Dockery: At that time, I knew that Union was a school with a strong Baptist tradition, good academics, and I believed that it was a school with a lot of potential. I was honored when they approached me. I didn't know anyone here except for George Guthrie. I knew a few Union graduates and some pastors in the area who knew a lot about the school, but I didn't know much about the inner workings of the institution. But the more I learned, the more excited I became, seeing that it was a fine institution poised to make a difference in Christian higher education in the coming years.

Unionite: As you arrived in 1996, what did you see as some of the real strengths that you had to work with in the institution, and what did you see as some of the greatest challenges that Union faced?

Dockery: The strengths were, and are: a sense of family that is at Union, a close relationship with the churches, a willingness on the part of the faculty and staff to work together toward a common goal, and openness on the part of the leadership to think afresh about the institution, which was unusual for a school that was almost 175 years old at the time. That was an exciting prospect.

The challenges were that the school had always thought of itself as an area or regional institution, and I thought it had potential to impact far beyond this region and be a leader in Christian higher education nationally. Other challenges were that the resources were limited, a very small budget for a school this size, facilities that were adequate but not aesthetically pleasing, and minimal endowment. Other challenges were that I recognized that we had some young, outstanding, quality faculty members who were going to make a real contribution in their fields, make a difference in the lives of the students here, and they were not being appropriately compensated. So we had to make some serious efforts to move salaries up to the appropriate level.

Unionite: Obviously, some of the major initiatives you have taken in these five years have dealt with the whole academic area. What are some of the goals you've had for the academic program, and some of the steps taken in that direction?

Dockery: I think, first and foremost, is to get a commitment to academic excellence across the board, and secondly for the faculty to recognize the opportunity they have to make a difference in the classroom and to make a professional contribution to their discipline. Thirdly, to recognize they need to do that as Christian scholars and Christian teachers, and to do so from the framework and the vantage point of a Christian world and life view, to understand how faith and learning and scholarship and service are integrated together; to encourage faculty to be the best teachers they can be, but at the same time to make a contribution as researchers, scholars and writers, performers, whatever their discipline might be. We've worked hard to increase professional development opportunities, to get faculty involved in professional societies. We have established the Center for Faculty Development, which I think has been a major step forward. We've had the opportunity to name a new provost and four new academic deans who share the vision for the institution, and are committed to who we are and what we're about and where we're trying to go. They understand the foundation of the Christian liberal arts. I think we have made significant strides in those areas. Carla Sanderson deserves much credit for her hard work in this area.

Unionite: You've put an emphasis on reducing the faculty's teaching load. Why is that an important element of building a university?

Dockery: We have been successful in reducing teaching load across the board, and in some areas to reduce it considerably. When we came, the faculty members were teaching 27 to 30 hours. Now the deans are working very hard for everyone to teach 24. Some are teaching a little less than that. It doesn't mean they are working any less, which is the conclusion that some might draw from that; it means they are having time to prepare more carefully for their classroom presentation. They have opportunity to not just teach about what others have said and done, but to make their own individual contributions to their discipline and to stay abreast of current research.

The faculty has published more in the last five years, as a whole, than they had published in the 25 years prior to this administration. So I think that is very gratifying. It has a domino effect in that through their publications they get the Union name out there. Union is recognized as a place for serious academics and Christian scholarship. It's a place, then, that invites other quality faculty members to come and join us here. It builds an ethos that helps attract these outstanding students. So as a result, the first year we were here we had a handful of students that scored 30 or more on their ACT as opposed to right now, where 80 applications in this year's freshman class are 30 or above. I think there is a direct correlation--all of these are tied together.

Unionite: Are there some other quality indicators that you have seen enhanced or developed over the past few years?

Dockery: We have made some important strides in building the library. We still have work to do there, but you can't have a serious academic institution without a strong library. For years, people thought an institution of higher education was brains, books, and bricks. I suppose with technology that's probably changing some in terms of the fact that you may not need the warehouse or something to hold it. Today, the information may be more on-line. In the next 20 years books are not going away, so we still have to work hard to build a quality library with updated materials there, as well as find the important older materials that a quality academic institution needs to have.

You see, it's not just that you have to always be buying new stuff, but to make sure you have the classics as well. C. S. Lewis said that there is a tendency on the part of all scholars to be chronologically challenged; they only have to read what is new. He said we ought to not read books unless they are a hundred years old and have faced the test of time. A stretched hyperbole on his part, but it does show that we have to understand the importance of reading the classics. For a person trained in a liberal arts education, it's not enough just to read the current philosophers; they need to know Plato and Aristotle. It's not just enough to read Annie Dillard or some other contemporary poet; they need to know Shakespeare and Milton. So I think it's a matter of finding the right balance, as you build a library, between the classics and contemporary works. We've tried to put some dollars there to help in that regard.

