Size isn’t everything
CALGARY, AB—Around the time that the position of president of Ambrose University College and Seminary became vacant, Gordon T. Smith had a growing appreciation for the importance of faith-based institutions. Today, he is the school's new president.
"I was working on a publication for InterVarsity. As I was doing that work, I had an increasing conviction that small, Christian universities had a crucial role to play in higher education in Canada," he says.
"I think because of that, I was more open to the possibility of going to Ambrose when they approached me about whether I'd let my name stand."
For nine years, Smith had been the president of reSource Leadership International, a ministry based in Richmond, B.C., dedicated to fostering excellence in theological schools in the developing world, so that they in turn can train indigenous Church leaders.
Smith took over his new role as both president and professor of systematic and spiritual theology this summer. He succeeds Howard Wilson, who resigned the previous July.
Since 2007, Ambrose has been the official Canadian school of both the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Church of the Nazarene. It offers programs in the arts, science, business, music and education, as well as seminary training.
Smith plans to spend much of his first year listening to the school's community and constituents about how they would like to see the school evolve over the coming years. Personally, he foresees several "years of mainly consolidation."
"At the first faculty meeting, I listened in as the possibility of a new academic program next fall was raised, and I thought, 'Yeah, that makes some sense to me,'" he says.
"But I suspect that much of what needs to happen is to strengthen the programs that are already here, especially those that have a relatively low number of students."
Smith also wants to pursue a wide-ranging dialogue aimed at "clarifying our identity and calling" of the place and role of Ambrose within Canadian Christian higher education. That includes its unique dual Church affiliations.
"The Nazarene and the Alliance have a similar denominational heritage, but they're different as well," Smith says. "I would like to have Ambrose draw on the strengths of those diverse streams, but also be able to serve other Church communities."
Smith has already met with two Edmonton counterparts—Harry Fernhout at The King's University College, and David Williams at Taylor College and Seminary—about how they can work together to foster private, faith-based university colleges in Alberta.
"At almost every stage we're wondering, if we're going to do this, who we can do it with," he says, "so that we lean into the strengths of others, and bring what we have to offer to the table in the process."
Ambrose has 48 faculty members and about 700 students. Smith says while it clearly cannot compete with larger, publicly-funded universities, size is not everything.
"I'm committed to scholarship and academics, and this is an academic institution," he says. "The power of the experience here is that that academic process is transformative."
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