Wake Forest Magazine June 2003 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

“When graduates look back, I think they will see that Ed Christman has
always been a person who has stood for all the values we associate with
people of different backgrounds working together and understanding each
other to build a harmonious campus.”
was supposed to be making coffee. “Jean was a transfer and was
working in salads and desserts. She didn’t know anything about
coffee but she saw the line was backing up and so she tried,”
Christman says. “She didn’t know how to do it but she winded
up getting something in the cup and handed it to me without a
saucer. Some people ask me why do you like coffee so much?”
Christman’s journey at Wake Forest mirrors the grace-filled
history he so memorably imparts to students each year when he
dresses as University founder Samuel Wait during new-student
orientation. Dressed in tiny glasses and period suit, Christman
regales the students with a long line of events in the University’s
history for which there is no logical explanation. He tells about
Wait’s broken-down covered wagon that caused him to stay
longer than planned in New Bern, where he made more contacts
that led to the opening of Wake Forest. He tells how the
school closed during the Civil War. The buildings were used as
a hospital, the money had run out, and yet legend has it that
when a former student asked second president Washington
Manly Wingate if it would reopen, Wingate replied: “The light
of truth has been lighted in this wild forest, and by the grace of
God, it will never go out.”
The Chaplain prepares to escort his daughter Kimberly down the aisle.
He tells about President Harold Tribble, who had the vision
of moving the campus to Winston-Salem. “By the grace of God,
we had as president a man who was fearless, who saw the future,
who saw us becoming a university,” Christman says. “We had the
right man for the job in spite of incredible resistance. And he was
right: We have become a significant institution.”
Wake Foresters who have been touched by Christman would
no doubt add his name to the list of leaders who have made the
University significant. Ken Zick, vice president for student life
and instructional resources, says that Christman’s influence is
immeasurable. Zick points to Christman’s creative spirit as the
impetus for the Preschool Conference, the Volunteer Service
Corps, and the annual Christmas Lovefeast. But most of all, Zick
says, “He has been Wake Forest’s living beatitude. He has lived
his life in accord with the scriptural admonition: ‘Let your light
so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give
glory to your Father who is in heaven.’ We have been truly
blessed by his faith and good works.”
One of those good works which dazzled freshmen year after
year was another of Christman’s famous orientation speeches in
which he included hundreds of student names he had memorized.
“People always say it’s the greatest speech in the world,
you learned the names of all the students in the class,”
Christman says. “But no, I didn’t. The myths about my speech
are true; the facts are not. I never learned all 1,000 names but I
did do about 250. My goal was to say that you matter enough
for me to do this. I thought it made a few of the students feel
good and think this white-haired guy who squinted a lot had a
good memory.”
Christman has become something of a legend on campus. That
white hair and those squinty eyes—he was born with crossed
eyes, had four eye operations in childhood, and has lived with
limited vision all his life—are hard to miss on campus. “Once
you encounter the Chaplain, it’s difficult to forget him,” says
Candice Mathis (’02), a scholarships counselor in Wake Forest’s
admissions office and former student assistant to Christman. “He
is charismatic. When you first see him he looks frail, but then he
speaks and commands your attention.”
Mathis considers Christman her second father and recalls a
time in her junior year when one of her best friends from home
was killed. “He was amazing. He called me and asked if I needed
any financial help getting home or could he call anyone for me,”
she says. “Anything that goes on in my family, or anything
stressful that happens, or even when good things happen, he will
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