as it was in Pasadena. We went out a lot.
Did you sense a spiritual atmosphere on campus?
Spiritual emphasis was evident on the campus—chapel three times a week, religion classes,
concerts, etc. The little chapel was where I went to be alone and contemplate spiritual and other
issues.
I came to Pasadena College with a firm Christian foundation and was basically a good kid and
rule follower. It was a safe place to question what I believed verses what I was taught. As a
result, I am Stephanie, someone that Jesus loves. My view of HIM is much wider than the way I
was taught. College helped me define myself and my beliefs.
What do you remember about Reuben Welch?
Reuben! He was so important. I had many talks with him. Being raised in a Pentecostal
background, Reuben helped me negotiate the differences between the Wesleyan theology and
mine. He was always talking about “using our 15 minutes,” and “the trouble with a living
sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar.”
Was the beach an important part of your college life?
Living in a girls’ dorm at the top of the campus made getting to the beach difficult. We were
discouraged from going to the boy’s dorm near the beach and without a car, regular trips to the
beach didn’t happen for me.
Did you find the liberal arts curriculum made you a broader person?
The curriculum seemed the same as secular campus offerings; the spiritual emphasis made it
different. It was a sheltered environment where we were cacooned away, edging slowing into
“real life.”
Where did you attend church?
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In Pasadena I attended church most Sundays at Paz Naz…it was easy to get a ride because others
were there. In San Diego I went to Skyline Wesleyan and First Church occasionally, but usually
to El Cajon Nazarene.
-----------------------------------------------------PRESIDENT BROWN
“There are many colleges somewhat similar to ours that enroll only those who give definite
testimony to a born-again experience of God’s grace. We do not take that direction. The nature
and operation of the school would be considerably altered if that was our commitment. We have
chosen to accept into our academic institutions those who do not have any Christian
commitment, along with those who are living consistently for the Lord. We do make clear the
nature of the college and that we have ethical guidelines by which students are to be governed
while at our college…we take certain risks in our enrollment practices. We also take an
evangelistic responsibility when we do so…we have also been true to the evangelistic heart of
our church from its earliest days.”
Report to the Board, October 8, 1974
Thomas Doyle ‘80 Assistant Professor of Political Science, Texas State University, San
Marcos
Did you grow up Nazarene?
“When I arrived at PLC in fall 1976, I had just entered what would be a
very long and turbulent period in my own spiritual journey. I had left the
Presbyterian church into which I was baptized, and had joined a
charismatic and cultish church in Chula Vista.”
What was it like?
“There were maybe four or five others from that church at PLC while I was there, and the church
leaders had a very dim view of denominational Christianity, which they saw as an "old order"
God had abandoned in favor of a primitive New Testament church with a restored set of apostles
and prophets. And sadly, I bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
What happened?
“I retained enough independence of mind that I pursued my education against the wishes of the
church leaders and I lived with my parents in Point Loma until the last quarter of my senior year.
Nonetheless, I conceived of spiritual growth at that time entirely in terms laid out by these
church leaders.”
What was chapel like for you?
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“I didn’t enjoy going to chapel unless Dr. Welch was there. I have very fond memories of
Reuben Welch, and I saw him as a ‘man of God.’ I actually made an effort to get to know him
as well as I could, and he made time for me. I bought his books and gave them as presents to my
mom. I very much liked the way he expressed profound thoughts simply, and his love for the
students was palpable.”
Where else did you find spiritual help—faculty, advisors, other students?
“My other means of spiritual growth were almost entirely independent of official PLC spiritual
growth programs, except for my interactions with Dr. Welch. Some of my church friends would
meet daily outside the History/Poli Sci/Religion building on a knoll under a tree, and we would
pray. I remember PLC did offer spiritual emphasis weeks, but I did not participate in them and
so I do not remember their contents.”
Do the words rescued, peace and grace relate to you?
“I ended my association to the network of churches linked to the Chula Vista church 18 years
ago, when I became convinced it really was a cult and I needed to get out. I met my wife and had
my children in that church, but we are now completely independent of it, thank God!”
Grace?
“I took a turn through atheism, but I am now an Episcopalian who prefers high church liturgy
and progressive theology.”
Do you know the lyrics “truth revealed, rescued my soul, my future sealed”?
“I don’t know those lyrics but I believe God has indeed ordered my steps and in so doing has
resolved some of my deepest fears and rescued me from the shameful elements of my past. Even
so, I cannot say I feel relieved of inner conflict or have a sense of security in spiritual terms. I
find I relate quite closely to the Apostle Thomas, and I see myself as a believer in which doubt is
alive and well. The music that expresses my spiritual mood more closely is the Sanctus by Arvo
Part. It has for me an ineffable quality that synthesizes beauty, gratitude, and the yearning that
corresponds with a spiritual posture that keeps doubt and faith in an active dialectical
relationship.”
What a wonderful testimony.
Mark Carver ‘75 PEACE Skills Pastor, Saddleback Church
What was your reaction to the announcement about the move?
“In general it was very positive. I understood it was an opportunity to
take a step up the development ladder in terms of prestige, location
and the ability to attract students, etc. The place was beautiful!
Because it was near the beach and in quite an exotic location the
emotion was all positive.
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“The culture changed considerably with the move. In part I think this is because the Pt. Loma
campus was more geographically spread out than the Pasadena campus. We seemed to be more
familial and interactive in Pasadena than what I experienced in Pt. Loma. I remember everyone
hung out in front of the music building; it was the community’s center. I don’t recall a singular
spot like that at Pt. Loma. Also, the atmosphere of a historical suburb like Pasadena is different
than laid-back upper middle class beach Pt. Loma. In the early years of Pt. Loma we felt
privileged to be there. That seemed to wane as the years went on because not many remembered
the contrast.
“The geographic spread impacted dorm life even more dramatically. As I’m sure you observed
in sociological terms, there seemed to be a spread, or pecking order that became more developed
between the far-flung regions. While the Pt. Loma dorms were significantly nicer, they did seem
to become more distinct ‘neighborhoods’ where you sometimes got the feeling you didn’t
belong. I trust some sort of community building efforts have been undertaken since I was there.”
What was your sense of Dr. Brown and Reuben Welch?
“I suppose this is a really shallow answer but, as a student we didn’t pay much attention to
leadership of the college. Not that I didn’t respect and love both of these men, and certainly
listened to them, they were adults so why pay attention? Obviously, we all received spiritual
guidance and inspiration from Rueben and he is well remembered by all to this day. I doubt any
of my college-mates had any clue of the politics, leadership issues, etc. that President Brown and
the faculty had to face daily. We were just students looking to study and figure out life.”
How did you find the church world in San Diego?
“Personally this was the only negative to the move for me. I loved Pasadena First Church and
owe much of who I am to the nurture and friendships there. I was sad to leave it and have visited
there often. Honestly, there was not a Nazarene church and certainly not a campus church at the
time that interested me or fed me when I would attend. I suppose I could have focused on
serving, but I found my outlets for that in other venues than the local church. Young people in
college really, really need a vital local church for these formative years – we didn’t have it and
I know many wandered away because of it. It was their choice, I know, but there was not much
going on locally that I recall and I looked!”
Do you have any reflections on the relocation?
“I am sure it was the right move. I don’t think the Pasadena campus would have served the
growth of the college/university or attracted enough students who had the financial backing to
attend. I assume that after the first 3-5 years of the transition it was a moot point to the kids. Pt.
Loma now has its own traditions and memories and I am sure they are good. From time to time
I have occasion to visit the old campus and am saddened by its condition. I suspect that however
much care we would have given it, it still would not compare to what the university has to offer
now. I know the decision to move was bathed in prayer; I believe it was answered. My current
prayer is that the leadership doesn’t forget our roots as have so many institutions of learning. The
world needs church-based centers of learning. The church is the hope of the world; our kids need
to know and experience that.”
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Rob and Debbie Songer ’75, ‘75 District Superintendent, Central California
Rob, how did you hear about the move?
“My recollection, I was playing on the golf team and Shelburne was actually the coach and so
just in some of our travels around where we were together I would hear talk about things that
were kind of developing. As I recall that was my first (indication that something was working).
I also think I was unit mates with Roger Little and his dad was on the Board at that critical time,
and kind of through those kind of avenues I gained some insights as to
what was coming.”
You made the move; how was the campus?
“It was such an incredible experience. We had no hot water for the first
six weeks we were down there, so we had to walk up to the other
dorms, and yet there was never a word from any of my friends of ‘Let’s
go back to Egypt.’ It was just ‘This is our future’ and the folks who
risked everything knew what they were doing, and we’re glad to be
here.”
When we first moved down here, was it just Point Loma College in a new location? Most people
agreed the old college died on the freeway; it’s just not going to be the same. How do you
rebuild it, the whole value structure? It seems the student leaders were very crucial in doing that.
“I remember some of that group that had built the prayer chapel, the movement to get that
disassembled and brought down here was a key. One of the big things we lost was how to
recapture community. In those early years community was on that hillside right outside the old
caf. We would all sit out there in that grass and talk and share; that took the place of the old, you
know, where you went and got you mail and all of that. It was a pretty important season for us
before you had Nicholson Commons. So we found a way to connect.”
Debbie said: “It was the people. We came with the people we were in community with. And the
faculty was pretty much the same way. You know in youth ministries people just automatically
draw toward those they are comfortable with, and you have all your groups and your factions.
When we came, automatically we were drawn to the people we already knew.”
Rob said: “One of the things that was easier when you think of students, we were not uprooted
from homes. We didn’t have very much; pack up your dorm room and there’s a new dorm room
with a better view, even though the campus was, by my recollection pretty beat up. Pasadena was
a pristine campus and had a brand new library. We went into the old library at Point Loma and it
was like, ‘This isn’t anything like the one we had just left.’ And the religions building here was
pretty sad, but you just had a sense of future.”
You married in 1974. Students said it was easy to find housing for married couples in Pasadena,
but down here it was hard.
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Rob said: “We got into a little apartment over off Sports Arena. There were nine apartments
in that complex and I think seven were Point Loma students. Many were couples we had gone
through school with, so there were lots of times someone would walk out into the court and say
‘Hey everyone, we’ve got some chicken, does anybody have anything else?’”
Debbie said: “We lived next door to Lynn and Keith Beresford. He worked at a grocery store and
would tell us when things were going out of date. We were so pleased with the community and
that just added to the experience. I had dorm life in Nease Hall before that. You know, two of our
three children attended here, and both of them met their husbands here from wonderful Nazarene
families; because of that we have had the opportunity to see all that’s been going on since we
left. One of our daughters was a Resident Assistant in the dorms and to see the process she had
to go through, what they were looking for, and the quality that was being required for the dorm
assistants was amazing to us. It was also exciting to see what they were doing with small group
ministry. We had a relative who was benefitted greatly.”
Any reflections?
Debbie said: “Pasadena and then Point Loma, those were the places where I was able to change
who I was. I did not have good social skills and yet through the loving feeling that we are all
equal and important, I found myself running for student body offices; that would never have
happened if I had gone to a state college or university. This was really a place to grow up, to
achieve academically for me.”
Rob said: “When I came down here as a freshman I found myself connected with a group
of students playing golf and ended up playing golf with the President of the college. I can
remember years later I was serving as youth pastor in Bakersfield and Dr. Brown came up,
I can’t remember exactly what for, but he was all but blind at that point. I assumed the cancer
had evolved but he and I went out to play golf. He could still hit the ball, and we’d line him up
to putt; he could still putt. It was just this incredible afternoon we spent together, knowing he
didn’t have too much longer. But I can remember asking him, ‘Was it worth it?’ You know,
feeling like he paid the ultimate price, and I can remember him saying, ‘I’d do it all over again,
in a heartbeat.’ With great conviction, no matter what the price was, he knew he and his team
had done the right thing.”
Larry Rench ‘79 Arranges and orchestrates film music
You came in 1974, the first new class in the new college, the son of
missionary parents in Indonesia. What have you done since
graduation?
“I have been working in music, as you no doubt have picked up on,
first as a music editor for publishing companies and then as a film
music orchestrator. For the last 25 years I have been orchestrating—
and much to my surprise—I continue to have a vibrant career. Currently I am on two TV series
(Revenge and Perception) and work on 5 or 6 films or more a year.”
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How did you come to choose that career?
“I was inspired by something Dr. Ed Willmington played for us in second year theory, and from
then on I wanted to be in film music. We still get the chance to reconnect from time to time as he
is here at Fuller Seminary heading up the Fred Bock Institute of Music.”
There were some touchy years as the college, by which I mean all of us, struggled to get our
bearings and get established. There was a lot of fear outside the college that the beach culture
might erode the spiritual atmosphere of the college. Did you sense that?
“I felt like there was an extremely good and balanced spiritual atmosphere on the campus.
Between chapel services with Reuben Welch and the spiritual lives of our professors that came
through as they taught, I never felt like there was too much or too little spiritual emphasis. I don't
recall any criticism of the college for not doing more spiritually. Again, we had Reuben, and we
knew we were getting good theology delivered in an authentic way. I also didn't pay attention to
other groups of people like the surfers. I knew they probably cut classes, drank beer and partied,
but since I didn't have any close friends who were surfers, that may have been my imagination
running wild. I just knew I wasn't doing any of that because I was so focused on my classes and
homework, practicing hours on end, working on campus, etc.”
Several alums have mentioned the importance of the Navigators on campus for providing
something that seemed to be missing.
“I never felt a need to get involved with groups like the Navigators, even though in high school
the year before I was a part of their ministry.”
It has been interesting to me how many students were inspired or found their future through
Reuben Welch or a faculty advisor. Was there anything else that inspired or shaped you at the
college?
“I did have one close friend who was gay and struggling with the conservative church culture he
was raised in. We talked for hours and hours about sexuality and the gospel and expectations.
For the first time I realized here was a person who wasn't running away from God and embracing
an alternative lifestyle, but was desperately trying to hold onto the core of the gospel while
making sense of his own life. Those hours of one-on-one discussions probably shaped me and
helped me work through how to articulate my own faith more than I ever could help him. Now,
some 40 years later, I wonder if our school is any closer to knowing how to help students have
safe conversations about faith and sexuality and the culture we are living in.”
Diana Amaya Rodriguez ’80 Professor of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University
You were the child of a Point Loma College professor.
“Yes. My dad, Ishmael E. Amaya, joined the faculty at Pasadena
College (PC), so we lived six years in Pasadena.”
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What was your life like in Pasadena?
“Life seemed pretty perfect; even I recognized it back then. My grandparents and cousins lived
nearby. I had great friends who were also children of faculty. We loved Pasadena First Church.
Life became about as perfect as it could. The proximity of the campus was helpful. When I got
sick I could stay at home because dad would go teach a class, come to check on me (and bring
me a donut). Sometimes he would take me to his office and let me wait there while he taught a
class.”
How did you hear about the move?
“One day, rumblings started about the college moving. What? That can’t be. Move? In fact, I
first learned of the move at church. My world as I knew it was coming to an end! I was so angry
the college was moving! There were four of us who had just completed our freshman year in
high school. We all dealt with the move differently. One stayed in Pasadena to finish high school
there. Two moved to San Diego before their sophomore year. My dad took a sabbatical to finish
his dissertation, so we moved to San Diego in 1974, one year after the college moved, the year I
turned 16, after my sophomore year. I had no idea how different life was going to be!”
So you found the move to be difficult?
“Life as I knew it was now forever changed. My first year in San Diego was very difficult, not
only because of the move, but because within one month my grandmother died and my mom was
re-diagnosed with cancer. My perfect life was gone. What I found so comforting – my family,
my friends, my church, my school, and my PC was either different or gone. I was so lost my
junior year!”
Did you group of friends hold together?
“The four of us friends who had lived so near to each other for years now lived in all parts of San
Diego – San Carlos, Poway and Del Cerro, nowhere near the campus.”
So you were not even in the same churches?
“No, some of us attended the same churches, but it was different.”
How about high school?
“I had a very hard time fitting in in high school, getting involved, and making friends, but by my
senior year things were evening out. Janice and I remained friends. I joined Teen Ambassadors,
took piano lessons at the college, and babysat for faculty, including Ron and Patti Kirkemo. I
found new bearings – the ocean. The sound of the water, the sand and the waves were all so
comforting. I couldn’t see the ocean every day, but I went to it as often as I could. And – I was
finally almost old enough to attend PLC.”
157
You attended Point Loma College, got your nursing degree and taught for us for several years.
You must have made you peace with the move. You graduated with your nursing degree and later
returned to teach in our nursing program.
“Yes. Although it took a while, my community was recreated, but it was never the same as in
Pasadena. After the move to San Diego, there was still the PLC community, but it had adapted to
a different community. I am thankful for the sweet memories of the PC days, but I am also
thankful for the PLNU that came out of it.”
Jeff Harris ‘80 Real estate executive
You came in 1975. We had been in operation for two years. What was the campus like by 1975?
“Rough around the edges, but by then you had a coat of paint on everything. It looked good. The
dorms were livable and comfortable.”
Did you have hot water?
“We did have hot water. The library was in good shape.”
You were from Porterville. We had just moved and were still not at our best. How did you decide
to come to Point Loma?
“I helped with the move. Our youth group came down from Porterville and helped basically to
haul stuff over one weekend. So I got to come down and spend a few hours at the Point Loma
campus. We loaded up in Pasadena and then came down and unloaded here in San Diego. I
thought San Diego was just striking. I mean you come over the hill and see breathtaking beauty.
So I was convinced this is what I wanted. And you know I rethought that over time. I thought
about going to Cal Poly, but eventually ended up back at Point Loma. When I saw the campus in
’73, it really looked like a university should look.”
You were a history and political science major, and took all the general ed and elective courses.
We had a lot of changeover in the five (school) years between 1973 and 1989. For example in
those five years, 40 faculty were hired and 40 left. Any perspective on academics?
“I’ve always felt my academic training, the rigor if you will, was appropriate is the way I would
put it. Could it have been more rigorous? Yes. Had it been more rigorous would you have had a
more serious kind of student? Yes. Would that student have been better prepared for life? No. I
found my academic training here has served me extremely well in my professional life. I would
not have changed anything.”
What about the spiritual life on campus. Do you remember the Christian Resource Center or
Coffee House?
158
“Yeah. Coffee House—we would meet and talk about a brief Bible study people could drop in
on. It was a very informal thing and it didn’t last very long after we were here. Mike Christensen
left in ’78 and it just disbanded after that.”
How about the Navigators?
“Navigators was very active on our campus then. I can remember the Navigator’s Bible studies
in the dorms and they were very active. I think all the dorms had a Navigators’ series of studies
going on. As I recall the college at that point was very intentionally Christian but it was
informally intentionally Christian. There were people who had ministries going on and I really
didn’t think it was formally structured through the college. It was informally being coordinated
by the students.”
But you had the Jesus People, the Navigators, the Reuben group, and the Coffee House group.
“Yeah. But the thing about Point Loma in those days is that you could find, I don’t know how to
phrase this exactly, there were opportunities. You could find a place to plug in from a Christian
standpoint. You had ways. You were also very free to not plug in, should you choose to do so.
You had to be very intentional; I don’t know what other word to use, because I think you had the
ability to move through the process, to be here for four years or more, and really not plug into
anything you didn’t want to. It was a less formal, less structured process back then.”
In my surveys of students I did not ask a lot about President Brown and his death. So let me take
this opportunity to ask about your memory of him.
“His death made a lasting impression on me. It was a traumatic thing to go through. He handled
it with such dignity, I thought. And he was very open with the campus about what he was going
through, which I think is such a healthy thing. As I look back on it I don’t think at the time I
really understood how remarkable that was, to be so open with a group of students about such a
personal thing.”
He was such a personal President, meeting students. He would walk the campus and tried to
learn students’ names.
“I can remember him coming down in coat and tie and standing on the sidelines while a bunch of
us were just ‘messing around’ throwing a football. Nobody invited him and he was in a coat and
tie, and he would say ‘Hey, can I throw a ball with you?’ And we were like, well yeah. The
President of the school wants to throw a football with us, so he laid down his coat, kept his tie
on, and threw footballs. We’d receive them, run and catch the football. It was such an incredible
bonding opportunity for us, maybe 15 of us, and you just felt this sense of kindredship with him.
“And the move! I presume it was just the force of his personality, because I know you have
written about it, I believe his personality was the focal point that the move revolved around. He
was special.”
We would never have made the move here without his personality and leadership.
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COMMENTARY
There was no doubt but that God was in the move. I know many students came because they
could not get classes at San Diego State University, or because they wanted to surf, but the
diversity was good for an evangelical and holiness college. There were fears among some church
leaders that the beach culture would dilute if not destroy the core values of the campus. My
reflections are caught up in the themes song of this section, that for me and for these students:
Joy and peace, strength and hope…
Truth revealed, my future sealed…
Healed my pain, love and freedom, life and warmth,
…rescued my soul, my stronghold, lifts me from shame.
Forgiveness, security, power and love
Grace that blows all fear away
Jesus, what a beautiful name
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6. THY STRENGTH SHALL BE IN MEASURE
Rebuilding in San Diego
Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem…
The God of heaven will give us success. Neh 2:17, 20
Unless the Lord builds the house, it builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen
stand guard in vain. Ps 127:1
Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find, to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Every day, the Lord Himself is near me
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,
He Whose Name is Counselor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.
On August 21, the move began—1.2 million pounds of books and equipment on 55 45-foot truck
trailers in 34 days. Volunteers applied 6,000 gallons of white paint to campus buildings in 64
days.
Trusting in his wise bestowments, it was a time of movement, responsibilities and tasks. Those
were the days of looking forward and building a new future. It was a time of movement, days of
repair, of building, of achievement, days of Keith Pagan, Carroll Land, Robert Foster and so
many others. They were like the days of Ezekiel (37:4) making dry bones come alive, preparing
dorms and classrooms, shelving library books and bringing together all the other pieces. They
were the days of Nehemiah (2:17-18) rebuilding the temple of praise, even if in a gym, the days
of Reuben Welch and Jim Jackson. They were days of Dr. Brown as Isaiah (40:3) crying prepare
the way of the Lord.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure brought us to a promised land in our own lifetime.
”Here we come” the President might have said in August. In September he did say, “We are
here.” Those words were heavily laden with relief and adventure. Dealing with the escrow could
be thought about later; this week was about the joy of being there and open for classes.
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Almost. Not all phones were in, nor was the switchboard, so communication across campus was
difficult. Some classrooms still did not have chairs, lecture notes had not yet arrived, cardboard
moving boxes sat around buildings, and not all the dorm rooms had bed frames and dressers.
“Many things need to be done,” the President said. “They will be completed as time and money
are available. In a sense you are the pioneers on a new campus, and the whole year should be a
great adventure.”
In the student newspaper of September 28, President Brown wrote:
“Welcome to Point Loma College! We are here. After months of hoping,
wondering, and planning, the transition to a new location is a reality…
In a sense you are the pioneers on a new campus, and the whole year
should be a great adventure… We are a Christian college. That is central
and important with us.
The tangible parts of the college were there—books and chairs, faculty and students,
administrators and staff. The intangibles, the core and operating values, also had to be brought
and reestablished. Pasadena College in staid Pasadena could not, and in some respects should
not, be rebuilt. Hopefully some of the institutional culture would not come—the small, humble
college isolated from the broader society, the discriminatory salaries for women and limited
horizons for female students, and the lack of racial diversity. But we were not going to reinvent
the college into a Cal Western party school, either. We were going to build a Christian,
Nazarene, holiness, spirit-filled, graceful institution and culture to go with improved academics
and community involvement. The short- and mid-term vision for the school was a four-year
liberal arts college rather than Bresee’s vision of a real university, and in spite of the puzzling
fact that “even in these times of evangelical resurgence there is still not a full-fledged evangelical
university in America.” 139
Key values came intact, as over a bridge. Other values had to be leveraged into operation. There
would be institutional learning, personal stress, adjustments to circumstances (travel distance)
and a minor residual margin of bitterness, but overall a growing pleasure with the campus and
the city. Much of Pasadena College survived the move and was rebuilt here, but with differences,
and difficulty. Day by day we found strength as the Lord gave us strength.
Some of the following material comes from interviews. To make reading easier, I do not use the
formal interview style with names, and I’ve italicized my comments and questions so they are
readily identifiable. Sometimes a sentence or two comes from interviews to complete a topic.
It was the time of Ezekiel, Nehemiah, Moses, Dr. Brown, Keith Pagan, Jim Jackson, Carroll
Land and Bob Foster and L. Paul Gresham.
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The college hired Phillips-Ramsey to make recommendations about
the move and reception in San Diego. One recommendation was the
appointment of a single “Mover” who would have complete control
over the move and orchestrate the various parts. Keith Pagan was
choir director and known to be highly energetic and organized,
intent and precise. When he was called to discuss the appointment,
he asked, “Why me? Why not somebody else?” The answer:
“Because we want it done this year.”
He could do it like no one else, and as time slipped away with all the problems with the escrow,
his attributes became indispensable. So he was chosen in the spring and charged with the task.
He chose David Brown to oversee the packing and shipping in Pasadena, Estes Haney to oversee
the shipping of faculty furnishings, and Lewis Thompson to oversee the arrival and placement on
the new campus. Jim Huffman was hired to oversee the repairs and refurbishment of the campus
and have it ready for the arrivals. He selected Carroll Land to do the repairs, and Land selected
four students to help him.
1. JIM HUFFMANN AND REFURBISHING THE CAMPUS
The campus was full of physical needs after years of deferred maintenance and the trashing of
rooms by departing students and faculty. The campus did not need rebuilding but it desperately
needed repairs and refurbishing.
Offices had holes in the walls where departing faculty had ripped bookcases off them. The dorms
were in terrible shape, shower floors were rotten and ready to collapse, hallway walls in one
were painted black, and five of the dorms had gas heaters that were in such bad repair they were
too dangerous to ignite so there was no heat in those dorms and showers. Some students walked
to other dorms for hot showers, some stayed and took cold showers, and some developed boils.
One student’s boils were so severe the Department of Health came out and demanded the college
fix the heaters immediately. Across campus water pipes kept breaking and there was no blueprint
of where they existed. There were constant immediate emergencies.
The college needed someone of extraordinary skill. Jack Morris said
Jim Huffman was the man the college needed. Jim was working for
Convair in Pomona and was retired from the Navy as a Lieutenant
Commander with the Seabees, the Navy construction corps. He was a
perfect person for the job because so much needed to be done right
away. He was an able administrator of people and tasks. He also knew
how to cut red tape and avoid extensive time delays. He had intuitive
gifts for the work that needed to be done. And he was resourceful. The
city planning department wanted to know how much building space existed on campus in square
footage. “One million, two hundred thousand square feet of building space on campus,” he
replied. Gene Frye once asked him where he got that number. “Out of the blue,” Jim told them.
That number was large enough to allow the college to build nine buildings a decade later.
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Huffman came as part of the move and so reported to Keith Pagan. To do that with an army of
volunteers as well and campus personnel required someone with great administrative skill to be
in charge. That person was Jim Huffman. Bob Foster put it this way: “And the refurbishing of all
those buildings, all that went into that, and then you think about a Jim Huffman who comes
along and it was Jack Morris who said to me, he said ‘Bob here’s a man who can help you with
that physical plant.’ And so Jim came down and became the vehicle there through Jack Morris,
who happened to be a personal friend. And so Jim got involved of course with Keith and the
faculty and all that refurbishing, and he was a Godsend.”
The campus needed painting everywhere and Jim oversaw an army of volunteers and employed
workers to apply 6,000 gallons of paint on the campus in 64 days. Keith Pagan even recruited
volunteers from his Glendora church to come down and help. Three hundred people donated
3,400 hours of work in preparing the campus for the new beginning.
The college could not begin delivering materials that late if the campus was not ready. Huffman
and Land surveyed the buildings, and the coastal weather had not been kind to the wooden
structures. The old Spaulding house, renamed Mieras Hall in honor of Wes Mieras, was to be the
administration building so it needed priority. It consisted of eight octagon rooms around a center
room, with beautiful mahogany doorframes carved with designs and scenes. All of it had been
spray-painted white. Land came down in June and with a crew of four, began their work. Could
the doorframes be returned to their natural state? Professionals were brought in to estimate the
cost and they all said removing the paint would do too much damage to the carvings. So they
were repainted.
The structure needed help. “We replaced the floor in Mieras Hall. There was a
porch outside and it was not safe. We jacked up the roof (over the porch) and
held it up with jacks, took the floor out and replaced the beams underneath and
put a floor in it.” Most of the capitals on the columns outside were missing, “so I
took down those that were in good shape, of three different sizes, took them back
to Pasadena, and Bob Bullock made the forms and had several poured and we
came down and installed them so that building didn’t look like it was all beat
up.” The lower level was refurbished for Business, Financial Aid and Registrar’s
offices.
Madam Tingley’s house, now called Cabrillo Hall, needed a lot of work. Huffman knew
possession of the campus had not yet passed, and the door was locked. Huffman looked at Land,
said it needed to get done and walked away. Land understood, so he found a way in and a way to
get back in again. The ceiling and portions of the walls were metal panels with designs
highlighted in color. President Rust had also ordered the interior of this building be painted white
and all the uniqueness destroyed. Later, Keith Pagan was working late and a guy came to the
door. “Can I come in?” he said. Pagan said he was just closing up. The guy said he wanted to see
inside because, “I’m the guy who painted over the tin in this building. President Rust wanted it
white. I painted it all over and I’ve been regretting it ever since.” He got his look and left
distressed.
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Land was concerned with structure again. “I replaced floors in the Cabrillo Hall and the
stairwells in there,” but even after that the structure was unsound. Huffman “finally decided the
stairway going up to the second floor was not safe and so I boarded that up on both ends so you
couldn’t get through it at all, and then we built that outside set of stairs. I built two bathrooms in
there, repaired and replaced the floors, did the walls, and put the plumbing back in place.”
Everything needed painting! Pagan gave the contract to a Pasadena paint store and they gave him
the name of a painter. He told Pagan, “I’ll pull the trigger 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and
I’ll clean my jets on my own time.” “We’ll do it in six days,” Pagan said and hired him, and he
applied 6,000 gallons of paint. Pagan wanted nothing to do with selecting colors so others did
that and the dorms had four different color schemes
2. KEITH PAGAN AND THE MOVE
Possession of the campus was to happen on June 15, and fall classes in San
Diego were set for September 20. That provided a three-month window to
move the college, but as the time approached the ever-complicated escrow
hit one snag after another, and possession would not take place until
August 20. Visits to the campus had shown some deferred maintenance
that needed remedy, especially refurbishing the dorms. Now there was only
34 days to get the new campus ready, and move the college—faculty,
administrators, and the “stuff” from the old campus.
In Pasadena, Pagan made arrangements for the move. He arranged
with the DeWitt moving company to lease 35 40-foot trailers and then
contracted with the company for their drivers on the side to pick up a
trailer, take it down and bring back an empty one. Why that way?
“Cheaper!”
Most of the departments packed up their own belongings, and Pagan provided some guidelines,
such as “throw away vigorously” and “avoid large boxes.” Desks needed to be emptied out but
file cabinets would be shipped un-emptied to preserve space. Notify Brown when you are ready,
he said, and take any “special,” antique or personal items “with you in your car.” Garth Morse
moved all the scientific equipment and Beryl Dillman moved the works of art in the backs of
their station wagons. The pianos were a special case because of their age, weight, and the ease
with which their legs could break off, so Pagan made a special contract with DeWitt to move
those.
There were no committees discussing how the move was to be managed. There was no time; the
one imperative was “get it done.” They talked to each other in quick chats and Pagan hired a
one-day consultant for some recommendations on getting the boxes out of the buildings and onto
the trucks.
“If you were starting today,” Keith said, “where would you start? Google.” There was no Google
then and “we didn’t have time to do a year’s worth of research.”
165
Biology professor David Brown was put in charge of moving the library.
Pagan sensed he would work hard, not having the attitude of some
professionals that “I’m too good to do this,” and was sure he could pull it off.
The librarians packed the books but Brown and his crew did the heavy lifting.
The work was hard and the student crew was paid minimum wage, which
several considered too low. Brown was able to preclude any kind of strike
because he was working along with them, doing the same work. They gave up
using an old forklift and Brown bought 20 dollies.
Lewis Thompson was a good friend of Keith Pagan and one of the first to
move down, so Keith appointed him to be in charge of receiving and
distributing the material. The CEPP process had decided which
departments went to which buildings, and while many of the locations,
like faculty offices, were known, some were not. The determination of
those others “was done as we were doing it. Carloads of stuff had to go
somewhere so we’d pick a place.”
Was the campus cleaned out by the time you started deliveries?
“On no. They didn’t leave anything worth a hoot; just trash.” “They didn’t throw any trash
away,” according to David Brown. “Just threw it on the floor. (John) Cromer (in charge of
receiving deliveries for the science building) was furious that they would make us their trash
people.”
On the second floor of Cabrillo Hall “were all kinds of remnant of parties, marijuana pot parties,
leftover drug paraphernalia,” Pagan said. “They did nothing you would expect as a common
courtesy.” Students at the art building had washed out their brushes at the drinking fountain and
then flipped them against the walls, leaving paint all over. In the offices now used by the religion
faculty, bookshelves had been ripped out of the walls, leaving big holes where mounting bolts
had been. All campus keys had their identification removed and dumped on the gym floor.
Given the speed and the multiple groups doing packing, there was not a lot of accounting.
Worse, there was theft. Among the Spiros paintings was a six-foot portrait of President Wilson
on a golf course. It was stolen before the paintings were packed. A desk that belonged to Bresee
or Wiley was stored below one of the women’s dorms. “I looked at it,” Pagan said, “and when I
went to get it, it was gone.” Perhaps it was neighbors taking advantage of the abandoned campus
and delayed start of the moving.
The faculty also had to be moved, and there was a lot of emotion in that.
The school helped, providing the moving company and paying for up to
8,000 pounds per household. Faculty members were advised to get rid of
all their heavy furniture. It was hard. “We had a Drexel redwood dining
room set that Barbara just loved,” Lewis Thompson recalled, “and we
walked around that thing and we finally decided, ‘too bad Shelburne; it’s
going.’” Dr. Estes Haney, who was at retirement age and decided not to
move, oversaw the timing, packing, and moving of the faculty families.
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Each family determined the date they would move, Pagan being among the last. Given his
involvement in running the move, he had not finalized the purchase of a home and when his stuff
left Pasadena he did not know where it would land. He and his family lived in a motel until one
of their offers was accepted. Some moved into homes they had purchased and others moved into
apartments and lived among unopened moving boxes while their home was being constructed.
Jim Jackson’s wife Alice hit one of those boxes in the darkness of night and broke her foot.
“College Opening Alive With Chaos,” was the headline in the San Diego newspaper. Some
classrooms did not have chairs, blackboards had not been replaced, some desks had not arrived,
and the cafeteria was still being painted. Bed frames and dressers had not yet arrived for some
dorms. Was there anger or frustration? No. According to the newspaper, the “students didn’t
seem to mind. They were too busy looking outside. ‘Isn’t the campus gorgeous’ said a
sophomore who had left Pasadena smog behind.” Another newspaper noted that, “students didn’t
complain but instead asked how they could help.” The last truck arrived on September 24 and as
always, students came out of the dorms to help unload and carry boxes to their locations.
