ACU COBA Dean's Report 2023

2023 DEAN’S

REPORT

College of Business Administration

From the Dean

We are grateful to be the recipients of the generosity of the late Dr. Bill and Janie Dukes in the form of a $29 million endowment, the largest academic gift in Abilene Christian University’s 117 year history!

This has sparked numerous conversations across campus and throughout our alumni community. How does such a gift come about? As you read the story here in our 2023 Dean’s Report, my hope is you will be inspired by this long-lasting friendship.

Our 2022 Strategic Plan articulated a vision for lifelong relationships in support of our commitments to faith and academic excellence. This report summarizes progress on key initiatives under our recently-completed plan, including:

• Strengthened academic programs (Initiative 1), including the most substantial curricular changes to the business degree in decades, expanded the lab for the nationally-ranked digital entertainment

technology program, and launched online undergraduate business majors for adult learners.

• Enhanced lifetime connections and support, bolstering holistic learning and development for residential students (Initiative 2) and increasing engagement with alumni and other stakeholders (Initiative 3).

• Upgraded resources (Initiative 4), including substantial renovations of the Mabee Business Building and growing endowments by $53 million.

Cultivating mutually-beneficial, lasting relationships is key to our future. Your active engagement now and into the future will help us bring our business and technology programs to the next level of excellence, as we strive to honor God and bless the world.

With gratitude,

Dr. Brad Crisp (’93) Dean, College of Business Administration

Connecting students in lifelong relationships and creating a community of partners and mentors for the journey.

Life-changing RELATIONSHIPS lead to HISTORIC GIFT

For most, friendships emerge through shared backgrounds or experiences. Sometimes they’re forged through circumstance, whether good or bad. And other times, they happen because people share similar traits, thoughts or feelings.

But true friendship is more, and there might not be a better example of that than the relationship between Dr. Jack Griggs (’64) and Dr. Bill Petty (’64) – both former deans of the College of Business Administration at Abilene Christian University – and Dr. Bill Dukes, a highly respected and lauded professor of finance in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech.

That deep, impactful relationship – one that culminated in Griggs and Petty leading Dukes to Christ when he was 80 years old – resulted in the largest academic gift in ACU’s history.

In December 2022, Dr. Bill and Janie Dukes gave, through their estate, more than $29 million to ACU, establishing the Dr. William P. and Janie B. Dukes Excellence in Finance Endowment.

The endowment will support prestigious finance student scholarships, prepare students to attend highly preferred graduate programs and establish endowed faculty positions in finance. The university will also launch the Dukes School of Finance within the College of Business Administration in Fall 2023 in recognition of the historic gift.

“I learned a long time ago that most significant gifts happen because of relationships,” said Petty, a 1964 ACU graduate who was the dean of COBA from 1981-90 and is a professor emeritus of finance at Baylor University. “After Bill came to Jack and me to express an interest in giving to the College of Business, we – along

The Dukes File

Family: Dr. William P. “Bill” Dukes was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1920. He was married 73 years to Janie Blake Dukes, with two daughters, the late Lynn Ayre Wheatcraft and Sheryl “Sheri” Leah Dukes. Bill died in 2015 at age 94, and Janie died in 2022 at age 96.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in military science from the University of Maryland (1953), MBA in finance from the University of Michigan (1958), Ph.D. in business and finance from Cornell University (1968).

World War II: Dukes was finishing Navy flight training in St. Louis when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. He entered the Marines as a second lieutenant, earning two Distinguished Flying Cross medals and seven Air Medals, among other honors. While in Japan he was commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines Division. While stationed at Marine headquarters near the Pentagon, he coordinated a $200 million budget for ammunition and equipment used by combat units around the world. He retired as a colonel and was later promoted to brigadier general.

Teaching career: Dukes taught 45 years in the finance department of the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He received 16 awards for teaching and research, including being named inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award from the Southwestern Finance Association (2004) and the President’s Academic Achievement Award (2006), one of Texas Tech’s highest honors for a faculty member. He was named James E. and Elizabeth F. Sowell Professor of Finance at Texas Tech in 2007.

with others – worked closely with him to design a gift to accomplish what he wanted it to do.”

