ACPU is a voluntary professional organization comprised of 62 of the 64 colleges and universities identified by the PC(USA) General Assembly as “related” institutions. Our institutions are located in 31 states and Puerto Rico and serve more than 100,000 students. Gary W. Luhr is APCU’s able executive director. While we are independent of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and supported by the dues of our members, APCU itself has a covenant with the General Assembly Council of the PC(USA). Many of our colleges, including Wilson, also have covenants with their presbyteries.
The members of APCU work together to strengthen the mission our institutions, in terms of our Presbyterian heritage, in various ways, including:
• Advocate for the mission of higher education in the Reformed tradition;
• Support and promote our member institutions to Presbyterian families, communities, and potential students, simultaneously working with church leaders to promote a deeper understanding of the important role our member colleges play in the life of PC(USA);
• Engage the church in dialogue about how the Presbyterian colleges and universities can assist in furthering the church’s mission priorities;
• Enhance partnerships among the institutions, with the governing bodies of the PC(USA) and with other associations and institutions of higher education;
• Support member colleges and universities in preparing students to address the complex religious, social, political, and economic issues that stem from increasing cultural diversity in the United States and worldwide globalization.
This last point, preparing students for the complexity of the modern world, provides an excellent opportunity to describe how we often leverage our resources with external funding. In this case, a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment is enabling APCU to coordinate five separate partnerships in which a Presbyterian college is paired with a Presbyterian seminary or two or more Presbyterian congregations. The partnerships are designed to strengthen our abilities to educate students in environments that respect and celebrate the diversity of our institutions and communities, while exploring more fully the implications of globalization for academic, spiritual, personal, and social development.
In addition, the association offers programs and services for its member institutions, including The Business Educational Initiative, which brings students from Northern Ireland to study at our colleges; insurance and risk management programs that help to reduce costs by pooling resources; and The Tuition Exchange Program through which faculty, staff, and their dependents can study tuition-free at other member institutions.
APCU convenes its membership at an annual meeting each spring. This year, we will meet in Charlotte, N. C., to discuss what it means to be a Presbyterian college today and to explore how each of our distinctive institutions expresses our Presbyterian heritage.
Wilson College
Wilson College’s Presbyterian heritage and the nature of its Covenant with the church were key factors in my interest in the Wilson presidency. Not only have I always believed that academic and spiritual development must go hand-in-hand, but I found Wilson’s Covenant with the Presbytery of Carlisle to be a remarkably clear and respectful document that outlined our mutual responsibilities to our respective communities and to PC(USA) at large. To consider leading a rigorous, 138 year-old liberal arts college founded by Calvin’s heirs who share the progressive — even radical notion — that educating women is important, was frankly, very compelling.
These heirs were two Presbyterian ministers — Tryon Edwards and James W. Wightman, pastors of Presbyterian churches in Hagerstown, Md., and Greencastle, Pa. The two men determined to establish a college for women that would be equal to those of men, and made it clear with no uncertainty that they envisioned a college that offered a rigorous course of study, and would not be a “finishing school”. In1868, the Presbytery of Carlisle (Pa.) endorsed their proposal. Wilson College was named in honor of its first benefactress, Miss Sarah Wilson. It was founded to offer students “a serious education intended to prepare them to offer meaningful service to their neighbor through a calling,” according to the original mission statement. The “calling” was understood to be a vocation, be it lay or religious.
Today, Wilson — like many fine, independent, Presbyterian colleges and universities — remains dedicated to its original purposes and continues to build on our Presbyterian beginnings.
Throughout the years, Wilson’s Presbyterian heritage has encouraged us to remain open and evolving, committed to educating women for service to the world and to helping our students understand that career is a form of service and a vocation. Other Presbyterian values also remain central to a Wilson education: being good stewards of our institution and our environment; understanding teaching, leading, and learning to be expressions of faithful service; educating the “whole” person to be paramount; and expecting ethical and honorable behavior to be the norm. These values are woven into the academic study, co-curricular activities, and special events, such as Wilson’s Orr Forum, an annual series of lectures and workshops dedicated to examining the wide and shifting interests in religion studies in America. To the casual observer, these activities may not appear to be religious, but they are, nonetheless, an important part of faithful service in the Reformed Tradition.
Wilson’s Trustee Bylaws require that seven of the maximum number of 31 Trustees be Presbyterian. In 2000, Wilson trustees renewed the College’s Covenant with the Presbytery of Carlisle. Two Presbyterian ministers, David True, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Katherine Smanik Moyes, Wilson’s Helen Carnell Eden Chaplain, are joined by many others in providing leadership to study, reflection, and service in the Reformed Tradition on our campus.
As we say in Wilson’s most recent statement of vision for the future:
Today’s graduates face rapid scientific and technological change, as well as dramatic economic, social, cross-cultural, environmental and civic challenges. … Sustainable solutions for the future depend on innovation and global savvy, talents developed most fully through a rigorous, personalized, liberal arts education, a powerful learning-living environment for students of all ages and cultures. Sustainable solutions require a deep and diverse talent pool, unlimited by race, class or gender.
My fellow college presidents and I are fortunate, indeed, to be able to engage with the PC(USA), our local presbyteries, and the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, as we strive to remain true to our Presbyterian roots and meet the contemporary challenges of educating our students. I can’t help but think that the Presbyterian founders of all 62 of our Presbyterian colleges and universities would be pleased with how our institutions and APCU are working together and with PC(USA) to steward the institutions they established. I wish I could tell the founders of all of our colleges just how much their faith and foresight means to the thousands of students of all ages, faiths, and cultures who pass beneath our founders’ portraits on their way to class, meals, and ultimately to lives of service.
I hope you will take a moment to learn more about our colleges and about APCU at www.presbyteriancolleges.org.
Lorna Duphiney Edmundson is president of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa. and Chair of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities
