$200,000 gift completes academic chair at Midwestern

posted in Articles, on Aug 19, 2010 by Staff

     During a meeting at the Midwestern campus on Aug. 16, Dr. David Tolliver, Executive Director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, presented Dr. Philip Roberts, MBTS President, with a generous gift to assist with the endowment of an academic chair.

     The $200,000 contribution completed the funding of the Missouri Baptist Chair of Partnership Missions and is the first completely endowed chair at MBTS. 

     “The generosity of the gift from the people of the Missouri Baptist Convention is a most welcome and fabulous contribution to Midwestern,” Roberts said.  “It is very fitting that Southern Baptists in Missouri provide the avenue to accomplish the first endowed chair in MBTS history.  I believe it shows a true understanding of the direction MBTS is headed in providing Bible and Christ-centered education.”

     The MBC Executive Board voted July 13 to award the gift to Midwestern from their reserve funds and enabled the chair to exceed the $1 million needed for completion.

     “I am absolutely thrilled with the decision of the Missouri Baptist Convention to vote this support for the Chair of Partnership Missions,” Roberts said. “It is absolutely essential that we are strong cooperative partners together impacting the heartland of America as well as the world for the cause of Christ. My thanks and appreciation go to David Tolliver and all the Executive Board for their willingness to help us in this strategic and important manner.”

     According to MBTS leaders, endowed chairs enable an academic institution to focus on a discipline of study in perpetuity. Using only the annual earned interest of the fund, the chair will support the salary and benefits of the professor committed to teach that academic subject.

     In the case of the Chair of Partnership Missions, the endowment means that MBTS will be teaching the concept of Partnership Missions until Jesus returns. The leaders added that an additional benefit of endowed chairs is that monies which would have been spent from the general fund for the professor’s salary can now be passed on as savings, which will keep tuition low for students and fund other needed programs of study.