Concordia University Texas

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Welcome to engaging truth. I'm your host, David Bon, and I'm here tonight with Dr. Christie Kirk provost and executive vice president of Concordia university in Austin, Texas. Welcome Dr. Kirk, uh, so glad to have you with us. And, uh, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, just personally, who are you and, uh, your family and others that, uh, you know, you would like to, to know about?

Sure. Thanks so much for having me. It's it's an honor to spend this afternoon with you. Um, I am a daughter of a Lutheran minister, um, not too far from, from your home there. Um, I was, uh, raised Inso, Texas, where my dad was pastor came to Concordia as a college student. I'm proud alumnus have been here. Most of my career, I did leave for a few years in there, worked at Texas a and M, but, um, have been privileged to be at a place that I deeply believe in the mission. I deeply believe in the, the theology and, and practice of, of Lutheran education. And so have spent most of my career here. We are members at faith Lutheran and Georgetown, my husband and I have six children, six complicated story. They have come to us in all kinds of different ways, um, but, but happy to, to serve with our family in that way too. So God

Bless you. That's, uh, that's exciting, uh, six children and you live in Georgetown and so, um, uh, you have been there for most of your career. That's pretty cool. Um, and I guess you've seen quite a few changes then over of the years there at Concordia university,

I have certainly, um, was a part of our historic campus. Yeah. That's where I came to school in downtown Austin. Um, I got married in that chapel, my raised my kids there. It was very, um, close to that community. You know, the, when we decided to move was hard to think about mm-hmm, the transition to a new place. But what I learned in that process is that Concordia as so many of our churches and our ministries are, are, are about the people. It really is not about the place. And so we kind of mourned that transition and the loss at what felt like a loss of the old campus. The new campus has been an incredible blessing. Um, we have been able to grow and thrive here. If, if you all never been to campus, I wanna invite you. It is a beautiful place where we are surrounded by, by God's incredible creation.

And every day are reminded of, of the beauty of what God has, has done for us. And it's just a great place to thrive in an educational environment. And so, um, well we'll be mourn sometimes the, the old place, it has been a great gift. Also seen enrollment grow, grow significantly. When I came here, I think there were about 600 students. Now we serve about four times that amount, about 2,400, our programs have expanded. We have graduate programs in including a doctoral doctoral program in education, serving nursing students throughout the country, or I'm sorry, throughout the state. And it's just been, um, it's been great to watch how we've been able to really expand our idea of what it means to help people understand their vocations and to go out and to live and serve the, in, in the world, whether they come to us as an 18 year old freshman or an adult coming back to, to school, what maybe in an online program or an adult program. And even into those doctoral students, that's, that's wonderful and lots of changes, but a lot that is still very much the same.

Yeah. Uh, one of the things that I do know about that campus is it is a beautiful campus. It really is very special. At least I, I don't know what the percentage of of it is, but there is a percentage of it that is actually a wildlife. Is it a wildlife preserve or, uh, what, what's the

Technical term? Yes, it's a federal federally protected nature preserve. So we sit on, um, about 400 acres as the whole campus, but roughly half of that nearly 200 acres are a federal is protected nature preserve. Um, so it is protected. We cannot go out there except under certain circumstances. Um, but what that creates is first of all, a learning laboratory for our students, we get our students out there. We can take them to do research and, and even not even research, just, you know, some of our students come from very urban settings and you take them out into this preserve wilderness kind of experie and, and there's great opportunities to just learn and reflect there. Um, and then certainly some of our science students get out there and do, um, they do water testing and, um, even some conversations about wildlife management that we have some hogs out there, other wildlife. So, um, it's been a great resource for our student money. That's,

That's really good. That's really. So, uh, you, uh, also as a university in the Austin area, you have a connection with the community as well, is that correct?

We absolutely do. That's really one of the, um, key points of our strategic plan. So we are entering a, a new five year strategic plan that we've just created called build connect thrive. And it really is, um, very focused on student success. That's the centerpiece of that, of, um, helping students from wherever they come from and wherever they're going to help them along that path success. But a key part of that is relationships with the Austin community. And that is certainly the, um, Christian community of Northwest Austin, where we sit it is continuing to deepen our relationship with churches in the Texas district. And it's also about industry, um, sponsoring the global leadership summit here in Austin next week. Um, we partner with, with various Christian organizations, um, for, for internship opportunities and, and hiring our graduates. And so really trying to make that, um, that connection to the community, again, as a way to, to increase the opportunities for our students and to expand our mission. Mm-hmm,

, uh, speaking of your mission, you mentioned a little while ago that, uh, your has to do with helping students, uh, to learn under the Lutheran learning. Can you, can you maybe say that mission statement cuz it was very intriguing to me?

