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Left to right: David, Bob, and Elizabeth Derr with Mark Worley and President Smith
Left to right: David, Bob, and Elizabeth Derr
with Mark Worley and President Smith

In DCC faculty lore, we have a story about a beginning of the year meeting where the College’s president (who will remain nameless) was talking about changing the College’s mission statement. A young professor (who will also remain nameless) felt the need to remind the president that, whatever happened with the mission statement, the mission of the College needed to involve educating students, because that’s what colleges do. The act of educating is what defines a college. Colleges can exist without websites, athletics teams, particular academic programs, dormitories, real estate. But a college that does not educate students is not a college. And the people who are at the heart of this defining activity are the faculty.

I am honored to have been both a student at Dallas Christian College and now a member of (and overseer of) this faculty. I know the impact they have had on students’ lives, because they have had that impact on MY life. I know the powerful way that God works through them, to eternal effect, to change the lives of students, so that those students become life-changers themselves. We are grateful to God for the present and past faculty of Dallas Christian College, for the way they pour their heart, wisdom, lives, and knowledge into the thousands of students who have passed through DCC.

In Philippians and 2 Timothy, Paul uses the image of a runner straining toward the finish line. In a relay, all the runners strain to advance the baton for their team, carefully handing the responsibilities on to the next runner. In a symbolic way, it was our privilege at the 65th Birthday Celebration to honor our faculty, present and past, with batons that recognize their work, their investment in the next generation of influencers.

The inscription reads: “Dallas Christian College thanks you for passing the baton of knowledge to the next generation.” The inscription then cites Proverbs 20:15, which says, “Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.”