So the library is one. Professional faculty development is really an area where we have more than doubled, almost tripled the budget. Three, faculty salaries have gone from No. 9 out of 18 schools in the southeast in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities survey to No. 1. That gives me great satisfaction. I think we are starting to make some big differences in terms of facilities and technology, which is long overdue. Those things are in the works, and they will make a difference on this campus.

Unionite: One of the areas that has taken a lot of your time since coming is the campus master plan and the development of the physical facilities. What kind of goals have you had in that area, and how would you judge the kind of the progress that's been made?

Dockery: One of the most important things that happened at this institution was that in December of 1996 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the first real long-range plan that the school had had, which we called Vision and Values 2000. It called for upgrading the facilities and for the institution to enter into a campus master planning process. By December of 1997, a year later, that master plan process was completed. The master plan was approved with enthusiastic recommendation from the faculty, staff, the trustees and students. So we had the whole campus involved. At that time it seemed far off, almost a pipe dream.

Now, just four years later, we're starting to see significant results from it, with the renovations in Penick, Barefoot and Blasingame buildings, the addition of Hammons Hall, the addition of two dorms, and the addition of Jennings Hall, which was the first major academic building on this campus in almost 15 years. The new Miller Tower is going to give this campus a sense of presence and will serve as a symbol of excellence and hopefully also a symbol of a light that comes through this campus--the light of learning, but more important, the light of Jesus Christ Himself. The new lighted athletic fields--baseball, softball, and soccer -- and pressbox, have given the campus a sense of being a first-rate college campus, I think. All that has just raised the esteem of the faculty, staff, and students in the way we feel about Union and the way we feel about the campus. We still have a lot of work to do. We're tired! But we'll roll up our sleeves and go on to the next project with great enthusiasm.

Unionite: In terms of facilities growth, what do you see in the next five years?

David Dockery has worked to shape a vision of Union as a national leader in Christian higher education.

Dockery: We have a lot of work to do to finish the Great Lawn project. That's probably a year in the process. To finish the west entrance will be an important thing. The science building is likely to have three stages to it: the center stage, with biology and chemistry, then two wings, one for math and computer science, and then another one which would follow that for the new engineering program. But I would see that science building taking the next three years to design and build and complete. So if we did all that it would take us to 2004, and then we hope to begin work on the athletic and convocation center after that.

I think if we've learned anything in the building process, it is that more has been accomplished than most of us really believed could have been done by this time. By the same token, every project has taken longer than projected, so to say that the science building will be next is the case, but it's not likely to be finished by 2002. Ideally, it would be finished in 2003, but given how things go, it could be the next year before it's finished. But we are committed to it, and we'll work at it every day, a step at a time.

The amazing thing is that we've done it without hiring a construction manager or bringing in additional personnel. We've had a lot of help from the Board of Trustees, and the faculty and administration have just taken on additional work to get it done. Gary Taylor, Gary Carter, and Shelby Massey deserve a lot of credit.

Unionite: Obviously, all of that costs money. How do you identify the progress that has been made over the past five years in terms of the university's financial picture?

Dockery: Coming in, one of the challenges was the small budget we had to operate this kind of school and the minimal endowment and facilities challenges, and we've addressed all three of those head-on with the full support of the Board of Trustees. The budget in five years has grown from $19 million to nearly $35 million. The endowment has grown from about $10 million to almost $17 million, which is still a long way from where we need to be, but I feel that we have made pretty significant strides from where we started. It will help us in supporting the academic programs, most importantly scholarships for students. But the big goal, big dream, is to be able to raise the dollars for these new facilities. The ones we have described, we estimate will cost about $20 million combined, and we've probably raised about half of that. At this stage we still have a lot of work to do. All of this, the operational side, which will help to expand the budget, the endowment side, and the facilities side, make up this seven year, $60 million campaign. And right now we have exceeded all expectations in being at the $38 million mark, well over 60 percent of the way there with four years to go. I believe in the providence of God that we will meet and surpass the goal.

One of the most important things we did in the summer of 1996 was to ask everybody on this campus to begin to pray Psalm 90:17 on a regular basis and ask God to bless the work of our hands and to show His favor toward us. And I would say that if anything has happened on this campus, it's because God has answered those prayers, that he has blessed the work of our hands and He shown His favor toward us.

Unionite: In what way should a Christian university be different from other institutions of higher education?