Was there a celebration? No. No key ceremony as had been planned in July; there was too much
to do. But it was heroic nevertheless. Now came new challenges for the first five years, and those
challenges were not related to just the new location but to changes in the economy and the
student body. In November, Pagan was asked to speak at the college’s honor society. In his
remarks, which he called, “You can’t move a college,” he said, “We are in an unprecedented
position to reshape ourselves and to control our own destiny.” Then:
The principal thrust of this discussion is to point out to you that the
several constituent groups which are building and shaping this NEW
institution are represented by individuals in this room. What Point
Loma College is to become will largely be the direct result of our
actions—or our inaction, of our dedication—or our carelessness, of
our educational and academic leadership—or our willingness to settle
for mediocrity…[S]ome kind of college will be formed out of the
makings which have been assembled here. What it will be like will
be determined by you and me, our colleagues, and the groups
represented here.
SNAPSHOT: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS
In August 1973, President Shelburne Brown presided over the successful move of Pasadena
College to San Diego, and now looked forward to leading it to rising quality and influence. It
was not to be. Whether from the stress of the past years or more natural forces, a malignant brain
tumor struck him down in 1978. Those five years were the rebuilding years, and this chapter
describes that process. This snapshot hints at some of the forces for change that produced the
hopes and fears at the end of the decade.
Part of the essential nature of the college in Pasadena was tuition—the trustees set the lowest
possible tuition to make it as possible as they could for any Nazarene student to attend. Another
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part was as high a percentage of Nazarene students and faculty as possible. That essential nature,
an inexpensive college of Nazarene students and faculty, did not survive the relocation because
of the Great Inflation of the 1970s. Levers would be needed to hold onto as much of that
essential nature as possible.
For Faculty:
1973
US inflation rate
Mortgage rate
Salaries
New with MA
New with PhD
Mid-career PhD
Housing prices
8.8%
8.6%
1974
14%
9.5%
1975
1976
9.2%
7.7%
6.5%
7.0%
$9,725
$10,000
$13,000
$40,000
1977
6.5%
9.5%
1978
7.6%
10.5%
5-year total
52.6
52.8
$15,500 62%
$15,025 43%
$20,235 56%
$120,000 300%
The move occurred at the beginning of the Great Inflation of the 1970s. In 1972, inflation was
4.4%, and jumped in 1973 to 8.8%. Faculty wanting to buy a home had to finance them with
mortgage loans, and banks were insisting on adjustable rate loans rather than fixed rate loans.
Buyers agreed because the initial rate was lower and few saw the escalation of the next years.
When inflation took off that decade, mortgage rates went from 7.5% to 10% in the late 1970s
and reached 18% in 1980. Housing prices in San Diego were twice the price in Pasadena. A
single family home in Pasadena that sold for $20,000 in 1969 and for the same amount in 1973,
cost $40,000 in San Diego and rose by 60% a year. Other faculty who had bought earlier and had
equity in their homes lost a percentage of that value. Faculty who moved from Pasadena could
still buy a home in the summer and fall of 1973 but it became harder in 1974 and after. With a
hire-in salary at $10,000 or lower, new faculty were being priced out of home ownership.
There were two impacts by 1978. First, 18 faculty members left in that year. Eighteen. Second,
it became more difficult to hire faculty with PhDs. In 1976, eight faculty were hired, seven with
PhDs; in 1977, eight were hired, five with PhDs; in 1978, 18 were hired and only eight had
PhDs.
Keith Pagan became Dean in 1977 and told the Trustees the price of housing was the central
issue for new faculty. For some new faculty, their personal commitment to the college was
enough to compensate for the salary, and they stayed. For other new faculty, the salary and
family housing took precedence over accepting an invitation to join the faculty, or staying.
Pagan told them:
The simple fact is that salaries at PLC are not sufficient to entice professionals
from other geographic areas to move to an area they consider prohibitively expensive.
Commitment. What is being described is the willingness (or even enthusiasm) to serve
for a major portions of one’s professional life at an economic level hardly removed from
basic subsistence with good grace and with joy.
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For Students:
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1988
Tuition cost per unit
$37
$40
$44
$55
$53
$56
$121
$2,613
$2,982
$3,297
8.7%
9.0%
Total cost
Percentage increase
$3,579 $3,828 $4,062 $8,925
9.2%
9.3%
9.4%
45%
The children of faculty had tuition remission, no charge for tuition. Trustees were concerned
about the children of pastors, many who also worked for low salaries. Could the children of
Nazarene pastors attend a Nazarene college? In October 9, 1972, even before the price escalation
of the coming years, a Trustee committee reported that it would be in the best interests of the
pastors and the college if children of a Nazarene pastor or full-time associate received a 15%
discount on tuition. This was not to be a scholarship or grant but a discount from the student’s
tuition bill.
For the Institution:
In 1972, the enrollment of Pasadena College was 1,273 with 844 Nazarene students, or 66% of
the total enrollment. In the next five years the college grew nearly 50% but the number of
Nazarene students remained basically static.
1972 1973 1974 1975 1976
1977 1978 1988
Enrollment
1,273
1,197
1,905
1,770
2,221
Nazarene
844
823
961
986
854
925
829
805
Percent Nazarene
66%
69%
66%
61%
49%
49%
47%
36%
1,460
1,605 1,718
Enrollment was a serious issue in 1973; President Brown did not want to show a drop in
numbers. A March 1973 survey of students in chapel showed 67% planning to be at the college
the next year, 11% not going, and 22% not sure. If they could cut the 22% in half and add it to
the 11% not going, the total attrition would be “surprisingly normal.” 140
A number of recruitment programs were adopted, including sending several groups of two
faculty members to meet incoming students in their hometown, usually at a church, and preenroll them. Despite the effort, the number fell by 76 students, then bounced upward the
following years by numbers between 150 and 200.
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The college was the sole serious Protestant college in the San Diego region so it attracted
Christian students, and they came from a variety of churches, denominational and independent
Bible churches. Moving to San Diego greatly expanded the student market but the number of
Nazarene college-aged students had plateaued, so each year the student enrollment grew while
the number of Nazarene students enrolled remained basically the same. That reality generated
unease in some Trustees and fear in others.
Part of the reason, however, was the slowing growth in the denomination within the United
States; it had reached Stage 5b, that is, the dual state of decline and recreation. The rapid growth
rate through mid-century went into decline. Within Point Loma’s educational zone, for the two
decades of the 1960s and 1970s, the growth in the Anaheim district fell from 3.03% to 0.069%
while the Arizona and New Mexico districts had virtually no change. The Southern California
district slightly slid from 0.28% to 0.25% while the Los Angeles district rose from 0.24% to
0.6%. 141 The falling Nazarene ratio at the college reflected the falling rate of the denomination
and the zone.
There were two basic levers to deal with the ratio. One was to prioritize Nazarene students in
admissions. In 1975, the Constituent Relations committee of the Board of Trustees expressed its
concern about the Nazarene/non-Nazarene enrollment ratio and the Committee on Admissions
recommended a five-part proposal that gave preference to sons and daughters of present
members of the Church of the Nazarene as well as priority to sons and daughters of people who
had attended Pasadena or Point Loma, children of current faculty and staff, students from the
educational zone who promised to live up to the religious and social standards of the college, and
students whose presence could enrich the college. The committee did emphasize that any student
admitted had to meet the academic requirements and the school could exclude anyone who did
not meet those requirements. That policy was adopted and became permanent.
The second would be to offer tuition discounts for students from other Nazarene college
educational zones. That would be an unethical policy, and one Dr. Brown protested against when
Olivet offered such discounts to students from this college’s zone.
In later years, as costs continued to climb and the ratio changed, the Trustees adopted a third
lever: the monies from the educational zone would be specified for Nazarene students, and
would be matched by the home church of the student.
The college now owned two campuses, payments on the new library, and a decade of inflation.
The first task was to keep the college solvent. That fell to Business Manager Robert Foster.
3. ROBERT FOSTER AND REBUILDING FINANCIAL SOVENCY
Ever since the Travelodge meeting, the Trustees wanted to buy the Cal Western campus. The big
key for them was to use the Pasadena campus part of the payment for the San Diego site. They
needed to do that both to fund the purchase and avoid a doom day situation of two campuses,
purchasing the Cal Western site and not being able to sell the Pasadena campus. But USIU could
not qualify to add more debt burden. If Pasadena College was going to purchase Cal Western, it
would be purchased it as an additional site. Could that be done?
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The major financial issues of concern relating to the campus purchase and relocation
The financial impact of buying Point Loma without selling the Pasadena campus
Increased debt servicing for the purchase without a new source of revenue
Risk of enrollment decline of existing students residing in the greater Los Angeles and
Pasadena areas and uncertainty of attracting new students from the greater San Diego
area
San Diego campus refurbishing cost
Cost of moving physical assets
Relocation expenses relating to personnel
The impact of relocating to an area with higher cost of living (housing, compensation
levels, retention and replacement of personnel, and many more too numerous to
mention here)
That was a lot, and even in his public persona role, Dr. Brown always cautioned that the whole
university might be lost.
Bob Foster had few figures from President Rust but he did give the square footage of the
buildings and some utility costs, and the figures for funding the servicing of the $9 million of
new debts it would take over from USIU. Foster could then project the increased costs of the
campus. He still had to continue funding the outstanding debt on the new library as well as
relocation expenses, and carry out major refurbishing. Increased enrollment would help, but
enrollment numbers were uncertain as a new college competing with major universities.
How do you fund those costs? Some funding is fairly predictable.
There would be the annual income from the districts. Tuitions, fees
and grants would go up or down with enrollment figures. Those
figures fell the first year, and then climbed steadily. Donors could be
important, and at some point, the Pasadena campus would sell.
With those projections, Foster worked out a budget that had deficits
for three years, but would be manageable. Even if the Pasadena
campus did not sell, “that was not a reason to stop the move.” There
was a risk, but Foster was sure that, “while there was some risk, we
had a lot going for us and it probably could be accomplished.” The
Trustees were serious men and asked probing questions, but the
opportunity for a “promised land” and Foster’s figures made it seem possible during the year of
negotiations.
The figures did not change much. Foster went to the final meeting, May 31, with a projected
potential deficit for the first year (1973-1974) of $1.3 million ($610,000 for moving the campus
and faculty, refurbishing and remodeling and debt service, and $690,000 for operating deficit). It
didn’t happen.
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Over the first three years, with increased income and constrained spending, much of the deficit
was covered, and the accumulated deficit only reached $850,000. Increased enrollment brought
more income than expected, rental of part of the Pasadena campus helped, as did budget
discipline. The overwhelmingly positive reception in San Diego was a surprise and led to
donations.
Rev. Carlton Ponsford headed the Development office. As part of the Bold Step Forward
program, he used local pastors to call on people he recommended. In the 1973-1974 academic
year, the office brought in $180,000 to help fund the deficit. Pastors gave of their time and effort
to call on people and solicit help. The response of the pastors and people varied. One pastor
described his effort as a failure by using a church service rather than individual calls, but
described his sermon as one designed to “build up faith in Pasadena College, its leadership, its
mission, and its move.” Another pastor wrote back that he was blessed, and another wrote on his
expense voucher to “consider my time and meals my donation for the privilege for working for
the college.”
In Northern California, Rev. Paul Simpson headed an Education Committee (rare among
districts) that recommended to the 1975 District Assembly that “an atmosphere of Christian
holiness” shall prevail throughout the campus, pledges to the Bold Step Forward campaign be
paid in full, the district adopt a 2% override on its educational budget, and since the deficit of
that current year was the same as the maintenance costs on the Pasadena campus, the people pray
for the sale of the campus. 142
In 1975, the trustees decided annual deficits were not good policy, and insisted annual operations
be adjusted to make the budget balance. The same year they also recommended that faculty
salary increases be given top priority. Foster was able to do it all. A miracle?
“It was not a miracle,” Foster said. Enrollment went up and so did inflation.
The 1970s were years of significant inflation in property values. Despite aggressive marketing,
the Pasadena campus did not sell until 1978, when Ralph Winter and the Center for World
Missions had put down enough cash to make a 10-year purchase plan for $8.5 million viable. In
addition to the campus, they also bought the 130 residential properties. When they were sold,
inflation had increased their value to $3 million. In other words, the Cal Western campus was
bought for $9.1 million, and the Pasadena campus and properties were sold for close to $11.5
million. Prayers answered? Answered beyond the “killer amendment” and beyond expectation.
The shape of the future might have looked probable, but plans for it rested on uncertainty, hope,
prayer and perseverance. One could argue that providence was involved in three ways: 1) USIU
was not able to meet the Trustees’ major concern and take the Pasadena campus as partial
payment, 2) Dr. Winter came with his proposal, and 3) the long delay in selling the Pasadena
campus and housing was a financial advantage. As Bob Foster put it, “the delay in selling the
Pasadena properties for six years proved to be financially beneficial and greatly enhanced the
long-term solvency of the college.”
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One of the little-known key people in the history of the college was J. C. Wooton. A very
successful businessman who had come to California during the Depression, Wooton agreed to
serve as the college’s Business Manager in Shelburne Brown’s first year as President. He forced
and enforced a budget on the campus, and then recommended Robert Foster to be his
replacement. Over the years he helped make deals and close escrows on 75-80 percent of the
residential properties. He also gave Dr. Winters $10,000 in “seed money” to begin his
fundraising effort.
Integrity is crucial to trust, which is crucial to funding sources. Foster maintained a high standard
of budget discipline and accounting standards, but also had on his side a unique factor in
Nazarene colleges—a foundation. From his experience as Business Manager, and despite
criticism from high church leaders, J. C. Wooton convinced the Board of Trustees to set up the
Pasadena College Foundation,143 guaranteeing that designated funds would not be raided for
current needs and would be used only for the designated purposes. Public confidence and trust
are essential for maintaining solvency.
With that confidence and trust in place, the college could seek donations, some small for
scholarships, endowment funds and research grants, and some large foundation grants. In
Brown’s early years, he used Dr. Boyd Shannon to visit foundations. After the move, Brown
went himself. Given the enormity of the need, Brown moved from using retired or unemployed
pastors to professional fundraisers. All these factors played their role in returning to a balanced
budget in the third year after the move.
“It took a community of dedicated servants of God to
make the move. We moved it, opened it and erased
deficits in three years,” Foster said. Dr. Winter and
the Center for World Mission paid the remaining
portion of the mortgage in full on January 16, 1988.
There is a large portrayal of that check in the library
of the Center for World Mission.
Sound easy? It wasn’t. Given the potential risks in moving, Foster said, “one is driven to their
knees in gratitude and humility before God at the unfolding of his plan for the future mission of
the college.”
Every day, the Lord Himself is near me,
With a special mercy for each hour…
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.
The move of files and transcripts preoccupied everyone, but Brown was concerned about that
and larger issues of the college, the religious side of the triangle: intention and transformation,
sin and salvation, atmosphere and guidance.
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President Brown
“Let me talk about spiritual commitments. I think the thing that is highest on all our minds is the
realization that we will not be a Christian college by some lucky chance. We only maintain our
ideals because we intend to maintain them. And when it is all finalized it comes down to you and
me.” President Brown, last chapel service at Pasadena College, June 4, 1973
“We take certain risks in our enrollment practices. We take also an evangelistic responsibility
when we do so…However we also have the privilege year after year of witnessing young people
transformed from sin to salvation through the godly ministry of consecrated teachers, and the
ministry of the word through the various agencies of the school.” Report to the Board, October 8,
1974
“We had been deeply concerned that the spiritual foundations of the school be re-established
here. We prayed that the opening of school would be characterized by a vital Christian
atmosphere. What has happened was more than we could have requested…(W)e are not having
to lead the students into spiritual emphasis, but we are simply moving along with them and
guiding what is here in tremendous power.” Report to the Board, October 8, 1973
4. REUBEN WELCH AND SPIRITUAL LIFE
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Financial solvency is a prerequisite for existence, but the mission and purpose of the university
was the presence of the Lord. That does not come by way of a bridge. The Lord comes on his
own; as he told Moses, “My presence will go with you.” (Ex 33:14) We were not Moses, but he
was with us, and we with him. Now and then he is present and seeks out individuals, but the
powerful campus-wide manifestation of that presence depends on the seeking, spiritual
disciplines, and programs of students, faculty, and administrators. The chapel was center, and
others developed means of grace programs to go along.
COMMENTARY
The university was born in the holiness movement after the Civil War but the effectiveness of
that passionate approach slowly died after World War II. The passion and excess of evangelists
and their altar calls were increasingly seen as manipulative and psychological abuse. In the
1950s and 1960s high school students were tired of being socially marginal, such as taking notes
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from their mothers to their gym teachers explaining the student could not participate in a dance
class. There was a separate district for black churches in the South, the Gulf Central District,
with a white pastor as the treasurer until 1968. Young people watched the church’s third stage of
institutionalization that required the institution to remain silent during the civil rights movement
and lose any progressive moral imagination. They left the theology of eradication and losing
your salvation by backsliding, and defining their faith by the institution’s rules and revivals. 144
For thirty years after World War II young people listened to sermons on holiness and perfection,
and watched church members and church leaders, some of whom were saints, some selfcentered, and some seemingly not much different from other nice and good people. All that made
the concept of eradication of sin difficult to believe, or to believe it may be possible for some but
could be achieved in their own lives. 145 The theological concept was rocked by Mildred Bangs
Wynkoop’s 1972 book A Theology of Love. She called for an alternative to a second work of
grace that eradicates sin from the soul, because sin is not a substance but a wrong relationship
with God, which came to be known as relational theology. The movement also died because
young people increasingly ignored the behavioral rules some churchmen still loved. 146
Church leaders and institutionalized laymen will insist on preserving the church and the college
by preserving revivals with students on their knees at an altar, and rules against the dangerous
and the normal. Since students are essentially “captives” of the church while attending a
Nazarene college, the institutionalists thought they ought to be made to comply with rules neither
their parents nor their home Nazarene church enforce.
The “organization men” of the church were concerned—without the rules, revivals and
eradication, what was the distinctive and identity of the church? The only distinctive left was the
denominational name, and after the 1990s young people were leaving denominations for
independent churches. Without the theology of “second work” and eradication, what was the
identity of the church? Together the decline in rules and alternate theology led General
Superintendent Jim Bond in 2001 to tell a group of church leaders “I believe that we are in a
struggle for the soul of our denomination and that struggle is being waged throughout the church
at all levels and around the world. In my judgment—the two places in the church where this
struggle ensues most poignantly are our educational campuses and our local churches.
Interestingly, I perceive we may be more purposeful in our efforts to be true to our tradition
within the academic community than we are at the local church.” 147
Reuben Welch embraced relational theology early, before he ever knew there was a name for it.
He believed that being born again establishes a relationship with the Lord, who is not going to
throw a person overboard because of another stumble or failure. He is the Lord of grace and
mercy, long-suffering, is “for” his people, and has hopes for them. He preached that such a life
requires renouncing self-sovereignty and living in Christ’s presence on our life’s journeys.
Bresee’s core value of life in the spirit and a spiritual atmosphere could not come in Pagan’s
moving vans; it had to be rebuilt in San Diego, and the central person was Reuben Welch. He
had to be both the bridge that brought that message and the lever that promoted it, leading young
people to a deeper life in the spirit, a holy life, under difficult physical circumstances and at a
time when others were trying to make inerrancy or The Battle for the Bible, the central issue.
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a. Chapel
Prior to President Finch (1957 to 1964), there had been no chaplain, chapel being a presidential
prerogative. Gone often, the Presidents relied on evangelists passing through, local pastors, and
whatever other outside speakers could be useful. Finch was not a good public speaker and so
named Jim Hamilton as chaplain, who continued the traditional pattern.
Much like a lecture series, chapel was seen as a “value-added” aspect of college life. Faculty and
students go to class for academics, and then go to chapel, which was to be the “plus” factor that
differentiated this college from secular ones. That process of leaving reality outside the chapel
limited its relevance. Beyond that, the value of chapel rose and fell on the quality of individual
and episodic speakers.
Welch intended to change that pattern. He would be a chaplain who brought a goal of building a
spiritual community through coherent series of sermons and continuity in themes. Chapel was
not to be a plus factor but the shaping factor in building a spiritual community. Students would
come to a spiritual community as well as an academic community. He invested his life in
students and community construction. Then came Brown’s announcement.
At Pasadena College, the chapel took place in a building designed for dual use as a gym and an
auditorium. The chapel area was the seating area of the gymnasium, which was only on one side.
It was bound by three walls, and a huge curtain shut off the area from the gym floor and provided
a sense of warmth in a concrete block building. With the curtain down, it was a self-contained
area that lent itself to a sense of community. For commencement it was raised and the floor used
for seating, with leaders on a built-in stage/choir area.
Spectator seating with movable stage
New bleachers
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New stage area
The Point Loma campus had no chapel, so again the gym was used, but it was never designed for
regular chapel meetings. The seating area was purely spectator seating and so was open. Carroll
Land and his crew built a movable stage to roll out and face the full length of a gymnasium
building, with the rest of the building large and open. That was a physical reality that mitigated
any religious atmosphere or feeling of community. Yet, he said, “as I reflect on it, it really
worked. It really did. I think it probably is a good thing that the students were enthused.”
In 1977, a set of foldout bleachers was designed by Land to fit on the
east side. It held most students in a compact area. The movable stage
was abandoned for a podium and backdrop with protection on the floor.
It gave a more united feeling, but was still bleachers in a gymnasium.
So how did you build a chapel in the conditions of the gym?
“I guess I don’t know. It was really difficult because you’re down here
and then pretty soon we grew a little bit and you have people here and
here and here along the sides. And then during those years there were
guys on the top level reading the newspaper. It took a lot psychic energy. But during those years,
in Pasadena, too, I found out what I believe. I preached the gospel that I came to believe.”
In the midst of everything—a new diversity of students, the lack of a social center for them, the
commuter students, the new faculty—Welch had to find a way to rebuild a community. The first
year it was identity, the second year persistence and practicality. Ephesians was important to him
when Paul writes that God “has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his
will, according to his purpose, which he purposed in Christ, …to unite all things, things in
heaven and things in earth.” That unity was fundamental. With that unity had to come identity.
“It’s interesting, when your student body is predominately Nazarene you don’t feel the necessity
of articulating who you are. I first heard that when I talked to Dennis Kinlaw, who was President
of Asbury. We were together back there. Their students come from everywhere and there’s no
dominant denomination for support, so they have to know who they are. When I first came I was
36 and we all used the same language, same songs, same heritage.”
In that next decade, not only had the generation of students changed, but in San Diego the
denominational composition had changed. In Pasadena, most denominations had their own
colleges and students went to their own one. In San Diego, we were one of only two, the other
Catholic, so Point Loma drew from across the Protestant spectrum. There were a significant
number of Catholic students whose parents wanted them to go to a more conservative college.
Then there were the “Jesus People” and those from the Calvary Chapel world. So while the core
religious identity was Nazarene, the core had to be expanded, and it had to also be academic as
well as religious.
“I really felt we had to come together, had to find some sense of being together. The thing that
kept coming to me was trying to define ourselves. I talked a lot in those days about who we are,
that we are a community of believers engaged in the education process. I used I John:”
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We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you
have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son, Jesus Christ. I John 1:3
“The second year I preached from Hebrews. Now in the context of the trauma of the move, my
sense of what God really cares about, and the realization that I had all these new different kinds
of students with their own subcultures, came my discovery of the significance, the relevance, of
what I’m preaching and the passage I’m preaching about. It would be one thing for us to go
through Hebrews in class; it was another thing to preach through Hebrews in a context. It was
good. It was really good.”
The structure of chapel remained: compulsory attendance three days a week; the chaplain
speaking at least once a week; the other days given to special speakers, some from the faculty,
others from the broader church world, including national notables like Bob Benson, Hal Lindsey,
Josh McDowell, and Carl Henry; and then faculty, pastors, and alums like Earl Lee, Mike Mata,
Bill McCumber, and Paul Culbertson.
Moving the college involved moving and rebuilding the physical aspects, the retention of
Pasadena students and recruitment of new students and faculty, but also rebuilding or reinventing
the intangible, the community. Brown, Gresham and Foster had their stresses, but so did the
chaplain, and his task was to rebuild those under the worst of circumstances—trying to have
chapel in that gym.
“Those were hard times and I was not happy. We were in transition and I felt the need to speak
to it. What I tried to say is that life is journey. We are between the now and the not yet. The
college was in transition, there were worries, burdens, stresses and strains as well as vision and
hope. Students increasingly wanted performance.”
To make it even harder, Welch was faced with growing changes in the campus culture, not just
the beach influence, but students themselves were becoming a new generation with new
perspectives and outlooks. They came to be called Generation Y or the “Me Generation” in the
‘70s and ‘80s. I told him the changes between my generation and the generation of the ‘70s and
‘80s impacted my teaching.
“Yes, increasingly I did not understand students. Part of what we did was bring in more people in
music. Marvin Young always wound us up. On top of it were the Jesus People. I had several
groups who would come into my office and we’d have Bible study and talk about stuff. I’d meet
with a bunch of the Jesus guys, they would just collect up in my office and just talk. Those were
good times.”
But you found your voice in Hebrews.
“I preached from Hebrews on perseverance. Great saints led and nurtured and sacrificed for this
college. They are gone now; we are here. This is our time, and Hebrews says to run our race with
perseverance.
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“How do we do that? God is with us. When things look bad, like nothing is happening, know
this: when it looks like nothing is happening, something is happening. God has hopes for us,
works in our lives, and gives us grace with which we can persevere. Also, lay aside the weights
that hinder you. Get rid of your sins and look to Jesus. That was my message to them and to
myself in these years of transition.
“What’s interesting, the book When You Run Out of Fantastic…Persevere, comes out of those
chapel talks. Students recorded it, transcribed it and edited it. They are the ones who said ‘We
need to do this.’ And they raised some bucks to buy a bunch and give them out.
“Did I rebuild chapel? Hard to say. Did I rebuild a community outlook? I hope so. I tried to do it
by reminding them that we are in a providential time, God is with us, and we need to embrace his
grace, acknowledge mystery, and get on getting on.”
Now wait a minute. You did more than rebuild chapel. You taught all of us about the journey of
holiness. I grew up with revivals and rules where the emphasis was on the decision, and the fate
of those who backslide, and nothing about how to live afterward except don’t go to movies and
dances.
“I’m troubled by revivals. My guess is that most students who come to a Christian college have
already committed themselves to the Lord 25 times or more. I said we ought to quit starting over
and start growing up. Hebrews says we have a race that is set before us, and that is our
providential appointment.
“God wants to do more for us than we have experienced. God wants to make us holy persons.
We really do want to be holy, to be a godly people, a holy people. It takes a bit of doing to
develop a holy character, but it is the kind of thing God wants to do in us through his working in
our lives. And this is central: Jesus is less an answer than he is a Presence—a sufficient Presence
regardless of what we face. Jesus comes to us from God, all the way into our world, to meet us
where we are. I believe the most beautiful privilege I have as a Christian is the opportunity for
personal fellowship with God, the Holy Spirit is God with us, God now present. We come from
Mount Sinai and it rules to Mount Zion where we live in his presence.”
So our goal was to build a community around God’s presence, a community where students
could understand that God is with them on their journey. They are never alone, no matter how
much they may fail. God is a presence with them. They don’t need to be born again and again
and again; they need to recognize God is with them and grow up as they live their journey. That
is not a justification to go on sinning but the opportunity to draw nigh to God.
“Yes.”
And we did that. It is understandable that so many of us faculty considered your preaching in
chapel to be our Sunday worship service. It is no wonder that a student wrote, “I would rather
listen to Chaplain Welch any day over the other pastors in the area.” His was a message of life
and hope and growth as we lived in the presence of the Holy Spirit. That is certainly Bresee’s
second core value made alive and relevant to the studentss—and they took it with them.
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b. Church Relationship Survey
“I would rather listen to Chaplin Welch any day over the other pastors in the area.”
That quote is from a student on a survey about church relationships. Trustees had always been
concerned about the absence of a Nazarene church close enough to the campus to serve the
students, but District Superintendent Nick Hull wanted the newcomers to attend his pastors’
churches. The campus church at Pasadena College was expelled in 1915 and no other church was
ever allowed again on campus. There were two major Nazarene churches in San Diego and they
ran vans out to the campus; buses from non-Nazarene churches were prohibited from coming
onto the campus to pick up students. Not surprisingly, attendance of Nazarene students to
Nazarene churches was down. A survey was conducted that asked reasons why the students
attended less. Here are a dozen of their answers:
1. “Pastors aren’t preaching to me meaningful messages. They are boring!” 2. “I wish the
churches would get a little less formal and gather up and just praise the Lord. 3. “Too much
studying.” 4. “One is forced to attend chapel.” 5. Having been raised in a legalistic Nazarene
church at home, I don’t want to attend any Nazarene church.” 6. “El Cajon Nazarene is a warm,
friendly and Godly church…God has found me a place to serve here also.” 7. “There needs to be
more stress to attend church.” 8. “I oversleep.” 9. “Too much homework.” 10. “Work.” 11. “I’m
going home every weekend. I love my church so much and I don’t want to leave it, but I’m
running out of orthodontist appointments to be able to go home, so I don’t know what I’ll do.”
12. “Most church members are not that friendly. They are standoffish.” 148
There was property available for purchase within five blocks of the campus that could have been
the site of a neighborhood Nazarene church, but District Superintendent Nick Hull refused to
purchase it despite strong effect to convince him to do so. 149 He had also prohibited the
formation of any “unauthorized” meetings until 1975 when some faculty living on Point Loma
established a Point Loma Community Church of the Nazarene. It met in the small former Navy
chapel that had been moved to the campus. After a decade, that small church merged with San
Diego First, which then moved to the campus and met in the gymnasium until a new church
building was constructed on campus in 1987.
COMMENTARY
There have been two historical beliefs about the early years in San Diego. One is the Critical
History. It saw events in Pasadena and Point Loma as representing the college becoming liberal
and moving away from the church. Roger Little, whose father was often a delegate to General
Assembly, said when he was there people would ask him if Pasadena was still Christian or still
Nazarene. Bob Borbe noted in his survey that when he was at the General Assembly in 1972 “the
reaction of some at GA was ‘that liberal California Pasadena/Point Loma’ (college).”
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This history is also represented by District Superintendent Grady Cantrell, brother-in-law to two
General Superintendents. Cantrell had no doubt about the drift of the college away from the
church. There were too many non-Nazarenes without loyalty to the church who would affect the
faculty and cause the “loss of behavior codes loved by Nazarenes.” President Brown was gone a
lot playing golf or skiing, was not a “take-charge leader” and would not “hold the line like
Wiley.”150 Some individual Trustees were also concerned the college was becoming too liberal.
There was even the view that the move had been a mistake because of the proximity to
liberalizing influences of the ocean and beach.151
The other, the Spiritual Currents History, is an alternative history of serious spiritual activity and
growth, a view held by those who were actually there, and reflected in the student interviews. Is
one right and the other wrong? No. The college was not as close to the 1920s and 1940s as some
assumed it should be, but there was cultural change at the same time within the church away
from the codes of behavior and even the “second blessing” and “eradication” theology of the
1920s manual. On the other hand, there were at least four spiritual currents on campus that kept a
vibrant spiritual atmosphere. Those four were Reuben Welch and chapel, the Jesus
People/Navigators, the Christian Resource Center group, and the faculty.
I was a student at the college in the 1960s. There were structured and engineered means of grace,
chapels being regular and others more episodic like revivals and choirs and special speakers.
They were top-down and did create an atmosphere of grace, a spiritual tide in which students
could ride, but there were little spiritual activities from the bottom, among the students. So, too
often when students graduated and went somewhere like law school or graduate school, it was
like walking off a cliff. Without students learning disciplines of spiritual development, they
would move from a spiritual tide to spiritual tide pools. That was happening in the 1970s.
c. Student Christian Life Committee
The student body had its own spiritual life committee, and they essentially planned and oversaw
events. Besides events they kept five programs going. One was the Praise the Lord Board, an
eight-foot kiosk in front of the cafeteria where students could post messages about what the Lord
was doing in their lives. The Evangelistic Crusaders were teams of students who went out each
week to churches to sing, testify and preach. The committee and the Department of Religion
sponsored them. The Springboard was a biweekly publication of the committee. It had
announcements, short articles, religious poems and testimonials. There was often a commentary
on a chapel talk, when Susan Martin wrote about being mad, knowing she should not and trying
to repress it. “When Chaplain Welch said we aren’t at the beginning or the end, we’re in the
middle of the race, I could relate.” The Coffee House was a gathering in the snack shack where
students would sing and testify and read the scriptures. “It is a place where the Body can come
together in praise and worship our Lord through sharing in song, the Word, and fellowship with
one another.” 152
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d. Student Concern and Proposal
On June 5, 1975, a group of students who were involved in some sort of campus ministry met
with Dean of Students Jim Jackson, Director of Campus Ministries (church placement) Cliff
Fisher, and Chaplain Reuben Welch. The purpose of the meeting was to express concern for the
conditions of spiritual life. Given the new religious pluralism on campus, the students felt the
need for more planned and intensive means of evangelism on campus, and they proposed a fulltime Director of Campus Ministries.
e. Three Students on Spiritual Life
Mike Christensen - Mike graduated from Point Loma and Drew Divinity School. He taught
there for several years and is now pastor of the Berkeley United Methodist Church.
In the mid-1960s students, at secular universities were demonstrating and occupying
administration buildings for days with demands for change. Dan Royer and others thought
something should be done to show how different we were, so he and friends led the effort and
raised the funds to build the prayer chapel. Important symbolism.
“I was at the Point Loma campus one year and Ron Benefiel was there. He led the movement to
move the Prescott Prayer Chapel from the Pasadena campus to the Point Loma campus, so it is a
symbol of student-led spirituality on campus. Wonderful space.”
Prior to the move, the Trustees regularly expressed concern about the absence of a nearby
church. During the years after the move, certain church leaders were sure nothing was going on
spiritually, and the college was drifting away. At the same time, local District Superintendent
Nick Hull was resisting a campus church. There was talk of merging the three San Diego
churches and locating it on the Point, but there was no strength to that movement. In the absence
of such a mega-church, Hull wanted his local churches to benefit from the new people, so the
college was not allowed in the first decade to organize a church on campus. The Alumni
Association wanted to have a service on campus and three local pastors wrote letters opposing
it.153 So, one major means of grace went unorganized, but not because of the college. Shortly
after being reelected as District Superintendent, Nick Hull resigned to return to Arkansas and
General Superintendent Coulter appointed Rev. Bob Scott to be the new DS.
What were students doing in those first years? Reuben was only a half-time chaplain and it
seemed like spontaneously there was student initiative to build their own spiritual infrastructure
on campus.
“Well, near the end of the 1970s you have Rebecca (Laird) involved. She organized some
student ministry groups that went on mission trips over Spring Break to Mexico and San
Francisco, which had not existed before. She and her friends put that together in 1980-81. So we
were both in our own era involved in student-initiated ministries.
“But I remember as available resources were the Nazarene NYI and the Student Mission Corps,
so the Church of the Nazarene had a student corps. I went on it. They would come to campus and
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interview students who wanted to do a summer abroad in ministry at one of the Nazarene
missions or Nazarene churches around the world. I remember them coming every year and I took
advantage of it in the year I graduated, ‘77. I applied and I went to Taiwan and Hong Kong and
worked with our missionaries there. The missionaries in Taiwan were the Zumwalts and in Hong
Kong their name I can’t remember. So that was available as a student activity much like you
have now with Loveworks. That was our Loveworks.