Neither Griggs nor Petty could fathom the kind of gift that would be forthcoming from a man who actually set foot on the ACU campus no more than five times. He believed in the mission of the university, despite not being a Christian for most of his life. However, as a U.S. Marine, World War II hero and distinguished academician at Texas Tech, his character spoke for itself and drew Griggs and Petty to him.

“Bill had the kind of traits you wanted in a friend,” Griggs recalled of Dukes, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 94. “He had grit. He was smart, warm, friendly, protective and loyal to his friends. He was an encourager, humble, had an appetite for fun and had a desire for excellence in all things. And so, he was worthy of respect.”

Griggs first met Dukes in 1970 when the former was finishing his doctorate at The University of Texas at Austin. In the fall of that year, Griggs received a phone call from Texas Tech wanting him to make a trip to Lubbock to interview for a job teaching at Tech. His

wife, Ann, was invited, but Jack told her not to worry about making the trip because “we weren’t going to Lubbock.”

After Griggs stepped off the plane in Lubbock, he met an impeccably dressed Dukes and Oswald Bowlin, a finance professor at Texas Tech. Before his weekend trip was over, Griggs called back home and spoke to Ann.

“‘Darling, I think we might be coming to Texas Tech,’” Griggs recalled of the conversation. “In effect, he won me over. We went to Texas Tech in January 1971, and Bill Dukes was my boss. He was about 20 years older than me. He was kind but had high standards. His tastes were simple: he simply wanted to be the best, and that’s the way he lived his life, both in the classroom and in his relationships with people.”

It took a while, though, for that working relationship to blossom into friendship.

“Ours didn’t necessarily start as a close, personal relationship,” Griggs said. “He was a Marine and was used to working and getting the job done. I fit right into that. Our work habits were the same. I helped him with a consulting job, and I knew something about how

to do it, and I think that impressed him. We did then become close friends, but it was primarily a working relationship.”

About 18 months after going to Lubbock, Griggs was hired away by a bank in San Antonio, and he left Texas Tech. However, he didn’t leave behind a friendship. Instead, Griggs said, they had developed a close, personal friendship and remained in contact. Griggs recommended his old ACU classmate and roommate, Petty, take his place on the faculty at Texas Tech. Dukes hired him, and another friendship and connection to ACU were formed.

It didn’t take long for Petty to realize the same things about Dukes that Griggs had learned from his time working with him at Texas Tech: that he was serious about his work and not compromising his ethics.

“You knew immediately you were in the presence of a man of great character,” Petty said. “There was never a doubt about his integrity and his support for you in your role as a faculty member. It was always about his faculty, never about himself. I also learned I didn’t have to compromise my principles in my work.”

It was during Petty’s time at Texas Tech – which ended in 1981 when he was hired at ACU to be the dean of COBA – that the “Dukes Dudes” came about. Beginning in 1979, a small group of friends that included Dukes, Griggs and Petty began gathering yearly for a deer hunting trip on Petty’s land. Dukes was the central figure in those gatherings, and even after the group stopped hunting, the reunions continued.

It was during those gatherings – and in other conversations with Dukes – that Griggs and Petty each tried to talk to their mentor about his salvation – a subject that he made clear on more than one occasion he wasn’t interested in talking about.

“At one point, he told me, ‘Jack, I don’t want to talk about that anymore. Janie takes care of that for our family,’” Griggs recalled. “He was clear enough that I knew I was going to continue to do as I always did, but I wasn’t going to approach him directly.”

Dukes finally gave in to God’s call on his heart – and to Griggs and Petty – in 2000 when he was baptized at Broadway Church of Christ. Dukes – a man who had served his country, been a war hero, and spoken and taught in front of thousands in his life – was relieved to find out they could get into the church and go through the baptism with just his wife, the Griggs and Pettys in attendance. Petty and Griggs were standing on either side of Dukes when he was baptized at 80 years of age.

