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Commentary
WESLEYAN WISDOM: High Point University has phenomenal story Donald W. Haynes, Oct 31, 2007
Donald W. Haynes
By Donald W. Haynes Special Contributor
High Point University is experiencing yet another historic miracle. In the last three years, the campus has seen a $225 million expansion that includes 18 construction projects, 20 renovations and more than 100 campus enhancements.
What’s more, the freshman class has doubled in two years and retention has improved as students are promised “an extraordinary education in a fun environment with caring people.”
HPU President Nido Qubein, a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon and an active United Methodist lay person, has virtually “re-branded” this university, which was founded in 1924 in the city of High Point, N.C., by the Methodist Protestant Conference.
Dr. Qubein is fond of saying, “If you want to whine, if you don’t want to hear God’s name used, if you don’t want to see American flags displayed and if you don’t want to learn about free enterprise and liberty with responsibility; don’t come to High Point University!”
Prospective students and family members are coming to visit the 132-acre campus in record numbers, with visits up 223 percent over 2005.
The university’s history is full of miracles. The first miracle was its establishment that came as the result of the power of an editor’s pen.
Joseph Flavius McCulloch was a native North Carolinian “rocked in a Methodist Protestant cradle.” He attended Adrian College in Michigan, a Methodist Protestant College, where he eventually returned as its president. But his consuming passion was to see the Methodist Protestants of his home state establish a college.
McCulloch resigned his comfortable post in Michigan and in 1894 he started a church paper, The Methodist Protestant Herald, in Greensboro, N.C. For 40 years, every issue lifted up the vision of a new Methodist Protestant college.
McCulloch’s dream finally became reality in 1924, when the city of High Point donated 62 acres of land and $10,000, and Methodist Protestants raised enough money to construct three buildings. The new High Point College joined Western Maryland and Adrian as the colleges of The Methodist Protestant Church.
The second miracle was the survival of High Point College during the Great Depression and throughout the 1930s, as the Methodist Protestant church was in economic decline. Faculty could not be paid, yet stayed on in their role, some of them taking second jobs as door-to-door salesmen or retail clerks.
The college finally declared bankruptcy in 1934, but opened the next morning under a new charter. Proud of their college, local citizens conducted a “Save Our College” campaign, and did just that. Unification of the three branches of Methodism also greatly enhanced the college.
The third miracle began in 1980 with the presidency of the Rev. Jacob Martinson, who solidified the college’s fiscal affairs, enhanced the campus physically, raised faculty salaries and moved the college to university status by adding a graduate program. New buildings were constructed that included a Fine Arts Center, a library, a residence hall, a student center, a chapel and a furniture design and marketing center.
The present miracle is a new birth that began in 2005 when the trustees called one of their own to be president, a multi-millionaire motivational speaker upon whom had been conferred the Horatio Alger award.
Dr. Nido Qubein had come to America with no money and worked his way through two colleges, yet he was able to raise $20 million in 29 days, during which he took time to attend his mother’s funeral in Amman, Jordan! Thirty months later, more than $90 million had been raised toward a $225 million transformation program. Enrollment is now over 3,100.
Dr. Qubein’s required seminar for freshmen is a series of lectures on the theme, “Circumstances do not determine what you become; decisions do.” A series of innovations he initiated has raised the retention rate, drawn more college recruits and heightened student and parent satisfaction.
The entire campus is now wireless. Plasma televisions are located in the cafeteria and every dorm lounge. Kiosks provide free water and snacks.
The university has purchased over 90 houses and added over 40 acres to its campus. A new Student Center next to the cafeteria includes eight basketball goals, a workout room, a track, a heated outdoor pool, a Starbucks and fast-food restaurants. Other buildings include a new soccer and track stadium, a new athletic field house, security towers for campus safety, two new residence halls (one of which is dedicated to freshmen), new buildings for the schools of commerce, communication, business and education. Soon an arboretum will lift up environmental stewardship, and four reflecting pools will enhance student dinners on the cafeteria terrace.
Dr. Qubein, a devout Christian himself, is quick to give God the credit for much of the transformation. Weekly chapel worship services are packed, and students take pride in the college’s United Methodist affiliation.
High Point University is rated by U.S. News & World Report as sixth among comprehensive college and universities in the South and in the top 100 nationally. Students come from more than 50 countries and 40 states to enroll in 68 undergraduate-degree and seven graduate-degree programs.
I can’t think of one of our institutions of higher learning that has come as far and so fast as High Point University in the past 27 years, and especially in the last three years. Its 14:1 student-faculty ratio, its eye-popping campus landscaping, the majesty of its 12 new buildings in a quarter century and its rising S.A.T. entrance scores are making HPU one of the smaller universities of choice in America.
And HPU’s faculty salaries are fifth among private universities in a state that includes Duke and Wake Forest Universities and prestigious Davidson College.
President Qubein is proving that being Christian, being United Methodist, being proudly American, teaching free enterprise and responsible personal freedom and raising academic standards are assets that parents look for a college or university.
Dr. Haynes directs the United Methodist Studies program at Hood Theological Seminary. e-mail:dhaynes11@triad.rr.com.
Donald W. Haynes