“Then Rebecca’s group developed their program, ’79 through ’81. During spring breaks they
went to different mission projects in Mexico and San Francisco. That’s how I met Rebecca; she
brought a group of students to the Golden Gate Community in 1980. I met her later and said
‘Man, she’d make a good staff member after she graduates.’”
So the school had not organized any student mission trips. Levers. It was all student led.
“Yep. The denomination had its own international programs. So what was happening, I’d say
there were two groups, two groups of distinctly Christian leaders at this time. One was the Jesus
People. Michael Dodson and the people who started the health food store in San Jose were
students at the time. It was a commune, that a Nazarene pastor turned Jesus People movement.
These are names you’d have to dig out because I just can’t recall them, but he recruited students
from Point Loma to come up and join or start a commune. They would run a health food store as
an income-producing thing and live in community in San Jose. There are some names we could
gather from the ’75, ’76, 77 era. They were Jesus hippie types. They found fault with the
Religion Department because of theology. They didn’t like Frank Carver’s theology; they liked
Reuben well enough, but some of the liberal theology that was taught in the classroom and
wasn’t fundamentalist, wasn’t Jesus People oriented, they found fault with. That was an impetus
to their own Bible Studies.
“They developed an alternative to the Bible teachings they were getting in class. I wasn’t a part
of that group. I call it the Navigator’s group because they brought a curriculum from the
Navigators, who have a very intensive Bible Study and evangelism, and an agenda that took root
in the guy’s dorms at least. I don’t know, probably there were women also, but I remember it
was coming up all over the place on campus. Steve Hawthorne, I think Paul Pate was part of
them, but I could be wrong. I’m trying to picture him.”
The Jesus People phenomenon did not last long but the other group did. What were the
influences of your generation?
“Well our group was a more moderate group theologically; we were not opposed to the religion
profs like the hippies were, the Jesus People, and we were not so much into living in communes,
but concern for spirituality and ministry. I ended up joining Don Hall. (Don Hall was chaplain
for two years and organized the Point Loma Community Church of the Nazarene, which had to
meet off campus at a local elementary school.) He was chaplain and invited me to join him as a
student and work for him. So did Mike McCafferty and we offered a lot of student activities out
of the chaplain’s office.
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“We were influenced by Francis Schaeffer at L’Abi, and many of us had gone to L’Abri. Bruce
McCormick had gone to L’Abri, Carmen Berry went to L’Abri, I went to L’Abri, and we were
really taken with L’Abri’s intensive Bible study and Christian teachings. Bruce more than me.
I was more like C. S. Lewis. I liked C. S. Lewis’ approach and not Francis Schaeffer’s
fundamentalist approach to the Bible, but I liked L’Abri as a community. So we tried to bring a
little of L’Abri the spirit of L’Abri, to campus with the literature, the tapes, you know they had,
part of your day at L’Abri was to listen to Christian teachings on tape. They had kind of a library
of tapes and you’d listen.
“In 1975, we were given space in the Student Activities Building, so
for at least a year or two that I was there we had the Christian Resource
Center. We made literature available, books available, magazines.
Even had sort of our own published newsletter. The college was not
offering anything, so these things emerged. There was a felt need. We
all liked Reuben as chaplain.”
Nothing like that was going on at the Pasadena campus. Chapel in
Pasadena was five days a week and in that auditorium and it had three walls and a curtain. You
felt like this was chapel space. Then when we moved down to the bleachers of the gymnasium, we
lose all that, so the chapel and the small size of the Pasadena campus…
“Reuben was here too, occupying that space, and effective. He was always effective.”
How about Dr. Brown? Did you have much contact with him?
“Yes, we had a run-in over the Blunt so I saw that side of him, protecting the college, bowing to
the constituency. I also saw part of him being open to different point of view. So, for example,
when the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance came out, it made a big splash in that
era. In many ways it defined my generation in terms of relation to other religions. He was the one
who loaned me a copy. He said ‘Mike, I think you’d enjoy this book.’ So I read it, and it was a
good book. My reaction was ‘Wow.’”
Spiritual and open. Chaplain and student initiatives and seriousness. Levers and symbols. Good
combinations. Thanks Mike.
Mike Mata - Mike was at the Pasadena campus his freshman and
sophomore years. It was the beginning of the Jesus People movement
and there were a few on the campus there who reached out to him.
“I was one of the few ‘long hairs’ attending PC at that time. They were
instrumental in nurturing me through a spiritual crisis. I was introduced
to many a group and person who were very much at the vanguard of
spiritual renewal in Southern California at that time, including Chuck
Smith (recently passed founder of Calvary Chapel), Church on the Way,
‘Jesus music,’ etc.”
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They changed his spiritual personae. “It was that profound spiritual experience that made me
somewhat evangelistic on campus (and beyond) about the possibility of having a deeper and
more liberating relationship with Jesus. I would say that at times I was too aggressive in
challenging others to seek a more intimate spiritual encounter. Some to this day might think I
was a bit too fervent in my religious expression at that time, but I truly wanted others to have a
similar experience to my own. That period of searching and ‘being found’ has left a life-long
impression on me.
“San Diego provided a plethora of opportunities or experiences with Nazarene churches and
other denominations. I really did not find something that matched my experience in the LA area.
So when groups or a group began to form on campus for worship it was something I welcomed.
Some of us actually tried to recreate an off-campus living situation dedicated to seeking out and
living out a vital faith (failing miserably). I still have some (though not constant) contact with
some of those individuals (some still on ‘the path’ and others, sad to say, who have veered off
the path).
The student Spiritual Life Committee ran the Coffee House in the evenings in that smaller and
informal eating area with the fireplace (later called The Tank). “Yes, most of what I remember
was the times there in the evenings. We seemed to drift but to whatever was on campus as our
focal point for spiritual nurture. But I changed my major to Biblical literature and so I got all the
Bible I wanted.”
Charlene Pate is Professor of Literature. Her parents both worked for the
college in Pasadena. Not liking the conditions around the college, she had
decided to go to Eastern Nazarene College until the announcement that the
college was moving, so she doubled up on her high school work so she
could graduate as a junior and start college in 1973.
What was the spiritual life like on campus?
“The spiritual atmosphere on campus was vibrant and spontaneous. Conversations among
students, and between students and faculty and staff often revolved around their spiritual lives.
Organized Bible studies occurred across campus on a regular basis as did spontaneous Bible
studies. When students talked in the dorms, the library, the Kick Back Area (KBA), the cafeteria,
in front of the gym, on the cliffs, wherever they were, they could be seen opening up the Word
and talking about passages that had spoken to them recently, passages Reuben had spoken about
in chapel, or passages they were grappling to understand or by which they were challenged to
apply to their lives.
“The spontaneous nature of the spiritual climate was also enhanced by the number of students
who played the guitar. Students would often sit down to play and sing choruses and hymns. If
someone was alone initially, it wouldn’t take long before a group of friends walking by would
stop to join in the worship.”
That sounds like a there was a clear spiritual atmosphere here. A lot of people outside the
college thought there was nothing going on for spiritual development. Reuben was only a half185
time chaplain and faculty and administers were busy, so there was a shallow and neglected
spiritual culture. What the college needed was more rules and top-down programs.
“I was in choir with Dr. Pagan and Point Loma Singers with Dr. Tweed, and they made singing
in choir and representing Point Loma a spiritual experience, too. Then being involved in the
travel representing the college wherever and whatever we did, I felt the privilege of being part of
it. Eventually I dropped out of the music program to serve as a leader of Navigators on campus
and to lead a Bible study.”
But weren’t the Navigators an expression of discomfort or a rejection of the teachings in the
Religion Department?
“Oh heavens no, not at all. Alongside all the organic spiritual aliveness that existed on campus,
the Navigators provided spiritual depth, a structure, and a self-disciplined approach for spiritual
growth through Bible and scripture memorization. The focus was on one’s personal relationship
with God, so they were not competing with the Religion Department. I can remember being a
student here at that period of time and just the dynamic of it. I think Reuben helped create the
dynamic.”
Did the atmosphere of the gym lead students to be talk a lot in chapel and not pay attention?
“Reuben and his sermons drew students. They did not want to miss it. There were no issues in
terms of students talking. That is where people wanted to be.”
And to think that we gathered in the gymnasium. You would think the students and everybody
else would be saying “No way, I can’t go to chapel in there.”
“Those of us who were freshmen the first year the college was down here didn’t know anything
different. It was just the way it was and what we did. Different people and groups from across
campus were involved in chapel, which made it feel like a community event. He made it work
beautifully.”
That’s right. Thanks Charlene.
f. Faculty
Faculty were caught up with their teaching and their family lives, so their focus was not the
students and campus in the evenings. Still, they were there because it was a Christian college and
they wanted to contribute to the spiritual atmosphere on campus. Most were in every chapel, for
Reuben Welch’s sermons were for the whole campus, and though they attended churches in the
area, their primary worship times were chapel times. Later, chapel would be purposefully
redirected to focus exclusively on the students and lost much of its appeal for faculty. Their
classes were academic rather than doctrinal, so their approach was scholarship rather than
apologetics. Some courses lent themselves to doctrinal (evolution), ethical (war and peace) and
spiritual reflection (literature, psychology) discussions. Some faculty members were ministerial
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by nature (Jim Jackson, Paul Culbertson). Many began classes with prayer and continued to
advise and counsel students on a one-to-one basis.
Summary - Mid-morning chapel three days a week remained the center of spiritual
development. But around it were several other means of grace, all voluntary, no adult taking
attendance or hovering in the back. Most students did not leave their faith at home or lose it on
campus. Evangelistic Crusaders were teams of students who went to churches to sing and preach
teach. Student had their own style of music and they needed it so they developed a weekly
spiritual gathering called Coffee House in the small recreations room off the cafeteria. There
they sang and read scripture and testified. In the dorms were 29 organized Bible Study groups.
Those were student-run under the Student Spiritual Life Committee. Other students saw other
needs and developed the Christian Resource Center and the Navigator’s Bible Study group.
1978 Graduates
A survey of 1978 graduates for this study unearthed a common experience; they found Reuben
Welch’s preaching, holiness as a journey, improved how they thought about their Christian life,
and that gave them more hope about their life and Christian life. As one student wrote, “I became
a stronger Christian through my experiences at PLNU. I came from a Presbyterian background,
and was powerfully influenced by Reuben’s gospel for all men and women.”
Most found God’s will or direction for their life at college, through speakers or faculty advisors,
with faculty advisors noted three times more often as speakers.
No one remembered a single Spiritual Emphasis speaker, but several noted there was too much
emotionalism connected with the altar calls. Most of the respondents were from Nazarene church
and since few of the speakers for those weeks were “revivalist” types, my assumption is they
meant altar calls.
5. L PAUL GRESHAM AND REBUILDING ACADEMICS
A second key core value was academic quality. Dr. Bresee wanted a university like USC.
President Purkiser once said that we were a trimmed down university, but in Pasadena we were
only a trimmed down college.154 One example was political science. In the 1950s, at a moderatesized liberal arts college, political science was an area of teaching assigned as an extra chore to
some member of the history department. That was true at Pasadena College into the 1960s. In the
1970s, that same moderate-sized college would have had a political science major in its own
department with four political scientists offering a serious program. In 1973, Point Loma College
did not even have a major in the field.
That same story could be told of other programs, and faculty in the coming years would be
divided between the satisfied and the entrepreneurs, between those wanting more faculty and
smaller classes for better teaching and those wanting graduate programs for value and impact
beyond that of hundreds of other small liberal arts colleges. Would the old Pasadena College be
rebuilt or would there be a quest for a more significant school?
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Whichever path the college pursued, it had to do a lot just to get started. Twenty-seven faculty
members did not move to San Diego. Some departments or majors had complete turnover. The
number of qualified faculty members belonging to the Church of the Nazarene were not
plentiful, and the President and Dean Paul Gresham had to fill the openings as best they could.
Deans and the heads of programs always have a file of people who had written exploratory
letters, and those would be reviewed. There were still some faculty members available, who as a
group had left Olivet Nazarene College in a controversial presidential purge. Bill Hobbes, David
Strawn and Beryl Dillman had been recruited from there in the late 1960s. Others were found in
other churches, some who stayed only a couple years and others who found a career here.
An easy solution was to hire people outside the faith or the Wesleyan tradition and just rely on
the “critical mass” of Nazarene faculty. Such a critical mass solution would never be considered.
The faculty hired might not be the best at the time, but they would be within the faith tradition.
The 1973-1974 school year opened with a full curriculum and all faculty positions filled with
Christians, but how many of those quickly recruited remained five years later?
In the Art Department, Lois Hall was retired and Bob Bullock decided not to make the move, so
Gresham had to build a completely new department, as well as in speech, where none of the fulltime faculty moved. In the Chemistry Department, all moved with the college, and Dale
Shellhamer was added.
In between were departments who lost some portion of their Pasadena faculty. Four of five
faculty members in Religion moved and three remained in 1978 while two of the three faculty in
Philosophy moved and one remained in 1978. Two faculty switched departments, Harold Young
moved from Sociology to Teacher Education at the Pasadena campus, and Ismael Amaya from
Spanish to Religion.
When classes began in September 1973, 64 faculty members from Pasadena were there, joined
by 33 new recruits. The new arrivals were an unstable group, some untested, some out of place,
some seeking a comfortable environment, and some serious members with the core values of the
college. Of those 33, only nine were still there in 1978. Of the 64 who moved with the college in
1973, 27 were still serving in 1978. Forty years after the move, the last faculty member who
made the move and was still teaching was Ben Foster, and he retired that year.
Dean Gresham retired in 1977. Keith Pagan was named Dean and faced the growing effects of
the U.S. economy, including the challenge of hiring faculty in light of the Great Inflation of the
1970s, as detailed earlier. As Pagan told the Trustees:
The simple fact is that salaries at PLC are not sufficient to entice
professionals from other geographic areas to move to an area
they consider prohibitively expensive.
Commitment. What is being described is the willingness (or even
enthusiasm) to serve for a major portions of one’s professional
life at an economic level hardly removed from basis subsistence
with good grace and with joy.
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The following are four examples of rebuilding departments during those first five years.
a. Rebuilding Teacher Education: There are two parts to this section, one with Dr.
Beryl Dillman from his interview with Joe Watkins, and the other with Dr. Phil Fitch.
When you were part of the move to San Diego, what vision did you have for the college here in
San Diego?
.
BD: “Yeah, well, I really had a great vision for it; we could fulfill quite of bit of what Dr. Bresee
had wanted by being down here, where we would have room to expand. Then, the fact that we
had an extension-type program kind of broke the ice to expand our total offerings, and I really
felt good about it. I knew there were many on our faculty who said and felt we are not a graduate
school, we are not a university, we are a Christian college. That was the basic philosophy of at
least 50% of the people if not more. At least half, and you knew even at the time they changed
the name from college to university, even by then there were a lot of people who still said we are
really not a graduate school, we are a small private Christian college. So there were a lot of
people who had a different vision. There are some schools that have kept a vision like that and
become good schools, I know. But I felt good about the opportunity to expand.”
When you talked about your thoughts about what this would mean for us to move, you mentioned
the idea that it might mean we could fulfill some of Dr. Bresee’s visions of the university. Talk
about that a little bit.
BD: “I think he had maybe more of a vision that just a small private school. He had a vision of a
university. He certainly had been a part of a big university and he knew what it was like and I
don’t know if he ever envisioned that we would be a USC or not, but I think he used that as his
model. So I think making the move down here made that much more possible than to have stayed
up there.”
Did those differing visions create stress or tension between faculty?
BD: “I’m sure there was some, and I can’t speak for some who were on the other side of the
fence about it, but it didn’t create stress to the extent that it was a serious problem I could see.
We were still so well accepted in the community and even when they set up that cooperative
program with Northern Arizona, we were the first Nazarene school to help set up a doctoral
program that I know of. Now it wasn’t our doctorate, but they could get half of their courses
beyond the master’s degree from us, then go over there and do their dissertation and get
whatever else they still needed. That program lasted a long time, but at that time there was a need
for a doctorate in education here (San Diego) because there were no other doctorates in
education; the nearest was USIU, which might have had a doctorate in leadership or something
like that, but no doctorates in education.
“Dr. Phil Fitch was with us at that time and Phil is a great man, a great mixer, and a great public
relations man, one of the best. And then when Dr. Jack Stone came to help us in the school of
education, it was through him we got that doctoral program with Arizona; he spearheaded that. .
We tried to set it up with USC at first but they really weren’t interested. So I told Jack Stone, and
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I also told Shelburne Brown and Dr. Gresham about a friend of mine at Arizona State. I had
called him and said do you have a doctorate in education in the field of school administration?
Yes. Do you think your people would be interested in a cooperative education program? Well, I
think we would. And so while he wasn’t the administrator, he put us in touch with the right
people and we got that worked out. So between Dr. Fitch, Dr. Stone, and then the others we
brought in, the Education Department really had a wonderful open field.”
The teacher education program is not self-contained in campus classrooms; it relies on local
teachers and administrators, so you needed a lot of cooperation. Did you have any fears of
rebuilding the program in a new area?
PF: “We just saw it as a great opportunity, and being relatively new I didn’t have a lot of
connections or contacts with the San Diego area. Some of us went to San Diego to meet San
Diego administrators and they were all very favorable. I mean especially the San Diego City
Schools. They came out to the campus and talked to the students in our education classes about
San Diego City Schools. That first year we started with one of the elementary schools in South
San Diego, Baker Elementary, and it was just terrific. Then two or three of the key
administrators in the District Office liked us and later we involved them in doing some teaching
for us, and so that all worked out.”
That’s great. I always wondered how you build a new program in a new area. I just had this
view of us as being outsiders so I am always pleased to hear how accepted we were.
PF: “We really were in the public schools. We already knew the USIU people and we knew the
USD people quite well, and I knew the second person in the Office of Teacher Ed at UCSD, and
they had a relatively young program (not yet approved by the California Commission), so when
we went down, it was little known, but we agreed to have them use our approval process to get
the UCSD approved.”
Is that right?
PF: “Yeah, for about five years, while UCSD was starting up its program. We never got in
trouble with the Commission for doing it for UCSD, but we did later on with USIU, for it was
setting up some bogus programs. They said ‘Do you know what they are setting up?’ and I said
No. ‘Well you’d better start monitoring that. They need to go through you.’ After that we began
bringing in some of their transcripts. I remember the Registrar coming down saying, ‘What is
this?’ Laughter. ‘We can’t approve this.’ So we stopped it. We stopped it with USIU and by that
time UCSD was mature enough to get its own approval.
“Here’s another area of cooperation. We knew the dean who was at USD through the state
association, and we proposed there be a Deans Council for San Diego County. So the deans from
San Diego State, Cal Western/USIU and USD became the core. When National University
requested to come in, it wasn’t admitted, nor was Christian Heritage, so it wasn’t all the
institutions…”
But we were in?
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PF: “Yes. So we had a Deans Council that met once or twice a month; Beryl and I went together.
We weren’t Deans but we were considered Directors, so we’d go to those meetings and became
part of the mutual help network. For a while, in some schools like Claremont High School or
Point Loma High, if they had student teachers we would help supervise some of their people and
they’d do the same for us out at Hoover High, so there was a lot of cooperation.”
I know you brought a good program down, and I’m sure when they saw it, they knew it.
PF: “You asked if we saw a difference in the students. Increasingly in my mind I saw a
difference. One of the real benefits to me was having the graduate programs grow so fast. In
Education, we brought in a lot of master’s candidates who were San Diego people and boy did
that make a difference. They were bright and loyal to the college; to my mind we never had a
single problem with anyone from any of the school districts in the county coming out there to do
graduate work where they would smoke or use bad language. They were quality people and I
think it really helped the college in an area the public didn’t know; in the public school arena I
think it really helped the image of the college.
“In fact, I remember at one time the San Diego Superintendent had four assistant superintendents
and three of the four had all gone through Point Loma programs. Two of them were very
influential, Bev Foster and Al Cooke, and became Deputy Superintendents of San Diego for
more than 10 years. So they became our friends, of course.
Congratulations Phil, Beryl, Vern Pearson and all the rest in the program.
b. Rebuilding the Department of History and Political Science: That department
broke apart over the move. It is difficult to have ambitions for a program when half your
teaching load is teaching large freshman classes, and both historians declined to move to the
uncertainties of starting over in San Diego. Thomas Andrews, who taught American history and
specialized in the history of the west, was offered a position to his liking at another Christian
college and he decided to accept that offer. Larry Hybertson replaced Ray Cooke in 1971 in
European history. He did not move with the college because he was offered the position as
Operations Director of the Massachusetts Alternative Treatments Project in Boston. He wrote to
President Brown that he wrestled with the “most difficult” decision he ever made but decided to
go with an offer “which has proven to be unexpectedly enticing.” Kirkemo in political science
stayed with his alma mater and made the move to San Diego and became the Registrar of the
college in 1973, which cut his teaching load in half.
It took a couple years to rebuild the department. Dwayne Little, who had left Olivet Nazarene
College with the others, came to teach American history. His focus was the Progressive Era and
its purposes and values. It was not until 1978 that Jim Jackson Jr. came to teach European
history. The freshman American civilization course, with 120 students in each section, had been
team-taught by Andrews and Kirkemo in Pasadena, and now by Little and Kirkemo during these
five years. Little was determined to replace such mass education with more personal approach to
teaching by reducing class size. Believing students needed a better understanding of their world,
they convinced the school to replace American civilization with world civilization and the team191
taught approach was dropped. That left Kirkemo free to resign as Registrar in 1977, lay plans for
a full political science major in the future (that would take over a decade and a half to get
approval through the “satisfieds”), and publish a book on American foreign policy in 1976 that
would provide the only Wesleyan perspective on that field in the academic world since 1965.
c. Preserve and Protect—Literature: The Literature Department included literature,
English and foreign language. All three were included in the large General Education (GE)
requirement, which is the group of courses all students must take. The content of the courses
represents what the faculty as a whole considers the basic content of a general education, and so
the entire faculty must approve changes in the content. At Pasadena, the total size of the GE—the
number of required courses and uses—was among the largest in the collegiate world, in part to
give a wide and modern education, and in part because having courses required for all students
guarantees the size if not the survival of each department. It affords departmental protection
rather than student choice. Efforts to change the distribution of courses or units among the
departments are met with fierce and entrenched resistance.
Literature had two sophomore-level courses that covered both American and European literature,
and the content was basically the same among the four professors who taught the courses,
Fordyce Bennett, Noel Fitch, Jim Hedges and Mike McKinney. Azusa Pacific College, a nearby
Christian college, offered Jim Hedges an attractive position in 1973 and he took it. There was no
effort and no energy to take the opportunity to re-engineer the requirements; the GE program
successfully crossed the bridge to San Diego intact.
Glenn Sadler was hired into the literature program in 1973. He brought a new element, children’s
literature, in which he had already published. Also popular among students, Sadler was a good
addition to the literature program and was expected to conform his GE courses to the agreed
upon content, but he changed the content in his courses to cover his primary interests: children’s
literature, science fiction literature and the writings of C. S. Lewis. The Academic Policies
Committee insisted that the GE core not be personal and must reflect what is generally
understood to be world classics, so the purposes and values of the studying masterpieces were
preserved.
d. Building a Complete Program—Psychology: In Pasadena, the psychology program
was largely Paul Culbertson. He developed it and was the only full-time teacher, and since it was
an adopted program (his PhD was in history), it represented his personal and theoretical cast.
Sam Mayhugh came in 1970 and taught full time and opened an office for a practice. Keith Holly
taught part time while he worked on a big federal project.
Only Culbertson moved in 1973 and kept the program alive. There was no one to take his place,
so he moved down and taught full time for one year. Keith Olsen joined Culbertson part time.
Olsen had a private practice in San Diego built around evangelical Christianity, for he sought to
integrate the perspectives of psychology and the Bible. Change came in 1975. Eugene Mallory
had taught at Whittier College and got tired of administrative control so left in 1973 and took a
job in private practice in Detroit. Dr. Brown called him and then flew to Michigan to talk with
him. Mallory came and found Point Loma really refreshing and was given the freedom to design
and build a full-scale psychology program. He revised the curriculum over the next couple years.
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He brought Glen Chafee to San Diego in 1976 and Keith Holly joined them full time that year,
completing the personnel. Mallory, Chafee and Holly opened a practice at the shopping center
near the campus, and then tried too much.
In 1976, they opened a graduate program. That is a logical next step for a college that wants to
be more than “a small college,” minimum, modest, and bordering on mundane. It is for those
who conceive of their college having a perspective, in this case Wesleyan values, that it should
be brought into the scholastic world of professionals and graduate programs. But the additional
costs have to be covered. One way is to “grow your own,” start small and use current faculty and
students. But each graduate course taught is one less undergraduate course taught, unless a new
faculty is hired to teach one or the other. Or the program can be launched fully developed, and
unless it’s guaranteed to attract large numbers of students to cover the costs, a large endowment
will have to be raised to fund it. The department sought to do the former without using someone
else to cover the other courses. The only way to do that was to add the teaching load for the
graduate program onto the top of an existing full-time undergraduate teaching load.
By 1976, the psychology faculty was teaching full time, counseling at its center and teaching
graduate courses. That only lasted two years. In 1977, the master’s degree program was
abandoned; Glen Chafee returned to Detroit and John Allen took his place in 1978. They had
built well, far beyond the Pasadena program, but the graduate effort was too much like Icarus.
The four reached for their best, a star of a program, but could not do it all.
e. Modern Academics – It is one task to rebuild departments, another to protect and promote
quality academics. We live in two worlds, the traditional and the modern. There are those in the
church world who do not accept modern, insisting on a purely traditional view of the cosmos and
rejecting modern science. During the early years, a group calling itself Summit University
invited students to attend an in-depth summer training program in ideological science to
inoculate them against the science they would meet, even in Christian colleges, where science is
taught on the basis of evidence.
Some students from Pasadena College had attended, and Summit used Pasadena College as an
example of support of its program in its advertising and recruiting materials. The President and
Dean protested to Summit and in its March 8, 1976 minutes, expresses gratitude that “Summit
University has agreed not to use the name Pasadena College in their advertising or for recruiting
purposes.” 155
4. JIM JACKSON AND REBUILDING STUDENT LEADERSHIP
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,
He Whose Name is Counselor and Pow’r.
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
Two other core values are a campus culture of graceful decency and an open rather than sectarian
culture. Students at a newly organizing college lived in a stunning location—they must have
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thought this was the time to make some big changes. Dean Jackson’s office was in one building
and the ASB offices were the SAB (Student Activities Building).
Didn’t that make it easier for student leaders to go off in their own direction?
“Someone said, ‘Well that ought to be where your office is.’ I said, ‘No, this is where they ought
to be.’
So you had a lot of faith in them, and you involved them in campus leadership and building the
new college?
“Well, do you call the student newspaper the “P’Cinian” anymore? Students had to deal with
what we do. So it became the Point. Then, what about La Sierra? So, they are setting up and
going to have a yearbook. Why should we call it La Sierra here? It has to have something to do
with the sea. So, The Mariner. See, this was students working with how to deal (with such
issues). None of us said, ‘That’s what it ought to be called.’ They came up with some stuff.
Here’s a group challenged, so they took over that building and what is interesting is that they
furnished it.”
That sounds like another core value—collegiality. But the SAB never functioned as a student
center.
“In 1960, we built the student building in Pasadena. Kids used that lower floor for many, many
things. It was great. Mailboxes were there. What happened here? Mail was all in the dorms. No
center, no place, so life was just like Del Mar, El Cajon, Rancho Bernardo. Where do we have
student life? That’s where that “kick back” area came in. A few students began to gather before
they ate, or after they ate. The weather most of the time was decent. So, it was one of the good
things that happened. As they developed this (they could say) we did it.”
We came to a different campus, a different culture. Obviously some of the rules for staid
Pasadena would not work in a coastal culture. What levers did you use?
“When we came visiting Cal Western/USIU, kids were in all kinds of dress and undress and
whatever. Shelburne decided there is a standard with which we go to school. So he passed out
‘this is what we’re going to look like.’ He outlined what students would wear because if you
wear something too informal, you don’t respect the classroom. You don’t learn. So his first year
students were saying, ‘You mean in this climate, this ocean view, this beach community, we are
going to wear long pants, we’re going to wear dresses or whatever?’ And he was very clear in
what he wanted.”
During the last year in Pasadena some students were wearing bib overalls. That was a big thing
and he was trying to stop that.
“He cut down on that; he didn’t ask me. He sent the letters.”
I smiled. Then we’d have a September heat wave, and the whole code could just be blasted away.
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“Plus, the culture of San Diego is different from the Pasadena culture. Pasadena is a more staid,
refined community. We are an educational group that moved to the beach campus, surfers, a
different world.”
So that lever for adulthood in dress did not triumph over cultural changes in society in general
and the coastal culture. The way students dress was never a core value but was an operating
value and in the 1950s was very specific on what students could wear; it also failed. It takes a
dictatorship to resist generational change.
“Now, a different change: the dorms. We believe in a residential college. A lot goes on in the
dorms. What are these kids doing when they are not in class? They are living together. Always
Christian. One of the things that changed was, in Pasadena we had dorm mothers and dorm pops,
and several did not come. In Point Loma they were called Head Residents. Also, we had drug
dealers coming up and knocking on doors in the resident halls to sell drugs. How do we deal with
these dorms that are so scattered? What do we want? Some people wanted to get trained
counselors to be Head Residents. And we trained ours with long-term training in what do we do
in the dorms.
“Another change – dorm names. I am responsible for names. Now, USIU had names but we
didn’t want them. We carried over Klassen and Young, which was the newest one in Pasadena.
Then, we named the third one after Dr. Hendricks from the early history of the college. But those
who remembered Klassen and Young picked up on that. Some of the students who lived in
Young wanted to be in Young.”
So students were involved in naming dorms?
“It helped to bring them in. Then women. Our main dorm in Pasadena was Goodwin. But we
didn’t have names for the others, so we chose names of the Presidents. Nease, that is a strong
name. Wiley was a natural, and then the reason for Finch was because the Finches had given
money for a health center, and we were going to put it in that dorm, and that would be our health
center. Then we discovered we could use another more central building but we still used Finch.
But we said, we don’t need all this space, so what can we do? For married kids, there were no
inexpensive apartments, so we took Wiley and made it into married housing.”
Married housing, I don’t remember that. Several students told me finding housing here was
much more difficult than in Pasadena.
“Each couple would have a unit, so you had a bathroom and four rooms. You could have a
kitchen. That became married housing. We had never had that. So what happened? Married
students were on campus; they got into activities, they would be involved much more. I can’t
point to anything specific, but I think it did something to make it feel more settled. They were
entering into student government, into the whole thing, which helped to settle them. But it gave
married students opportunity to be there. We opened Wiley for them. We didn’t need it for
regular students the first year. Probably we kept it two years until our student body grew and we
needed it for regular students. And then ultimately we built married housing over on the other
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side of the campus. I look back at that, and that was probably one of the good things that
happened to us.”
Church was another crucial issue for the college. There were few churches nearby and no
campus church. What about churches? There was no church on campus but several in Ocean
Beach and several near San Diego State that had large college groups.
Jackson brought back memories of an issue. “You remember the first year or so, on Sundays we
had a lineup of buses, Skyline, University Avenue, First Church, and I don’t know where else. I
don’t think College Avenue had a bus, but Skyline definitely did. They’d have people in the
meantime who were to get ‘customers.’ Reuben may have felt this more in some ways. I don’t
know how or why the buses stopped coming, but Skyline had a strong college program…”
I remember later there was a decision made that no non-Nazarene church could bring a bus on
campus on Sunday to pick up students.
“Yeah. Some of our Nazarene churches claimed that our kids were being led off to…better
churches. Since that was not a President’s cabinet decision it must have been the President alone
who decided that. I know the issues of no nearby Nazarene church concerned the Trustees.
“Now, one of the important decisions I think for our Pasadena students was moving Prescott
Prayer Chapel. It had just been completed. For students, that was important. Some of the students
who helped get that built came with us, and so this was another way to say, ‘This isn’t all new.’”
The President lamented that it cost more to move the little
prayer chapel than it did to build it.
“I’m not sure who all made the decision and found the
money but it was so needed for us to say, ‘Yes, this is your
project and we will bring it with us.’ It made a difference
in the mood of that group, the ones that came down.”
I think we were all surprised at the reaction of the alumni. This was not their campus so why
come to Alumni Day or Homecoming?
“Yes. We had all this, ‘You left Pasadena, you’ve given away the campus, no thought of us any
more, you have abandoned us.’”
So, do we try to rebuild loyalty, or build a new set of memories?
“During the first few years the student body set up floats. Student organizations would make a
float, and they had a parade.”
I remember they came down Catalina Street, so we were doing something new, building a
positive and enjoyable identity in the neighborhood.
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Then Jackson became serious. “We have to recognize that one of the basic things that helped us
was students who had been in Pasadena, student leaders, who were determined to make this
campus what they thought it ought to be. The student council that first year, they were people
who came from Pasadena, and those people believed…they said ‘How do we make this campus
work with the same values of Pasadena?’ They were the ones who brought students together and
when I look back, I think they were challenged by the opportunity and task. They were willing to
give a lot of time, and I appreciated that. I was with them in all their meetings; they had a sense
that this is our school, let’s do it.”
Nicely said. The student leaders were a main bridge between the campuses, bringing a
commitment to the college and its values, there and here. They were also main levers Jackson
used to shape the campus culture.
5. CARROLL LAND AND REBUILDING THE SPORTS COMPLEX .
One of the dominating buildings on campus was the gymnasium. From the perspectives of other
departments, your department did very well by the move.
“That is true and not true. The space was multiplied over what we had, but the design down here
was not well done. The gymnasium floor is an odd size because the eccentric president of Cal
Western had grown up in Montana and wanted to play ice hockey in there. And so that is the
design of the floor, which is a dimension for an ice rink.”
I had never heard that before!
“That does not bode well for a normal physical education, inter-collegiate competitive arena. But
you can see the proof of my words if you go down there; you will find concrete cutouts one foot
square on the sides of the first level of the concrete on the bottom of the floor and the water
faucets are still there. Check it out and verify the story is true. There is no reason for water
faucets every 40 or 50 feet along there unless you are going to flood something.
“There were some good things that occurred. One, everybody was so busy we didn’t have much
time to pay attention to what was going on in every aspect, and so
recognizing we had new space and facilities, even though they were
ill-designed, in some ways it gave me freedom, if not license, to try
to do the best we could in redesigning and upgrading. One of the
things that happened is we had a wonderful blacksmith employed in
Pasadena, a fellow by the name of Metzger, a little short fellow who
could build anything with machine lathes. One day early he and I
came from Pasadena to the San Diego campus and looked at the
baskets. Cal Western had used the baskets in such a way that they
had reduced this large floor in the gym just to a basketball court, which did not serve the rest of a
physical education program at all. Mr. Metzger and I looked at those baskets for a little while
and then said how can we redesign them to make them movable so we can accommodate all
kinds of activities in the gymnasium without reducing it to a basketball court? We did the design
on paper and on the drive back to Pasadena we bought all the equipment that would be
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necessary. He and I came down later and took these 3,000-pound baskets with a couple jacks and
elevated them, built the material so you could lift them off the floor with a handle and put eight
rubber drive wheels underneath them so we could then lift and move the baskets out of the gym.
That was our first major improvement.”
How about the baseball field?
“You know, in Pasadena we had to wonder around to a variety of fields in order to plan. Here,
for the first time in 25 years, the team had a field. However, it had been recently built, was not in
good shape, and sat on a canyon. It was not level ground at all. I have a picture in my office
showing it was a canyon, just a great big deep canyon.
“My belief is that the fill used to cover that canyon was rick-rack, which is a term for large
checks of concrete and rebar and all that, from when Highway 101 was converted to Interstate 5.
In that area through La Jolla, a lot of that stuff was just brought up and gotten rid of. Also that’s
the same rick-rack underneath Sunset Cliffs Park that we got blamed for and we had absolutely
nothing to do with. That junk was in that spot long before we occupied this campus. That was
filled and the baseball field put there, but it wasn’t well done.”
Exposed concrete
Irregular field
Undeveloped field
New look
So they just brought in junk as landfill to create space for the field. Was the field flat?
“No. Pieces of concrete and rebar stuck up out of the ground. We remodeled the baseball field. I
raised donations to create a baseball field, and with Huffman and a design guy, created a
remodeled design. Then the fence was broken down, balls escaped and it was a safety hazard. Dr.
Brown looked at it and recognized the difficulty, but dollars were scarce; there was no budget for
it. So Dr. Brown made a telephone call to a loyal supporter in Oregon, and in the next couple
days we received a couple truckloads of lumber. Joe Watkins who was my student assistant, and
team players including Mike Leffel, Randy Benefiel and Terry Albert and Don Schaefer, painted
the wood and created a new fence.
“As you see in that third picture, there were no dugouts. So, two years later, with a donation from
the Marshburn family, the father of a baseball player used his vacation time to do the excavation,
then the students built the dugouts during Christmas vacation of 1975.
“Then we had to build a high safety net around the field. A company came out and gave us an
estimated cost. It was beyond us so I called Mr. Metzger in Pasadena. He did welding for us. He
came down and made a design, we bought the materials and he put it together for less than the
cost the company was going to charge just to design it!
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Those are amazing stories. How about the track? My office was in
the far corner of the campus so I didn’t see much except the gym and
the track. I assumed the gym was good but I could see the track was
just dirt. Now it is first-class. How did you do that?
“It came later. I worked with Jim Bond and Bob Foster and decided,
leading up to the ’84 Olympics, that we could, with Jim Crakes’ help,
invite the British and Italian Olympic teams to come to campus and train here. To do that, we
would need a synthetic surface track. So in meetings leading up to January 1984—the Olympics
were to take place in Los Angeles in July—it was agreed to take the income from those two
national teams staying in the dorm and eating in our cafeteria as seed money to build the track.
We had to guarantee that would be done. And then on top of that we raised about $300,000
through jog-a-thongs and various gifts to go with those monies to complete the track in time.
That was the way we got the track built.”
So you were not refurbishing. You had to either rebuild or build new. But you had a great
gymnasium.
“We virtually had to rebuild everything we have except the structure of the gym. And the gym is
large enough; had if it been designed and built properly, it would be a magnificent facility. The
way it is, it’s a poor facility. To define that, the elevation in the bleachers, for example, is higher,
vertically, than normal seating provides. It’s wonderful to look over people, but the distance
from front to back is very undersized. In reality, it renders about every other row useless.
Whether you sit in front or back, your knees wrap around the person sitting in front of you. It
makes us friendlier than even the religious people we are supposed to be.
“It was ill-designed in that sense, and most gyms during that era structured more portable
bleachers. If that would have been done, the gym could probably have had at least twice as much
square footage for use than it currently has. The underneath of the foyer of the gym is a pitiful
cave that we’ve tried for years and years to make into a health fitness area. The truth of the
matter is, if you go back to the eccentric president of Cal Western, that building was built to
house the portable floor whenever you wanted to flood the area to play ice hockey.”
So you were the giant lever and prime mover in rebuilding sports at the new campus.
“I don’t know anything about that; I just brought my hammer, saw and paintbrush to work.
Reuben Welch helped on the mobile chapel stage, and he is a wonderful finish carpenter.”
INTERLUDE
The move was done. Refurbishing and rebuilding were being done. Classes were going and the
student leadership groups were operating. Now there were three less tangible areas of values.
One was whether student leaders would try to make the college work well. They were, as Jim
Jackson put it, “determined to make of this campus what they thought it ought to be.”
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But there were two other areas of high value that were even less tangible. The core value of
academic integrity couldn’t be reached on a campus where faculty felt vulnerable and Presidents
were autocratic. Could something like the atmosphere and relationships between faculty and
administration of Pasadena be reproduced in the San Diego location so they would feel secure
and teach what and how they believe would be the best? Another core value was being a place
where students found grace, direction and hope in their lives. The answers would be found in the
Faculty Council and Chapel. In the last chapel in Pasadena, just before the move, President
Brown spoke of the importance of attitudes.
--------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENT BROWN
I think the thing that has been the highest on all our minds is the realization that we will not be
continuing to be a Christian college by some lucky chance. We only maintain our ideals because
we intend to maintain them. And when it is all finalized it comes back to you and to me. If I am a
committed Christian and manifest that in my life, and you in your life, and really care about this,
then we can build a Christian campus. And when we are making a transition of this nature and
this magnitude it will be tremendously important for each of us to examine our own hearts as to
our relationship with the future, and what Pasadena College/Point Loma College should be.
And I wish over this summer that you’d be thinking and praying and asking yourselves about
what sort of a Christian I should be, what sort of an individual and what is my contribution to
seeing to it that this college maintain its specifics, its purpose and its goals in terms of actual
practice, where I live.
Last Chapel service at Pasadena College, June 4, 1973
_____________________________________
6. BILL HOBBS AND THE FACULTY COUNCIL
Faculty members have different priorities. For some, all emphasis is on building their academic
program. Others are wrapped up in their research and writing. The experience of some with
authoritarian leaders leads them to emphasize rights and protections.
The Camelot or fellowship atmosphere of the last years in Pasadena would be hard to reproduce
at Point Loma. Conditions of the first years destroyed the collegiate culture that had developed in
the past decade. Now, living up to an hour away from campus and working on a larger campus
with scattered buildings eroded the culture of Pasadena College. The faculty was aware of this,
but had no means to raise issues or organize themselves for action. They were members of the
California Teachers Association, so the college could use their benefits package, and therefore
members of ICCUFA, the Independent California Colleges and Universities Association. As
CTA became more militant, the college decided to break its connection. Faculty could remain
members of ICUFA, which would give them a uniting and organizing mechanism, but few
showed real interest.
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In practice, faculty meetings were merely the assemblage of 80 individuals with a lot of
discussion of minutia, so attendance was declining. How could faculty begin the conversation
with the President about their status in a way that would not be perceived as threatening but
reflect Brown’s concern that all that happened not create “strangers in paradise,” but help build a
Christian campus? 156
It was time to build a new institutional fellowship culture, one of respect and cooperation
between administration and faculty, and one that would allow them to come together to deal with
issues. In late 1974, a group of faculty in the science building began discussions on how they
could become organized not merely to press issues but to be a body. They included Bill Hobbs,
Vic Heasley, Gene Mallory, and David Strawn, with Dwayne Little from history. It was a unique
group. They had in common that they had taught at other colleges. At Pasadena, they believed in
the basic goodness of the Board of Trustees and the administration, and believed the Board and
administration really didn’t know the nature of their suffering. Related to that belief, Hobbs
knew they could not get it going with people who were running down the college and the
administration. We couldn’t get that thing going with negative stuff.
There was a faculty organization at Olivet but Hobbs knew it did not get results. They
investigated faculty organizations at other colleges and put together a proposal for a Faculty
Council to ascertain the concerns of the faculty, share in the leadership of faculty meetings, and
be involved in due process procedures. The ideas would go nowhere unless the President bought
into the concept. Presidents want to keep issues under control, and the Dean is a presidential
appointee to represent the faculty but also to be the President’s leader of the faculty. This group
would weaken the control of any President, so such bodies are either prohibited or limited. And
yet, Bill Hobbs said, “there was no reason to have it if the faculty didn’t get anything out of it, so
you had to walk a line between the administration and the faculty.”
Bill Hobbs and Vic Heasley took the proposal to Dr. Brown. Hobbs and Heasley had great
stature with Brown; they had a serious discussion and Brown agreed to let them bring a proposal
to the faculty. The heart of the proposal was the Agenda Committee, consisting of the Academic
Dean, Chair of the Faculty Council, and Secretary of the Faculty, with the President as ex offio
member. This committee would decide what issues would be brought before the faculty; votes
could be 3-0 or 2-1. If the issue was of high importance to the losing voter, the President would
be asked to vote and either decide it or deadlock it. For the most part, however, important issues
were no longer kept away. The Dean would preside over faculty meetings, but the Chair of the
Faculty Council would preside when matters came from the Faculty Council. The faculty
adopted the proposal on May 13, 1975.
The major faculty issue was salary. Some work on a proposal had been done, and the Council
approached the President and asked to let the Faculty Council bring a report to the Board of
Trustees. The group had sought ways to describe, document, and portray the reality in a
respectful way and they described it. The President wanted to make progress and thought a new
approach would help, so gave his approval, and it was brought to the Board at its March 1976
meeting. That report was a milestone in several senses, first in its impact. Instead of
complaining, it presented the problem and suggested a solution in a powerful and professional
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manner. It described the quality of the faculty and the increasing difficulty of recruiting new
PhDs. In charts and numbers, it demonstrated the costs of living in San Diego and the declining
relationship of salary to the Consumer Price Index. Then it presented a proposal for a Four-Year
Plan to achieve a salary goal based on certain comparisons with other educational institutions.
The Finance Committee commended the Council for its detailed study and filed the whole thing
with its report. It also recommended that salary increases be given top priority. 157 That plan had
its impact and was later adopted as a goal, but the four years stretched out as the college
continued to struggle with the costs of two campuses.
Second, the report symbolized the reality that a new academic fellowship was forming. The
President and Council had created new relationships of trust, hope and working together. This
was not the same fellowship as existed in Pasadena, for the President was much more involved in
a welcoming community and fundraising. Instead, it created a new institutionalized way of
working together in respectful cooperation. The President had worked had for a decade to recruit
a high-quality faculty, and now he and they began a new era of institutional decency and
integrity.
Over the next three years, the Council worked on serious issues. Dean Paul Gresham retired in
1976 and Keith Pagan was appointed as his successor. Pagan was far more forceful and intended
to be far more powerful, and relationships had to adjust. He noted that he had administrative
authority in some areas but basically had a “license to lead” and “keep the machinery going.”
Therefore, there was room to make the new arrangements work. He also noted that while this
new arrangement represented a new high in working relationships, too many faculty members
were not accepting responsibility to attend faculty meetings, chapel, or committee assignments.
The influx of new faculty and the time factor in traveling between home and campus were
eroding factors in the new fellowship.
The Council was concerned about quality as well as rights, professionalism as well as privileges.
When two faculty colleagues were told their contracts would not be renewed for incompatible
reasons, the Council Chair attended meetings but neither received the support of the Council or
the faculty. The Council also worked on a faculty evaluation system, oversaw the restructuring
from a divisional to a departmental structure, and began work on a faculty constitution. All of
those came to pass. Out of the Council group came the initiative for a community Church of the
Nazarene. The administration wanted it on campus and under its influence, while the Council
wanted it off campus and out of the reach of the administration. It met on campus and then was
destroyed through a merger with First Church.
The faculty was so pleased in what President Brown had allowed them to become that they
began planning a major tribute dinner to him for the next year.
A President who wanted no power for faculty replaced Brown, but the Council did not die, and
flourished again under President Bond. The Council institutionalized fairness in treatment,
collaboration in operation, respect for professionalism, and a voice for the faculty from the
faculty. Much of the Brown era of cooperation had been reestablished, but this time
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institutionalized. Its success resulted in part from never challenging the ultimate authority of
either the Board of Trustees or the President, and all were loyal to the Church of the Nazarene.
H. ARCHIE YATES AND BUILDING SECURITY –
Every day, the Lord Himself is near me
With a special mercy for each hour;
Archie Yates was a security guard as a student, and later Director of Security. Currently, he is
Director of Security for Bridgepoint University.
Part of getting a college started at a new location is providing security. What it was like to
establish security and the much larger campus?
“I was working security for the school full time and going to school full time.
My biggest concern was, if I’m going to do to security down there, what’s that
going to involve? I really went into it blindly, not having had a chance to visit
it before or do anything ahead of time. John Rupe and I drove down with all
the security equipment in two cars and took it in to Joe Darland’s office and
asked where he wanted us to set it up. He suggested it be placed in what was
the SAB (Student Activities Building) building, so we had one little corner of
the SAB basement and ran the security stuff out of there.
“When we got down here, we were just overwhelmed with how big the campus was, coming
from a little 15-acre campus that was flat, where we used electric carts at night to patrol. Those
electric carts wouldn’t make it up and down the hills.
“Joe Darland got us an old ’64 Buick, a big, big light blue Buick. I think the Young family from
Arizona donated it, and that became the security car for about a year and then it died. They
replaced it with like a ’72 Ford Maverick.
“Keys were a big deal. There were four different kinds of keys for the buildings, and we had 50
buildings. The newest keys we had were; the rest of them were slag or Corbin. They were OK,
they worked. The gym keys were probably the next higher security keys on campus, the athletic
facilities, but, you know, getting around on the patrol side of it was pretty hard because of the
ups and downs
“Going to a 94-acre campus really presented a lot of challenges, everything from trying to figure
out how to determine what faculty needed for opening and closing and what maintenance needed
for cleaning and repair. Then there was the locksmith, who was an integral part of making sure
we had the right keys; I believe it’s still a function of maintenance.”
What did you think about the student newspaper editorial that noted student hostility to campus
security guards (10/19/73)?
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“There are several factors in play here. One is, when we moved here from Pasadena the students
were very lightly supervised. The two officers had very little supervision, and Joe Darland, the
campus Maintenance Director at the time, had his hands full with all the campus stuff. So the
student guards didn’t get paid much attention to as long as the buildings got opened and all that
stuff. The hostility that’s mentioned in this article came from part of the culture that happened
when we moved here. The campus had about 1,000-1,200 students, and it was spread out; we
weren’t on the little 15-acre campus in Pasadena, so the students who lived out on the outer
perimeter of the campus in the dorms would drive up and park to go to class. The campus is
much different today than it was then. The place where the church now sits used to be a big
parking lot.
“That lot would fill up rather quickly from the people commuting in, faculty and staff, and other
students. And then the cafeteria lane, which is now a mall, was designated fire lane, but students
would park there. We were instructed to ticket the cars, and the students didn’t like that, because
it was a $10 or $25 fine at that time and that was not a good thing. I think most of those,
according to that article, were warning tickets and the realization of the hostility came from the
student guards. Part of it was our fault. The student guards were trying to do what we thought
was right, but also mixing in their own personal emotions, e.g., “I don’t like that guy”; I’ve told
him a bunch of times and I’m going to keep giving him tickets. Part of it was our issues, not
being emotionally mature enough to recognize how to handle other students our age who were
breaking the rules.”
What happened to change that?
“The school recognized the issue of students policing students after a couple of years and hired
its first security director about the time I was graduating in 1975. A San Diego Police Reserve
Officer was hired and then asked to leave. Then a man named Louie Jones was brought in and
was here for a number of years, doing about three different jobs. He was the Security Director,
he was the locksmith, and he was the head of the move crew. Louie was a wonderful man, and he
provided much-needed leadership to the student officers by giving training, holding meetings,
teaching, and preparing the student officers to be prepared to handle hostility and conflict-driven
issues.
Did you have any thought about not going to San Diego?
“No, not at all; I just thought, well it’s going to be interesting, a unique opportunity and a nice
transition spot. But I had never been to the campus. When we got there I was really disappointed
at how rundown it was, how beat up it was, everything was in poor shape. I remember living in
Goodwin Hall that first summer in the bottom floor facing the ocean and thinking, ‘This is really
nice.’ An ocean view, and it was nice and cool and very comfortable, but still it was really an
ugly, ugly facility.”
It was not as nice as the Pasadena campus had become under Brown. The new women’s dorms
he built were really nice, and the new library was beautiful.
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“Yes, and the students would ask why build this big new library and then sell it and move? Why
did we use this money to do that?
Brown used to say we could never have made the move without that library. That asset made it
sellable. Most of the buildings were old and the new ones cheap, but the library was first-class. It
made the campus attractive to a buyer.
Speaking of students, what about the student culture here on the Point?
“I think there was a little bit of a change to more of a surfer culture after a couple years because
it became real obvious that was a draw, and since the campus was so spread out we were not as
close as a student body. We didn’t have the closeness we had had. Even though the cafeteria was
nice, it didn’t have the same social atmosphere as the other campus and the other student lounge
and student facilities in Pasadena.”
Did student relations with faculty change?
“Everything near the campus was so expensive; the faculty had to live out further and wouldn’t
have the same quality of interaction with the students. The Pasadena faculty was getting to know
the students individually and working with them. I think in some ways the move professionalized
the school a lot, but at the same time it eroded some of the personal friendships that had
developed between faculty and students, and it wasn’t as easy to do that with the larger numbers
coming in. I think the first couple years there, the faculty’s largest concern was how to survive in
San Diego—how to make ends meet on the salaries the school was paying, having to buy homes
and all that.
“I think another student concern was that the little student chapel built in Pasadena would
eventually get moved down here. Students who contributed to that were concerned it would get
left behind. I think that was one of the student issues they were concerned about. And I don’t
remember much discussion about majors changing, course content, curriculum change or
anything like that.”
1978 Alumni Encounter Core Values
When asked if faculty were serious about their subjects and their Christianity, all answered yes.
When asked if they found God’s will or direction for their life at the college, all answered yes.
When asked if it came from a book, speaker or faculty advisor, two-thirds said faculty advisor.
What was the role of chapel? Lorraine said he, “kept our vision focused on the providence of
God, the direction of God, and the working of all things together for good in His will.” Jaleen
said, “Reuben was pivotal in giving the college a spiritual sense of direction and connection to
each other.”
Some wrote that the gym made it easier “to skip and also a little more difficult to hear.”
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Some students felt “surfers, beachgoers, and partiers without Nazarene (or even basic Christian)
values seemed to suddenly be a large minority. I don’t think the mission, purpose, and values
changed so much as they became harder to implement.”
AND SO IT WAS DONE
And so the college opened for business and opened into a new era, full of promise. Oh yes. The
dry bones were put together and given new life. Clouds came to darken the potential of the future
but the core values survived, as did the promise of a west coast university born in freedom and
internal rather than external spirituality. Those who devoted their lives to the past, to criticism
and to maneuver against freedom and the future are gone, their lives valued only by themselves.
Those who left their comfort and rebuilt in a new and different land, built for the future, for the
fullness of the spirit, for wholeness in education, built well.
With the song and our heroes we lift our voice in a year of jubilee.
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7. TO GOD BE THE GLORY
A Dialogue of Perspectives
DB – Dave Brown
FC – Frank Carver
CF – Cliff Fisher
SF – Sandy Foster
JJ – Jim Jackson
RK – Ron Kirkemo
BL – Barbara Land
MM – Mike McKinney
KP – Keith Pagan
HP – Herb Prince
DS – Dale Shellhamer
RW – Reuben Welch
BC – Betty Carver
VC – Val Christensen
BF – Ben Foster
BH – Bill Hobbes
PK – Patti Kirkemo
CK – Clari Kinzler
CL – Carroll Land
CM – Cecil Miller
BPr – Betty Prince
KS – Karen Sangren
JW – Joe Watkins
UI - Unidentified
You also, like living stones, are being built into
a spiritual house. I Peter 2:5
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us. Ps 67:1
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things,
Sing to the Lord a new song …for great is the Lord…
Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
[c]ome before him with joyful songs…It is he who made us
and we are his. Ps 98:1, Ps 96:1, 4, 9, Ps 1001, 3
May the God of peace…
equip you with everything good for doing his will,
and may he work in us what is pleasing to him,
through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory
for ever and ever. Hebrews 13:20, 21
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORH6TuZjM-Y
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INTRODUCTION
A year of change, uncertainty, trial, and fear took place in 1973. What would be the outcome of
the risk the college took? As I write this, it is 2013, 40 years later, and the verdict is triumph.
To God be the Glory
In our individual interviews we talked about how each of us confronted the decision to move,
how we decided and how we adjusted. Those were very personal and I assured each person that
he or she would not be identified. This section is a dialogue on the broader meanings of the move
for the university and us.
In addition to the opening group meeting in the President’s Dining Room, a series of six group
meetings were held with faculty and spouses who made the move to San Diego. We covered a
variety of topics each time, and the resulting dialogue was important to the effort to build a
section on reflections about the implications of the move. Most of the people listed were in all
six; others in one or two as they could come. I have left the PDR dialogue intact, but took
material from the other six meetings and arranged it into a single dialogue to make it readable,
occasionally inserting a statement from an individual interview.
Though I have drawn from six different recordings and transcripts and have moved sentences
and statements around to fit topics, I have faithfully kept the intent of the words and thoughts of
the speakers. I have also used a few statements from interviews and e-mails to add or complete a
topic. I often took materials to the meetings with information and statements to provoke
discussion. When I used one of those quotes here from those materials I have footnoted it.
Finally, I have taken the liberty to add a personal commentary at the end of a couple sections and
I identify those as such. The goal of these discussions was to look to the larger issues involved in
the university and the move. While there were some basic questions to initiate discussion, most
of the topics in this section emerged from discussions. In the midst of the move and after, in the
face of a new environment and change, the college had to preserve its essential culture, that is, its
core values.
There are three main means of transferring culture: bridges, levers and symbols. I will look at
whether some values bridged the relocation intact, what levers were used to maintain the values
and the importance of symbols.
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Whatever disagreements, the overwhelming reality is triumph. The choice to move was made,
the risk was taken, and to God be the glory for the great things he has done and what we have
become.
To God be the Glory
Let the people rejoice.
RK – To begin, the move was only possible because the college was still around in the 1970s. It
survived threats of foreclosure several times, Seth Rees and several Presidents who had interests
other than the quality of the school.
RW – This school has incredible survival skills.
RK – Well that’s why I take Isaiah 62 seriously. I mean, how in the world do you survive the
near-foreclosures in the first couple years, the Great Depression, or Presidents like
fundamentalist Widmeyer or autocrat DeLong?
JJ – Well we had another five years that was almost a disaster.
RK – Which the church refuses to recognize.
FC – Somebody built something into this place, its esprit
d’corps or character or something that would allow this.
RK - Built into this place. What does that mean? Let’s begin
with Isaiah 62.
ISAIAH 62
What is your sense of the role of that chapter in the history of the college?
VC – We’ve taken it seriously for a large number of years.
RK – But why?
KP – Because Bresee picked it out.
RK – Why did he pick it and give it to us? H. Orton Wiley preached on it every year, yet he
never connected it to the college as a promise. I looked at President Purkiser’s sermons and he
never makes the connection. The only President I heard connect it was Dr. Brown when he used
verse 2, that we will be called by a new name as we anticipated relocation.
JJ – I heard Dr. Wiley preach from that chapter probably 25 times.
RK – You came in 1938 as a student, and then returned as a professor.
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JJ – Right. Dr. Wiley said Bresee gave it to us as a kind of allegory to help us determine the
direction of the school, what it was to do, how to affect the world. He would say that over and
over again, to use for the college as a guide.
RK –Wiley says Bresee gave the university the chapter but he never knew why. I have always
connected it to the college. My sense is that it was a promise of protection given to Bresee in the
darkest night of 1912 when the school was just hours away from foreclosure.
KP – Every institution that tries to be something special has a foundation, a constitution or a
verse, and you have got to go back and pore over it.
RK – Was Isaiah 62 a promise to Bresee that the college would survive
another 10 years, or just a dying man’s hope, or was it a promise of
destiny, “a delight to the Lord, a city sought out and not forsaken?”
When my son was pastor of the Cameron church there was a big lot just
two blocks away with a memorial and a bell. It commemorates Missouri
Wesleyan College, which died in the 1930s. We nearly died several
times, but seemed to have protection.
KP – Other schools could say the same thing—they survived while others died.
FC – What is the connection to this and the haunting specter of exceptionalism?
JJ – A lot of other colleges could say the same thing.
RK – I know. There are people who die at 40 and others who live to 90. Bresee considered the
creation of the school to be providential. That is different from Oral Roberts, who saw his
healing ministry fading and wanted a college to “perpetuate my ministry and multiply it”;
Wesleyan University, that was created because the city wanted its own university; or Wheaton
College (MA), established as a female seminary to memorialize a daughter.158 For me, one starts
with Isaiah 62 and its implication that we are special. I don’t even mind exceptionalism.
HP – But you start with leadership; there was somebody who sees something or thinks
something, and who acts. I think the whole consideration of providence works out of a grace
framework rather than a legal framework. In a legal framework there is cause and effect. A
causes B. In a grace framework there is a third element; God is involved. Opportunities are
placed before us and somebody sees something and somebody else does not.
RK – But aren’t some favored more than others?
HP – Everybody is favored. God is gracious but not everybody responds to the grace, that is, the
favor of God.
RK – OK, but where do you put Isaiah 62?
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HP – Again, the word grace because everything remains flexible. There are other powerful forces
in play.
RK – ENC tried to move and didn’t, and King’s College tried to move and it was destroyed.
HP – Yes, that is part of leadership. At least I can handle it better that way. Also in history we
are selecting events, A, B, C but not S and T. You can put all kinds of reasons to support it.
RK – OK, I understand the difficulty in being favored, but I am then reluctant to see everything
becoming random, or personal skill. Like you say, things are flexible. However I do believe that
at propitious times God can give his favor to an individual or institution. It is still a mystery to
me that of all the Christian colleges in California, we were the only one seeking to buy Cal
Western. And given the incentives for bankers to foreclose on Cal Western before we could buy
it, I believe the Lord was acting to persuade them not to act in a way that would prevent us from
closing escrow and having to go back to Pasadena. I do believe he went before us to open the
way.
PK – You assume God acts to save others. Like Dr. Jackson said, others could say the same
thing, which is that God has acted on their behalf.
RK – Oh yes. We have A and B like you say, and then the unseen G of God’s grace, which can
guide, but to me and my life experiences, we also have the P of providence. He seems to act at
times for me and not others. I don’t have an Isaiah 62, but the school does. And I start there. And
I do believe in some small way, which is represented by the Bible in Mieras Hall, we are special.
DS – I think it is prophetic, and we need to go back to what Bresee was saying about us.
RK – Thanks Dale, I wanted to bring up the concept of prophetic. Isaiah Reid back in 1910 said,
“The relation of a theological school to the church has always been prophetic, for it solidified the
ideas of the church and provides the ministries that will stand for the distinctives.” Shelburne
talks about what we are here for, and in his second point says, “I look for the voice of the prophet
speaking from the pulpit about the sins of society.” Did you ever hear the word prophet in your
40 years?
UI – I heard Paul Simpson use it. He said, “The evangelists used to be the prophets of the church
but they are no more.” He thought that was the function of the college.
RK – I think so, too, which is why I wanted to bring it up. In his book, The Prophetic
Imagination, Walter Brueggemann wrote that ministry needs to first bring the claims of tradition
to the present, and then second, nurture and evoke a consciousness that is different from the
dominant culture.159 The church can do the former. I think the university should do the second
because it has the time and resources for faculty and students to develop a deep and coherent
faith perspective on this world’s culture. That has been my sense of what a college should be, but
I have never run across the words used by anybody else, so I was happy to see the faculty used
the Brueggemann book for common reading and discussion.
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FC – Prophetic Biblically is always a troublesome thing. Prophetic means calling back to the
implications in the now of what their root values are. Prophets were calling back to the covenant
that had been ignored and misapplied.
KS – Ron, I think you are saying Bresee should be prophetic for us. That’s an important other
side of the coin, looking backward as the means for looking forward. Preoccupation with the
present clouds our sense of vision. Where do you go to find the joy again? Faith and the voice of
transformation – the business model doesn’t encourage people to sacrifice, just hunker down.
FC – That’s looking back. You don’t know the will of God looking forward – you know it
looking back.
RK – That is certainly true of my life, but I think in the case of Shelburne Brown, he knew it
looking forward.
PK – But he was not a prophet.
RK – No, that was different than being prophetic. For me, I like prophetic because it speaks of
the future with moral imagination. In a national church with cultural sectionalism, moral
imagination sees above the normal and recognizes the need for change, both to see how dated
some issues have become and question some self-interested efforts like trying to condemn
people’s homes by calling the neighborhood a “blighted area.” I am proud that Charles Browning
from this college and pastor J. George Taylorson pushed for a resolution in the General
Assembly to condemn racial discrimination. Their moral imaginations were important.
KS – It is important as we look forward to be able to look backward. The pressures of the present
can cloud our vision.
RK – Yes. We have to look back to keep our core values fresh. In my opinion the church has
held on to past concerns that have become incidental, even silly. Too often in my experience
holiness has been about cultural backwardness, and Nazarenes have voted with their feet.
BF – Ron, back to Isaiah 62. Is there a difference between the operational procedure of a
Christian university and where it is in what you are trying to do in terms of goals? Is the
providential side different from the business side of it? The business side of it can fail.
RK – The business side can fail. It’s conceivable to me that enrollment could have dropped,
leaving Foster’s projections wrong, or the escrow collapse in foreclosure. We use our best
judgment but sometimes our judgments will miss the Kairos opportunity. If so, the Holy Spirit
will try to persuade us to transcend our calculations, or “coerce” the judgments of bankers. Like
Herb said, there has to be good leadership. If not, there is no guarantee. Even if so, they have to
be sensitive to the Spirit and respond in faith beyond the numbers and risks. They did
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JJ – You go back to the early ‘30s. The school was about to fail. The business manager was a
pastor. Eventually they brought J. B. Disenroth. He turned the school around so it could survive.
For a while we were about to close up.
RK – Henry Ernst told me one time that Wiley said, “Anytime you see somebody on campus you
don’t know, come tell me, because they’re coming to foreclose on our property.”
JJ – So this isn’t the only time we’ve seen God in our history?
RK – Oh no. You cannot tell the story of this college without the clear acknowledgement of God
with us. From the very first year of the First Move.
JJ – Which is amazing when you look at it.
RK – But I also believe in a quote I learned from Reuben years ago: “God battles for what he
gets,” because we still have the freedom to make dumb or stubborn decisions that can frustrate
what He hopes for us. At some point God’s financial rescue missions might well cease. For me,
the Isaiah promise is that we are special. God hopes we will survive and be an important force in
modern American Christianity, but we cannot count on repeated rescue missions.
THE DEFINING CONCEPT
KP – I wrote once that my dream has been a college firmly rooted in the Word of God, led by the
Spirit of God, and totally possessed by the one who said “I am the Truth.”
KS – The Holy Spirit is central. He is present when we are advising, when we are fellowshipping
with parents at New Student Orientation. It is lived out on a one-to-one basis.
RK – For Dr. Bresee, that defining concept was a spirit-filled atmosphere. Not loyalty to the
Bible, or doctrine and rules, but his presence with us. Why? Because the essence of the Farewell
Discourse was the centrality of the spirit, and because in a spirit-filled atmosphere there is
freedom. “The need,” he said, “was for an anointed place of holiness,” free from the legalism of
Pharisees and the sectarianism of fanatics and unhindered by secondary issues. 160
VC – There was a loss of closeness at Pasadena.
CL – I’d agree with that. The Faculty Lounge in the new library after chapel was a gathering
place.
KP – We lost something very dear, very precious. There was no place to go for coffee with a
faculty member, no place to gather.
VC – It is amazing how much difference distance makes. Departments became stronger and
places of community, which prevents us from reestablishing the “community” of Pasadena
College.
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RK – I miss it, too, but that community should not be our defining concept. What makes us a
holiness or Nazarene college is the centrality of the Holy Spirit and the importance of reason and
experience in understanding God. For example, Carl Henry was critical of Professor Bella
Vasady at Fuller Seminary because Vasady “tended to emphasize the Holy Sprit’s internal
confrontation and witness more than an objectively inspired and inerrant Bible.” 161 That
description of Vasady is a good description of us. It is the Word we worship, not the words, and
that is central.
RW – Ron, I have come to believe that the college is a faculty. I was helped by reading C. S.
Lewis’ book and one of his chapters on how to Christianize England. Christian teachers. Simple
as that.
CK – You are saying we brought the values forward.
KP – Look around the room. What is the one thing that is in common with those who made the
move and stayed? Denominational loyalty. It was the Nazarenes who came in the move. If you
were a non-Nazarene or other-than-Nazarene, you tended not to make the move. I think there is a
sense of investment, ownership, whatever the right words are, that all of us, though we may
never have verbalized it, I think we sensed it. To make sure this thing went. And most of the
people sitting in this room have undergraduate degrees from a Nazarene college. Most of the
people in this room, almost the majority, almost totally, are second generation Nazarenes.
CK – What I’m hearing you guys saying is that we brought the values forward. There were
people who were different but the values were not lost.
RK – Yes. There are those who feel we left our values in Pasadena, but we did not. We brought
them down, and by that I mean the spiritual values.
CL – I have defended that to most people a number of times, whenever I hear the indictment. I
have defended it on the belief that the core commitment has remained solid, and I think that is
largely true through faculty.
RK – Yes, so the faculty with their commitment to the centrality of the Holy Spirit was a major
bridge, the major bridge that brought the core values to Point Loma. What other bridge?
JJ – Chapel, despite having it in a gym with students reading newspapers.
KS – The chapel was the epicenter of the college, the center of gravity. Reuben’s ministry of
grace was a welcome message to many of us, for this work of grace could permeate our lives and
make it a journey worth traveling.
JJ – One of the basic things that helped us was students who had been in Pasadena, student
leaders, who were determined to make this campus what they thought it ought to be .
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RK – That is a third major bridge. How do I ask this? You had a really good group of student
body leaders when you came down. Did you ever have anybody running for student body office
who wanted to change the nature of the culture?
JJ – The student council that first year, they were people who came from Pasadena, and those
people believed enough in the college that they came and said, “How do we make this campus
meaningful?” They were the ones who brought students together and I think, I look back, they
were challenged by it. They were willing to give a lot of time, and I appreciated that.
I was with them in all their meetings; they had a sense that this is our school, let’s do it. I did five
more student body presidents before I retired, and all of them were supportive.
RK – I talked to Roger Little, who was the incoming student body president. I know you
struggled for a while about coming to San Diego, but when you took a group of student leaders
to San Diego to view the campus, you also took them out to Cabrillo Point to get a great
perspective on the city. You were very positive with them.
JJ – Yes, I had worries, but the process had to go on, to act like we will be here forever. Fear is
like cancer; you can’t think about it every day. So I said I have work to do, so let’s do it.
RK – That attitude, what an important factor in making that first year work.
JW – We students had no concept of all the ins and outs of this thing. But we were there! Fully
engaged, forcefully engaged and energetically engaged in bringing this thing into reality in a
short period of time—with no concept of the back-story, the dilemmas, the frustrations, the
heartbreak of all the narrow misses, and everything else. We had no ideas of the frailty of this
entire enterprise, and yet we were literally competing for the future of this institution. And I
think there is both joy in not knowing all the details and throwing yourself without reservation
into this time, and looking back and recognizing 40 years later that you were walking on the
precipice, the razor’s edge, and could have easily fallen in the other direction.
SF – You know, I never intended to be in Pasadena or California forever. When we moved down
here the faculty was so scattered, there was no sense of community around the school. But Jim, it
was that kind of attitude, the fact that despite the sacrifices, senior faculty still believed it should
go on, that it was the right thing to do, that I remember thinking if they can do that, then this
must be the right thing to do and the right place. So I think it was the senior faculty who came
and did their modeling of getting through it and making the best of it made it easier for us.
