ATLANTAFour awards were presented by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities during the Forum on Christian Higher Education, held in Atlanta Feb. 24-26, 2010:
- The Mark O. Hatfield Leadership Award was given to John M. Perkins
- The John R. Dellenback Global Leadership Award was presented to Robert and Alice Evans
- The Robert and Susan Andringa Award for Advancing Racial Harmony was awarded to North Park University
- The Philanthropy Award was given to CIOS Foundation / Piper Family Foundation
Mark O. Hatfield Leadership Award: John M. Perkins
The Mark O. Hatfield Leadership Award is presented to individuals who have demonstrated uncommon leadership that reflects the values of Christian higher education. The award was established in 1997 in honor of Senator Hatfield, a longtime supporter of the Council.
John M. Perkins is a sharecroppers son who grew up in New Hebron, Miss., amidst dire poverty. He fled to California at age 17 after his older brothers murder at the hands of a town marshal. After converting to Christianity in 1960 he returned to Mendenhall, Miss., to share the gospel of Christ. While in Mississippi, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings and imprisonment. In Mendenhall, Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae, founded Voice of Calvary Ministries. This Christian community development ministry started a church, health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development and training center.
In 1982, the Perkins family returned to California and lived in the city of Pasadena where Perkins and his wife founded Harambee Christian Family Center in Northwest Pasadena, a neighborhood that had one of the highest daytime crime rates in California. In 1983, while yet in California, Perkins and his wife, along with a few friends and other major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Inc., for the sole purpose of supporting their mission of advancing the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world. In 1989, Perkins, along-side other Christian leaders, formed the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) held its first annual conference in Chicago in 1989. CCDA has grown from 37 founding members to 6,800 individuals and 600 churches, ministries, institutions and businesses in more than 100 cities and townships across the country.
The John R. Dellenback Global Leadership Award: Robert and Alice Evans
The John R. Dellenback Global Leadership Award is presented to an individual or individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Christian higher education through public influence, service, or scholarship. Bob and Alice Evans, Nobel Peace Prize Nominees, co-founded the Plowshares Institute nearly 25 years ago, working tirelessly for conflict transformation around the globe; they have led CCCU international faculty development initiatives to Indonesia and South Africa. Plans are underway for a China initiative in 2011.
Bob Evans, executive director of the Plowshares Institute, studied at the Universities of Yale, Edinburgh, Berlin and Basel, and received his doctorate from Union Seminary and Columbia University in New York. He was a senior fellow in the Centre for Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town, South Africa; senior trainer for Empowering for Reconciliation and Peace, Indonesia; and special researcher for the Academy of Social Sciences, Nanjing, China. He has taught on the faculty of universities and seminaries in Uganda, Fiji, New York, Chicago and Hartford and has served as a Presbyterian pastor in congregations in Oklahoma, Alabama, Illinois and Connecticut. He is the author of a dozen books.
Alice Evans is the director of Writing and Research at Plowshares Institute. She is the former senior fellow at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town, South Africa; senior trainer for Empowering for Reconciliation and Peace, Indonesia; adjunct faculty at Hartford Seminary in theology and ethics; and an elder in an inner city United Presbyterian Church. She was the co-director of the Association for Case Teaching for more than 20 years and is the author and/or editor of a number of casebooks on global issues. She studied at Agnes Scott College, Edinburgh University, the University of Wisconsin and was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in human rights from Makassar State University, Indonesia.
Robert and Susan Andringa Award for Advancing Racial Harmony: North Park University
The Robert and Susan Andringa Award for Advancing Racial Harmony celebrates the achievements of CCCU campuses in making progress in the areas of diversity, racial harmony and reconciliation.
North Park University is a distinctively Christian, intentionally urban and purposefully multicultural institution committed to reaching across boundaries of race, ethnicity, culture, gender, age and status in the cultivation of communities of life and service.
Located in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Chicago, North Park enrolls nearly 3,200 students from 40 states and 33 countries. To increase the diversity of the student body, the University has established partnerships and strengthened existing relationships with community and faith-based organizations serving traditionally underrepresented minority students. Overall underrepresented minority students composition is 26 percent, which does not include multi-racial and international students.
Several academic departments assist in sponsoring diversity events such as:
- Diversity Across the Curriculum: Developing Intercultural Competence in Students, co-sponsored by the Faculty Development Committee and the Office of Diversity and Intercultural Programs
- Re-Centering: Culture and Conflict Symposium, sponsored by the Communication Arts Department
- Chicago Latino Film Festival, sponsored by the Center for Latino Studies
In the classroom, the University offers numerous coursework that contributes to students knowledge and comfort with diversity. Examples include:
- African American History
- Latino Religious Experience in the United States
- African History
- Foundation of Islam
- Culture and Identity in Korea
- Hispanic Feminist Theology
- The Politics of Mexicans in America
- Politics of the Middle East
According to a recent 2009 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) report, North Park University students rated their educational experience that encourages contact among students from different economic, social, and racial and ethnic backgrounds higher than both their peer institutions and comparable Carnegie Class institutions.
Philanthropy Award: CIOS Foundation / Piper Family Foundation
The CCCU Philanthropy Award is presented to individuals who have made significant philanthropic contributions to the work of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities and its membership.
The Christ Is Our Salvation Foundation (CIOS) is the foundation through which the late Paul Piper and his wife Katy Piper have supported a large number of CCCU colleges and universities. They have also given the CCCU several large grants totaling more than $440,000.
Paul Piper was born Aug. 9, 1917, to Frank and Maud Piper of Piperton, Tenn. In 1937, at age 20, he established a John Deere dealership, beginning his entrepreneurial business career. He married Mary Kerr Katy Johnston in 1938, and Katy's energy and independence matched Paul's with her involvement as a vital partner in what was to become Piper Industries.
In 1952, the Pipers established the Christ Is Our Salvation (CIOS) Foundation and added the Christian Mission Concerns Foundation in 1984. The CMC Foundation provided the facility for Baylor's Piper Center for Family Studies and Child Development, which is used as a laboratory for Baylor education students.
Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. says the Pipers met the needs of countless students through interest-free loans and were among the first to step forward with financial support for Truett Seminary, which is commemorated through the Piper Great Hall on the seminary's new campus.
Through the years, the Pipers have supported numerous ministries and mission projects, student scholarships, housing for low-income families, day care centers, a Christian camp, medical facilities, colleges and universities, and theological seminaries, and partnered with state Baptist conventions to start and build hundreds of new churches.
The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities is a higher education association of 184 intentionally Christ-centered institutions around the world. There are now 109 member campuses in North America and all are fully-accredited, comprehensive colleges and universities with curricula rooted in the arts and sciences. In addition, 75 affiliate campuses from 24 countries are part of the CCCU. The Councils mission is to advance the cause of Christ-centered higher education and to help its institutions transform lives by faithfully relating scholarship and service to biblical truth.
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