After Petty sold his ranch, the Dukes Dudes would

continue to meet, either at Texas Tech, at the Lubbock Country Club or on the ACU campus a couple of times. By that time, Dukes had already asked Griggs to be the executor of his estate, which was to be divided between ACU and several Baptist groups.

“Given our knowledge of Bill, we knew it would be a significant amount, but we had no idea it would be so large,” Petty said. “Then, the amount of the gift was further enhanced by Jack’s hard work as the executor of the estate in managing the monies up until the final distribution to the university.”

Kathy Suchy, a colleague of Dukes at Texas Tech who later became the couple’s caretaker, said it was easy to see the friendship between the three men transcended a working relationship and went into something even deeper and more meaningful.

“I had first heard of Jack and Bill through Dr. Dukes back when I worked with him at Texas Tech, as he used to talk fondly about their annual deer hunts,” she said. “Years later, when I came to know Janie, I understood even more fully how deep and loving the connection was between Bill, Janie, and the Griggs and Petty families. Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who love and accept you for who you are and would do anything to make you smile or lend you a helping hand. Jack Griggs and Bill Petty were as much family to Bill and Janie Dukes as anyone who shared their bloodline.”

Which makes the transcendent gift to ACU that much easier to understand.

“Jack Griggs and Bill Petty are two men who truly ‘walk the walk,’” Suchy said. “Their own friendship was forged at ACU, and to a large extent, so was their faith and their desire to serve others. ACU is an institution in which young minds can grow and flourish, but also, it’s a place where people learn how to apply their faith to everyday life. Bill Dukes recognized and appreciated the personal integrity and deep faith in these two men, and I think he believed that his significant gift to ACU would allow more young men and women to develop intellectually and spiritually in the same way as Jack Griggs and Bill Petty did.”

And that is the hope that the men who came to love Bill and Janie Dukes as family have for the gift he left behind.

“Above all, I hope it changes lives,” Petty said, “while at the same time providing a light in the academic world that a university can be the best at academics and, at the same time, hold firm to its Christian heritage.”

Q&A with Dean

In early December 2022, the university announced a program-altering gift to the university: a donation of more than $29 million – the largest academic gift in ACU history – by the late Dr. Bill and Janie Dukes that will transform the College of Business Administration and its finance program.

The gift will establish the Dr. William P. and Janie B. Dukes Excellence in Finance Endowment, providing prestigious finance student scholarships, preparing students to attend highly preferred graduate programs, and establishing endowed faculty positions in finance. In recognition of this historic gift, the university will launch the Dukes School of Finance in the College of Business Administration in 2023.

ACU’s finance program currently includes three tenured faculty, 139 students (including double majors), and a Student Trading and Research (STAR) group that manages about $1.9 million in university endowment funds. In addition, the new Swinney Financial Markets Lab, a 40-seat lab with a Bloomberg terminal, opened this fall, and the Real Estate and Banking Society launched this spring.

“The thoughtful philanthropy of Bill and Janie Dukes will bless students and faculty in ACU’s finance program for years to come,” said Dr. Phil Schubert (’91), ACU president. “Their gift also recognizes the historical strength of ACU’s College of Business Administration and its faculty, students and graduates.”

Q: Let’s talk first about the magnitude of the gift. How will this transform the College of Business Administration?

Crisp: It’s obviously more significant than anything we’ve experienced before. Five years ago we had an endowment of $30 million, and by mid-2022 we had grown it to $54 million. Then, you stack another $29 million on top of that. We’ve experienced an incredible amount of generosity. So, what can we do now that we couldn’t do before? We’ll be able to attract and support our faculty in ways we couldn’t do before. We already have fantastic students, but this will help us attract more of them, support them and assure we can get the best possible outcomes.

Q: Can you touch on the Dukes Scholars program that starts in 2023 and how it fits into this gift?

Crisp: The endowment provides scholarship dollars with a unique call to identify individuals with character and ability and also a commitment to Christ. So we’ll provide experiences to help them dream about what their life can be – not just about an incredible business career but one that can impact the world. The experiences we want to create for these scholars include connecting them with people who will help them get to the places they want to go and giving them a chance to learn from other people’s stories, both good and bad. And it’s a chance to do some culture-building with a core set of students. We’ll uniquely pour into them, and see how that lifts the entire student body as we’re able to engage them. The finance faculty conducted a rigorous selection process this spring for current and prospective students, and we can’t wait to begin the program with more than 20 Dukes Scholars this fall.

Q: How does this gift impact the entirety of ACU, not just COBA?

Crisp: This is a gift for the finance program, but it means more than that because it provides a resource base that allows us to dream. Could we be the best in Texas? Could we actually be one of the best Christian programs in the country? It demands that we think about how we steward the gift so it produces those kinds of outcomes. Not because we want to say we’re great, but because we want to have that kind of impact on students

and the world around us, and that can have ripple effects throughout our college and our university.

Q: What are two or three ways that this gift will impact and change the entire model of what you’ve been doing?

Crisp: It’s hard to get your mind around $29 million and what kind of impact it can have. But it’s an endowment, so it’s not $29 million that will be available for spending; it’s $29 million that the university will responsibly invest, and about 4.5% of that will be available every year. Once we have a full year’s worth of earnings, that’s about $1.3 million per year that will be available for spending that we didn’t have before. The sole purpose is to invest in our finance students and faculty and make that program a top program. There are some parameters around how we spend the money, but that’s a substantial amount to be able to spend every year. Certainly, resourcing our faculty in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past – funding for research or Bloomberg terminals or trips with students, faculty compensation, and the ability to add full-time and adjunct faculty. The money will also allow us to flesh out and enhance our finance curriculum. What we have right now is a good finance program, but it doesn’t have many of the courses that you would see at the top or larger programs, so we’ll be able to offer those kinds of courses to compete with any other finance program.

Q: In the last 15 years, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of giving to ACU, and now the Dukeses have provided the university with a transformative gift for the School of Finance. Where does your mind go when you think about how a gift like this will benefit students for generations to come?

Crisp: I think the common thread is business people who have used the gifts God has given them to build businesses and secure wealth, and they’ve had the mindset to be generous. We’ve already seen several business graduates who have chosen to give back, and that’s what we expect to see continue in the future. That’s what Bill and Janie Dukes dreamed about: a whole generation of men and women with the skills, influence, and ability to create businesses and wealth and the desire to be generous and bless the people around them.

r. Brad Crisp (’93), dean of the College of Business Administration, sat down for a Question-and-Answer session to discuss the magnitude of the gift and how it will impact ACU for generations to come.

From 2016-18, COBA faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends engaged in a process to rearticulate our values, mission and vision as well as to formulate strategic initiatives to guide the college through 2022. The following summarizes key accomplishments under this recently completed strategic plan.

QUALITY, REACH AND INNOVATION OF ACADEMIC PROGRAMS 1

We seek to offer residential and online programs that excel among our competitors in Texas and nationally in Christian higher education. Recent advances include:

• Redesigned residential business curricula: We strengthened analytics and technology, faith and ethics, and professional development in the B.B.A. core curriculum. Departments updated requirements and tracks for each business major, and the Griggs Center added an entrepreneurship minor for the campus.

• Launched online undergraduate business majors: In partnership with ACU Dallas, we added a fully-online Bachelor of Science in management and marketing for adult learners.

• Repositioned residential technology offerings: We refocused faculty and facility resources, updated curricula for computer science and digital entertainment technology majors, and added technology courses for business and other majors across campus.

B.B.A. core requirements reviewed, updated

The College of Business Administration recently undertook what COBA dean Dr. Brad Crisp (’93) considers “the most significant change to business curricula at ACU in at least three decades.”

Those changes include updates to the core requirements for the Bachelor of Business Administration degree as well as the major requirements for each business major. The process that was undertaken was extensive and lasted a few years, acting upon input from faculty, students, Dean’s Council, visiting committees and other external stakeholders.