UI – Yes, you cannot discount the commitment, the commitment underneath all this…
RW – I keep coming back to this idea of commitment, and steady, keep on doing it. A Christian
college is like that.
RK – That personal commitment is certainly a major factor that set the tone for the first year
down here that kept student morale up. It was a bridge worthy of God’s providence in our lives
and the moral tone of the college.
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JW – I think it also underscored for me that what we’ve been hearing from Reuben about
community really could exist in the sense that people gathered around this and bonded around
this in a way that didn’t reflect how they felt about it, didn’t reflect what they verbalized in
committee meetings. We’re here. We’re going to do this. I think we all know there are folks
among this group who said, “I’m still not convinced this is the right thing to do,” but they were
there. They didn’t park on the sidelines of life and say, “I’ll watch and wait.”
RK – A few of us have said the college died somewhere on the freeway between Pasadena and
San Diego; someone else said we “blew it up.” What I want to ask today is whether that change
was all negative. We had a close campus community, both students and faculty. Down here, in
our separations, was there a new kind of spiritual atmosphere that was more possible in a
dispersed community? Is there a transcendent spiritual college that is beyond our warm
relationships?
KP – It is hard to focus on a transcendent college.
JJ – Dr. Pullius at USC called that the “spirit of place.”
RK – We were more dispersed, more “stove piped.” Did the destruction of the small campus,
tight togetherness, prove an opportunity to achieve a new kind of spiritual atmosphere? Did we
go from one level of spiritual atmosphere to a different level, focused less on our fellowship to
focus on what we are doing here? Did we reach for a place with Bresee’s “spiritual atmosphere?”
FC – Many students who came here found something they did not want to leave, and stayed
close to the college. Their whole life’s meaning is found in the quality of the spirit in this
institution.
JJ – New faculty remember how we joined together in worship; they sensed a different spirit here
that they did not know.
RK – We talk about putting our arms outward to encircle everyone in a community. Did we rely
more on putting our arms upward to embrace a spiritual atmosphere?
KP – It’s hard to focus on a college “up here.”
KS – The Holy Spirit is central, present when we are advising, when we are fellowshipping with
parents in New Student Orientation. The atmosphere is lived out in a one-on-one basis.
RK – In For Zion’s Sake, I wrote that we are a Christian college not just because the faculty and
administration are Christian, but because the institution itself, the policies and values, are
Christian. A secular college has its own culture, and a Nazi college had its own culture. A
Reformed college like Calvin College has its own Christian culture. It was easy to focus on
ourselves, our needs and purposes, especially in those early years after the move. Bresee defined
the central aspect as a spiritual atmosphere, full of divine love and holy thought. I think Bresee
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was looking for a college that was more than a collection of Christian faculty and a unique
organizational culture.
PK – Why is that important?
RK – I agree with Reuben that a college is the faculty, but I believe it is more. A college can
have an atmosphere just like a college in Nazi Germany would have an atmosphere, an evil
atmosphere that reflected a larger atmosphere. Imagine a swinging nightclub; it has an
atmosphere. People bring an expectation to a location with symbols designed to invoke it. I’m
asking whether or not our dispersal gave opportunity for recognizing an atmosphere that was not
totally our making; a spiritual atmosphere that resides at the campus and that we can touch and
feel to be real as we open up to it.
HP – By definition, the Spirit is free to be present anywhere the Spirit desires. Presence in the
Spirit’s case is not dependent in any fashion on human feelings, desires or programs, including
institutional life. At no time in the history of the college has the Spirit been entirely absent. That
would not make theological sense. To be absent is to undercut the teaching on (say) prevenient
grace.
RK – Is there in that presence a degree of glory we rarely “touch” because of our daily
schedules?
HP – “Atmosphere” can be defined broadly or narrowly. So from my perspective there have
always been faithful followers on campus who have been co-creators with the Spirit of a spiritual
atmosphere. At times there may have been a more general awareness of a certain atmosphere, but
again, I would think it has never been the case that such an atmosphere was entirely absent.
RK – It seems to me there is an abiding presence of the Spirit in a place, which is only manifest
either when he decides to "break in," which is old revival talk, or when we become so open and
sensitive as to recognize it and be embraced by it. So in my mental world I see it "up there," a
kind of blessedness we miss in our daily lives until we are captured by it and remain open to it
for days or weeks.
RW – You know, the Lord is present. Don’t locate him outside. Don’t say who can ascend and
bring Christ down. Say the word is near. (Romans 10:6-8)
RK – Can we create an atmosphere that you would never find at a shopping mall? Can we create
the conditions for a more manifest atmosphere without the sociology of group dynamics?
RW – Yes, but it takes people of devotion and faithfulness and fellowship, like in Acts when the
place was shaken, not when Paul was alone but when they came together with one accord.
RK – And that is what a Christian college can do.
HP – Chapels and spiritual emphasis weeks and the like can be taken as efforts to develop more
particular sensitivities and values congruent with the mission of a church-related institution.
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Ideals have their place and time. Theologically, these are efforts to align with the Spirit of God’s
work in our midst. This has ramifications for what then occurs off campus and wherever our
graduates find themselves. These are all attempts to fulfill the Lord’s Prayer, “on earth as it is in
heaven.”
RK – “On earth as it is in heaven.” What a thought. Thanks Herb. Part of my concern with this
atmosphere topic is that we have to keep the values of the college independent of who happens to
be here, and especially from the behavior codes put into place in the 1920s. A Baptist college put
in a statement of faith two years ago. Half the faculty left. We just don’t do that, and so there’s a
gap between us and other kinds of colleges as I’m trying to portray.
KP – A comment that nobody else around the table can address. Maybe Patti. You’re looking at
the guy who stopped all that being written into the contract you had to sign.
PK – I was going to say I thought I had seen it.
RK – After I read that article last night I wrote Rosco Williamson – what does your contract say?
PK – Because I think the employee application had a statement, at least used to.
RK – When was that?
KP – I don’t know, when were the Draper years? And if you recall what I did was sidestep the
issues – and put in the Standing Rules of the Church of the Nazarene in the front of the faculty
handbook.
RK – I did not know that, Keith. That is a valuable piece of information.
KP – It did not go in your contract other than a statement in the contract that you would comply
with the faculty handbook. They’re both gone, so I feel a little more comfortable talking about it.
RK – That was a lever to push us backwards. What other bridges brought our values to San
Diego?
DENOMINATIONAL AND HOLINESS CORE VALUES
VC – There have been an awful lot of changes since we moved to San Diego, but I would
suggest many of those changes would have occurred if we had stayed in Pasadena. Normal
development of a school.
KP – Some would have occurred, some of it is going with the culture, but a lot of it has to do
with faculty loyalty. That is a very strong operating principle.
RK – That changed down here?
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KP – Yeah, it changed several years after we came down here. Whether it would have changed
in Pasadena or not is unknown.
VC – Well I observed a lot of changes in the years I was in Pasadena. I believe a lot of those
would have occurred if we stayed, but other changes would not, and they have to do primarily
with size and distances.
RK – There are in the church a lot of “organizational men” who define a Nazarene college in
institutional terms, and keeping the behavioral code. Bresee was afraid of the spirit of the
legalistic Pharisees. He said there should be unity on the essentials and liberty on the secondary
issues. The danger is the secondary issues become our defining concept instead of Bresee’s
spiritual atmosphere. President Bond told pastors it is a double standard for parents to criticize
him for not enforcing the denomination’s rules against dances and movies when their own kids
go to dances and movies.162 V. H. Lewis then told the college Presidents in 1979 that the
prohibition of dancing is still a church rule and they need to enforce it, no matter what parents
do.163
RW – This is a dimension and I don’t know whether it fits or not, but it’s been interesting to me.
From my perspective, Bob Brower, our first non-clergy President, is more intentional and pays
more attention to Bresee than any President I can remember.
RK – I was at an off-campus meeting with Bob one time, and he mentioned how important these
meetings were, and I said, “Where did they find you?”
RW – I remember talking to the president of Asbury, Kinlaw, when I was back there for a
college revival, and he said, “We have to be a holiness school, or we’re nothing.” They have no
denomination, so their existence depends on their doctrinal or spiritual identity. That got me
thinking about the fact that we don’t have to worry about being such a school because we’re
Nazarene. But at this point we are forced increasingly to be more intentional about who we are in
terms of our denomination. I’m concerned about the loss of that.
JJ – As we came, Shelburne was busy but I remember his last year, he was in his office but not
really able, and so Keith and others stood by, but when I was reflecting on that, I thought, what
about the Trustees? What were they doing? And what I discovered was as I thought. We moved
here, and in many ways the Trustees didn’t trust the faculty. And for a period of time I felt the
Trustees would question what the Faculty Council might be doing. Then you had another
concept. There was a remarkable fear that we were going to go just like USC, Dr. Bresee’s
concept. And that we would move out of this relationship and that in some way they would be
taken over. Now remember, Cal Western became USIU because the President took it out of the
Trustees’ hands, made it no longer Methodist-related, and made it his college. And there was real
fear that this college would do just exactly that in the move.
RK – We were taken over. The General Superintendents directly intervened in the election of the
President in 1957 and 1979. Both times were efforts to draw the school into conformity with
fear-based culture of abstinence, aversion and acquiesce. There was a serious effort in the 1950s
to get the church to prohibit watching television. Bresee would have been so disappointed.
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PK – You keep referring to Dr. Bresee, but that was 100 years ago. His university died; is it still
relevant to hold him up as a great founder?
RK – Sometimes yes, sometimes no. His vision of a university was far ahead of the other small
denominations. We have experienced alternatives to his vision. The small, humble isolated
college known only for its religion department. The authoritarian alternative that produced what
Vic Heasley called “a torpid atmosphere.”
VC – Yes but the offending faculty were definitely out of line. Delong may have been the right
person for the job, temporarily, but I agree the casualties were many.
RK – Well I’m not defending the four, but the trustees interviewed all four and kept them. They
elected DeLong at the same meeting, so maybe they just passed the issue on to the new
president. But even if he had the personality to fire people, that personality was so far beyond
what a holiness leader should be, that his own board fired him.
So I still hold Bresee out in the hope we will become a university in more than name only. That
is not going to happen in my lifetime, but I think it is better to try to grow vertically with
graduate programs than to grow horizontally like Azusa Pacific now with 10,000 students. A
liberal arts college is the starting point, the indispensable education. But we need units to impact
the future, the mid-century and after.
Beyond that, I think the core values Bresee propounded should remain our core values as a
defense against fundamentalism, creationism, and other efforts to make secondary issues
requirements of belief. Also since church members have in practice moved away from those
1920s rules, we are closer to Bresee now than we have been for 80 years. We are a country based
on freedom, and a church based on freedom, and no one is going to be saved by keeping rules
against going to movies.
VC – God said I will build my church – that means through all the foibles.
RK – For the most part the churches have followed the university into a closer relationship with
the world. Members not only teach, but are also bank managers. As they become less sectarian
they feel like they have to be vitally Christian in some other way, and many times that means
inerrancy and its embrace of popular dogmas: creationism, abortion, and anti-science. They have
even banned the phrase “social justice” from Nazarene lexicon because it is too liberal. When the
college does not follow the church in its movements backwards, it is being liberal or becoming
separatist? Their fear is that we will move past their insular culture. Our fear is they will pull us
back from our core values to doctrinaire or ideological positions that destroy our very essence.
It was too recently that we had a President who was elected only after a call from a General
Superintendent, a president who feared the liberal arts and told the Trustees that our goal was
education for a job, to teach students to live under authority, and his preferred approach to
teaching was indoctrination. 164
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BF – I don’t think the church is as close to the university as it was in those days. You and I had a
conversation once before and I talked about this institutional drift away from the church and you
made the comment, “Well the church moved as well.” And that very well may be true. But I
don’t know if the institutions themselves moved or it was the elimination of certain individuals
along the road. And the first drift, I think, actually was the physical move, while the second was
the death of Brown in my opinion. I think it changed with the coming and going of people. When
Welch stepped down as Chaplain, you know you lost that connection. We lost the Pasadena
connection with Brown and when Pagan no longer was Dean. Carroll Land was no longer the
Athletic Director. So there is this continue cultural shift, drift I think, and it has to do with lives
of people who were so embedded in that Pasadena College campus, culture…
RK – But people are going to change. They change in churches, too. My home church is not the
same as when I grew up.
BF – My contention is that where we are presently, and maybe it started at that moment when we
moved down here, but I think there definitely is a separation. In recent years the line is that we
want to be the greatest Wesleyan university, but seldom do we hear about being a strong
denominational university. Like you cannot survive if you are a strong denominational
university. I think there is just slippage that took place over a period of time.
RK – Well the church was different. A change in how churches calculate contributions to the
denomination led to a great drop in income for the institution. I toured headquarters recently and
it is virtually empty. There are few centralizing forces. Remember, mergers of like-minded but
differing groups representing sectional cultures of the U.S. put together the denomination.
Until recently the seminary was a centralizing force, but as colleges have developed their fifth
year master’s in Religion programs and as online courses proliferate, enrollment at the seminary
has fallen. Revivals were a centralizing force as top leaders and preachers visited churches.
Today churches can’t afford the costs of a revival, and non-believers know what a revival is
about and do not come, so there is a loss of acquaintance with the leaders of the church.
MUTUALITY
FC – When the President put in the Center for Pastoral Ministry it said we don’t need the church
but the church needs us.
RK – Well I’m awfully close to that. Too many Trustees seem to think the church-college
relationship is a one-way street. The college belongs to the church because “Nazarene-ness”
resides in the church. To me there is a two-way street. The church supports the college and the
college upgrades the church. That is why there is equal balance between pastors and laymen on
the Board of Trustees. But more than that, the university is a “force multiplier” of the church. It
provides a breadth of education and depth of spiritual development that prepare people to engage
in the modern world of bankers and computer programmers, prepare them for medical school
and military strategy, to be high school teachers and workers in relief organizations. We take
what the church gives us, the students, and multiply what they began.
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RW – If we could take that seriously, that would be a really good thing, that the church really
needs us.
RK – I have a couple favorite quotes, one from John Kennedy, of course. But Nathan Pusey
wrote, “It is the university’s role to help the nation make full use of the talent it is given.” 165
That applies to us—we have a role in helping the church make full use of its talent, the young
people coming up through it.
FC – So it’s the college’s role to give back to the church. And I think you’ve done a tremendous
job of that. And I see pastors all over the place when I come in week after week.
RW – I think no other church turned around and mistrusted the college so quickly, either.
RK – The core value of being a holiness college is more difficult to track because by the 1970s
the language had changed. The definition of eradication of sin and living a perfect life was not
proclaimed because people were not finding it true in their lives or the lives of other church
members.
KP – My perception is that if you were visiting around to different Nazarene churches, you
probably wouldn’t come back with the idea that it is a holiness church.
CL – I’ve heard three sermons in the last decade describing sanctification and entire
sanctification and none of them were in the Church of the Nazarene.
HP – I know of a graduate who went out. He did an extended series, and at the end they
pressured him and said, “We need to preach holiness here,” and the pastor said, “That’s what
he’s been doing for three months but it was in a contemporary jargon.” The terminology was not
the same words they had been used to in the past.
RK – Yes. As outlined by Quanstrom in his book on the doctrine of entire sanctification in the
Church of the Nazarene, the very heart of the denomination, holiness, has become a contested
doctrine within the church. Is it a second work of grace or not, instantaneous or progressive? 166
Few believe in what one person called the “folk theology” of the past, or what I call the “magic
formula” of two trips to the altar and the eradication of sin in one’s life. But the concept is still
there of God’s amazing work in the believer’s life. And it is still distinctive to the holiness
churches, not others.
VC – I would offer a fact or two. When I was teacher, viability required 1,200 or 1,300 students.
Now I believe you cannot have a viable college unless you have about 2,000. With today’s
standards there is competition and expectations and you can have a tuition-driven school for
under 2,000.
CL – Your facts may be right. I will acquiesce to my buddy Ben over here. His philosophical
tenet is that we’re too big to be small and too small to be big. And there’s a whole space in there
that gets us into this economic piece, this academic area you are talking about that we’ve grown
too big to still hang on to the essence of what we were when we were small.
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BF – Given that direction, when you look at us, how different are we now than Biola, Azusa,
Westmont and the non-denominational schools?
RK – To Ben’s question, I think we are different in the two crucial ways. We are a Wesleyan
college, meaning we are, in my opinion, a more honestly intellectual college, and we are a
holiness college, understood as standing for a Christian life lived in the presence of the Holy
Spirit and responding to his guidance and judgment in our lives.
FC – So in lots of ways, Ron, if I read you right, the college has become what Bresee wanted it
to be.
RK – Oh I think so. I think we’re still trying to get there by looking both forward and back.
FC – We sure had a long hard road to get there.
RK – I recently attended a conference at the Nazarene Theological Seminary on holiness
preaching. Bresee’s spiritual atmosphere was there. It was awesome and inspiring, an affirming
meeting for me in hearing tremendous holiness sermons that focused on the centrality of life in
Christ and God as love. They were critical of those who define holiness as being against
secondary social issues, and critical of those who throw stones at their enemies. I was also
moved at seeing nearly 400 young preachers moved by the messages.
RW – That’s wonderful.
RK – But, as all of you know, large segments of the church have become fundamentalist, buying
into one of the areas Bresee tried to prevent being part of the church, the literal Bible. The church
has emphasized unity on the rules, not on beliefs. But while much of the church has moved with
modern science, many churches are trying to hang on to tithe-paying members who believe the
“truth” about creation is the Genesis account that the cosmos was created in six days and so do
not want the college to take a scientific position.
VC – Can I tell you what I think as a consequence of the move? I believe it is appearing to be,
projecting into the future, it looks like this institution may become one of the top 10 centers of
Christian influence in this country.
RK – I don’t think anybody has that vision. That takes graduate work. An undergraduate school
is not going to have national influence—everybody does good undergraduate work. It’s at the
graduate level, the research level, the centers and institutes that create influence. Others are
running too far ahead of us.
CL – You’ve got to stretch.
BF – Let me ask again, given that direction, when you look at us, how different are we now than
Biola, Azusa, Westmont and the non-denominational schools?
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RK – I think we are as Nazarene as any local church—if not more so. Pastors like to imply if not
state that we believe in the inerrancy of the scripture. That is not Nazarene; it has not been since
“plenary inspiration” was written in the Manual in the 1920s. I had a mother call me at my office
to complain that I said the Bible was not inerrant. I asked if she had read the Manual. She had
not; she just assumed from her Nazarene church that we did. The church does not want to make
those distinctions; the fundamentalists might leave.
JJ – We’ve had some students from the El Cajon area come to our school and drop out because
we were too liberal. They came in hoping to like the school but we were not fundamentalists, and
they could not handle it.
RK – And yet that very liberalism, the refusal to become stuck on non-essentials and rules, that
was the heart of Bresee’s freedom in the spirit and liberty on non-essentials. That is the very
heart of our school—the call to a deep spirituality, the means for spiritual growth, and the
honesty to deal with what we know to be true from science and sociology and psychology.
RW – I’m thinking of a line in a prayer of Paul, “to be filled with the knowledge of his will, with
all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Live a life worth, bearing fruit” But to be filled with the
knowledge of God’s will, with wisdom put a dynamic, relational dialogical dimension to the
will/providence of God.
CF – I know the number of people who attend the college from the Church of the Nazarene is not
the majority. But I think those people go out into the churches and become part of the leadership
of the church culture, even though they are not at the school any more. I think that has been a
unifying and cohesive force through the years. We would have gone out of existence in the Great
Depression, but we started having caravans of food brought down to the school from Northern
California. Where did they come from? From those Nazarene families that were out there: moms
and dads, maybe, but also alumni and other pastors and people who cared. There were several
different times when we needed a boost and those were the solid people who came from here. I
think the alumni as a whole, not just the Nazarene alumni, try to help keep it together. They keep
sending their kids and grandkids.
RK – In the five years between 1973 and 1978, our core values did not change, so people saw
both we were true to our calling, and we were a significant partner in the development of the
young people in their churches, and worthy of support.
CF – I guess, having been an assistant District Superintendent that would be the opinion of most
of the DSs. Although the university, as an entity, has always been larger than any of the districts,
it will be interesting to see the impact if they replace the regions, which has been the educational
zones, with the whole of North America as just another region.. They are talking about doing that
at the General Assembly this year.
RK – Hold that for just a second. That was a new thought. The districts are centered around the
universities?
CF – Well, the region was by educational region.
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RK – And that’s what gave them identity.
CF – And that was part of us having a regional university. There’s no other regional structure.
COMMENTARY
The Way of Holiness. There are four ways to live: to be evil, to be good, to be double-minded
and to be holy. The goals of power, prosperity and pleasure are not evil ends in themselves, and
some who pursue them end well while others end in prison. But to be holy is to have goals and a
hope that transcend them. In one paragraph, what does holiness mean 100 years after Bresee?
Where is it that the university strives to lead students?
In one paragraph—in my mind and experience to be holy means we have decided to give our
lives to Christ and live toward the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We want a living and daily
relationship to God through his Holy Spirit. From that relationship we want to grow in grace and
a moral perspective that we apply in our lives. We want to mature into people whose lives are
built around a First Love that brings singularity to life, and around spiritual disciplines to help us
conform to that goal, and through those to deal with earthly goals from a transcendent
perspective. We want a wideness of heart that includes those who need compassion in situations
of fate: war, natural disasters, abuse and poverty. We want to live lives at any age that are
inviting, not just blameless, driven from inside and not just outside forms that are superficial,
routine and unimaginative. To be holy means we want to be, and will sacrifice to be, blessed
(living in the riches of his presence, grace and favor), commendable (living above reproach in
this world) and inspiring (by our smiles reflecting a transcendent view of the present and hope
for the future). We are human, dust of the earth, but by living that kind of holy life of being and
doing we will one day, as Jude wrote, be presented to the Father with joy.
SUSPICION
FC – One of the feelings I had in our area was that with the move we were under greater
suspicion. Not being Nazarene enough. It just happened with the move. I think that applied to the
whole college but I think it had its focus in our area.
BC – Why would that be?
JJ – I got this: some people in San Diego said, “Why did you call yourself Point Loma? That’s an
elite community. You’re trying to reach all of us, but you named yourself for a very elite
community.” There are people in other communities who felt Point Loma was “uppity.”
FC – Because moving to the private area we moved to, all by itself, raised fears.
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RK – I get so tired of the constant criticism that Nazarene faculty at a Nazarene college working
at Nazarene college salaries are moving away from the church. Especially since the preachers
have dropped all the historic terminology of the church.
RW – I think one of the significant things was the attitude of the churches in San Diego when we
came down. And the DS didn’t even want us to come.
RK – Yes, all of us who were there remember that, but Bob Scott told me we also have to
remember the personality of Nick Hull—bluster and given to “humorous excesses.” 167
KP – I sat in a meeting and around the tables were pastors in the area and the DS and two or
three of us from the college, and the question was, “How many faculty did you get?” One said, “I
only got six.” A guy from another church said, “I didn’t get any.” A few of us started having
church on campus, on our own, in Goodwin Chapel. I was in the room when the District
Superintendent said, “We will not have any unauthorized service on campus.”
RK – So from the church, and even some Trustees themselves, there was suspicion while we
were trying to get the school established as a Nazarene school. Plus, the DS wanted to use the
college to support his local pastors, so he didn’t want a campus church. And third, the
composition of the student body changed as the college grew.
KP – The college is growing and now, where is the church growing? It is not growing, and
church membership in the Southwest Zone is shrinking down. That means X number of students
are not going to come from Nazarene homes. And if they are from the first generation they are
likely to be immigrants.
RK – Yes, but it is not just our church. The mega-churches and the independents are growing by
taking people from smaller churches. The total number of Christians has remained basically the
same over the decades.
VC – The Church of the Nazarene, knowingly or unknowingly, made a great experiment decades
ago when they decided, whether they realized it or not, to be the most education-minded
denomination. Nobody else, no other denomination, taxes each local church six or seven percent
of their budget for education.
RK – That is remarkable. It may have been an early intention of Bresee since he had faced the
financial struggle of Simpson and USC without a guaranteed income. I am certain it grew out of
the twin crises of 1911 and 1912. It is a reflection of how important Bresee and Wiley and others
understood believed this university would be to the church.
RW – I think no other church turned around so fast and mistrusted the college.
RK – There is just so much fear in the church. My parents would not allow me to attend
Pasadena College until I was a junior. They feared Los Angeles and that the college was too
liberal. Yet Bresee understood Los Angeles to be the strategic point for wide influence,
transforming other churches.
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PK – Most Christian colleges like mine, Carsen-Newman College, were built in rural areas, away
from cities. Los Angeles/Hollywood was considered to have oceans of temptation and be too
modern to protect a commitment to a 1920s definition of lifestyle. Comfort and confidence
resides in the past; change is unsettling. New is bad.
COMMENTARY
At this point I need to add a commentary. Given the changes going on in the church and the
particular culture of Nick Hull’s Southern California District, there was suspicion of the religion
faculty, particularly among the pastors. In Promise and Destiny, I mischaracterized Bob Scott as
being critical of the college. Actually when he was appointed to succeed Nick Hull, who had to
retire for health reasons, Scott tried hard to reach out and build bridges between the pastors and
the religion faculty. He hosted numerous faculty-pastor dinners, involved the faculty in district
leadership positions, and invited them to district events like Pastors’ Retreat without charge. As
Frank Carver put it, “We entered a period of warm and open-hearted fellowship between Bob
and the religion faculty. We felt his acceptance and support as we sought to do our work in the
context of the church.” I got it right in my first book, For Zion’s Sake, and wrong in Promise and
Destiny. My sincere apology to Bob Scott.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
RK – In his last address to Nazarene University, Dr. Bresee said we do not live on atmosphere
alone. Academics are also important. It’s what I call the “Bresee balance,” both spiritual depth
and academic breadth. The second core value of academic integrity taught within a Wesleyan
and ethical frameworks came intact. That is, over three-quarters of the Pasadena faculty moved
with the school. Where replacements were made, quality may have dipped in a few cases but was
improved in others. Few taught with an expressed Wesleyan approach but taught within its
framework of tradition, reason and experience. Few students who graduated in 1978 remember
ethical issues being raised in the classroom.
JJ – Let me talk here. I was a student in ‘37, graduated in ‘41, and came back to teach in the ‘50s.
It was a different college in the ‘50s than it was in the ‘30s. Now it was the same school, but
there was a vast difference in the professionalism in the ‘50s over against the ‘30s. So in a sense
we were one college in the ‘30s and ‘50, so it has been the same college all the way along.
RK – But you had Wiley and Winchester and that whole faculty all through those years. And it
was the majority of the faculty.
KP – In a sense there is the same kind of core sitting around this room.
JJ – Yeah. The folks sitting around this table did not change their values or loyalties at all.
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FC – What maintained our core values despite all the changes in the faculty and student body?
And to what extent does the fact that we belonged to a church help us maintain those core
values? Even though ratios have changed.
RK – Let me ask it this way: what impact did the diversity of students have on your teaching?
For me in American history and political science there were no recognizable differences. They
were attentive even in the large classes we had then, and interested in the smaller ones. So in my
teaching, the new community and student diversity had no impact on my teaching.
MM – I must say that it is my personal experience, limited that it may be, that our best students
as a rule came from the Nazarene community. By that I mean our Nazarene students have
traditionally been eager learners, tolerant of challenging thought, and in general fairly
progressive and incredibly supportive. Indeed, even if conservative, they were open to new ideas
and approaches. It was the kids from other conservative religious backgrounds who tended not to
be so open and to be more confrontational.
RK – That’s interesting. Frank, how about any impact on the GE courses in Bible?
FC – I do not remember any significant difference generally in my GE classes.
RK – Did you raise Biblical criticism issues?
FC – On critical Biblical issues I always gave them alternatives with reasons, and never tried to
force my critical view on a student. On the freshman level I almost always used a conservative
text and introduced the critical views (under my control) in the lectures as I felt relevant to the
classroom situation. I always wanted them to know there were alternative views that were not
just held by the bad guys, but by honest, sincere scholars!
RK – Alternatives. I talked to a father vising the campus with his daughter and he kept asking
“Do you teach the absolutes here?” I told him there were six major views of the Civil War and
probably 15 on the Revolutionary War, so no, we don’t. He wanted packaged answers.
BH – I can’t say I remember the church being a factor. To study mathematics you don’t have to
do very much except take care of numbers, at least that’s what they think.
RK – Dave, San Diego was the home of the old Institute for Creation Research and Christian
High School. Did the move make creationism more of an issue for you?
DB – Only indirectly. It was more our increased exposure to parents wanting a “safe” higher
education for their children and they just assumed Point Loma and its Biology Department was
short-earth age inclined. There were pastors and youth pastors within isolated Nazarene churches
and other evangelical/fundamentalist centers. But it was not a problem and only a small part of
our courses.
RK – What about Summit University in Colorado? It had a summer program of strong
creationism to inoculate students against college science teachings.
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DB – Well Summit and ICR did not become an issue on campus until the 1980s, when
creationism and evolution became a national issue and ICR tried to buy its way in by funding a
creationist professor. So in the first five years, evolution was not a big issue in biology.
RK – I was delighted to see school demanded Summit stop using our names or students on their
advertising. The Trustees expressed their appreciation when they did.
CL – And so as those changes begin to occur, now we have professional people in the academy,
as Keith says, who have gone through, not only their graduate programs and their degrees, but
experience, and they are still committed to these core value. The changes begin to take place, and
they took place more dramatically down here.
COMMENTARY
The Church of the Nazarene does not have it own unique philosophy of education. We are part of
the Wesleyan tradition in academics. What is that? I use three concepts.
DEEP CURRENTS – We have a tradition of understanding education as discovery not just
content or knowledge for a job; of reflection and creativity rather than creeds, or shallow and
rigid answers, or mainstream moderation. I use the metaphor of a river and the concept of deep
current. Our education is not shallow or rigid, nor does it meander. It embodies the deep and
broad heritage of reflective and creative education. Tributaries feed it: scripture, reason,
experience and tradition. It does not stand still, like a lake of knowledge that just absorbs
incoming waters, but is a river of knowledge on its way to the vastness of the Mind of God as it
flows through the middle of the channel to new ideas, insights and understandings. This kind of
education avoids single “worldviews,” does not encapsulate knowledge in creedal Truth, and
does not produce clones. This tradition distinguishes us from fundamentalist colleges, reformed
colleges, and other authoritarian and sectarian colleges.
HOLINESS – As a holiness people, we believe the central point of our faith is the resurrection
when God’s kingdom broke into ours not as a King with rules but as the Lord of love with grace
and hope. God’s grace and spirit can fill our lives, guide our lives, empower us to “be good” and
“do good” and change us. It can overcome evil and adversity, and lead us to not judge people.
That grace is personal, allowing us to have a dynamic existential experience with God himself.
Instead of a magic formula like a second work of grace that makes us perfect, Point Loma
understands God’s grace helps us on our journey to live in the grace, guidance, gifts and goals of
the Spirit, our Counselor. It is also systemic, working in history and society to leaven life with
goodness and morality. So we have an optimistic faith to persevere, to be bold, and to work for
change. This commitment distinguishes us from Westmont, Wheaton and other Lutheran,
Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist colleges.
SERVICE – Because we define our faith in personal and holiness terms, and because our
purpose from the earliest days with Bresee was to furnish or equip young people for good works,
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the program of the college is, and must be, broader than the classroom. Holiness is an action
word. We do not judge from the sidelines but get involved. Many people and clubs do service
work, but the difference between them and us is that we believe God’s grace is present and we
can be His means to make service a means of grace, and thereby help transform the world. While
many will go into “bread and butter” jobs, we hope many will go into what used to be called
“harvest hands” activities. This commitment to service is not unique to a Nazarene college, but
we bring our own theology of grace and transformation to it.
So, Point Loma Nazarene University is to be a place of deep currents in education and
spirituality. It asserts the belief that God’s grace can change people in its classrooms and chapel
and lives out its ideals, social relations and campus programs.
OPERATING VALUES
RK – Nazarene colleges have historically been led and administered by strong (or weak)
Presidents. Faculty were hired with hopes they would be popular with students and remain
marginal and silent in the leadership of the college and in their opinion of the church and its
doctrine. In the late 1960s at Pasadena College, following a decade of autocratic and
authoritarian leadership, President Brown established a kind of bonding, like a fellowship, with
the faculty. Brown actually liked students and faculty and created an aura of collegiality, and it
was a good place to be an intellectual, a colleague, and to know Brown. He used to call us a
“band of brothers” from Shakespeare’s Henry V.
VC – Ron, you were not too hard on R. V. DeLong. He was a hard man if not a tyrant, but that
does not automatically mean he was the wrong man for the job. The General Superintendents
probably thought they needed a very strong person to assert the position of the church. I would
not trust the views of those who suffered under him.
RK – That is an easy way to deal with a problem, but to use a person who is described in terms
quite opposite of holiness seems to be dangerous to the theology. You will remember President
Bond’s first statement to the faculty when he said we need to find Christians ways to deal with
conflict.
VC – Well, in partial defense of the faculty at that time, they had no tradition of how to handle
academic freedom. I believe the four fired professors were arrogant, betrayed their trust, and
overstepped their boundaries, but the casualties were many.
RK – Well Val, you provided a perfect transition into the next topic. In a September 1975
Faculty Workshop, the President said, “You came to this college because of a commitment to the
kind of Christian community you felt could be created, and of which you wished to be a part.” A
few months later, Bill Hobbs and Vic Heasley talked to him about their proposed Faculty
Council as a way to institutionalize the kind of collegial community they thought was
appropriate at a Christian college.
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The President agreed and the new era of faculty-administration cordiality that Brown brought in
the late 1960s was enshrined the following May with the establishment of the Faculty Council.
We ceased being a President-only college, and I still consider it remarkable that Shelburne gave
up being the head of the faculty meetings.
KP – If I understand you correctly, I’m not sure I agree with you that we stopped being a
presidential institution.
RK – That is right; that is an over-statement. We are a presidential institution in that he can run
the college whenever he wants, but we have an alternative he tolerates.
RW – Run that by again.
RK – The President is still the President of the college. He can run whatever he wants. He’s got
the bylaws. He appoints the Dean to run the business of the faculty, and he allowed the Faculty
Council to become part of that. It has no power. He can fire the Dean and he has the fourth vote
on the Agenda Committee to deadlock an issue from coming to the faculty.
KP – It depends on what year you are talking about, what era.
RK – Yes, one hopes a President will utilize the council as one means of building collegiality,
but if not, at least there are self-protection procedures in place. He can still not renew a contract
with only the minimum procedure. That happened twice in later years and the Faculty Council
refused to get involved because the two were clearly beyond the appropriate border of teaching
and graceful decency.
RK – And it was not just the Faculty Council. Keith Pagan upgraded the Dean’s Office.
RW – It seems to me in Pasadena there was a lot of “hip pocket” stuff.
DS – Well Keith did put a lot of structure into the administration. In fact, you called me once and
said, “You’ve already been promoted to Associate Professor but we have no record of your
achievements.” I said I’ll get you my transcripts. That’s how loose it was. And really, if you
think back about it, when I was hired, it was less than a month before they announced the move,
so there must have been all kinds of stuff going on behinds the scenes and I probably just fell
through the cracks. But you had no record of my promotion.