Dockery: I think there are several characteristics of a Christian university. Hopefully it will be a grace-filled community, which means more than just being nice to each other and nurturing students, as important as that is. There needs to be a demonstration of the fruit of the Spirit in relationships and in the building of the community and family on campus. There is a sense in which we recognize that all we have, all that we are, all that we are going to be, flows from the grace of God toward us, so we live each day depending totally upon Him. There is a sense in which we live in that grace, and we don't shackle each other with oppressive expectations or legalistic tendencies, and we celebrate the work of the Spirit on this campus. The first thing, I think, is to build and establish commitment to a grace-filled community.

Secondly, I think, is a recognition that there is such a thing as Truth, Truth that is revealed, Truth that is discovered, and that's Truth with a capital T. All truth is God's Truth, or all Truth has its source in God. So that becomes the pursuit of every discipline on this campus.

Thirdly is a recognition that faculty and staff can be very open about their faith. We only hire professing Christians who bring their faith to bear upon their work here in this place, so there is an integrating of faith and learning, and faith and living. Faith, scholarship, teaching, and service are integrated across the campus.

Finally, we recognize that all that we do is grounded in, and grows out of, a commitment to a Christian world and life view. Those distinctives, I think, are very, very important across the campus. We affirm the truthfulness of the Bible, believe the reality of the Gospel, celebrate the Resurrection and lordship of Christ, and therefore want worship to be at the heart of who we are in this grace-filled community where we come together as students, faculty, staff, administrators, on equal and level ground at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. We want to encourage intellectual curiosity and inquiry. Even as we think critically and imaginatively, we want to think Christianly.

Unionite: What are some of the practical steps that you have taken over the past five years to try to flesh out that vision of Christian higher education?

Dockery: I try to make one major address annually about a different aspect of that vision and publish it so people can read it and reflect upon it, and think about it over and over. Secondly, the Center for Faculty Development, the Center for Christian Leadership, the Center for Scientific Studies have come together and worked in a complementary way to do this in various facets of university life; sometimes by bringing in special speakers, sometimes by hosting conferences, sometimes by working on different projects, sometimes by hosting development retreats for faculty to think about these important issues.

Thirdly, we have tried to encourage a broad range of serious Christian thinkers in various fields; to find ways - find people who are doing what we're talking about and see what we can learn from them, and see how that might apply on this campus. Fourthly, we have become very involved with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Union became a member two years before my election, and now we're involved in every aspect of the CCCU with a commitment to becoming one of the leaders in Christian higher education, not only in the South but across the nation.

I think the other thing that has happened is that the vision for distinctive Christian thinking has become a priority for faculty chairs, the deans and the Provost. The faculty leaders deserve a lot of credit for the strides that have been made in this area. They have understood what is involved in offering distinctively Christ-centered higher education; worked very hard to model it, to encourage it among their colleagues, and to make sure that the faculty search processes help us seek out those kind of faculty members who will be committed to carrying it on. I think the key to establishing that kind of school, that kind of institution, for the long term, is faculty. Trustees come and trustees go; they serve six-year terms, and they've made a contribution. Students come and students go; they're here for four years and they're gone. The average tenure of a college administrator across the country today is five or six years. Lord willing, I can stay a little longer, we all can stay a little longer than that, but that's the life span, expectancy. But faculty come and plant themselves, invest themselves. That's the heart and soul of what a school is about. So it has to happen in the faculty or it doesn't happen.

Unionite: What about the curriculum itself? Does there need to be an effort to integrate that vision into the curriculum?

Dockery: I certainly think so. I'll answer this question carefully. I recognize that the curriculum belongs to the faculty and I know that they are currently involved in a core revision review. I believe the curriculum should be built on a strong liberal arts core influenced by the foundational courses in Old and New Testaments. The curriculum, for all majors, needs to be intellectually rigorous and stretching, which will push our students toward academic excellence and prepare them for graduate schools or their roles in the marketplace. We currently have a Christian worldview course taught as an elective. I would like to see it become a requirement for all majors, a capstone course for the core. The curriculum should encourage intellectual curiosity and a wrestling with the key ideas of history. We want students to learn to think critically while learning to think Christianly - taking every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

Unionite: What's the most fun you have as president?

Dockery: The most fun is probably getting to know students. That's very fulfilling, very satisfying to see the progress they make from who they were as freshmen to who they have become as seniors. I enjoy the work so much that it's all fun. It really is. There are times when always having to be the president and always having to be at every public setting and event can be wearisome, but really, all aspects of it - the hiring processes are fun, the budgeting challenges, which is the biggest challenge we face, even that is rewarding in the end, which makes the work worthwhile. Fun comes from relationships with colleagues, fun comes from getting to know trustees well, developing friendships, relationships with them. I guess I would tend to use the words "fulfilling" and "joyful" more than "fun." But it is very rewarding.