The goal of the core revision largely focused on faith and ethics, analytics and technology, and professional development.

“Faith and ethics are central to our identity as a Christian university,” Crisp said, “and we expanded ethics content in a required business law course. All business majors will now take a two-course sequence in analytics and can choose a 9-hour or more track in analytics. Finally, we are placing greater emphasis on professional development by requiring a professional internship in management, marketing and information systems and offering an internship as an option for accounting and finance majors.”

DET student honored for bringing comfort to Uvalde community

Recent COBA graduate Alissa Davis (’23) – who completed her Bachelor of Science in digital entertainment technology with an emphasis on video game design – received the Performance Plus Award from Funeral Directors Life Insurance Company last summer for her outstanding work in a crisis during her internship.

She began her work with FDLIC on June 1, 2022, just one week after 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde lost their lives to a mass shooter. Davis was immediately charged with helping to set up and monitor livestreams of approximately 15 of the funerals that stretched over several days.

The award is given to an employee who shows outstanding qualities that fit several of the 22 non-negotiable traits of the company. She credited ACU and COBA with securing the apprenticeship and learning to use her imagination to be as creative as possible.

“ACU had the connections for me; I would not have learned about this internship in the first place without them,” Davis said. “Being at ACU has helped me come out of my shell, so I can take leaps of faith and go for something I want. My time at ACU has also taught me to think quickly on my feet so that I can learn how to do what I need to do quickly to be able to give back to and help others.”

HOLISTIC STUDENT LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

We promote spiritual formation, academic growth and professional development over the life of each student. Recent improvements include:

• Launched scholarship programs: Heacock Scholars began in 2019 to attract and engage high-ability business students. In 2022, we greatly expanded scholarships for new business students, including vouchers for experiences like Study Abroad and Leadership Summit.

• Reimagined student engagement during the pandemic: The Lytle Center offered more speakers and small groups in Abilene and online, when we were unable to host Leadership Summit in Colorado. The Griggs Center launched an introductory entrepreneurship course for all business students. Several majors added a required internship. The college partnered with the university to pilot and implement Compass, a student development initiative recognized and supported by the Suitable software platform.

Compass helps students navigate holistic development

While great teaching is essential to what goes on inside COBA, the emphasis on students both inside and outside the classroom is key to their holistic learning and development. And that’s the reason COBA is partnering with the university in the design and implementation of the Compass initiative, which is supported by the Suitable software platform.

The Compass initiative begins with a customized roadmap showing key experiences the student can choose during their time at ACU and within COBA majors. Then, they utilize the Compass app or website to gain access to badges and activities that they can pursue at appropriate times during their journey. The student will also have a record of not only their spiritual formation activities such as Chapel, but all of their co-curricular experiences, including those within COBA.

COBA dean Dr. Brad Crisp (’93) and Derran Reese (’00), ACU’s director of experiential learning, presented this initiative at the 2022 Suitable Pathways conference in Philadelphia, where ACU Compass won two awards: Highest Student Engagement (91% engagement rate) and The Distinguished Program Award. Reese said Compass was designed to help students engage in activities and experiences that help them grow in various ways: intellectually, spiritually, professionally, etc.

Curricula changes emphasize internships

Entering information systems, management, and marketing students are now required to complete a professional internship before they graduate. As COBA gathered input before making recent changes to B.B.A. majors, one dominant theme was the importance of professional internships, which prepare more well-rounded students and help them find full-time jobs that are a good fit.

As director of professional development and internships for COBA, Jasmine McCabe-Gossett (‘10) said the increased emphasis on internships will help make students better equipped to handle real-world practices that they will face when they begin working full-time. “Students have the distinct opportunity to apply what can feel like abstract theories and case studies to the real world. Internships are insulated and allow students to practice in an environment designed for them to ask questions and fail, whereas, post-graduate opportunities can be far less forgiving.”