RK – The college had to hire close to 30 new faculty and have them in place in the fall of 1973.
How well did we do?
JJ – And many of them were not Nazarenes.
RK – My concern is how in the world you fill so many slots.
JJ – You mentioned one new faculty member. When we arrived here I was Dean of Students, but
the only faculty member in speech. All the others didn’t come. So Dean Gresham knew some
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people in Bethany who had just graduated and brought them out to teach speech. They had never
taught. What happened, we brought in Orthodox Presbyterians, we brought in Episcopals, we
brought in Baptists—we brought in all these people to teach. Did they have an effect; did they
listen to who we were…
RK – I don’t know. My interest is whether they were still here five years later. Most were not.
VC – There was a lot of hiring done that year.
CAMPUS CULTURE
RK – I remember as a student in the 1960s sitting in the patio out by the cafeteria, a bunch of
guys sitting there and the girls would walk by and they’d moo at them. It was such a blatant
gender discrimination thing I just couldn’t get over it. Women students did not go into business
administration, they went into our Secretarial Certificate program. Parents kept women students
out of several majors that could become careers because they wanted grandchildren. Then you
had a social hierarchy with District Superintendents’ and pastors’ kids on top and regular kids
under them. It was a weak hierarchy and usually gave way to circles of friends by a student’s
second year. I was so happy there was no central student lounge on campus when we moved
down here because you broke that all apart. That’s one of my memories of the culture change.
Give me some others.
KP – I’m exactly the opposite. I think when we moved here and had no central focal point we
lost something very dear, very precious. There was no place to go have coffee with a faculty
member, no place to gather, no faculty dining room. I think that was a huge factor in what
happened in the first few years.
RK – OK, good.
CL – I’d agree with that. The faculty lounge in the new library in Pasadena after chapel was a
real gathering place to mix with faculty and as somewhat of a junior faculty person, I appreciated
that very much. We could sit arm and arm with no agenda and be able to talk.
JJ – One of the important things that changed, the faculty didn’t live much more than five miles
from the campus in Pasadena. Many of us would walk. The result was when things took place on
campus, we’d be there. Now when you live 30 miles away…
RK – Yeah, I remember that faculty lounge in Pasadena also. And then we tried to recreate it
down here when we built that new building and nobody ever came after chapel.
PK – The patterns had already been established.
RK – But partly there were no windows and no comfortable chairs. It seemed like a 16 th century
formal “sitting room” and we were told to treat it with respect. The atmosphere of the room was
wrong, so few of us used it.
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VC – It’s amazing how much difference distance makes. Just the size of the campus and the
distance people live away from the campus made a huge difference, just the distance if nothing
else.
JJ – In 1960 we built the student building in Pasadena. That was our first real Student Union
building and kids used that lower floor for many things; it was great. Mailboxes were there.
Here, mail was in the dorms, there wasn’t any place for kids to come together. They solved it
with that lawn place where they all began to gather and it was great (Kick Back Area or KBA—a
grassy area across from the then-cafeteria). But there was no place, you didn’t go get mail, you
didn’t come together and talk.
STUDENTS
RK – Jim, what role did students play in rebuilding the college? I know there was a current in the
church that we were just drifting away. Grady Cantell told me he did not trust Dr. Brown to
“hold the line.” Another District Superintendent told me a future President believed “the move
had been a mistake because of the proximity to the liberalizing influences of the ocean and
beach.”168 I didn’t have any sense that the students running for office wanted to change the
college. I didn’t know there was a spiritual life committee the first year down here.
JJ – Because of the different constitution, you had people responsible for different areas. And so
for this area of spiritual life, students said, “What do I do?” Go back to that constitution in the
‘70s; there was someone responsible for student religious life. And so there is a student leader
elected who wants to do something.
RK – And as Mike Christensen said, there were a lot of activities going on. Another operating
value is that the school remain a Nazarene college in the student body, and a main problem
continues to exist, for the denomination’s view of us is the Nazarene and non-Nazarene ratio.
KP – Well the one explanation that everybody shies away from is that the church was not
growing. It was shrinking. So if the church was shrinking, and getting much older, there are
fewer college-age kids. How do you expect to maintain the higher ratio of kids? The growth in
the church in the Southwest is almost totally among the non-English speaking congregations.
RK – In 1975, Paul Simpson made a motion in the Board of Trustees that we can’t allow the
Nazarene student population to drop to less than 67%. But there is just no way to stop it.
PK – We needed that Presbyterian money.
RK – What is fascinating to me is that the Board at times has accommodated itself. So if we were
going to be a Nazarene student body when we came down here…
RW – We ought to thank God for these people. We couldn’t have made it without them.
RK – Also, part of the problem is that some Nazarene students choose a more prestigious
college. That led another President five years later explaining the need to be a Nazarene college
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in chapel and the need to have more Nazarene students and he said we have to start with fourth
graders and convince them to come here when they reach college age. The students laughed at
him. His thing was not holiness; it was evangelism, because he told us he watched his daughter
go forward in a college revival to an altar to become a Christian. Parents who can’t get their
children to be Christian at home want the college to do it. And we do it, not on the basis of being
fundamentalist or unthinking, but on the basis of thinking.
CK – But you know, maybe, every place I go around the country, if there is any criticism it is
that “you only have about 25% of your kids are Nazarene.” But we are doing what Dr. Bresee
wanted us to do—we are making a huge impact on all those other kids who are coming, on the
church, in its broadest sense, all over the world. And I like to think we are living up to Dr.
Bresee’s dream.
RK – In that last speech of his, that is true. He welcomed any student who may be of any church,
and promised there would be no effort to proselyte them but help them each become thoroughly
furnished unto every good work. Grady Cantrell told me he did not care if any non-Nazarene
student attended.169 That’s an exclusiveness that corrupts Bresee’s idea of a spiritual atmosphere
into a narrow sectarianism.
JJ – Also, when we came visiting Cal Western/USIU, kids were in all kinds of dress and undress
and whatever. Shelburne decided there is a standard with which we go to school and outlined
what students would wear.
RK – I assume it did not go well with students.
JJ – Yes. He connected how you dress with your seriousness as a student. Students did not
understand any need to wear long pants and dresses in this climate.
RK – That was about respect. The other motivation for a dress code is fear. There is something
about male church leaders who fear the sight of women’s skin. Bresee took students to the beach;
the discontinuity between the social culture of the 1940s and 1970s was enormous. Chet Crill
was let go from Bethany Nazarene College because he took students to the lake. Brown’s
successor mandated the length of women’s shorts and demanded the workers at the library and
cafeteria measure the shorts of female students before they could enter. They refused.
DS – But you know, in secular universities, I can remember when I first started as an
undergraduate, it was common to see a young man with a tie in class. Boy that changed! And the
faculty started dressing down, so that whole trend in society I think is the result of the Vietnam
War. That whole trend just sort of filtered into Pasadena College.
RK – Jim, go back to bridges and levers with the student leaders.
JJ – Remember also that we are a residential college. A lot goes on in the dorms. Using your
metaphor, one of the levers we used was to upgrade those in charge of the dorms from dorm
moms and pops to trained counselors to be Head Residents.
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RK – Let me suggest another lever. Our college choirs. The faculty had devotions during
practice and the students sang the glory of the Lord. They became small groups of influence on
campus, representing the glory of the Lord.
KP – Yes, yes. In those days, there were three touring choirs doing about 50 sacred concerts per
year. On many levels it was a ministry: to each other, to the campus, to the host churches. The
ministry aspect was at least as important as the musical aspect.
RK – So, in the midst of dispersion and cultural change, departmental issues and church
suspicion, we used several levers to hold to our core values: dorm leaders were upgraded, the
Student Religious Life Committee organized programs, the curriculum was brought down intact,
and chapel was used as a major lever for spiritual growth on campus, while rules were used as
levers to control how students presented themselves.
WELCOME COMMITTEE
JJ – Do you have any use for the committee that was formed down here to help us become a part
of San Diego? For example, the pastor of the United Methodist church in the Valley, he was on
the committee to help work out how to get us involved.
VC – It was a welcoming committee…
JJ – A welcoming committee, and that committee did a great deal to get us into San Diego.
RK – I would love to write about that. I know the school also retained Phillips-Ramsey in 1972
to help organize their thinking. Do you know we also hired a public relations firm out here?
VC – Yeah, Nuffer Smith. That was smart.
JJ – …we were working with that committee to get into the community.
VC – Somebody handled that pretty well in my opinion.
JJ – It was well done. It was one of the reasons we were accepted so well in San Diego.
CL – Howard Dunn was working very closely with us.
JJ – I think if Shelburne had lived, he would have brought in more of the San Diego people.
RK – And that’s important. My sense as a student was that Pasadena was really a closed campus.
I mean it was really isolated.
VC – It was insular.
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RK – I remember those early years down here. We were a much more open campus, a freer
campus. We kept the core values going but the process and styles and symbols seemed to me to
change. To me we reinvented the college.
DS – It would have happened in Pasadena, but it would have happened slower.
RK – Good point.
RW – But it would not have happened unless the college had been able to grow.
RK – Good point.
VC – It was insular. The city was not accepting of the school and it became insular. San Diego
was much more accepting and we lost a lot of our insularity.
KP – In Pasadena we were like a prophet in his own country; the educational community,
particularly in the city, had not yet recognized that we were a maturing community. They still
saw us as interlopers, a Bible college. We came down here as a fully developed institution and it
was recognized immediately.
CM – As Registrar in Pasadena I was never able to go out and make articulation agreements with
all the community colleges. Down here I was invited to meet with the Presidents of the
community colleges every month. Then I met with admissions people and gave them a catalog
and a list of courses we would take and transfer to us.
RK – We were so much more accepted down here. One last point on welcoming committees.
Jack Blake and David Grimes wrote President Brown when the move was announced in June
’72. Jack headed a Citizen’s Review Committee that was appointed by the city’s Planning
Department to work with USIU on its Conditional Use Permit because the neighbors had become
“deeply aroused” by USIU’s actions. He said they wanted to help establish good relations with
the neighborhood. As you know Jack taught for us for several years and Grimes became a good
friend. So that committee helped in the good welcome of the college.
SHELBURNE BROWN
RK – What is your sense of Shelburne? To begin, here are a couple responses of 1978 graduates:
“Dr. Brown was frequently taken to the track to walk and get some exercise. I was working in
the athletic trainer’s area and often would relieve whoever was the designated escort and walk
around the track with him, guiding him so he wouldn’t stumble. He would talk to me about the
college, the importance of a commitment to Christ, things he dreamed about for the college. His
signature on my youth ministries certificate was handwritten and he was blind by that time and
you can see where it drifts below the line. I treasure that certificate because of that signature.”
Bob Hodges
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“I remember rehearsing at graduation how to ‘find his hand’ to shake, since he had lost his sight
by then. I think of it every time I attend a commencement ceremony.” Shelley James
RK – I have written that we want to be remembered well, wide and long. He would have all
three, yet I have heard him called “a tragic figure of whom the church was not worthy.”
CK – There were some very difficult years for Shelburne, and I inherited some of that when I
became District Superintendent of Northern California, and saw what the mindset had done
there. They were trying to build a fort over the church, build walls to protect itself. Those same
players were here, on the board, and he was having to deal with a mindset that believed their
form of what was Nazarene was better than the Bresee form of Nazarene.
RK – Better than the Bresee form. How sad.
CM – I admired him. I think he paid a great price.
RK – I have a book on Ronald Reagan called When Character was King. When I think about
Shelburne in these years I think about his character.
BH – Well you know there was a conflict between what I really wanted to do and these church
colleges that need help, and I would never have gone to Pasadena if it had not been for
Shelburne.
FC – Yeah, it would be interesting to think what kind of a President he would have been if we
had been in a normal situation without the crises he faced, if he could have developed as a
President instead of being buried in all the trauma and pressures and been able to develop his
natural talents and intellectual interests.
RK – I remember a CEPP meeting where he talked about his vision of the future of the college. I
wish he had lived so we could get to the next level.
CM – He played golf with some of the business people; you can’t beat that because a lot of
donation stuff happens on the golf course.
RK – But he was such a great example of the liberal arts, always working a bit of poetry or
literature into his talks. Even in the 1969 La Sierra he had a couple paragraphs about faith and
the rational processes of logic and reflection. Then he included a line from George Santayana
about living through the unknown by trusting the “soul’s invincible surmise.”
KP – Shelburne, I had extremely high regard for him. He was a maverick in many ways and was
seen that way across the church. He was an earnest, sincere, spiritual man but not wrapped up in
the organizational structure of the church as much as the church would have liked. For instance,
at the time of his death, nobody could find out where his church membership was. Which, for an
ordained elder, is not so good.
CM – Well he had Wes Mieras, his buddy, and this college.
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KP – Yeah, but he told me he looked for the smallest church in town to put his membership and
his tithe in to help them. He had his membership in Imperial Beach but that thing closed the first
year we were here.
RK – Well I still treasure his letter to us with our 1978-79 contracts:
All of you are aware of my physical condition. I hope you are equally
aware of the working of the Holy Spirit in my heart and life. While I
would not covet for you the trauma of my person illness, I would
wish for you the daily assurance I have of God’s love, His nearness,
and the support and concern of his children—my brothers and sisters
in Christ.
If there is any benefit from my condition, I pray that it might be a renewed
sensitivity in your life to those things which matter most—God’s love, His
redemptive plan in the world, the blessed fellowship of believers, and His
daily renewal and support.
REFLECTIONS
RK – Any reflections? I originally called this project Recollections and Reflections. To begin,
here are three student reflections:
“I believe this move was God inspired and I appreciate all those professors, leaders, and students
who made life changes and sacrifices to make the move.”
“Now that I am older and understand the enormity of just moving one family to a new
community, I marvel at how such an undertaking took place, with the entire community
sacrificing and moving their families there as well.”
“While the student population is no longer primarily Nazarene, the influence of the university
appears to have broadened significantly. My own ancestors (the Goodwins), who were involved
in the early development of the denomination and also in the emergence of Pasadena College)
would probably have approved the move.”
KP – Let me put it a different way. I never questioned the decision. I was confident that I had
been “called” to this institution regardless of what happened. I was 100% committed to the
rebuilding and strengthening of the college I loved and served. Nevertheless I was very anxious
about the move’s impact on the very nature of the institution. The hasty recruitment of
replacement faculty, the absence of any Nazarene visibility or presence in the area, the total
disappearance of any faculty homogeneity and the “silent contract” with the area District
Superintendent and San Diego pastors that we would not attempt to develop a church on campus,
even though the chapel sitting here was potentially ideal for such a use.
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BL – Well I was thrilled, excited because Carroll had been in the Marines and he and I lived I
San Diego for two years, and I thought I was just wonderful. But there were drawbacks too. Your
job.
RK – Where did you work?
BL – I taught for Azusa for about eight years and loved it there, so it was very scary to think
about moving down. The Lord really provided a job, right in the middle of the first year we were
here.
RK – Did the move change the college?
BF – Well it pretty well broke the mold of what Pasadena College was. The alumni tell me the
reason you went to Pasadena College was that you wanted to be a preacher or a teacher. That
was the strength of the college. When we moved here with all the diversity, that changed. The
faculty could see how they could strengthen their programs and outreach. It was a time of growth
and we had our chance with the size.
KP – Yes, and now we see students seeking out PLNC because of its academic quality, not
because Young Hall is located at the very heart of a surfing paradise.
UI – I was called to go into teaching at a Nazarene college, so I was committed, even if the
college moved to Chino.
JJ – We had just finished remodeling hour home. Whether we lost money on the sale or not my
calling is to be with the college.
FC – To actively be at the college was sheer grace, so I actually never gave it a second thought.
RK – There is the idea that the life of a church is 75 years; it grows, plateaus, and declines.
Brennan Manning, who has spoken in chapel a couple of times, has written that when an
institution is young it is flexible and willing to take risks. As it ages it becomes fearful to take
risks, creativity fades and the capacity to meet unexpected challenges gets lost. I suggested in an
earlier chapter that perhaps Pasadena was a 60-year holding action until something like Point
Loma opened up. Is it possible that the college needed something like this move to reenergize it,
to refocus it?
RW – I think it was a good thing to bust up the college. It allowed some important changes.
Spiritual development, for example, was too big for the office of the Chaplain. It needed a
program, not an office.
CM – As far as my own personal life, I think the move made an important difference on me as a
person; it gave me more vision.
RK – In my life I was at Pasadena because I wanted to be. I didn’t have a leading or call until the
decision to move and the Lord’s posing of his question to me. I was here for my own reasons—I
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loved the college and political science—until that decision. That question was really important to
me in a larger perspective.
RW – I have the confidence that God is with us. And it is so clear in the fact that this college has
survived and is flourishing and doing the college work.
KP – Just as one gradually awakens from a pleasant dream, the “loyalists” gradually became
aware of powerful, yet non-controversial changes in the institution they loved. They had made
the transition with both trepidation and hope, fear and faith.
RK – And were too busy to notice the improving changes.
SF – In the past there had been some faculty who were very uncomfortable with the move and
somewhere after the discussion that would get pretty heated, somebody, and it was never the
same person, would speak up and say, “You know, people, this is God’s cause” or some remark
of that kind that brought everybody back in to focus that we may be disagreeing but we don’t
have to be disagreeable. This is God’s place. That just sticks out to me; maybe I remember it
because those kinds of meetings for me were awful, they were torture, and I hated them. And so
maybe that’s what I remember because that gave me sign that we’re all going to be civil to each
other and this will continue.
RK – Gracefully decent. I have to confess I was mad about the move the whole year after it was
announced. After three days here I wondered how I could have been so stupid, and yet I carried a
critical attitude for another year until I heard just such a discussion and realized my attitude had
become a habit, an attitude without cause. I prayed for help and the Lord delivered me from it in
an instant. But yes, there was that cloud in the first year from a few.
BF – I think it is an evolving process. I think as Reuben put it, “We are a Christian college
becoming Christian.” I think that spoke to all the diversity we had. I think it gave us a real
identity and who we were trying to be, and wanted to become. You can look at it as stages but I
think it was a kind of slow evolving process. Maybe there were giant steps and small steps that
caused that. As for my perception of what was going on, I was just trying to go to class.
FC – I mean, we’ve been very happy to be in San Diego. We go to Pasadena in July and San
Diego is heaven.
RK – Any sense of providence or divine leading, however you want to describe it—about the
decision or how it turned out?
KP – Well I think it is pretty well accepted that there was divine assurance. Brown’s Hawaii trip
and the meetings of the Board where none of us were present…
CM – My answer to that is, look at it now.
FC – You can only do that in hindsight; then it’s a faith judgment not a critical one. Material or
educational success does not necessarily mean progress.
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RK – And we don’t want to make success the sole purpose of our efforts. We don’t want to
succumb to the prosperity gospel.
RW – Ron, that’s right, but you have to start with the fact that this is a much better college than
it was. Once we got past the iconic image of a guy in the dorm with a surfboard, we could see
what had transpired. Much of it was the students, Mike Christensen and Michael Mata and
others. They put together Bible studies and mission trips.
KP – While bemoaning the loss of a visible kind of campus spirituality seemingly left behind in
Pasadena, the faculty failed, at first, to recognize the significance and impact of student-led Bible
studies, mission trips, and other activities. Growth in this area was quite vigorous. Students from
other faith-traditions sought access to a spot on campus.
RW – But it was more than that. I was asked to speak at the special prayer meeting before school
began where students and people went going out to pray over every chapel seat, every dorm bed
and every classroom. I got up to speak and there were 500 people there. Five hundred. I was
overwhelmed by that. This is a special place.
RK – Think of that. And that was the second time students, faculty, staff and church friends did
it. For hours. That is more than atmosphere. That is devotion and commitment and concern and a
lived-out reality that holiness is a verb. It’s not just a personal experience; it is an automatic
internal receptivity to help not just the broken world but also the quality young people who will
be making major decisions for their lives and carrying the quality of the Christian atmosphere on
this campus into their futures. This is a special place.
I have a hymn that expresses my feelings about the move: “Come Thou Fount of Every
Blessing.” It says in part, “here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by they help I've come” and I hope
the university will become a “fount of blessing.”
DS – Ron, mine would be “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah.” Facing the uncertainties of the
move, words like “I am weak but thou are mighty” and “be my strength and shield” or “bid my
anxious fears subside” I think reflect the feelings of all of us. Another one is “Be Still my Soul.”
RK – Yes, and he undertakes “to guide the future as the past.” I would also add words that have
been important to me for years from “Praise the Lord, the Almighty,” which says “hast thou not
seen how thy desires all have been, granted in what he ordaineth.” That is certainly my testimony
about the move.
JJ – Ron, mine would be “How Firm a Foundation.” Fear not, I am with thee, don’t be dismayed,
for I will strengthen thee and help thee.
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.
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RK – Yes, and when we are in deep waters, I will not desert you.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
HP – “And Can It Be?” would fit, The title fits since that is what we ask of entering students,
potential faculty and even the institution itself in times of accreditation. Indirectly that is what is
asked in chapel, in times of departmental review and even of resident faculty. And can it be?
What has been done and how can that be improved? Something better is always the focus.
Then the fourth verse—it is a confession of what was (pre-college—“fast bound in nature’s
night”), what has occurred (college—“my chains fell off…”) and what can be (outcome: “I rose,
went forth and followed thee”). Exactly the outcome hoped for in the heart of every Christian
parent.
RK – Wonderful. A classic Wesley hymn and the university’s song. I used “Praise the Lord” for
the title of this last section. It fits all of us. It fits the university. It fits Shelburne Brown and
Lewis Thompson and Cecil Miller and Fordyce Bennett and Harold Young and all the others
who sought the Lord for his vision. We all prayed our own guide me O thou great Jehovah. We
stilled our souls as we recognized God was on our side, made the decision, made the move, were
instruments of grace and action. We kept the charge, built a better and better school, and can sing
with pride Praise the Lord.
And I think, speaking for all of us, it has been a privilege to be part of this movement and
rebuilding. Let me quote from Bresee in 1907, talking about those who came together to form the
church:
That these people had received the promises, and like
Abraham, did not stagger under them, but were looking
all difficulties and sacrifices and sufferings, and even
impossibilities in the face, knowing that with God all
things are possible.
That’s us.
The enthusiasm was that of men who see the certainties
of things in divine light, who distinctly hear the voice of
God calling to heroic duty. 170
FC – That sure seems to fit Shelburne Brown.
RK – Shelburne put it like this in his great “Strangers in Paradise” address:
Thank God for a chance to be involved in a job that is important!
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We have a growing study body of highly motivated students, a God
who has answered and will answer prayer, and a new opportunity
to make ours a better world through youth. We can write the record,
in some measure this year, as “Paradise Gained.”
God in his providence goes before us, but marginal people with persuasion and a telephone call
can work at what they want and bring a dark cloud, and move the college backward on the
vertical and horizontal spectrums.
PK – I think we all want God’s continuing blessing. I want the song from Psalm 67 to be ours—
“The Lord bless you and keep you,” and “be gracious unto you.”
RK – I think that is the deepest prayer of all of our hearts. I think now is the time to say that we
should feel very good about the college we built and the values that are central. Out of this
project I have two scriptures I think are significant for both the move and our lives. One is the
providence that God goes before us to break down barriers; the other is that we have the
responsibility to stay faithful, to persevere, and to keep up the good work. The promise of Isaiah
62 is that God is married to us and we will be called Sought Out. Those six short years, 1973 to
1979, were a new morning for the college. While externals were added after that, the heart of the
college was set and not destroyed in the next five. The promise of faithfulness is destiny, the
morning star.
To him who overcomes and does my will to the end…
I will give the morning star. Rev2:26, 28
I like to think of us as the “morning star.” I also think the way to end this study is with these
words:
To God be the glory, great things He has done...
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord,..
let the people rejoice…
and give him the glory, great things He has done.
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FORTY YEARS - A PERSONAL AFTERWORD
Remember, Rhapsody, Resolve, Remember
When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him? Ps 8:3-4
Do you know what I have done for you? John 13:12b
Be at rest O my soul, for the
Lord has been good to me. Ps 115
God of our fathers, whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies,
Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise.
Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.
I was asked to write an Afterword, my personal perspective on the history of the move and some
of its meaning. I have learned a lot about leaders and interests. There are new ideas and concepts
about providence, guidance, and loyalty. For the institution I constructed stages of institutional
history and a new concept about the nature and values of the university to the church. For the
individual it is the story of freedom, choice of service rather than self, and perseverance. Each
who made the move made it a success as they became a servant, a symbol, and each a star.
The decision to move the college caught everyone by surprise, and they had to weigh the end of
the present against an unknown and difficult future. A marriage of two Christians means there
are two people to whom and through whom God can speak. To move means one spouse stays
with the job while the other leaves theirs, or both keep their jobs but live apart during the week.
To leave a job can mean leaving accrued benefits, to leave a home can mean a loss of equity, to
leave doctors can be unsettling, and to leave schools and church and friends means a loss of joy
and satisfaction. But to move, to leave, to face a new future can be an adventure, a new
beginning, the chance for a better set of circumstances.
Do you know what I have done for you?
There is time, and there is circumstance, and there is providence. It is important to remember
that God is with us, and therefore to remember with a proper perspective.
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REMEMBER – A PROVIDENTIAL LEGACY
As I was finishing this book, I attended the dedication of Charles Hostler Hall at San Diego State
University. That dedication was the second of the day. Construction cranes were nearby for a
third building, and an attending state legislator promised money for another new building for the
34,000 students. That university seemed to have everything, especially size, funds, and impact.
In comparison, Point Loma was small and underfunded.
I stood there with a sinking feeling, much like Bresee had felt as he stood looking at a fine new
church and sorrowed at his church’s struggle. Then God said to Bresee, “I have given Myself to
you.” 171 It was God’s promise of his presence to Bresee. That was the vital promise, the pearl of
great price, and I embraced it as his promise to this institution. That was not a promise of good
fortune, but of his personal presence, protection and blessing--his providence.
That is a statement of faith. To the degree that it was and is true, we need to be humble and feel
honored. To the degree to which it is true, we need to recognize it and learn to be thankful and
trustful of it. To understand it, the following will be a dialogue based on actual questions that
have come through this study, the questions again are in italics.
Providence is a nice assertion – but what is providence?
There are several ways to understand providence, based on scripture, experience and faith. 172
The two basic questions are how often does God intervene, and how gentle or active is his
intervention and the freedom of our response. Wesleyans congregate around the middle positions
because we do not believe life is preplanned and all that happens is God’s will. Nor do we
believe God is an absentee landlord. Wesleyans believe God created us but gave us the privilege
and the danger of freedom. Wesleyans hold a high view of God’s care through grace, so that God
does more than the minimum, yet remains free to intervene in a way to “make things happen.”
He, through grace, is with us and guides us and may even break down gates of iron, or cause
rivers of goodness to flow in our lives, to help us in our service to and projects for the Kingdom.
Yet we have the freedom to ignore that advice, or lack the skill to make it make a project happen
and it is lost.
This chapter is based on a middle position that leans toward the belief that God did more than the
minimum for this university. Given the opportunity and positive impact of this relocation, God
hoped it could be accomplished, guided some to a decision, strengthened the courage of Dr.
Brown, and guided bankers and lawyers whether they knew it or not.
This is all pretty nebulous! Is there anything more we can get a hold on?
Perhaps a better way to explain God’s involvement in our lives and the life of this university is
with six words—purpose, pleasure, propitious, promise, participate and persuade. God’s
purpose is for all people to know and love and live in him. Second, to extend his grace and
influence to means and methods that call people to him and then equip and bless their efforts to
serve God’s kingdom, and thirdly, to bring unity and fourth, to eventually bring all things to a
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consummation. The first two fit this college, and the movement of the Holy Spirit in the decisive
Trustee meeting fits the third.
Our lives have some genetic determinism, some impact of social location, yet also love and
choice and dreams. It is God’s good pleasure to help us achieve our dreams in a way that serves
his kingdom and purposes. In our development and choices God participates to help make
possible and real our dreams, his purposes, and the promise of the opportunity. As we look back
we can see connections and events that were decisive. Our lives are not lived on a flat plane or a
consistent trajectory upward. In our lives there are times of defeat, of plateau, and times of
juncture, of a new tide, of an updraft. The latter are propitious times of opportunity when we can
reach for a higher plane of his purpose and pleasure, or choose a direction for dreams that better
fit his kingdom. In theology those times are called Kairos moments, times of opportunity which
God offers to us.
God rarely violates the laws and physics and biology; his is a spiritual force and he works to
persuade the minds and hearts and souls of people, attempting to condition their perspectives
and choices to fit with his purposes and the goals of his participation. How does he do that? How
does God act in the world? He “speaks” as the Holy Spirit impresses on our mind or soul a
particular scripture, an insight, a clarification of choices, words that invade or impress our
thoughts, an affirmation of the words of others, or by recognition of what he had done for us in
the past. He persuades not only us but those whose decisions impact us.
Or he may dramatically act, metaphorically reaching down to us to save us physically, or to
convince others to make a certain decision. Or he may not. And we have mystery, and perhaps a
sense of injustice. Isaiah put it like this:
Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instruct him
as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten
him, and who taught him the right way? Isaiah 40:13-14
He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. Matt 4:45b
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. John 14:1
The words that are not here are foreordained, preplanned, and predestined. I cannot believe
everything that happens is God’s will. Surely not World War I, not cancer or car wrecks. God
has an interest in us and cares for us. He has hopes and purposes for us and takes pleasure in
helping us. I believe he broods over our waywardness, the destructive consequences of the
selfishness and predatory actions of others toward us, as well as the malfunctioning of the
biological process, which can destroy our health. In the midst of our journey he guides and
persuades, and occasionally directly intervenes to cause or prevent something.
That’s easy to say but how do you know that?
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One way is a life-changing experience that cannot be explained by the normal rules of life and
you sense it was more than random. Another is to see a pattern that indicates more than
coincidence. Consider this pattern of participation. This history has focused on just ten years,
1902, 1909-1912, and 1972-1978. In just those ten years there have been eight events of
enormous importance to this university.
“Do you know what I have done for you?” John 13:12b
For most of us, we had no idea. Put these eight together and you can see a pattern that you may
find to be providential.
First, in 1902, Bresee was too busy to think about creating a college, so six women came
unexpectedly and urged him to create one.
Second, in 1909, the college was getting ready to relocate to a new site. It seemed desirable but
no one knew that area would become Hollywood. In the midst of the preparations W. C. Wilson
unexpectedly came to Bresee with news that the Hugus Ranch was for sale. That changed
everything.
Third, in 1911, the college was facing foreclosure when Jackson Deets, who had opposed the
move to Pasadena and quit the Board of Trustees and removed the college from his will,
unexpectedly funded the bank’s demand.
Fourth, the college was in crisis in 1912 and the Lord came to Bresee with promise, and W. F.
Hill drove all night from San Diego to Pasadena and, just hours from foreclosure, arrived
unexpectedly, and funded the need.
Fifth, in 1972, the college faced a cloudy future in Pasadena when, “out of the blue,” Dr. Rust
called to ask if Brown would be interested in purchasing the Cal Western campus.
Sixth, in 1972, obstacles to the move seemed like a mountain too high to climb, so God
unexpectedly visited Shelburne Brown in Hawaii and made clear his will that the college move.
Seventh, in May 1973, the Trustees faced the final vote on whether or not to close escrow on the
San Diego campus. Chief negotiator Wes Mieras was killed in an airplane accident a week
before the final vote, and there was no buyer in sight for the purchase of the Pasadena campus,
which most Trustees considered essential. The Trustees faced the hopes, difficulties and dangers
involved in a final vote about whether to move. Their eyes needed to be opened to see this
decision was to be based on more than the normal circumstances and calculation. The testimony
of Dr. Brown, of his belief that it was the Lord’s will to move, became the words of the Holy
Spirit who came and united them in a unanimous decision.
Though no one stated it in these terms, looking back, the presence and baptism of those words by
the Holy Spirit was essentially the direction and promise of the Lord to “Leave this place” and
“My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:1, 14) They did not see the
horses of Elisah (2 Kings 6:17). But they knew in their souls that the Lord was in the move.
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Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast.
Eighth, in 1975, as the sale of the Pasadena campus became ever more important, another
surprise call came to Dr. Brown. Ralph Winter called him to say he wanted to buy it.
There was a pattern: in eight crucial instances, for Bresee and Brown, unexpected solutions came
“out of the blue.” All eight represent prevenient grace—God takes the first step.
Well those are highly individualized and relate only to one person and one college. Why should
the Lord favor Pasadena College? Why not make the offer to other Christian colleges too? Why
you alone? To paraphrase Psalms, what is this college that God is mindful of it?
That is a very important question. It is amazing no other colleges were competing to purchase
such a marvelous campus. One easy answer is that God was also involved in blessing and
building Azusa Pacific College, a nearby holiness college that was growing through mergers
with smaller colleges and Bible Institutes. There was no holiness college in San Diego. For
Pasadena College to move ended the competition for students and donors between two small
holiness colleges, and provided one to San Diego without the growing pains of starting a new
college from scratch. Both got to grow and expand their impact.
Or, perhaps it was the importance this college put onto the theology of holiness as well as the
experience, or perhaps that this college could be trusted not to sell out its mission to a major
donor, trusted not to give in to either secularism or fundamentalism as popular parochial
movements, not to fear education and so give one-sided “training in the right answers” and so
warp the children of God rather than provide education that leads them to fullness.
Or perhaps – we can only surmise. Other Christian colleges have been favored with God’s hand.
Yet others saw the need to relocate and failed. Eastern Nazarene College tried to relocate but
opposition was too strong; Bethany College did relocate from Los Angeles to Santa Cruz,
changed its original mission, and went bankrupt. Kings College in New York tried to relocate but
ended up with two campuses, and went bankrupt. Perhaps the opportunities were rational but
purely personal rather than providential. There are times in the midst of danger when one is
favored, and one must take the opportunity. August 1972 to August 1973 was the year of the
Lord’s favor to this college.
But if the move was providential, if the Lord spoke to Brown and then went before him to break
down the gates of bronze, why did he die of cancer?
There are questions without easy answers. If we relied on a deductive theology about God’s
sovereignty, then God “took him.” If we rely alone on inductive reasoning, then it was simple
biology. We have to rely on some kind of balance between inductive and faith in God’s grace.
Death is a reality of our lives. God does not guarantee a long, happy life; John the Baptist was
murdered and so was Stephen. Lazarus died of natural causes and so did the Centurion’s son.
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One student is saved from drowning while his church friend is killed in a construction accident.
We live in the world of Genesis 1 and Job 39, a world with its own social, natural and health
processes, of war, earthquakes and genetic disorders. We know from experience about miracle
protections and untimely deaths. We know from our reason that we live in a world of laws and
the unexpected, a world of trends and trajectories, yet also mistakes, mutations, mishaps and
misconduct.
Second, but not second in importance, God’s goodness transcends our self-interest. We are more
than our muscles and tissues, more than our earthly history and identity. We are also part of
God’s kingdom that transcends this life.
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Ps 116:15
The sight of the lowered flag when we drove onto campus was an unwelcome and sorrowful
sight for us. Yet, third, this university of God’s providence—the object of his purposes and
pleasure—this university of Bresee and Brown, was larger, stronger, more complex and more
enduring than Brown’s predecessors’ and successors’.
The bust of Dr. Brown in Brown Chapel has a smile, as did the Lord when he welcomed Brown
home.
But why Pasadena College?