Sure. Yeah. Our, our mission statement says that Concordia empowers students of all backgrounds to lead lives of critical thoughts, compassionate action, and courageous leadership as a liberal arts university rooted in the Lutheran tradition and affiliated with the LCMS Concordia develops the, the mind heart, soul body preparing leaders for lives of service.

Wow. That's, that's really good. Um, what, tell us a little bit about the Lutheran learning model. I love that thought there is a Lutheran learning model.

So we, um, we spend a lot of time with our faculty and staff and, and to some extent our students, but really helping them understand how, what we describe as our Lutheran history, theology and practice, shape how we think about education. And so, so let's, what does that mean? Um, it means that as Lutherans, we are trained to think about the world in certain ways. So it's some of the things that we draw on our theology and practice are around paradox. Um, certainly a, a fundamental Christian, um, tenant that, that Lutherans delve into. And so that's everything from Saint and center. Um, but, but in the learning model context, it is, there are very few black and white answers in the world and we are gonna approach problems and, and questions, the, the deep, fundamental questions of education, realizing that sometimes you approach things and, and two things can both be true.

And, and that's one of the ways we help our students think through critical thinking issues that are relevant in the, in the current world. So that's one, another one that we focused on a lot, we call, um, um, humble confidence and we use the phrase a lot that God is God and we are not. And that shapes how we learn it shapes, um, that we get to ask questions that we get to deeply engage in issues, but we always approach questions of education from the point of, we don't know at all, there's more to learn. We can learn about other people's lived experiences. We can learn about, um, we could receive a new piece of information that changes how we think, and we have to be willing to go, you know, my previous thinking was wrong. I've learned in, I've learned something new, um, and be willing to, to a change as new information is presented to us.

So one of the, one of the things you mentioned was the whole issue of paradox and having that humble, uh, what did you call that again? Humble, humble confidence, humble confidence. Uh, and that confidence is in, uh, the revealed truth that God has shown us in his word, uh, about Jesus and about the, the message of the gospel. And you mentioned, uh, that, uh, you have students, uh, uh, there about 2,400 or so. Uh, what percentage of those are Lutheran and, uh, maybe says something about the opportunities there.

Sure. Um, only about 8% of our student body right now is Luin. Um, so again, that is one place. Concordia has changed that, you know, when I came and before we served largely a Lutheran population, going back to the years, we were at two year college and even a high school before that. Um, for us, that's not a detriment. It is a great opportunity. It is a great opportunity that others are invited into our community and we get to speak to them, the, the truth of the message of, of God's word and the gospel. Um, but we also get to listen to them and learn from them and, um, shape how they think through this, this loop from learning model. Um, and so the more that we have the chance to introduce them to the ways that we think about the world, um, the more opportunity we have to, to shape and form them and, and ultimately, um, in some cases actually be the ones that get to introduce them to, to Christ and his, his work in the world.

Well, it just really strikes me that if you have that, uh, that humble confidence in the air, trying to instill that in all students, that that's gonna be a two way street, isn't it? That they're going to also develop that willingness to say, well, tell me more about, uh, about who you are and what you believe and why you believe this. Um, do you have, uh, a lot of, I mean, with that many students that are not Lutheran, uh, are there, are there like, uh, issues that come up that really kind of cause a little bit of a stir or is it pretty, uh, is it pretty well handled? What's the, what's the situation there? You know,

It it's, we really don't. Um, we have a student body that, um, thankfully, so I, I think, um, typical be not students that rock the boat a whole lot. We don't get a lot of kind of, um, it's just the nature of the student who is drawn to a campus like ours, don't have a lot of crusaders, um, in, in whatever, um, kind of political arena they might be from. And so it really is not an, an option. We, um, one of our values is being Christ centered, but we describe that as saying, Christ is, and all are welcome. And we take that very seriously. We make sure our students know that, that we are not this exclusive Christian enclave that yeah, if you wanna attend, you can, but you're kind of kept on the margins of that, that, that all are really deeply welcome into our community. And we want to learn from you and have you learn from us. And of course, what centers us and all that is the Christ centeredness of our faculty and staff who, um, as we are centered on the truth of the gospel, we have the opportunity to engage our students in all kinds of rich and wonderful conversations.

Yeah, that's great. So what is the biggest program, uh, as far as maybe the, um, the major or whatever that, uh, you have there at the university?

Well, nursing, uh, it continues to explode. Um, so we created a nursing program. Oh, about 12 years ago, then a handful of years ago, we expanded that into an us, an accelerated bachelor science and nursing. And then we are just taking our ABSN accelerated nursing into the Dallas Fort worth market. We just got board of nursing approval. It's very exciting. So we are developing relationships with hospitals in the Dallas market and we'll begin to offer, um, an ABSN there in January. So that's very exciting. Um, so healthcare continues to be a field that is booming in all kinds of ways. We continue to think about new programs in that area. We're bringing a master of science and nursing back online, um, in the fall. The other ones that continue to be, um, big programs for us are, are business, business. And communication has been a long time, um, large program for us. And the other ones that I, you know, really focus on our kind of those traditional liberal arts courses, which includes everything from, from psychology, behavioral science, to, to history English, um, those kinds of programs.

