Volume 44, #3 - December 2006 - Houston Baptist University

Excerpts from President Sloan’s
Inaugural Address
“Presidents are public
symbols but the emotional
substance, the historical glue
of any institution belongs to
its alumni, its friends, those
who love it and carry it within
their hearts.”
… we realized we could not escape the calling of
Christian higher education; it is a deep passion that
Sue and I share. Somehow, we knew that is what we
should do, must do, and would do. I cannot begin to
describe for you adequately the rich and real part of
the renewed sense of calling that we felt to return to
Christian higher education and to serve in this way.
R
… it is the faculty who carry the academic freight of
the institution. It is the faculty who in the exercise of
their calling — their scholarship, their teaching and
research, their building of a community of learning
— who embody the traditions and shape the mission
of the university.
R
Every institution has a personality, a history, and
its own distinctives. Christian institutions derive
their identity from Jesus Christ, the foundation
stone. We have our own identity and history as
an institution. And every institution that names
the name of Christ shares with us in that kind of
central confession. With all the diversity we have as
Christian institutions, with our different locations,
our different academic emphases, none the less every
Christian institution, by definition, finds its focus, its
foundation, in the person of Jesus Christ.
R
HBU has sought to embrace the Christian faith as
an institution of higher learning in an urban setting.
I said earlier one of the things that attracted me
— and through which I sensed God’s calling to enter
again into Christian higher education in a leadership
role — was the city of Houston. It was a compelling
factor for me. As Sue and I began to look around,
we had some friends in whom we had confided that
Houston Baptist University had contacted us. They
said to us, ‘do you realize how few universities, how
few Christian universities there are in major urban
settings in the United States’