According to a recent NACE study, potential employers are looking for these qualities (in order): problem-solving (critical thinking); teamwork/ collaboration; professionalism/work ethic; verbal

3

EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT

We form lifelong relationships with our students, alumni and friends, and we engage in research and service that honors God and blesses the world. Recent accomplishments include:

• Strengthened external communication: From routine video and blog posts on social media to the annual Dean’s Report, we have increased our efforts to share with parents and alumni what is happening in the college. We have also created regular opportunities for students, faculty and staff to engage with the Dean’s Council and visiting committees for each program.

• Recognized research: Faculty produced scholarly research in high-quality outlets and award-winning presentations.

and written communication skills; digital technology capabilities; leadership; and global/multicultural fluency.

“We want our students to demonstrate these competencies and reflect on their current strengths and areas where growth is needed. Their internship manager completes a formal evaluation that provides feedback on these key qualities,” said Tim Johnston (’80), assistant dean. “Another key advantage we are looking to provide for ACU students is an opportunity to intern with ACU alumni. Our alumni teach students how professional excellence provides another avenue to honor God as we serve in the marketplace.”

• Dr. Matt Deeg with co-authors from California State University and The University of Kansas; Journal of Career Development ; “‘Called’ to Speak Out: Employee Career Calling and Voice Behavior.”

• Dr. Sarah Easter (’06) with co-authors from University of Victoria and San Jose State University; Journal of Business Ethics; “Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi-stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges: Homelessness in Western Canada.”

• Drs. Ryan Jessup (’98) and John Homer with co-authors from Indiana University, Cadeo Group, and Compassion International; Decision; “Choice Is a Tricky Thing: Integrating Sophisticated Choice Models With Learning Processes to Better Account for Complex Choice Behavior.”

• Dr. James Prather (M.Div. ’14) with co-authors from Towson University, Georgia State University, University College Dublin, University of Toronto, University of Auckland, and University of Virginia; ACM Transactions on Computing Education; “Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Programming Education: Theories and Exemplars of Use.”

4 ENABLING RESOURCES

We assemble and grow resources in support of strategic initiatives as well as ongoing operations of the college. Recent growth includes:

• Enhanced diversity: We added to the number of talented females and persons of color among college faculty and staff. We also increased the number of females on the college leadership team.

• Renovated building: As the world shut down for the pandemic, we initiated a four-phase renovation to the Mabee Business Building, funded by university deferred maintenance for HVAC repairs and generous donors for cosmetic and functionality enhancements. The final phase, which includes the atrium and stairwells, is scheduled for summer 2023.

• Increased endowments substantially: From May 31, 2017, to December 31, 2022, college-specific endowments grew from $30.1 million to an estimated $83 million. The largest portion of this growth came from the Dukes estate gift for finance.

COBA welcomes Jasmine McCabe-Gossett back home

After three-plus years as the donor services director for the Community Foundation of Abilene, something was drawing Jasmine McCabe-Gossett (’10) back “home” to ACU. And that draw is why she returned to campus in summer 2022 to become the new professional development and internship director for COBA.

“I’ve always had a connection to ACU; it’s where I earned my undergraduate degree, where I met the love of my life [husband Regi McCabe-Gossett (’09)], and where I started my professional career,” she said. “Over the years, my involvement with COBA has continued to grow and evolve, having served as a guest speaker, sat on the COBA Alumni Visiting Committee, and even teaching classes as an adjunct professor. Working with and teaching students has always been a sweet spot for me.”

In her role at ACU, she directs the professional development program, covering all aspects of the internship program, and serves as a member of the Holistic Student Development Team and the COBA Leadership Team. She’s truly shaping the futures of ACU students.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO COBA FROM ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

SOURCES

$7,292,000

COBA ENDOWMENT (ESTIMATE AS OF DEC. 31, 2022)

Dukes Endowment (32%) Griggs Center (7%)

Student scholarships (29%) Lytle Center (5%)

Joseph Manga follows a calling to teach

Growing up in Cameroon as the oldest child in a family of five, Dr. Joseph Manga never imagined where his life would take him.