Unionite: What would you see as the most frustrating parts of your role as president?

Dockery: The most frustrating part is that we can't do all that we want to do and all that everybody dreams about doing. The frustrating part is having to decide what can't be done, or who we can't hire, what programs we can't carry on because of lack of resources. It's frustrating when occasionally we make a bad hiring decision - somebody that doesn't achieve the level of quality and excellence that we hope for from a Union staff member or faculty. Frustration comes when we have a student incident. But even if those are handled right, they can be very redemptive; and while they are frustrating to go through, to see all that happens on the other side, to see the change, the notes, the letters that come back from students saying "Here's what I've learned from this process," that's very gratifying. I'd say the biggest frustration, on a day to day basis, is that while our resources have expanded tremendously, still we lack the resources to carry out the dreams we have for this place.

Unionite: What role would you like to see Union play in the broader community of Christian higher education?

Dockery: I'd like for Union to be seen as a beacon of Christian scholarship. A place where faculty in every discipline model Christ-centered excellence - great teachers, some making significant contributions in their field. Thus it becomes a place where students - not only from this region, not only from our Baptist family, but from across the evangelical world - want to come and study. That's what I dream of on a daily basis.

Unionite: What about Baptist life? Obviously Southern Baptists have gone through a lot of turmoil in the last couple of decades. Is there a positive role that Union can play in the denomination?

Dockery: I would hope so. Union is proud of our Baptist heritage, the tradition that is ours of being the oldest institution related to the Southern Baptist Convention and the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The place that produced M. E. Dodd, the father of the Cooperative Program, great pastors across this convention, scholars like Curtis Vaughan, missionaries like Cal Guy. Union has a great history of a strong relationship with both Tennessee Baptists and Southern Baptists. I think more Southern Baptist presidents have been related to Union University, either as a student or a trustee, than any other college in the convention. So we are thankful for that. We annually invite the president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention or the Southern Baptist Convention to come and be with us, for them to get to know us and us to get to know them.

I think Union stands at a place where we have a strong commitment to the inspiration and authority of the scripture, to the truthfulness of the Gospel, to the reality of the lordship of Christ on this campus, to the importance of relationships between the church and the institution, and therefore can serve as a model of what a Baptist college can and should be in the twenty-first century. We've worked pretty hard not to get involved in the political debates. That was true before we came and it's something we're still committed to: to try to take theological, pedagogical, educational, and philosophical stands without taking political positions. And therefore we have pretty long arms and have been inclusive in our relationships with those who have been considered conservatives or moderates in SBC life. We want to relate as broadly as we can across the Baptist spectrum, but do so convictionally.

Unionite: Look out a number of years - let's say twenty years. Can you paint a portrait of the Union that you would like to see twenty years from now? What will have changed?

Dockery: I've often said the four things that I must do from this office on a regular basis are (1) to cast the vision, (2) to define reality, (3) to accept responsibility, and (4) to say "thank you" to those who help us get there. I try to model those four things over and over again. Those first two often are in tension with each other - that is, casting the vision of where we would like to be five, ten, fifteen years down the road, and at the same time trying to define reality where we are today. And I think it's living in that healthy tension that keeps our feet anchored to today and, more importantly, anchored to Christ and our dependence upon Him for strength and resources for today, and being grateful for all those resources. At the same time, not becoming complacent or satisfied with where we are, but always looking ahead, committed to continuous quality improvement across the board, to see where can we be next year, five years from now, ten years from now, fifteen years from now. I hope we'll continue to see broader ethnic and geographical diversity represented among the student body, the faculty and staff.

Lord willing, Union University, in 2020 will be an institution with some of the finest, most aesthetically pleasing facilities on any campus in this area. It will be a place with a beautiful campus that will be attractive to students and a place for which alumni will be proud and grateful. It will be a place for which the Board of Trustees models and carries forth a commitment in all their decision-making to authentic Christian higher education, and that everything we do grows out of the mission of this institution. It will be a place with a great teaching faculty. It will be a place with Christ-centered and godly staff who give themselves for the good of students. It will be a place that attracts students from all over the country and from all parts of the world to come and study at this place. In ways that you and I can't imagine right now, hopefully it will be a place that is technologically adequate. I believe there could be a different way of delivering education twenty years from now.