Um, so, uh, tell us a little bit about, uh, the communications and business, uh, program. Can you, can you say, uh, what is, what does the genius of that, or what's the, where does that, where does that really take its, um, uh, impact or where does it have an impact?

Sure. Um, you know, that's, that's a program that just across higher education, um, in the country, people are drawn to, um, it, it, in many ways, it's kind of a generalized degree that students can, can go all kinds of places with, um, we have an incubator here on campus. Um, so an entrepreneurial minded, um, innovation center. And so many of our students are drawn to us for that reason. And so, um, we have various programs within that general business marketing, um, those kinds of things. Um, but that entrepreneurialship and innovation center is one that attracts a lot of our students. Um, our young people today are very interested in, in entrepreneurialship. And so we've really developed that program as well.

We're talking with Dr. Christie, Kirk provost, and executive vice president at Concordia university and Austin, Texas. Um, Dr. Kirk, tell us also a little bit more about, uh, the general liberal arts. You've got liberal arts of all kinds there. And, uh, so I'm sure that there are some interesting courses that, uh, that are a part of that program.

There are so lots of different majors options in that area. You know, one of my, um, I, I would say pet peeves in the kind of public dialogue around higher ed these days is, is what people see perceive as a debate between kind of traditional education, which you can think of as kind of education for its own sake, right? Education that develops good thinking and good citizenship and kind of all the classical ideas of what education is versus the, the group. Um, that would say that education is not training for a career. Um, I'm very proud that Concordia walks the middle of that road. Um, we absolutely believe deeply in the power of liberal arts education and in our case informed by Lutheran thinking and that Lutheran learning model. So all of our students take a core curriculum. A general ed education curriculum is that is, um, broad and really helps them, um, kind of develop, um, those essential educational skills.

And then even in our majors, even the ones that are very career specific, something like nursing, we wave in these courses that help them think it through the world in that kind of general education sense. And, um, it includes courses in vocation and sort of exploring who I am, um, as a child of God and how I'm created to serve. It includes courses in certainly, um, theology, um, as well as English history, psychology, all of, all of those kinds of things. We, we really work hard to help our students to understand that even in those classical kind of liberal arts majors, those ones I just named they're still career preparation. And so for example, I teach history. One of my degrees is in history and when I get a chance to teach, if I get in the classroom, that's usually what I'm teaching. And I really help them understand how studying history will make them be prepared an employee someday.

And so you like, okay, we're studying world war II. What does I have to do with anything? Right. And when I tell 'em, it's not about the information we can, we can Google the information. If you wanna know the battle of the BS, right? You can Google that. Um, but what you can't Google are the deep questions that you learned from history about cause and effects about text, about the implications of decisions, what happens, um, you know, certain leaders made this decision, this happened, you're learning, writing skills and communication skills. You are learning research and analysis skills. And so we work really hard to not be divided by that debate between the traditional liberal law arts and career preparation. Um, for us, they are one and the same. That's great.

That's a good, uh, that's one of those paradoxes you need to hold on to both ends of the string there. Thank you for connecting with us on engaging truth evangelical life ministries. Elm is a group of volunteers in the Houston area who not only plan each of these broadcasts, but also produce them. Each podcast is founded on God's word centered in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, your prayers and financial gifts help us send each broadcast through various delivery technologies to our country and even throughout the world. So please go to Elm houston.org and click on the donate button, or you can send your support to Elm PO box 5 6, 8, Cypress, Texas, 77, 410. Again, that's Elm PO box 5 6, 8, Cypress, Texas, 77, 400. We appreciate every gift and promise to use your gifts to send the good news of Jesus to the whole world. Thank you for your prayers and your support. Again, we're talking with Dr. Christie, Kirk provost and executive vice president at Concordia university in Austin, Texas. Uh, you mentioned the idea that, um, you would welcome people coming to visit you there. What do they need to do to, to do that?

Please do just check out our website, www.concordia.edu, and we can get you a set up, you can connect, give us a call. We will, um, have you come visit. We certainly welcome prospective students. Again, those might be traditional age students who are thinking about kind of a traditional college experience, but if you're an adult learner who's interested in online undergraduate or master's programs, um, we have have a variety of those that we would love to, to connect with you on and would always welcome the opportunity to show anyone around this, this

Beautiful campus. So, uh, also you mentioned there, you know, adult learners and perhaps being online, you have programs that help adults maybe finish a college degree and, and can they bring hours with them from previous? Absolutely.