I do not know why we had the special opportunity to purchase the Point Loma site, but I offer
four considerations. First, trust. All through the rage of two world wars, the emergence of
theories of evolution, relativity, indeterminacy, social engineering and the social gospel, the
changes in American culture in the 1920s and 1960s—through all of those the college did not
forsake its heritage and leave the faith, nor did it try to live with a duality of two separate sets of
beliefs, secular and sacred, nor did it resist the 20th Century and become fundamentalist. That
was a college that could be trusted, the theme of For Zion’s Sake.
Trusted? For decades it seemed stuck in history with moments of sheer contradiction. The
churches, mostly small themselves, kept faith in it with their budget support, but expected it to
remain small and not to get ahead of them. When it did move there was suspicion. So why
Pasadena College? And why sixty years in Pasadena with heroes like Wiley but stunted growth
and several less than stellar presidents?
There are few people and institutions that live out a steeply upward trajectory of growth in size,
quality and impact. There are events we do not recognize as providential until later. There are
times we feel stuck far from where we want to be, even forced to take two steps back.
In the providences of God even the bad need not be wasted. God can use the choices of others
that constitute two steps back in order to move forward. Val Christensen made that relevant with
his comment that the two steps backwards in the late 1950s and early 1960s made everyone
ready for the leadership of President Brown.
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The extraordinary kairos moment of opportunity could not happen until the financial
mismanagement of President Rust had driven Cal Western to the point of foreclosure, the refusal
of the city and neighborhood to allow Rust to expand. Likewise, it could not have happened until
Jim Wooton and then Bob Foster made Pasadena College financially secure and debt worthy
enough to take the opportunity of 1972, and the emergence of President Brown as the singular
leader who could seize the kairos moment. That constellation of factors could not develop until
the 1970s. Until that time, as Paul writes in Hebrews, there were those who could see far off yet
did not received the promise.
That seems awfully self-glorifying, too close to the haunting specter of exceptionalism. I’m sure
other colleges have special scriptures and miraculous events.
Yes, other colleges have their special scriptures and providential events. We are not the only one,
but we are not orphans either. God has blessed us with his presence, purpose and participation.
He was with us and went before us to orchestrate the various bankers, lawyers, lenders, political
leaders, and Trustees to make the move possible.
So, then, Brown was wrong about the risk. If God has purposes spelled out in Isaiah 62, and
tabernacles with the college, there was never a risk. God would not let the relocation fail, and all
the stress and calculations were meaningless. God is sovereign. He encounters presidents and
breaks the bronze gates by forcing others to do what was necessary.
In my opinion that is only partially correct. We can learn about ourselves through the history of
the move. To begin, I am talking about providence, not predestination, and opportunity for
participation, not completion of a pre-planned blueprint. The difference is choice, skill, courage
and determination. In the process of continuing care and promise he promotes his purposes in
opportunities and gives guidance in choices. At the same time the risk was real because it is
people who make decisions.
Did God know in 1910 that President Rust would decide to sell Cal Western in 1972?
Likely not. Instead Rust came to the decision to sell after he was blocked by the city from vastly
increasing the size of the student body. That unexpected decision to sell, and the decision to not
sell to the Cannon group, became an opportunity for the Lord to promote his purpose for the
college and, like the healing of the man born blind, an opportunity through which to display his
power and care. (John 9:3).
Well if God or providence guided the college to move and broke down barriers, then you just
strolled into San Diego and set up shop.
Oh no, no. Faculty, those who did not believe it was below their dignity as a “professional,”
moved furniture and painted dorms. That would never be enough. We needed a lot of help from
churches, alumni and friends. Volunteers came and helped with refurbishing. The churches
continued to pay on their annual educational budget to help our budget. Carlton Ponsford and
multiple teams of pastors made personal fundraising calls and raised $180,000 that first year in
San Diego, along with promoting the college and deepening its support. The churches even
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welcomed faculty like me to come and preach and try to raise additional funds. One of the
churches at which I preached was small, the pastor and his wife and their child were young and
needed a better salary, and yet they gave a small amount.
All this discussion of providence—why is it so important? Let the college just be a college, doing
what it can to survive and do its job. What does it matter to me?
The importance is that what is true of the college is true of us. One is a model for the other. God
wants his presence, protection, purposes, and participation in our lives, and wants to be with us
in our serious choices. We experience opportunities in our lives. To do what the college leaders
did in 1972 can lead to the same benefits—to improve our capacity for service, advance our
social maturity, deepen our spiritual lives, and in general improve the quality of our lives. We
can be what John in Revelation calls “the morning star.” Despite those who still criticized the
move two decade later, for the college, the opportunity of the move and the benefits that came
from following God’s guidance, helped achieve his purposes—that we be known as “sought
out,” a Royal Diadem in the hand of God.
How God works with us is how he works with the college. The journey of our lives requires
choices in the midst of opportunity. In 1972 and 1973, the Lord through the Holy Spirit led
Brown and the Trustees to see ahead, to adopt a vision beyond that of the managers of fear and
the status quo. It could have been a pivot point in the college’s history, but it depended on trust
in their sense that the Lord was in the move, on the graceful guidance to individual faculty, on
the financial acumen of Robert Foster, and on the decision of the Trustees. Blessings then flow.
Nice theory but what does all that mean in real life for Shelburne Brown and the individual
faculty facing a disruptive choice?
Here are four meanings: 1) we should be people continually seeking God’s purposes and times of
opportunity, while 2) living a life of faithfulness, righteousness and graceful decency, so that
God can trust us with new opportunities and help us journey on the highway of holiness. In
return he seeks 3) to achieve his purposes through the individuality of our skills and dreams by
means of blessing and guiding us. What we have done on the basis of our best prayful
calculations can 4) be used to make a kairos opportunity possible, so nothing is wasted or wrong.
Be at rest O my soul, for the
Lord has been good to me. Ps 115
RHAPSODY – BRESEE’S VISION TODAY
What is the state of the university 40 years after the move?
The first core value – Spiritual Experience. In August 2013, 500 students and church people
came to the campus as they had the year before and prayed at each seat in the chapel, at each
building on campus and at each dorm, for the students who would come. “That was God’s gift to
me,” former Chaplain Reuben Welch told me. It was good to bust up the past and make changes.
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The programs of spiritual life are so wide; they are too big to be limited to the Office of the
Chaplain. Spiritual life is now not an office but a program.
We have chapel, special weeks, Bible studies throughout the dorms and more. At a larger level,
the vision of President Jim Bond for an organized program of spiritual development has been
operationalized with a layered program for worship ministries, community ministries, student
ministries, international ministries as well as student discipleship groups and leadership training.
Is this all just programmed or administratively engineered spirituality?
No. Each of these efforts involves hundreds of students. The Chaplain does three chapels a week
as well as a Wednesday night event that draws 700 students. Each Monday evening, 150 students
in each category come together for training, and so many of the events and programs within
these categories are the ideas of students, and then organized and led by students. As 2014
began, 340 freshmen students had attended one D Group (Discipleship Group), with an average
weekly attendance of 120, and 120 students requested assignment to a Spiritual Mentor.
Why is all this programming necessary?
One reason is that in earlier years, the college’s approach to spiritual development followed
the model of the church—regular services, biannual revivals and Bible studies. They were
“something done to the students” and did create a high spiritual tide, but it was too easy after
graduation to feel like you stepped off a cliff, leaving the high tide for the tide pools. Today, all
this effort is designed to help students learn to promote their own spiritual development so their
life in Christ will continue strong when they leave. The atmosphere now is more authentic and
life-changing, for it comes not just from administrative programs directed to students but also
“rises up from within,” from the authentic spiritual life of the campus. 173 It is a permanent rather
than one-revival-week-a-semester openness to the Lord. It is a campus presence and atmosphere.
A new faculty member this year said that when she first drove onto the campus, she felt a sense
of peace. Others coming on the campus have had the same sensation. A senior wrote, “There is a
spiritual atmosphere on campus if you look for it. I can sense it in the classroom and around
other students.” A spiritual atmosphere, the glory of the Lord, is here if we are not so busy,
rushed, preoccupied, and self-centered that we miss it. Another student wrote:
It depends on where you look (not the back three rows of chapel).
But then you look elsewhere, and you see the true beauty that
this campus is capable of-- an inspiring Christian community where
students support, encourage, challenge, and keep each other accountable.
A community where the familial relationship of God the father
is mirrored in how students live with one another; we
do not serve first in order to be loved, but we are loved already
and so we serve as a response.
Those who open themselves to it, find it, are moved by it and changed by it have gained more
freedom to be individuals. It is but one bit of evidence that God was in this move to San Diego.
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The second reason for this programming is wholeness. Bresee could not let Nazarene University
die in 1911 because it was so important. The goal of the Christian university is wholeness
because holiness is not merely personal piety. For Bresee the importance of Nazarene University
was truth and goodness, that is, the broad goal is more than just educating the mind and
experiencing the spirit; it also meant helping young people recognize the needs of the poor and
be “thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” So, forty years after the relocation the university
is involved in educating the heart and hands for moral compassion and service as well as the
mind and soul. To those ends the university has important co-curricular elements, from
Loveworks to the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, the Center for International
Development, the Women’s Study Center and others for moral service and moral imagination.
Wholeness means the heart and soul and mind and hands.
The second core value – Quality Academics. The classroom is primary, but quality academics is
more than the minimum. Forty years after the move the quality of academics is superb, Faculty
have produced and presented or published hundreds of research and conference papers. 174
Students do professional research. In 1960 Val Christensen and Vic Heasley started the
chemistry summer research program. In 1978 Mike McConnell came and began a summer
research program in biology. Alumni from chemistry established Research Associates in 1977
and they helped fund the biology program. From the chemistry’s summer research program have
come 246 students. Of those, 80% have gone to advanced medical or graduate programs, and 9%
are working in industry or teachers. From the 319 graduates who were in the biology summer
research program, 61% have gone on to advanced degrees and 12% have gone into
biotechnology or teaching.
Science is the cornerstone of modern society yet too often people of faith discount science, and
the science community disparages faith. PLNU develops individuals who see science as a way to
exercise their faith, who burn with a passion to uncover God’s creative work, and to understand
what it means to care for the whole person. 175
This research and most of the books and chapters in edited books are discipline-specific.
Examples are books like Framing Sarah Palin by Linda Beail, Rick Hill’s award winning We’re
All From Somewhere Else, Jaeyoon Kim’s Local Conflict in the Qing Dynasty, Alan Hueth’s
Scriptwriting for TV, Film and the New Media. Other faculty including Linda Beail, Bettina
Pederson, Greg Crow, Dean Nelson and others have put together edited volumes. The Wesleyan
Center produced several short monographs and three books: Embodied Holiness, Grace and the
Academic Community, and Maps and Models for Ministry.
Other professors work at relating their faith to their field in articles, chapters and books. The
following are but a sample of books, and does not reflect the many from the School of Theology
and Christian Ministry where Brad Kelle, Robert Smith and Reuben Welch have written much.
On Scripture
Frank Carver helps us understand the reason why we are not fundamentalists. Scripture, he
writes, “the bridge from God’s holy Word to the life of the Christian is the Holy Spirit” because
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the Spirit enables us to understand the Scriptures as they testify to Jesus, and thus to “interpret
Jesus for the situations of our lives now.” 176
On Wesleyan Holiness
Sam Powell wrote several books including Holiness in the 21st Century and the award-winning
Participation in God. In that book Powell writes “when we stand in God’s presence with praise,
wisdom and humility, our lives are given a distinctive character” by the God “who makes all
things new by opening up a future where none was previously imagined.” In an essay he writes
that holiness is in “our standing before God, in hearing and responding to the call of God into the
new life in Christ.” Given that, the Bible’s focus then is not on what we can become by the
habits or rules we follow but “instead on being drawn out of ourselves and toward God.”
Holiness must be more than rules; otherwise holiness is equated with “conformity to certain
behavioral standards whose specificity increases in proportion to their banality.” Holiness is “a
persistent journey toward God and into the new world that God creates.” It is habitual, not to
behavior codes but to “a life of habitual consecration and disciple, in which love and devotion to
God has a pure and unmixed quality.” Holiness also “requires being part of a church” for “we
receive God’s truth in and through church ministries,” we are formed by the “powerful influence
that each believer exerts on others,” and we share and conform to the “practical and authoritative
wisdom accumulated in the church.” 177
On Faith and Science
Biology professor Darrel Falk wrote a passionate but humble book called Coming to Peace with
Science designed to build a bridge between faith and science. Do two and two make four? Of
course—it has been proven thousands of times a day. What if one believed they do not? Would
one trust a doctor placing a heart pacemaker in their chest? Falk argues that thousands of
scientists have accumulated a tremendous mass of data demonstrating the earth is ancient and life
evolved gradually. If Christians refuse to believe the data and argue that science is wrong, they
are constructing isolated islands of belief. There are four major consequences. First, it is a misuse
of scripture. Quoting Augustine and John Calvin Falk, he argues the Bible’s purpose is not tied
to describing creation, in other words, the heart of Christianity does not relate in any way to the
time period of creation. Second, it will make faith increasingly inaccessible to those who believe
the findings of science. Third, focusing on an issue unrelated to the heart of the scripture detracts
from searching for the Bible’s deepest truths. Fourth, if the children from the isolated islands
venture into the realm of knowledge that exists outside their narrow world, they may drown if
there is no bridge spanning the faith-science gap.
On Faith and Foreign Policy
In Political Science Ron Kirkemo wrote two books on foreign affairs. In Between the Eagle and
the Dove Kirkemo writes from a Wesleyan perspective that God does not cause war and peace,
but Christians should bring their reason, experience and compassion to foreign affairs. The
second book, Embraced and Engaged, was written to inspire students to consider careers in
foreign policy, to consider the ethical issues they will encounter if they do, and to explore ways
to bring grace to bear on issues.
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For Wesleyans the concept of grace is central. Does grace operate in foreign policy strategy, or
in spying, or decision-making processes? In comparing the decision structures in the outbreak of
World War I and the avoidance of war in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kirkemo wrote “Grace,
which empowers one to see beyond the bureaucratic, parochial and fatalistic perspectives, made
the marginal difference. Decision structures are not abstract; they are shaped by the human and
moral qualities at play, and they in turn foster those moral qualities. Those two different decision
structures and organizational cultures in 1914 and 1962 produced two different outcomes; in
Washington the organizational culture opened up space for grace.” 178 Similarly, in our lives we
need to open up, to widen and deepen our soul’s capacity to encounter and absorb God’s grace.
On Faith and Psychology
Paul Culbertson wrote of the similarity of the psychology of the Old Testament with people of
the 20th Century. He taught psychology for many years at Pasadena College and made the move
to San Diego, experiencing the struggles and uncertainties of the move. One can see some of that
in this book of psychological portraits of twelve people Culbertson found that even though their
lives were bound up with God, many still had troubles not unlike those who were caught by
surprise by the move. Like Ezra and Miriam, some were legalists and some bitter and critical.
Some had mixed motives and moral indecisiveness in confronting the decision to move.
One of Culbertson’s clearest and consistent principles in his teaching and this book was that
people are to be treated as ends and not means, and we must have moral margins with room to
spare. In all the dealings and adjustments, we are to be kind and graceful, allow people to be
themselves and have margins of privacy. Also appropriate for critics of the move, legalism must
give way to care. People are creatures of habit and we must establish good habits and, related to
that, we must choose our friends wisely. In this institutional relocation as well as our own
projects and dreams we will face decisions of calculated risk, opponents and dishonesty. One
must bring appropriate moral and ethical principles to the uncertainty of the situation, Culbertson
writes, for pious goodness is never enough. One needs good judgment for decisions and courage
to confront dangers. Individual development, moral characters, good habits, good judgment,
courage—how do we get all these? One, Culbertson wrote, be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Two, live in the grace of God and be able to keep in touch with the upholding and
guiding hand of God. One additional lesson—be humble and through it all you will find God to
be sympathetic and faithful. 179
On Faith and our Daily Lives
A journalist writes for a general audience, Dean Nelson told me. “I'm mostly interested in
reaching the general reading public and engaging them.” Nelson teaches journalism and has coauthored several books, including The Power of Serving Others and Quantum Leap about John
Polkinghorn. God Hides in Plain Sight is Nelson’s personal book about seeing God’s
connections, personal presence, in the world around us. “To know that we fit into the world is a
wonderful gift,” Nelson writes. He adds, “To use the gift each of us is given a sense of great
purpose,” agreeing with Thomas Merton that in these modern times “we have lost sight of the
fact that even the most ordinary actions of our everyday life are invested, by their very nature,
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with a deep spiritual meaning.” Nelson goes on with multiple examples of God’s grace and
presence in our lives, of which these are but a few--eating meals, welcoming home a prodigal,
acts of kindness and service, and acknowledging the presence of death which lets the present
moments be full of life, in silence, and in interruptions. “Whether we see the sacred and holy in
everyday life is not a matter of whether it exists,” Nelson concludes. “Rather, it is a matter of
whether we see it.” 180
What do these books say to us? We are not alone, for the Holy Spirit, Carver reminds us, relates
scripture to our lives, to the specific situations of our lives. Holiness is not a “thing” or “state of
being” we acquire. Powell reminds us that holiness is a persistent journey despite the snakes and
snares that come into our lives. We live in a modern, secular, cyber, changing world, and Falk
demonstrates how we have a role in building bridges that help people understand how God
works in this world. Our souls, like organizational structures, can be open or closed to grace.
Kirkemo implies that we must widen and deepen our souls for grace to transform us and help us
make good decisions. As we walk with God and serve his kingdom, others will look to us and we
can find the temptation to think too highly of our selves. Remember Culbertson’s call to be
humble. Most of us are not leaders but “regular” people walking the Way of Holiness as best we
can. Remember Nelson’s advice to be aware of God’s grace in the little things of our lives.
Operational Value – Spiritual Development. Are lives being changed?
Jack Schaefer in his book Shane has the hero, a gunfighter, try to leave his past, but to save a
family he has to take up the gun again. As he leaves he tells a young boy that a man is what he is,
and cannot change who he is. 181 Too many people believe those words, and too many believe
conformity to a code of externals diminishes the need for internal change. They are both wrong,
and here at Point Loma, God changes students. When he does they develop a moral code, a
moral imagination, a moral means of uplifting people, and a moral improvement of themselves
and their society.
The college moved from a sedate city to a vibrant city. Is there still vibrant faith? When students
were asked in a 2011 survey if they had a meaningful relationship with God, 90% answered yes.
When asked if the university challenged them to think about issues from a Christian perspective,
88% said yes. When asked if the institution helped them use Christian values to evaluate their
own behavior, 80% said yes. Contrary to critics and those who fear education will destroy
spirituality, over 80% of our students leave here spiritually stronger.
Remember how Bresee defined a Nazarene university—to turn out men and women of God, that
is, to have a special divine relationship, furnished with proper ideals so they will not be fanatics
or Pharisees, with a view broader than ordinary scholarship and higher than the common. 182
Should I have been allowed to attend my high school’s senior prom, or take my son to see the
movie Star Wars? Too often, when people ask if we are still a “Nazarene university,” they are
interested in whether we are “holding true” to the externals, not the internals, for it is those
externals that define and keep alive the “brand” of the denomination. But the internal must take
precedence. The externals are secondary. I believe Bresee and Brown, W. F. Hill and Wes
Mieras, Jackson Deets and Jim Wooton, would be glad that we are a vibrant Nazarene university.
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We have the privilege of Bresee’s vision of a West Coast holiness university. We have four
times more students than we had in Pasadena who are experiencing that spiritual vitality.
CRITIQUE
Two questions. First, why this emphasis on West Coast?
There are institutional cultures and public cultures that uphold tradition, identity, conformity
and isolation. Given human depravity and frailty, change opens opportunities for improper
independence and immorality. In these traditional cultures good citizens and good churchmen do
not question paradoxes and inconsistencies. The leaders know best as they protect and promote a
culture of the normal, the acceptable, the status quo. The benefit is a sense of safety that persists
through generations. The danger, when innovation and change are discouraged, is inevitable
dependency on an innovative culture somewhere else, with an accompanying threat of personal
self-deception about motives.
The southern coastal strip of California from San Francisco to San Diego has been a land of
progress, dreams, change and innovation coming from the conversion of mission lands to
rancheros in the 1830s, the gold rush of the 1840s, the entertainment industry of the 1920s, the
defense industries of the 1940s, the high technology of Silicon Valley in the 1960s and 1970s,
globalization in the 1990s and the post-industrial knowledge-based culture of the 21st Century. It
is a culture of personal, cultural and technological change and achievement rather than the status
quo, a culture of restlessness, and an emphasis on style, all copied by others a decade later. It is a
culture of the individual as people move to new opportunities and extended families break up.
Cities are vibrant as the old is torn down to make way for the new. The beaches are places of
sun, skin, surf, cresting waves and beckoning horizon. The public universities are places of
research, allied research centers and think tanks that promote new ideas and strategies in areas
from medicine to urban public policy to scientific discoveries. It is a culture where leadership has
to be proven rather than granted because of an organizational chart, and expected to be open
about motives and goals. It is a culture that emphasizes the best of the personal—freedom and
progress. Some of my conservative friends, buried in tradition, refer to it as the “Left Coast.”
Four times the number, multiple denominations, a beach culture—many church leaders believed
the move was a mistake, even 20 years later. For them, the college has been “captured” by the
“Left Coast.” One Trustee said, Brown was not a “take charge leader” and “would not hold the
line” and the impact of non-Nazarenes would be the loss of the “behavior codes so loved by
Nazarenes.” 183 The future president from the Midwest, Bill Draper, “believed the move had
been a mistake because of the proximity to the liberalizing influence of the beach culture.” 184
How can you be a holiness college when you have hundreds of students here who are from
different denominations? How weak of a definition or how thin of an experience must you make
holiness for this diverse campus?
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First, from day one, Bresee welcomed students from other denominations. The ratio of Nazarene
students and students from other denominations has changed, and the Trustees are to be
commended for not giving in to calls to restrict student admissions and so restrict the university.
Holiness is explained in chapel, in some classes, in a course called Life of Holiness in the
General Education requirements, and in spiritual development programs. The approach to
holiness at the university comes through the Reuben Welch tradition of the journey rather than
the magic formula of eradication of sin that allows a sinless life as preached in the 1940s and
1950s. One evangelist even proclaimed in my church that if young mothers were taking aspirin
for headaches they were not sanctified. Despite the premise and promise, the churches had to
hold regular revivals twice a year to keep people saved and sanctified. The other approach to
sanctity is to journey on the “way of holiness” (Isaiah 35:8). Sam Powell wrote that holiness is
the persistent journey toward God and his world, and the means are habitual consecration and
discipline. 185 That tradition is relevant to nearly all denominations.
A university is a wonderful place for students, faculty and leaders. All our students deserve more
than a marginal university of introverted departments, little ambitions and passing on established
knowledge. The world is full of trouble and the church must know how to speak to the world. A
Nazarene university built on the humane values of Erasmus, the life in Christ and the journey on
the highway of holiness of Wesley, on modern, evidence-based thinking of Galileo, and the
urban and forward thinking of Bresee, that Nazarene university can be a “morning star.”
In 1929, Madam Tingley was killed in an automobile accident and the “public glory” of her
Theosophical Society “began to fade.” 186 In 1973, the college successfully made the move and
during the succeeding 40 years the glory grew. The faculty and staff brought with them the
“glory of the Lord” and made this land “holy ground.” To them we are grateful.
RATIONALE
Going to college is a lot of trouble and dollars and debt, just to learn the “outliers” of education
like nebula and Shakespeare. It is too irrelevant. Students need jobs.
That is an important critique. Let me talk about it as briefly as I can. While a person may never
look through a telescope again, or remember the words of Shakespeare 10 years later, he or she
will have the foundation for balance. Bresee’s fear of the sectarian and fear-monger does not
apply to religion only. In later years, when graduates are assaulted by the pressures of life; the
partisans of the narrow; and the claims of those who trade in fear, the pressures for ethical
compromise, all of who want their vote or money or membership, the impact of history,
literature, and psychology will have given them a balance that will hold them steady.
As for jobs, Dr. Brown understood that 70% of the employable skills in 1900 were no longer
needed in 1975. 187 In the 21st century, technology is replacing people. Brown was deeply
committed to the liberal arts and that this college should help students see, think and act like a
whole person, for such a person is better adapted to face the future. Plus, he or she will have “the
ability to make moral decisions, have a clear view of ethical issues,” and be “the voice of a
prophet” speaking about injustice. 188
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Moreover change is accelerating in this cyber technological world. To prepare students for
“jobs” is to leave to other universities the preparation of men and women to be the innovators,
the change agents, those who imagine and engineer the future. The Da Vince Index, the
chemistry and biology research programs are leading forces for looking at the future and ought to
be models for other departments who help students for specialty rather than generalist careers.
I hope the reader understands that we want for the students the same things we want for the
university and for ourselves—to elevate people so they can reflect on their lives in freedom,
transcend dogma, and see multiple perspectives to find what they are passionate about and not to
be limited. To see trajectories and curves and reversals. To be Erasmus, Galileo, Wesley and
Bresee with a moral sense, modern understandings, living in the spirit, and building God’s
kingdom. Balance, style, passion, justice—those are the ingredients of a full life. By having seen
above and beyond, with inspiration and purpose, they will be solid Christian people.
President Jim Bond put it like this—students and faculty at a Christian liberal arts university “are
at home among the world’s artists, writers, historians and scientists.” He added:
Many young people come to college with a dogmatic certainty about
many facts, theories and principles. Most of their opinions have been
inherited from their families and friends, or their pastors and teachers.
Seldom have their thoughts been tested or critically examined. To do
that can be unsettling but trafficking in ideas is ‘part and parcel’ of the
liberal arts. 189
Well that is dangerous. In 1976, just three years after your move, Lyle Schiller published his
book Understanding Tomorrow. He warned that the loose morals and anti-institutionalism of the
young people of the 1960s would impact the church in the 1980s and we must be prepared to
stop them. That danger was just magnified by moving to a beach community.
Well you are talking about me. And Schiller was right, that was my generation, but he was
wrong because so much in the church and society needed to be changed. And if female students
wear shorts on campus to the consternation of old men wearing dark suits, those men are living
in a past that no longer exists. They are missing the kind of college Bresee was trying to create, a
college that focuses on the core values of robust spirituality and the best in education.
RESOLVE
Will it ever cease to be holy ground? Will the move ever validate the critics of the move?
My hope is NO. In part, because the critics were insular, institutionalized and patriarchal. Few of
those remain in positions of influence. No, because the critics were wrong—we are a better
university today than before, spiritually and academically. With only the exception of the
University of Chicago, all the great universities are on the coasts, from Harvard to Berkley,
Princeton to USC, MIT to Stanford. I was at a related university and remarked at its sculpture of
the lamp of learning with its eternal flame. “Yes, but it flickers a lot” commented a faculty
member from there. We don’t try to “hold the line” on fifth-rate incidentals. We try hard to hold
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to three essentials—God’s presence and spiritual development, second, serious and truthful
academics of dialogue, relevance to life and that “push back the shadows” to reveal God more
clearly, and third, a campus culture of graceful decency.
There are second level issues here, over graduate programs, over structure, but there is no
disagreement over the core issues, the core essentials. The role of the university is to open to the
presence of God. We need the presence of the Lord to do those—to give insight to faculty on
relating their faith to their fields, to give grace to faculty, staff and students in dealing with each
other, and to inspire, convict and prepare students for compassion, ideas, and projects.
What about this concept of the university as a cousin of the church? We all know that Jesus is the
head of the church and the university is a child of the church. Are you trying to break with the
church?
No, I am trying to lay a new foundation for respect. A university as a pursuer of discovery and
truth, as a force multiplier, and as a preparation for student success in the world is not a church.
The church holds the past in high regard. General Superintendent V. H. Lewis told the college
presidents in 1979 that the rules of the 1920s may not be enforced by parents or the churches but
the colleges could and therefore were expected to enforce the irrelevant rules. Students sneak
around them, or willingly put up with them until graduation, and then they leave the church.
The university is an instrument of the Holy Spirit and so it must promote spiritual discovery,
discernment, development, and discretion while it provide modern answers to complex issues.
The role of a Nazarene university is broader than the church. We expand not only the moral
character of students but also their moral imaginations. We not only deepen their souls but also
broaden their hearts, and train their hands. The church provides valuable funding for Nazarene
students and the university stands for and proclaims the church’s historic vision of Wesleyan
heart holiness. As the object and recipient of God’s providence, we want always to be the
Redeemed of the Lord, Hephzibah (his delight) and a crown of splendor in his hand.
As a cousin the university can do what the church cannot: go through the gates (be engaged in
civic events), build up the highway, remove the stones and raise a banner. As Dr. Brown said,
“We can do something significant. We can make a better world through youth.” Thus the
university trains social workers and nurses and prepares students for medical school with over a
90% acceptance rate. It provides inspiration to political staff and students, and promotes efforts
to abolish human trafficking. It is a co-sponsor of the Kyoto Prize Symposium and provides
economic consulting to the City of San Diego, Sempra Energy and the San Diego Military
Advisory Council. Its newest effort is the Da Vinci Index relating to the new field of
Biomimicry. So I reject the subservience of “child of the church” and like my concept of a
cousin relationship
Forty years have gone by. What does the school have to do to be as good, even better, forty years
from now?
We want the mission to remain the same, and that means we want to keep the core and operating
values. Here is a package of six necessities: 1) economic health. The price of higher education
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advances rapidly. The school will need to operate as efficiently as possible, and it will have to
cultivate a circle of major donors beyond the traditional church donors. J. C. Wooton’s creation
of the foundation was a natural and normal step, but too new and frightening for church leaders
at the time. 2) Strong faculty with at least 80% of them Wesleyan in theological values. The
combination of short supply and more lucrative career options will require a wider base of hiring,
but Wesleyan values must be maintained. 3) High student enrollment, with at least 80%
Christian. As costs increase, either tuition or enrollment must rise; enrollment is preferred, but
that will require new facilities. 4) Presence of the Lord is indispensable and perhaps more
difficult as the school uses multiple sites and on-line education. 5) The traditional goal of our
education is to develop the whole person, meaning focusing on the arts and music as well as
science and sociology. That also means the development of not just the mind and soul but also
the heart and hands to care about and to serve the cultural and social issues of each decade, and
6) maintain all four ancestral traditions—Erasmus, Galileo, Wesley, and Bresee. Enrollment
increases and the changing generational cultures will require the school remain a place of
dialogue in academics and graceful decency in its institutional culture, and 7) the Board of
Trustees remain a group of courage (as in its commitment to make the move), wisdom (as in its
2012 decision to restructure) and spirituality.
Here are some dangers: 1) income/expense gap that could change the nature of the school or
install an authoritarian leadership, 2) change of enrollment policy that decreases the percentage
of Christian students in order to increase the student body, 3) and a declining denomination
making increasing fundamentalist demands on the university, and 4) new competition. The
fundamentalist Tim LaHaye created Christian Heritage College in 1970 to advocate inerrancy,
six day creation, and the pervasiveness of sin. It gained accreditation and moved to a larger
campus in 2014 and was renamed San Diego Christian College. It offers to its 600 full-time
students the AA, BA and BS degrees but is short on the arts, the sciences and the social sciences.
It is a fundamentalist alternative to Point Loma and should not pose a danger,
Dr. Brown and his generation of trustees faced a less-than desirable future in Pasadena and chose
the risk and costs of relocating to San Diego. In so doing they provided the means for a major
upgrade in quality by relocating the college to San Diego.
The next generation will have to deal with several new issues. The costs of education will
require an expansion in enrollment, and on-line learning allows a school to escape the confines
of geography. That is being done by public, private and for-profit universities. Small Christian
colleges are doubling and tripling their enrollment but disposing of the distinction between
Christian and non-Christian students in their on-line programs.
If Point Loma chooses that option, what happens to the value of the small liberal arts and
residential college with a seamless connection between the intellectual and the spiritual, between
the analytical and the moral, between the academic and the atmosphere, between the mind and
soul and the heart and hands? How will it do so without losing the quality of dialogue?
One option, the Dual University, seeks to preserve a vibrancy of God’s presence on campus and
uses on-line programs to sell education as a commodity to the general society. Its goal is to
increase numbers—students and dollars. Option two, the Spiritual University, will seek to find a
261
way to marry spirituality and technology, so that the on-line programs are primarily for Christian
students, have the same religious orientation as the campus classes, and create a sense of
community which can then have Bresee’s spiritual atmosphere.
As it works through that issue the Dillman issue will remain—will the university strive for the
Bresee vision, or remain satisfied with less? As Beryl Dillman said in his interview with Joe
Watkins, there is disagreement within the faculty over Bresee’s goal of being more than just a
small private school. Will the “advocates” and “artists” take the university past the “preservers”
and the “satisfieds?” The university needs to keep faith with its Founder’s vision as it makes a
transition to 21st Century Christian higher education in order to maximize its roles as cousin and
force-multiplier of the church and its Wesleyan approach to truth and the journey of holiness.
One last question. A high official of Geneva College said when they relocated their college, they
would not have done it if they had known at the beginning how hard it would be. 190 Was there
any of that level of frustration on the campus during the move?
President Brown told the Trustees that the work of the transition was difficult, and “demanded
more out of the college staff than we would have been willing to give (or I would have been
willing to ask) had we fully seen the cost.” 191 But when I interviewed Rob and Debbie Songer,
Rob told the story of being with Dr. Brown several years after the move and Brown was almost
blind from his cancer. “Was it worth it?” Rob asked. Brown’s reply was immediate: “I’d do it all
over again, in a heartbeat.” As Rob said, “no matter what the price was, he knew he and his team
had done the right thing.”
Other colleges have tried similar moves and found Dr. Brown’s recognition of risking the whole
college to be real. In California alone, in the 20th century, 19 Christian colleges went out of
existence, either by closing or merger. Ten of those 18 were Protestant, including Arlington
College, Beulah College, Covenant College, Pacific Methodist College, Upland College and
Western Pilgrim College. 192
It could have turned out differently for everyone. If the escrow had not closed on December 31 st
the banks would have foreclosed and negotiations would have to begin again with a new set of
owners. They needed a buyer so would not likely have forced Brown and the college back to
Pasadena, yet, they might have advertised more widely for a better price and sold to someone
else, which would have forced the movement back to Pasadena.
Escrow could have closed but a combination of inflation and much higher than anticipated costs
could have forced reductions in faculty salaries, which would have undercut their payments on
their newly purchased houses at San Diego prices and left them in a terrible condition. Salaries
actually kept pace with inflation.
Some combination of lower salaries, lost files, decayed buildings, too many surfers in classes,
lack of jobs for spouses and loss of retirement funds could have eroded graceful decency on
campus into a bitterness that could have eroded the spiritual atmosphere.
262
Some parents, pastors and/or trustees could have seen a looser “surfer culture” on campus and
demanded their children go elsewhere (which was true in Northern California in the 1960s) and
again poison the image of the college as a Nazarene let alone a Christian college.
Any of these could have let to President Brown’s “Strangers in Paradise” or Milton’s “Paradise
Lost.” Instead, Isaiah’s bronze gates were broken, bars of iron were cut, the watchmen on the
walls prevailed. Pasadena College died on the freeway, but a strong Christian college of
Nazarene identity, Wesleyan theology, modern culture, and a commitment to a college where the
Lord is present, was built. To them is was “Paradise Gained.”
It was hard. But the promises of Isaiah 62 remained.
You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest
and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
and makes her the praise of the earth. 6-7
All could sing:
Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.