We have to recognize that even with all those changes, there will be a sense in which Christian higher education will always be more "high touch" than "high tech." And we must never lose sight of that regardless of all those changes that I described, because you can take away the technology and take away the buildings. When it comes down to it, education is still that magical moment that takes place between faculty and student. We primarily have to do things to enhance that in the days ahead.

Unionite: Who have been the great influences on you as you carry out this role?

Dockery: To learn to think as a Christian scholar, the great thinkers through the ages - Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Baptist influences like Boyce, Mullins, Hobbs, have been very important for me. Evangelical scholars like Carl F.H. Henry, J. I Packer, C. S. Lewis, and Chuck Colson have helped me learn to put together a Christian world and life view that is, as I like to call it, evangelical by conviction and Baptist by tradition, one that is suited for an institution like Union University. But then to help me put that into practice, a lot of people who talk about leadership have been helpful for me in reading their literature in that area.

I think it has mostly come from watching others. I've been able to watch some leaders closely, others I've watched from a distance, to see how they have done things. In that regard, Jay Kesler (former President of Taylor University) has been a real model for me of what a leader of a Christian higher education institution ought to be. Chuck Colson has been very influential, I think, in how to be a Christian leader that influences beyond a particular role. In the last five years of his life before he died in 1995, Herschel Hobbs spent a lot of time in correspondence with me. I learned an awful lot from his "down home" wisdom that I've never forgotten. Having the privilege of working with W. A. Criswell, Jimmy Draper, Roy Honeycutt, Al Mohler - watching different leadership styles, learning the best from what they did - all those were quite different leaders, but all very effective.

And then the leaders I was exposed to as a college student. I think I've mentioned this before. Watching Coach Bryant and watching C. M. Newton model different kinds of leadership. Probably because of his life of integrity and personality style, I was more attracted to Coach Newton, even though Coach Bryant was such a great man. But Coach Newton's life has been important for me, because this role in some ways is that of a coach, of directing a team of administrators, faculty, and staff that's suited up every day with the goal of making a difference in the lives of the students.

Unionite: Sports have had a lot of influence in your life. What elements of your life have been shaped by your experience in sports, as a participant or as a coach?

Dockery: Athletics can be very helpful, I think, in understanding the importance of hard work, endurance, meeting challenging situations, and a commitment to team - putting team above self, recognizing the value of working together to accomplish a common goal. Often, what we see in athletics is a lot of individualism and selfishness. People sometimes value athletics above academics. That is the sad side of athletics today. But there is a positive side, and that is character development, teamwork, hard work, a sense of endurance, selflessness. On the coaching side, learning to find people who can match strengths with positions. Not everybody can do the same thing. We all are people with blind spots, feet of clay, flaws, but everybody has a strength, a gift, and finding those strengths or gifts and matching them to particular positions to get the best out of them for the good of the whole is how to build a successful organization.

Unionite: What role has the church played in shaping and forming your life?

Dockery: The church has been very important for my entire life. I think I was on the Cradle Roll before I was born. My mom and dad were very faithful and active church members, so I literally grew up in the church. Our family structure and social life were geared around the church. I was involved with Sword Drills and memory drills along the way which is how I first began to learn the Bible, which is so important for who I am and what I do. I was very much involved in youth group. So I'm a product of the church, and therefore I think of Christian education as an extension of the work of the church that must be carried on in relationship with the church.

I'm not naive to the fact that there is sometimes a tension between the academy and the church, and we live in that healthy tension. There's a dynamic to that which we need not apologize for. Academic excellence and serious inquiry of things, all things across the board - that's what academic freedom is about. But I recognize that that's grounded in, if not formed by, a commitment to our relationship with the Church and the churches of Tennessee and the Southern Baptist Convention and the broader Church of Jesus Christ. I think that's a very healthy, dynamic relationship that impacts me daily. So that we can say that even at this academic institution, carrying out this academic enterprise, that what we do each and every day is characterized by the worship and service of God.

Unionite: Do you have a favorite scripture passage?

Dockery: I do. We have used some key verses each year that I've been here, and some of those are my favorites. I love Jeremiah 29:11, the promise of God for a future and a hope is very important. Matthew 6:33, a promise that if we commit ourselves first to God and His kingdom, other things are taken care of, and the promise of God's favor and blessing from Psalm 90:17.

I suppose I live by two passages. One a promise in Psalm 37:4-5, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Trust also in Him, and He will do it." And then Philippians 2, that passage about thinking of others as more important than yourself, having the mind of Christ in all that we are and all that we do is something I try to live by each and every day. I think it is the most Christ-like description of the kind of attitude and lifestyle we are to have in building relationships within a community like this.