Absolutely. We work really hard to be transfer friendly. You can actually transfer up to about 75% of, of a degree from other places. Um, we, again, we really focus on that concept of student success and for people that means different things. And for some people, they started college, um, as a young person or whatever stage of life and they couldn't get through it. And we don't want that to be wasted experience for them. College is expensive and we work very hard to make it affordable. And so absolutely very transfer, friendly. Um, most things will transfer to us and then we can help you across that finish line if, if you're in that boat of being, being almost there.

Yeah. Uh, is that available even like, can somebody finish a degree entirely online or do you need to have, uh, presence there?

Absolutely not all of our majors, but for several of our majors, um, including kind of business communication, psychology, many of those, um, are available completely online student would never have to come to campus at all.

So the online program that you have, uh, is that actually live online or is it, uh, uh, how does that work?

It is, it is traditionally asynchronous, which means not live mm-hmm . Um, you log in at your own convenience and you engage in the course, um, through various learning opportunities that are, you know, guided by a professor, but not, but not synchronous mm-hmm , um, COVID has changed a lot of things in the world and also in higher education. So over the past year, we actually developed some synchron this models, which is more, um, doing what we're doing right here, right. Of engaging in conversations across, um, time and distance, but doing it, um, at the same time and those, we we're gonna continue to refine what that looks like for us going forward. But traditionally speaking, when we talk about online, it is, it is a asynchronous.

So, um, do you have, have, um, currently, um, like, uh, hybrid where you have a professor actually teaching a class and then people able to come watch in some manner or another at that same time, is that how that works or is it all one or the other? Well, that's what we've

Done for the last year and a half, um, in COVID and we've kind of developed that model as we, um, prayerfully and, and God willing kind of move out of COVID and into a more traditional college experience. Um, there will be less of that, but we've also learned a lot. And so we're developing those kinds of programs now to think, what might that kind of program look like in

The future? Yeah, you know, um, I actually experienced that we were part of a learning community where we provided a, a hybrid in person and, um, it was through zoom, but, uh, yeah, there's some real challenges to that, and I'm sure that you all have had to deal with a lot of challenges this last year and year and a half. Um, what's the biggest win that, uh, come to you out of this whole thing, where, where you're sitting today and, and looking back,

Um, I'm deeply grateful, um, for our community and what we've learned about our community that is really blessed Concordia university, Texas in these years. Um, we have, we are in as financially as strong of places we have ever been. Um, if you are familiar with the Concor university system, that that has not always been true, not always true in some of our sister schools that have, that have closed. Um, we have weathered this storm really well. Um, we have been very faithful stewards of what we've been given and have been able to, um, to again, be in a very strong financial position. We've also a lot about serving our students better. Um, again, whether it's things like, um, having some classes that are in a hybrid format like that, I, in many ways, it's about expanding the care that we provide for students to different ways. So our campus pastor for instance, has become much more engaged with students, um, remotely or distance. Um, over the last year, our mental health profession, our tutoring services have all become much more robust because they're not limited to being in the same place at the same time. Mm-hmm ,

Mm-hmm, , that's, that's really good. Uh, you mentioned you have a campus pastor, so what's that, uh, what's that like, how does that work?

Yeah, we have a great campus ministry team. Our current us pastor camp, uh, pastor St is part-time, he's been serving our campus community for several years. His wife pat is also a part of our, um, campus community and our campus, um, spiritual life team at campus ministry team. Um, we are in the search for a full-time campus pastor. We've been looking for a while. So, um, we'd love to, to talk to anybody out there who might be interested in campus ministry. And so I hope to have a full-time campus pastor sometime soon and, and pastor fi will stay on staff as well. Part-time so, um, between, uh, pastor fi and pep fi and a full-time campus pastor also Josh try, who is our director of music ministry and our in our, um, Cantor for our university worship services. Um, and it's a, it's a robust approach to spiritual life on campus to make sure that when we talk about developing the students in mind, heart, body, and soul, we really take that soul part seriously, right. That it is about providing spiritual care as part of the holistic care that many college students need. Yeah, they

Sure do. And college is such a critical time for making huge changes and decisions about life and career and so forth. And so I'm, I'm personally a product of campus ministry, even becoming a Lutheran and ultimately then a Lutheran pastor. So God bless you in that. We've been talking to Dr. Christie Kirk, uh, the provost and executive vice president of Concordia university in Austin, Texas, you can connect with them@concordia.edu, and we're so thankful for your presence here today, Dr. Kirk, and pray for his blessings upon your continued work, uh, there at Concordia. Thank you so much for having me I'm lessons to you and to all of your listen. Thanks for joining us on today's, uh, engaging truth program. May God bless you richly.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time, to help support our ministry, contact evangelical life ministries, post office Fox 5 6, 8, Cypress, Texas 77, 410, or visit our website Elm houston.org, or find us on Facebook evangelical ministries. You.