REMEMBER – THE BAND OF BROTHERS
So how do Christians handle such unexpected life-changing decisions? We have seen some for
whom it was direct guidance, either by insight or scripture. For some it was not an issue because
they had earlier found that the Lord’s will was to be at the college. “I was confident that I had
been ‘called’ to this institution regardless of what happened.” For some it was trust in the Lord’s
leadership of the leader. For some it was their sense of opportunity and privilege to be part of a
Christian college “where the Lord was at work” and where they could serve the kingdom and so
be part of “a bigger picture” of God directing people here and there. And for some, discovering
God’s will has been “somewhat of a mystery,” while others found through the move their prayers
used in his service were being realized.
Altogether, the responses of these Pasadena College faculty and spouses and students who made
the move fit into seven categories: 1) calling—the Lord called them to this college and they
would keep their commitment regardless of its location, 2) guidance—the Lord spoke or inspired
a passage or posed a choice, 3) opportunity and adventure—to take on a new and attractive if
uncertain task with the Lord, 4) trust—in the president and his sense of guidance, 5) ethos—a
desire to remain with the spiritual ethos of the campus, 6) service—to serve the Lord and
students, and 7) loyalty—denominational loyalty and the sense of obligation to make the move a
success.
There were no words here about greatness or success or applause. That future was too far off.
263
The focus was the present. All understood this was a transition time. While some were happy or
relieved, for others there were some frightening words: stress, failure, and loss. Finances were
stretched, campus friendships eroded from the dispersal of offices, and scarce family friends.
Countering both success and failure were six great words from these men and women who chose
to make the move: guidance, calling, service, trust, loyalty and ethos.
This move was providential but it relied on the participation of many. There were heroes in
making the move, in reassembling the dry bones, in seeking a spiritual atmosphere, in creating
community. The move needed Jim Jackson and a band of student leaders who wanted to create a
strong Christian college. The move needed Keith Pagan, Carroll Land and Jim Huffman to
organize it and repair the abandoned facilities. It needed the optimistic will and graceful spirit of
President Brown, who had to deal with leaders who left behind all the campus keys unidentified
and in a pile in the middle of the gym floor. It needed Reuben Welch to continue to bring
messages of perseverance and hope to both students and faculty. Many new faculty members
were hired and many of them left within five years, so the college needed faculty like Bill
Hobbs, who would move and stay. They were like bridges from Pasadena to Point Loma.
Despite all the uncertainty, the continuing problems, the costs and the losses, the atmosphere and
attitudes of the move were positive. Why?
Reuben Welch says the university is the faculty. Keith Pagan reminded us that all those who
moved were Nazarene, many second generation Nazarene. This special group of people, led by a
special president, rebuilt the college with the core values and even the operating values.
Lest we forget, we are now that strong university because a few, about 100 families, paid the
financial and personal costs they discussed in the interviews. This band of brothers and sisters
made the move to San Diego, physically remodeled buildings; replaced broken water heaters and
rebuilt the soaked shower floors that were about to collapse; found new homes, doctors and
churches; and then began again their lives, and the spiritual authenticity and development of the
campus. They built it strong and true, and we remember them.
Some who made the move and helped establish this university have been called home and ought
not be forgotten. President Brown and Dean Gresham are both gone. Among the full-time
faculty, we’ve also lost Ismael Amaya, Willo May Beresford, Fordyce Bennett, David Brown,
Chet Crill, Paul Culbertson, Bob Flatley, Don Hughes, Bill McCumber, Cecil Miller, Garth
Morse, Elizabeth Nelson, Vern Pearson, Esther Schandorff, Lewis Thompson, and Harold
Young.
To them, the words of the song “Dare to be a Daniel”:
Standing by a purpose true,
Heeding God’s command,
Honor them, the faithful few!
All hail to Daniel’s band.
264
To all of them, August 21, 1973, the day the move to San Diego began, is their Saint Crispian’s
day. To them and about them, the words of Shakespeare apply:
He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly feast his neighbors
and say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' Then will he strip his sleeve
and show his scars and say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall not be forgot,
for he'll remember what feats he did that day.
And we in it shall be remembered.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
Shakespeare Henry V
265
DOCUMENTS
266
1972 Board of Trustees
Front Row: Wes Mieras, Dr. E. E. Zachery, Dr. Nees, Dr. Brown
Back Row: Rev. Robert Scott, Nick Hull
Far Right Moving Up: Dr. Brown, Dr. Wilbert Little, 6th Paul Benefiel, 7th J. C. Wooton
267
ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE FACULTY
MAY 30, 1972
PRESIDENT W. SHELBURNE BROWN
The Board of Trustees of Pasadena College, convened in an historical session on May 2,
1972 in the City of San Diego, California. There, with unanimous and vigorous action, they
voted to open negotiations with United States International University, to purchase the CalWestern campus of that University. The campus under negotiation consist of approximately 63
acres and is situated on perhaps the most ideal geographical setting anywhere in the world. The
entire campus lies right along the ocean front on the Western side of Point Loma in San Diego,
included in the campus are 300 plus feet of beach front.
Members of the board were fully aware of the enormity of the transition and
transportation of a college from one location to another. It is not a completed transaction at this
time, and for that reason, I strongly urge the faculty members of Pasadena College to discuss this
matter with no one except other members of the faculty. This is important both to us and to the
University with which we are in negotiations. At this particular moment, I is even more
important for them than to us, and for that reason we should act as responsibility as possible. As
soon as, and if, the negotiations are complete, a press conference will be called jointly by
Pasadena College and U.S.I. U. for publication of the information as widely as possible.
If successful in the negotiations, Pasadena will plan to move to the new campus and
begin full operations on September 1st, 1973. During the 1972-1973 academic year, we will
continue under normal operations here as will U.S.I.U. on the San Diego campus.
This will involve some traumatic tearing up of relationships. However, the long-term
good of the institution seems to fully merit any hardship we may encounter in the move. It is
268
conservatively estimated that we will save ourselves ten million dollars in the next fifteen years
in capital expense by making this move to what is, to a large extent, a finished campus for the
projected size of Pasadena College. That plus the improved ecological environment, seemed in
the mind of the Board of Trustees, to justify the effort of this enormous step forward for
Pasadena College.
You are no doubt immediately wondering about your own personal living situation. I
cannot tell you all that will be involved, but do assure you that we will initiate some plan to
guarantee your investment in case you own a home in Pasadena.
There are many, many unanswered questions involved in this brief statement. I would
urge you to feel free to talk with me regarding questions that come to your mind. I do not know
all the details of what is involved in this undertaking, but am personally convinced that it is a
providential opportunity for the present and for a greater future for this college. Please do not
discuss these matters with students, until after public announcement has been made, if the
transaction is completed. It is my intention to keep you fully informed as events transpire. The
reason for moving this faculty meeting up to an earlier date was the realization that knowledge of
negotiations was beginning to be whispered about, and I felt that you should be the group to first
be informed beyond the Board of Trustees.
I say to you earnestly, there will be some more austerity budgets ahead. Whether there
can be salary increases in the coming year looks highly doubtful at this time, although the move
of campus does not create that fact, simply a tightening monetary situation. We will have to raise
more money than we have ever raised before. I have told the Board quite frankly that there is a
risk involved and we might conceivably lose the whole institution. For me, I much prefer to
269
spend my energy and the resources of the institution in doing something bigger and better than
we have dreamed before than to face the status quo.
If we purchase I ask each of you to join with me in an adventure more challenging than
any we have faced. We have the abilities and the skills available. When new life is born, there is
an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past and to mark out new frontiers. What a
challenge!! Let’s move ahead as one body, without a backward look and enjoy the most exciting
days Pasadena College has ever known.
270
271
272
273
ENDNOTES
Two kinds of interviews are noted here. Interviews for this book were digitally recorded and
transcribed. Notes from interviews related to For Zion’s Sake were also used and they were not
recorded. They are handwritten notes, and designated unrecorded.
1
Taken from A. M. Hills, Phineas F. Bresee: A Life Sketch (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1930),
pp. 11, 22-24.
2
Carl Bangs, Phineas F. Bresee (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1995), pp. 110-111.
3
Leslie F. Gay, Jr., “History of the University of Southern California,” A Thesis presented to the Department of
History, University of Southern California, May 5, 1910, pp. 216, 226, 222.
4
E. A. Girvin, Phineas F. Bresee: A Prince in Israel (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1916), p. 101.
5
Bresee quote in Bangs, 241; For Hardy Powers see Jerald D. Johnson, Hardy C. Powers: Bridge Builder (Kansas
City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1985), p. 45.
6
I am using a five-stage framework based on my study of institutional histories. Stage 1 – Creation; Stage 2)
Growth as the institution develops an identity and favorable image, defines its core characteristics and does not seek
isolation; Stage 3) Change as America became a consumer society in the 1950s and the church adopted middle class
values, the Church Growth Movement which substituted community for evangelism, and changing generational
preferences of worship style in the 70s. There can be a Reaction and Return to a former stage by revivalists seeking
the narrow certainties of earlier years, or a Relaxation movement to stage 4) Moderation where people became
satisfied with the routine, the language and the gap between promise and performance. Growth stops. Lastly, Stage
5, of which there are three varieties: 5a) Decline as the combination of being satisfied with the current and the
increasingly secularized society which minimizes efforts to revive or adopt a mission such as, in the words of the
institution mission of the 1950s, “All out for souls.” There is a 5b) Displacement, the decline at home and rapid
growth in other world areas. There is a 5c) a Re-creation through a revived for its lost nature. For a similar yet
different framework see Kenneth E. Crow, “The Life Cycle of Nazarene Churches,” and Philip N. LaFountain,
“Tradition and Modernity: Nazarene Identity in a Reflexive Age.” Both are available at
http://nazarene.org/ministries/administration/ansr/date/display.html at 1988 and 2005.
7
W. T. Purkiser, “Our Heritage – 75 Years Later,” Point Loma College, Founder’s Day – October 13, 1975, p. 6.
8
Timothy L. Smith, Called Unto Holiness (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), pp. 289-297.
9
On revelation and religious submission see John L. Allen, Jr., Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the
Faith (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000), pp. 177, 305; on the need for “practical
wisdom” see Samuel M. Powell, Holiness: Why it Matters Today (San Diego, CA: Point Loma Press, 2010), pp. 3839.
10
There is more to this issue than can be discussed here. For a good summary of the issue and the struggle within
the denomination between General Superintendents like Powers and more radical District Superintendents who
banned wedding rings, television, and for women a ban on makeup, short hair, skirts and sleeves, and slacks, see W.
T. Purkiser, Called Unto Holiness, Vol 2: The Second Twenty-five Years, 1933-1958 (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene
Publishing House, 1983), pp. 256-260, 266-275.
11
Jim Coté, Man of Influence: Following the Master, Leaving a Legacy ((Downer’s Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press,
2001), p. 148.
12
Lauriston J. DuBois, Guidelines for Conduct: An Introduction to the General Rules of the Church of the Nazarene
(Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1965, pp. 64-66.
13
Phrases from a sermon preached by J. K. Warrick, “The Power of One,” October 2, 2013 and Scott Daniels,
“Holiness takes Practice,” October 3, 2013.
14
Donald P. Brinkley, Man of the Morning (Kansas city, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1960), p. 207
15
Don Grobe E-Mail, April 7, 2009. Heritage Project Files, PLNU Archives. Grobe is the grandson of Wilson.
16
J. W. Hugus made a fortune in printing, mercantile sales and banking in the mid-west. He moved to Pasadena in
1883, bought 225 acres in a city of mansions, built the city’s most beautiful Victorian mansion, and established a
ranch and vineyard. His wife died in 1897, and he died in 1901, leaving the ranch and its house to his two daughters.
They sold a portion and then moved away. By 1909 the house was empty and dark, and its price declining.
17
A. E. Sanner, John Goodwin: A Biography (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1945), p. 107.
18
Grobe.
19
Taken from an unidentified five page manuscript titled “Class History of 1913” in Wiley files, PLNU Archives.
274
The careful study and providentially cheap quote are in Girvin, p. 419. The story of the “can’t afford it but we’ll
take it” quote has passed down through several generations. It was told to me by Cecil Miller.
21
Girvin, p. 339.
22
See in information from the National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/
23
Sanner, 110-111.
24
Girvin, p. 239
25
This interpretation is the author’s. There is only one reference to Bresee giving the chapter, that by Wiley who
told about in the 1916 Commencement. Bresee gave the chapter as the college’s own, but never said why. Wiley did
not make the link between the scripture and the college, so always preached expository sermons from it. President
Purkiser never saw the link, nor did President Brown until the move when he preached from verse 2, “you shall be
called by a new name.” It seems clear to this author that the timing, the naming of it as the college chapter, and the
stains on the actual Bible indicate that this scripture was God’s promise to Bresee that the school would be protected
with “watchmen on the walls” until it became a “crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand” and called “Sought out, a
city not forsaken.”
26
There are two versions of this story. Sanner says Hill had the check made out and had carried it for three weeks.
See Sanner p. 114. The other version I gave came from H. Orton Wiley in Reflections, a recording of Wiley with Dr.
Oscar Finch and Mr. Wes Mieras, 1960. The Sanner narrative has implausible hours so I went with Wiley.
27
H. Orton Wiley, Reflections. The original tape recordings have been transferred to two cassette tapes. Second tape.
28
Girvin, p. 433.
29
See Bill D. Draper, “Report to the Board of Trustees,” November 20, 1981, in Draper Reports, PLNU Archives.
30
Girvin, p. 398.
31
Girvin 398
32
Jacob Bronowski, Science and Human Values Revised Edition (New York, Harper Torchbooks, 1965), pp. 35, 63.
33
As one example see William C. Ringenberg, Taylor University: The First 125 Years (Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1973), p. 75.
34
See Paul M. Berchtel, Wheaton College: A Heritage Remembered 1960-1984 (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw
Publishers, 1984), pp. 94; Samuel C. Sheperd, Jr., Richmond College: Shaping the Urban Religious Culture of
Richmond, Virginia, 1900-1929 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2001); pp. 261-263; the Paul Bassett
quote is within a fine discussion of these issues in Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in
American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 40; Timothy L. Smith, Called Unto
Holiness, Vol. 1, The Formative Years (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1962), pp. 330.
35
Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (New York: Avon Books, 1971), p. 37
36
Jack W. Hayford and S. David Moore, The Charismatic Century: The Enduring Impact of the Azusa Street
Revival (New York: Warner Faith Books, 2006), p. 84; Bangs, pp. 227-230. C. Peter Wagner, former professor at
Fuller Seminary, taught a course on “signs and wonders” and claims not only to have the “third wave” of spiritual
blessing to heal the sick, cast out demons, receive prophecies, speak in tongues, and to have the gift and calling of an
apostle. See his book Wrestling with Alligators, Prophets and Theologians (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2010), pp.
134-136, 207. Bresee recognized that some people claimed the gift of healing in order to resist modern medicine.
He, instead, welcomed the professional services of his physician son, Dr. Paul Bresee. Bangs 227.
37
Girvin, pp. 403, 364.
38
Girvin, pp. 356-358, 402.
39
Taken from a confrontation during the Greek civil wars when Athens with its power tells the people of Melos to
submit or be destroyed. Friendship is not enough for others might think they can resist. See Thucydides, The
Peloponnesian War (New York: Bantam Books, 1960), pp. 342-343/
40
Bresee’s Bible College was organized and supported by people of his church, but it was organized in 1902 and the
Church of the Nazarene as a denomination was born in 1908. When the school was in desperate financial straits it
tried to give itself to the denomination and was spurned in their “live and let die” approach to colleges recognized by
the denomination as Nazarene colleges. See Ronald Kirkemo, For Zion’s Sake: A History of Pasadena/Point Loma
College Updated Version (San Diego: Point Loma Press, 2008), p. 90. The denomination’s decision in 1960 to
weaken the colleges by authorizing two new ones, and then assert it was their own fault if they lost viability (see
footnote 66), leads one to question the use of the concept of the school as “a child of the church.” That does not
denigrate the local churches which annually provides funds to their regional colleges each year. Those churches
recognize the colleges as partners in the common task of leading young people to salvation and sanctification, and
preparing them for adulthood.
20
275
41
Charles Strickland quote from interview with Robert Smith. The study was done by the denomination and was
unpublished because of its findings. The author was given access to it by the late B. Edgar Johnson.
42
Girvin, p. 398.
43
E. A. Girvin, pp. 440-441
44
Girvin, pp 441, 439, 452
This and much of the following unless otherwise referenced, came from his great speech “The Educational Work
of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene,” given on September 2, 1915, just two months before his death.
46
For the negative impact this culture can have on a child and teen see Gail Sheehy’s description of Gary Hart
growing up Nazarene in Kansas in Character: America’s Search for Leadership, Revised Edition (New York:
Bantam Books, 1990), pp. 35-41.
47
The last three sentences were spoken by J. B. Chapman and represent the goals of those committed to liberal arts
colleges. Quoted in Stan Ingersol, Nazarene Roots (Kansas City: MO: Beacon Hill Press, 2009), p. 153.
48
Smith, p. 117.
49
Robert Schuller, My Journey: From an Iowa Farm to a Cathedral of Dreams (San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), p. 346 and George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the
New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), pp. 78, 76
50
Dr. P. F. Bresee, “The Educational Work of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene,” Nazarene University
Chapel, September 2, 1915.
51
I am indebted to David Whitelaw for the concept of the triangle.
52
William C. Ringenberg, Taylor University: The First 125 Years (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Coo, 1973), pp. 112-113; Bradley J. Longfield, “For God, for Country, and for Yale,” The Secularization
of the Academy, George M. Marsden and Bradley J. Longfield, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992),
pp. 156-158, 164-166.
53
Wiley, Reflections.
54
David Edwin Harrell, Jr., Oral Roberts: An American Life (San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1985), p. 207.
55
The “jet-set lifestyle” of Oral Robert’s son and family by using endowment funds bankrupted Oral Roberts
University, “Oral Robert’s Son Accused of Misspending,” Washington Post, November 9, 2007, and the chaufferdriven luxury home and lifestyle of Robert Schuller’s family helped bankrupt the Crystal Cathedral. See “Crystal
Cathedral Schullers go to Court,” Orange County Register, October 31, 2012.
56
Girvin, p. 349.
57
See Donald Brinkley, Man of the Morning: The Life and works of Phineas F. Bresee (Kansas City, MO:
Nazarene Publishing House, 1960, p. 216.
58
Glenn Griffith, “Nineteen Reasons Why I Am Leaving the Church of the Nazarene,” The Gospel Trumpet and
“The Challenge of our Heritage,” Contending for the Faith, A Compilation by Duane V. Moxey, Chapter 4,
Holiness Data Ministry.
59
The characterization of the “behavioral codes loved by Nazarenes” came from former Northern California District
Superintendent Grady Cantrell, interview June 3, 1989 in College History Project and 1973 Project
60
‘Pasadena College Holding Jubilee Week Celebration,” Pasadena Star News, September 15, 1938.
61
The description of the “erratic” DeLong, who the General Superintendents refused to nominate to be president of
the new Nazarene Theological Seminary, is from Harold Raser, More Preachers and Better Preachers: The First
Fifty Years of Nazarene Theological Seminary (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1995), pp. 35, 36.
62
Interview with James Jackson.
63
Kirkemo, Ronald. For Zion’s Sake: A History of Pasadena/Point Loma College. Updated with a new Afterward.
(Point Loma Press. 1992) pp. 238, 284-298.
64
Unrecorded interview with District Superintendent Paul Benefiel in 1988.
65
For a history of this decade, its presidents and crises see my For Zion’s Sake, pp. 253-302.
66
The first two reasons, constituent support and opposition to the emergence of university status, were the official
reasons given in the study. The second two were reasons I heard being discussed in church circles at the time, and
for that reason I listed them. Interestingly the study also recommended against creating a Bible College, but one
General Superintendent led the successful effort to build one anyway.
67
Told to the author by Frank Carver
68
The impact of a competitor college was severe. The reaction of the denominational leaders was to blame the
victim. The enrollment at Bethany was 1,809 in 1968, the year Mid-American Nazarene College opened. It fell to
1,580 the next year and fell each year to 1,170 in 1974. In a 1975 speech to Nazarene College presidents General
45
276
Superintendent V. H. Lewis said the “crisis of Bethany” was over and “If—perish the thought—Bethany Nazarene
College had folded, it would have killed itself.” V. H. Lewis, “Protecting Nazarene Higher Education into the Next
Generation by Keeping our Colleges in the Black,” An Address to Nazarene college presidents at Kansas City,
January, 1975. They would also oppose Brown’s successful formation of the college’s own foundation to raise and
hold funds.
69
Linda Gresham, interview with Loren and Linda Gresham, January 1m 2012, p. 2
70
At the beginning of the century the holiness movement taught that in-bred sin could be eradicated. By mid-century
the claim was unsustainable in recognition of the deep sinfulness of humanity. At the 1985 General Assembly a
proposal was made to eliminate the word eradicate, but the motion failed. See Mark R. Quanstrom, A Century of
Holiness Theology: The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification in the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City, MO: Beacon
Hill Press, 2004), pp. 179, 137-141.
71
William M. Kirkemo, “Substantialist and Relational Understandings of Entire Sanctification Among Church of
the Nazarene Clergy,” Dissertation for Doctor of Ministry Degree, Asbury Theological Seminary, pp. 39-46.
72
Interview with Dr. Paul Benefiel, October 14, 1989. Notes in College History Project files.
73
Ken Otto, Azusa Pacific University (Chicago, IL: Arcadia Publishing, 2008), pp. 73, 84.
74
Discussion and e-mail exchange with Hank Bode, May 17 and May 18, 2014.
75
Robert H. Schuller, My Journey: From an Iowa Farm to a Cathedral of Dreams (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 201, 218, 346,
76
Michael Granberry, “Rust, USIU President 37 Years, Is Benched by Troubled School,” Los Angeles Times,
January 12, 1990, Local, p.1, and Patricia Dibsie, “Dr. William C. Rust, 77, dies, was controversial founder of
USIU,” San Diego Union-Tribune, June 4, 1993.
77
Kent Miller, “When a college moves, there’s bound to be changes,” Pasadena Union, June 14, 1972.
78
Warren Brown, e-mail message, February 25, 2013.
79
Which came first, the Rust telephone call, the Dillman conversation of Brown or a Phil Fitch meeting with the
president, is not clear. I decided to put the telephone call first because Rust needed to find a buyer before his
decision to sell became widely known and faculty organized to stop it or buy it themselves and fire Rust.
80
Warren Brown, Interview, October 11, 2011.
81
“A President’s Dream of a Greater Future for his College,” Clarion, April, 1973, p. 2.
82
Robert Foster, Interview, November, 2009, p. 2
83
Foster, November 2009 interview, p. 3
84
Tom Gardner, “USIU Peninsula campus Sold to Pasadena College,” Peninsula News Sentinel, June 7
85
W. Shelburne Brown, “Memo to the Faculty,” June 6, 1972.
86
“Minutes of the Meeting of the Trustee Council of Pasadena College,” September 1, 1972.
87
Interview with Rev. John Smee, Platform Manager at the Convention.
88
Interview with Victor Heasley, February 13, 2010, pp. 2, 3.
89
Brad Hallock, “Uneasy Pasadena Students Tour CW Campus,” USIU News, October 20, 1972,
90
Interview with Ross Irwin November 9, 2013.
91
Interview with Mark Ballew, March 14, 2011, p. 7, and Earl and Hazel Lee, Committed to Grace (Kansas City,
MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1993), p. 24.
92
These three paragraphs are based on interviews with seven trustees, notes are in the files.
93
Quote by General Superintendent J. B. Chapman, quoted in Stan Ingersol, Past and Prospect: The Promise of
Nazarene History (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), p. 104.
94
Paul Benefiel, Interview, October 14, 1989.
95
On E. E. Zachary see Paul Simpson, Interview December 2, 2010, and on Ken Vogt see Ross Irwin, Interview
May 24, 2012.
96
Benefiel interview.
97
This paragraph and the one preceding it are based on interviews with Paul Simpson, Robert Scott and Clari
Kinzler.
98
Warren Brown, Interview, October 11, 2011, p. 6, Mike Whitcomb e-mail, May 23, 2014.
99
“Report of the President of Pasadena College to the Board of Trustees,” October 10, 1972.
100
Robert Foster, Telephone Interview, October 22, 2013.
101
E-mail from Robert Scott to Ron Kirkemo, November 6, 2013.
102
This is the author’s best interpretation of the dynamics of the trustees and Brown’s experience in Hawaii the next
month. No doubt all the trustees wanted the move to happen, but there were certainly some who wanted the sale of
the Pasadena campus a requirement so the college would not step off a financial cliff that could destroy it.
277
103
The assertion of disillusionment and the quote by Brown are taken from handwritten notes by Val Christensen on
a May 20, 2013 questionaire.
104
The quote was mentioned in a chapel talk by Galen Olsen.
105
Floyd Jones, Interview, March 15, 2013.
106
Kimber Moulton, Interview, April 10, 2013.
107
Oren Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), pp. 201, 243-246.
108
Harari, p. 246.
109
Telephone Interview with Art Shingler, June 11, 20112, p. 2.
110
Interview with Kimber Moulton.
111
Robert Scott, e-mail, October 6, 2013.
112
Unrecorded interview with Sheryl Smee who had interviewed her mother.
113
Bob Foster, Lion’s Gate Interview. November, 2009.
114
This paragraph and the one preceding it, and the Brown quotes about “laying it on the line” are from a telephone
interview with Robert Foster, February 14, 2013 and Foster, Lion’s Gate Interview, November 2009, p. 4
115
From personal correspondence in the Wes Mieras files in the possession of Ross Irwin.
116
Minutes, Pasadena College Board of Trustees, March 13, 1973.
117
Minutes, Meeting of Pasadena College Faculty, March 13, 1973.
118
This perspective was told to the author by Paul Simpson, brother-in-law to Larry Whitcomb, in Simpson
Interview Notes, December 2, 2010, pp. 1-2.
119
Information about the deliberations come from “Notes of Pasadena College Ad Hoc Committee,” submitted by
Larry Whitcomb, Secretary, and Foster interview. Foster believes the committee agreed the college should pursue
options 1 and 3.
120
M. K. Mata, E-mail, February 29, 2012 and Mark Ballew Interview.
121
Heasley Interview, p. 2.
122
Telephone interview with Robert Foster.
123
“Students Pledge /support to College,” Clarion, June, 1973, p. 4
124
Interview with Ross Irwin, May 24, 2012, p. 2. This comment provoked a lot of discussion because no one
believed Mieras was opposed to the move and Bob Foster said “all of us had doubts” but saw no evidence of Mieras
dragging his feet. Irwin later suggested it might have been said in jest. Linda Gresham suggested that as a lawyer he
was always looking at both sides. The author believes it did reflect his views. He was the “insider” to all discussions,
the attorney who carried on the negotiations, and the attorney who understood corporate deals. He may well have
believed that the banks would ultimately weight the financial history and risk of Pasadena College against the value
of the property, and foreclose before escrow could close
125
Irwin Interview, p. 2.
126
Kinzler Interview, p. 2.
127
E-mail discussion with Reuben Rodeheaver, May 21, 2014.
128
Robert Foster, Telephone Interview, October 22, 2013.
129
Paul Simpson, Interview, December 2, 2010, p.2.
130
Paul Simpson, Telephone Interview, February 21, 2011
131
These three paragraphs come from discussions and e-mails from trustees Craig Furuscho, Clari Kinzler, Robert
Scott, Paul Simpson, Carol Van Burskirk
132
Diane Clark, “Company May Foreclose On USIU Lands,” San Diego Union, September 1, 1973, p. 3.
133
Trustee Miyoji Furusho, Interview, May 10, 2014.
134
Paul Simpson, Interview, December 2, 2010, p. 11.
135
Simpson Interview, p. 11.
136
Robert Foster, November 2009 Interview.
137
Keith A. Pagan, “President W. Shelburne Brown: Administrative Leader,” 75th Anniversary Files.
138
Lyrics used with permission.
139
George Marsden, “The Collapse of American Evangelic Academia,” Reckoning with the Past: Historical Essays
on American Evangelicalism from the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, D. G. Hart, Ed. (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995), p. 223.
140
Report to Council on Educational Policy and Program from Committee on Academic Programs, 8 March , 1973
141
Figures taken from numbers provided by the Office of Research Services, Church of the Nazarene Global
Ministry Center, May 15, 2014.
142
L. L. Weaver, Jerry Higdon and Charles Ashley letters in Development Office Files, 1972-1973.
278
143
Dr. Zackery was District Superintendent of Northern California District and a critic and adversary of Shelburne
Brown. In 1966, unable to stop the creation of the foundation, he oversaw and subjected Dr. Brown to a two-hour
session question and criticism of the foundation at the Northern California District Assembly while Brown sat on the
platform with him and General Superintendent V.H. Lewis, both of whom did nothing to stop the session as
inappropriate or defend Brown. Zackery did the same in 1973 over showing films on campus, during the summer of
the move. After the college had made the move and was established Dr. Brown wrote a “formal protest” in stately
language over the manner in which the sessions were handled, how “neither the presiding General Superintendent
nor the District Superintendent seemed to be at all sensitive to what seemed to me to be the most extreme
discourtesy,” and how he had to “sit there and die a little.” If it happened again, he wrote, he would resign “on the
spot and with full explanation to the assembled body regarding the reasons for the action.” W. Shelburne Brown,
letter to the Board of General Superintends, November 19, 1973. Brown Files.
144
Se Keith Drury, “The Holiness movement is Dead,” www.drurywriting.com/keith/dead.footnoted.htm
145
Richard Benner, “Naming the Silences: the Doctrine of Holiness,” paper presented to the Association of
Nazarene Sociologists and Researchers, 1996. Benner is the son of General Superintendent Hugh C. Benner. On the
Gulf Central District see Brandon Winstead, There All Along: Black Participation in the Church of the Nazarene
(Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2013)
146
See Ron Benefiel and Gregory Crow, “Beliefs, Attitudes and Norms of Students on Nazarene College and
University Campuses: Then and Now,” 1998. A decade earlier a similar study found such a variance that it was
never published.
147
Jim Bond, Key Note Address “The We Believe,” June 16, 2001,
148
Victor Heasley, “Church Relationship Survey,”
149
Interview with Clarence Kinzler, July 1, 2010.
150
Interview with Grady Cantrell, June 3, 1989.
151
Interview with Paul Benefiel, October 14, 1989.
152
Both quotes are from Springboard, the one with Susan Martin is undated, the one on the Coffee-House was Vol.
one, Number six.
153
Letters are in the files of former Alumni President and trustee counsel Ross Irwin.
154
W. T. Purkiser, “Teaching at a Nazarene College,” Nazarene Educator’s Conference, June 18, 1960.
155
Minutes of the Board of Trustees, March 8, 1976.
156
I am indebted to Dwayne Little for much of the material and perspective of this section. Interview with Bill and
Edna Hobbs, May 9, 2013 and interview with Dwayne Little, May 14, 2013.
157
Minutes of the Board of Trustees, October 11, 1976.
158
Harrell, Jr., p. 207.
159
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 13.
160
Girvin, p. 205.
161
Carl F. H. Henry, Confessions of a Theologian: An Autobiography (Wac0, TX: Word Book, 1986), p. 124.
162
For the Jim Bond incident and its Archival location see Ronald B. Kirkemo, Promise and Destiny (San Diego:
Point Loma Press, 2001), pp. 169-170
163
V. H. Lewis, “Address” (speaking for the Board of General Superintendents to Nazarene college presidents),
December 4, 1979.
164
On the call from the General Superintendent see August 13, 2013 Interview with Roger Little (whose father was
chairman of the board at the time) and on Draper see Bill D. Draper, “Report to the Board of Trustees,” November
20, 1981 and Bill Draper letter to Alan Wheatley, March 26, 1982, in Draper Files in College History Project files.
165
Nathan M. Pusey, The Age of the Scholar: Observations on Education in a Troubled Decade (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1963), p. 183.
166
Quanstrom, pp. 171-180.
167
Bob Scott e-mail, October 6, 2013.
168
Grady Cantrell, unrecorded interview June 3, 1989 in College History Project and 1973 Project
169
Grady Cantrell, unrecorded interview June 3, 1989 in College History Project and 1973 Project
170
Girvin, 349
171
Girvin, p. 106.
172
Thomas Oord provides a chart of eight options. 1) everything is determined by God, 2) God allows some human
freedom, 3) God occasionally intervenes, 4) the forms of God’s activity varies, 5) God never breaks the laws of
nature, 6) people and nature cause some acts, God uses persuasion, 7) God does not act (Deism), and 8) mystery .
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/options_in_divine_action/
279
173
Norm Shoemaker, untitled remarks in Dean Nelson, 100 Years of Stories: Voices and Images from Point Loma
Nazarene’s First Century, (San Diego, Point Loma Press, 2001), p. 98.
174
For a listing of faculty accomplishments see http://www.pointloma.edu/experience/offices/academicaffairs/faculty-student-accomplishments
175
Taken from a PLNU brochure Transforming the FUTURE. Together. 2014
176
Frank G. Carver, When Jesus Said Good-Bye: John’s Witness to the Holy Spirit (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press
of Kansas City, 1996), pp. 66, 107.
177
Samuel M. Powell, Participation in God: Creation and Trinity (Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 145,
213; “A Contribution to a Wesleyan Understanding of Holiness and Community,” Embodied Holiness, Samuel
Powell and Michael Lodahl, Eds. (Downers Gove, IN: InterVarsity Press, 1999), pp. 177, 167 and Holiness: Why it
Matters Today, pp. 29, 40.
178
Ron Kirkemo, Embraced and Engaged: Grace and Ethics in American Foreign Policy (Eugene, OR: Wipf and
Stock, 2010), p. 67.
179
Paul T. Culbertson, Living Portraits from the Old Testament, (Kansas City, Beacon Hill Press, 1978), pp. 20, 45,
48, 54-55, 95, 142, 154-55, 166, and 172.
180
Dean Nelson, God Hides in Plain Sight (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 009), pp. 33, 57, 60, 129, 199, 179,
102, 209.
181
Jack Schaefer, Shane (New York: Random House, 1947), p. 143.
182
Dr. P. F. Bresee, “The Educational Work of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene,” delivered at Nazarene
University Chapel, September 2, 1915.
183
Quote from District Superintendent Grady Cantrell, Interview, June 3, 1989, College History Project Files.
184
District Superintendent Paul Benefiel, Interview, October 14, 1989. College History Project Files.
185
Sam Powell, Holiness: Why it Matters (San Diego: Point Loma Press, 2010), p. 29.
186
James H. Jackson, “A New Cornerstone,” a Founders Day Address, October 6, 1973.
187
W. Shelburne Brown, “Address to the Faculty,” September 18, 1975, p. 3.
188
W. Shelburne Brown, “Address to the Faculty,” September 18, 1975, pp. 3, 8.
189
Jim Bond, “The Reaffirmation of Christian Liberal Arts amid the Challenges of the Eighties,” an inaugural
address delivered November 18, 1983. Bond Files, PLNUY Archives.
190
Davis Carson, Pro Christo et Patria: A History of Geneva College (Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company,
1997), p. 21.
191
W. Shelburne Brown, “Report of the President to the Board of Trustees,” March 12, 1974, p. 4.
192
“List of colleges that have closed, merged, or changed their names.” http://www2.westminstermo.edu/wc_users/homepages/staff/brownr/CaliforniaCC.htm
280
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