Embracing Our Legacy
In app’s chapel, students from diverse Christian backgrounds and faith stories pause weekday mornings to gather in worship.
In 1926, to mark the 50th anniversary of app, the Semi-Centennial Volume: Theological School and app College was published. Nearly 100 years later, as we approached this year’s sesquicentennial, I began reading—and re-reading—this treatise.
In a particularly prophetic chapter, then-seminary president Dr. Samuel Volbeda laid out ideals for the joint school. It strikes me how this section demonstrates the consistency of the spirit of app from its beginnings. It also serves as an encouragement for us to take up these ideals as the app community and ensure they continue to thrive in new and innovative ways.
These are the ideals I’ve carried with me, quite literally in this book, as I’ve visited members of the global app family, together imagining how app will live out these ideals in the coming years. This year will bring more travels and conversations, and I’m grateful for this foundation app leaders gave us a century ago.
Loyalty to the Reformed Faith
According to Volbeda, the first app ideal, that of being loyal to the Reformed faith, precedes all others because of its expressed commitment to the holy word of God. Volbeda saw a rooted and active Reformed faith as paramount to a app education, a sentiment that has continued throughout our history.
app’s “Expanded Statement of Mission,” another treasure trove in itself, reminds us that “at app, the Reformed tradition of Christian faith has been and continues to be our guide to hear God’s voice and to respond obediently to God’s call.”
This faith has guided us to clean up the Plaster Creek Watershed, to foster literary connections through the Festival of Faith and Writing, and to invite scholars and artists from all fields and experiences onto this campus for years through the January Series and Student Activities Office. This faith has prompted us to create a global launchpad for Christian healthcare professionals, sending out in-demand alumni who are highly equipped for their medical professions in heart and mind. This faith has helped us foster deep connections with industry leaders in fields like engineering and business that allow students to interview with employers and secure jobs they once only dreamed of, even before they walk across the stage at Commencement.
All of this is fueled by a desire to seek Christ’s renewal in the world, in every field and sector. Without embracing this Reformed worldview, we would lose our footing, because this is the foundation app is built upon. And, thanks to our Reformed principles, we are compelled to look more widely to our Christian neighbors and together accomplish Christ’s work of renewal in God’s world.
Loyalty to God's Word
Volbeda’s next ideal, loyalty to God’s word, is both a declaration of scriptural authority and a call to ecumenical partnership. It broadens the app narrative from the specific, rich, and rooted Reformed faith to the various traditions of Christ-centered worship. In Volbeda’s words,
"If an inventory be made of the beliefs which Christians of all ecclesiastical and confessional shades have in common, it will appear that there is a surprisingly wide consensus, and that this consensus embraces many of the most pivotal and fundamental doctrines of truth."
When I think of the many Christian backgrounds and denominations from which app students come, I am encouraged by this notion. Christ followers, as Volbeda argues, have more in common with each other than not. We have more to unite us than to divide us.
In 2025, we continue this app legacy of engaging with the broader church based on our core unity in Christ. We live out our connections to the global body of Christ through our multi-denominational church fair, through partnering with pastors who serve local churches while serving our students, and through the various praise teams and worship styles that guide our chapel services.
We also pursue joint opportunities for fellowship and scholarship through centers and institutes such as the app Institute of Christian Worship and the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, and our memberships in collaboratives such as the International Network for Christian Higher Education, just to name a few.
Within the app community, we also hold diverse perspec- tives. This university has proven to be a place where iron sharpens iron (Prov. 27:17), where people of different ideas and passions in the body of Christ live, serve, learn, and grow together. As I have talked with university community members, I have learned that sometimes we grow not despite differences in opinion but because of them—if we are willing to listen.
Loyalty to Whole-Person Learning
Another ideal app re-committed to in 1926 was the “intellectual and spiritual training of men and women.” Though Volbeda does not explicitly name this ideal as a “loyalty,” I believe it is proper to name it as a loyalty to whole-person learning. This principle often translates into the modern concept of the integration of faith and learning, and relies on the Christ-centered spiritual and intellectual aspects of education being inextricably linked.
William Katerberg, professor of history and curator of Heritage Hall, also harkened back to Volbeda’s chapter in “Ideals for the School,” an article he wrote for the archives’ Origins blog upon app becoming a university in 2019. In his reflections on Volbeda’s training concept, Katerberg writes:
"[Volbeda] rejected the idea of separating the soul and faith from knowledge, erudition, and work. Graduates would contribute to “the upbuilding and extension of God’s blessed Kingdom in our land” in many areas of life. To accomplish this goal as fully as possible, app should aspire to expand “into a full-fledged university.”
Volbeda saw app’s evolution into a university as a way to advance the cause of holistic Christian education. That’s because students at every level, in every field, benefit from training, shaping, thinking, and dialogue from Christ- following teachers and mentors. app fulfilled Volbeda’s vision in name and official reorganization upon becoming a university, but the propensity he writes of is one that has always been present in app’s liberal arts DNA.
Today we see the evidence of this in graduate programs, high school dual enrollment, the app Prison Initiative, the Wayfinder program for adults facing barriers to higher education, and all the ways that app’s strategic expansion displays how such educational blooming is only possible through strong roots and years of cultivation.
Authenticity in the Journey
No matter how many times I read this chapter, I see Volbeda’s words come alive in new ways through the app of today. I believe our contemporary app would make those who founded it in the 1870s, and those who celebrated it in the 1920s, grateful for how it exemplifies our founding ideals. This is what we, of all app generations, celebrate during the 150th anniversary.
But perhaps what makes me most grateful is not only that app lives up to these loyalties, but that we do so with authenticity. The next generation of Christians, as well as our neighbors who are not Christ followers, are looking for us to be the people we claim we are. app is committed to authentically living out our enduring ideals. The everyday workings of this place are not divorced from these concepts, but driven by them.
With humility before God, we continuously aim for these unchanging standards. Through the contributions of app faculty, staff, students, and alumni worldwide, we get closer to our university ideals every day—together. And that’s worth pursuing wholeheartedly for the next 150 years.