Welcome to our new format for presidential communications in the Viewpoint! In each Viewpoint Magazine print issue, we will spend time talking with President Fulcher about important issues and news affecting the university.
Viewpoint: You recently announced some changes to your presidential cabinet. Can you explain a little bit about what the cabinet’s role is and what they do?
President Fulcher: The cabinet is the university’s senior leadership team. They have responsibility for overseeing and stewarding the Christian mission and the strategic direction of the university. It’s a very collaborative group.
Viewpoint: You’ve brought in Heather Cordell as our new vice president for University Advancement and added two new cabinet roles this summer: Dr. Holly Irwin as vice president for mission and calling and Dr. Walter Augustine as vice president for intercultural engagement, retention and community success initiatives. Can you share with our readers what led to the addition of these new roles?
President Fulcher: Yeah, it was a little bit of a journey for me, actually, personally. Both of the new roles are fundamentally different from the other cabinet positions, and let me explain that. The other cabinet positions are all very much in a hierarchical functional cluster [such as Academics and Student Life and Formation]. These two new positions, as I envisioned them, will be different. I’m not planning to create this big vertical structure around mission and calling, nor a vertical structure around intercultural engagement and retention at the university. These are two areas that really every functional group has responsibility in and ownership of. But they don’t necessarily wake up thinking about it all the time. What I’m really needing is someone who’s waking up and thinking about these issues and then working across those functional clusters in a horizontal way.
The work that Holly will be doing in mission and calling, that’s really something, like I said, that everybody owns, but she will give intentional, consistent clarity, and direction to it. And so looking at all of our systems that we have in place, how do we go about advertising our positions? How do we go about hiring those positions? How do we go about onboarding those positions? How do we go about supporting those positions, helping them understand what our expectations are around the missional work of their roles, and then resourcing them to be able to do that? And so it’s this ongoing journey, and it encompasses the entirety of the university. It’s more like an orchestra conductor as opposed to a CEO. It’s a very collaborative type of a position, and I’m really excited about Holly stepping into this. I know it really aligns well with her calling and her gifts.
“As I come to the close of the first year, I have a deeper hope, a deeper sense of excitement about what’s coming. I’m really excited about the new cabinet structure and team that’s forming.” – President Fulcher
With Walter’s position, as our student and faculty and staff population gets more culturally diverse, we want to ensure that we understand one another and we appreciate one another and the strengths and gifts that come from that cultural diversity. And so he will help us focus on: how do we be intentional about that from a starting point that is rooted in our theology? He will be working with HR and with each of the various units on campus in this horizontal stitching together to create a community of belonging that reflects the diversity in the body of Christ and where our faculty, our staff, our students, feel ‘This is my community.’ When you have an engaged community, you tend to have better retention. How do we retain our faculty? How do we retain our staff? How do we retain our students? How do we engage our alumni? What are the ways that we can create a community that enhances that?
Viewpoint: Thank you so much for sharing that. Another cabinet change that’s happening is Dr. Mary Paul, vice president of Student Life and Formation, is completing her service to PLNU. Would you like to share a little bit about what she has meant to the university?
President Fulcher: When you think of 18 years of very intentionally investing into the spiritual formation of our students and the ripple effect that that has, you can’t overstate the impact of her ministry here. Obviously, she didn’t do it all alone. She created teams. She brought people together, but she helped guide those teams in ways that have significantly shaped and impacted the lives of our students, creating an environment here where they can spiritually grow and thrive. I’ve enjoyed working alongside her as a colleague and am just super grateful for the investment that she’s made into this place. She took what she inherited and built on it in amazing ways. And I would say that the spiritual vibrancy of the students on our campus is as good as it’s ever been since I’ve been here, [which is] 32 years.
Viewpoint: Is there anything else that you want to share with readers for the summer Viewpoint?
President Fulcher: As I come to the close of my first year, well, it’s been a whirlwind. It’s been a lot of fun. Getting outside of the university, engaging with the city, engaging with alumni, engaging with donors, engaging with the church and being able to talk about the university and the really good things that are going on here at the university, it’s just been a blast. As I come to the close of the first year, I have a deeper hope, a deeper sense of excitement about what’s coming. I’m really excited about the new cabinet structure and team that’s forming. And so I’m very, very optimistic about our future and continue to be honored and privileged and humbled to step into this role and lead this very, very special place.
Thank you from the Viewpoint to President Fulcher for participating in this first Fireside Chat!