Four different universities for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral work, as well as tutoring and teaching experience, have all been part of the experience. And last fall, it led him to COBA as a tenure-track assistant professor of information systems and management science.

“As we know, many may be the plans in a man’s heart, but the Lord determines the end,” he said. “I began with mathematics, did a little bit of computer science, and then moved on to business. This all worked out because I didn’t just want to be crunching numbers and not know how to interpret them. So, I developed my love for learning from my personal experience. As an introvert, I thought that doing something that would keep me from talking to people would be great. That’s why I’m so passionate about research. That was all my plan. But God’s plan was to send me to love and talk to people.”

Knowing all of that, it still took a chance conversation with a friend that pointed him toward teaching and meeting the needs of young people.

“I vividly remember sometime in 1998 a friend walked up to me and said, ‘I see you as a teacher,’” Manga said. “I didn’t want to hear that because I never wanted to teach, partly because of my personality. But as I applied myself to learning, I realized there is more to teaching than just transferring knowledge. It involves mentoring and discipleship, which are godly assignments that we are called to fulfill. I believe that teaching brings transformation to many when it is done in a godly way. That’s why I’m excited to be part of a family and community that focuses on raising a holistic generation in terms of spiritual academic formation, who will, in turn, move on to serve and transform their world.”

Manga is ready and willing to serve as God leads. “I am passionate to serve, especially in an environment that aligns with one’s beliefs and values,” he said. “When the opportunity opened to be part of a culture and institution that trains godly business leaders in whatever capacity they find themselves, I was glad to jump on it. God opened this door, and I love to follow His lead.”

Gifts and donors leave a legacy to impact generations

Donors are the lifeblood of any university –and individual colleges within the university. Alumni and friends who generously give back to the place that made a mark on their lives enrich the next generation of leaders.

Abilene Christian University is no different. The hard work of the university’s founder and first president, A.B. Barret , established Childers Classical Institute, and he pounded the dirt roads of West Texas via horse and buggy in the winter and spring of 1906 to raise money for his vision of a Christian university. He secured gifts from 195 individuals around Abilene for a grand total of $3,500. Not bad, considering that would now be worth more than $115,000 in 2022 money.

Those generous donors provided for expansion through the years from Childers Classical Institute to the current robust university. Childers started

with 25 students in a single building. Today, the university serves more than 5,700 students.

Every gift and every donor made a difference and helped make Barret’s idea of a Christian university in Abilene a reality. As ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert (’91) wrote in the case study for Higher Ground, the university’s current capital campaign, “I believe Barret, who was certainly a man with great vision, would have had difficulty imaging the national university ACU is today.”

Dr. Brad Crisp (’93), dean of the College of Business Administration, has seen first-hand the impact donors make on campus and a specific college.

“Simply put, donors make it all possible,” he said. “At the beginning of my time as dean, I remember a particular week when COBA received gifts from three women who had recently lost a

loved one, a husband or a father. Because all three contributions came in the same week, it was hard for me to miss the impact that ACU and COBA had on each of those families.

“I realized that the gifts we receive often flow from experiences and relationships from a long time ago, rather than fundraising being something that drives donors now,” Crisp said. “People often assume that asking for money is scary or off-putting, but I find it’s an honor to talk with people about their passions. I like to find out what motivates them to give, and to help them find opportunities to support the students, faculty, staff and alumni that mean so much to them.”

And now the university’s Higher Ground campaign is once again calling on those people and other friends of the university to push ACU to new heights in its second century of educating students for Christian service and leadership throughout the world. The $250 million campaign is, by far, the largest fundraising initiative ever undertaken by the university. It will transform the university in ways that Barret could never have foreseen.

The university has designated $118 million to “Enhance and Increase Transformational Experiences” and the other $132 million to “Strengthen and Elevate ACU’s Academic Profile.” COBA and the building it has called home for more than 35 years – the Mabee Business Building –are part of the Higher Ground campaign.

Preparing the next generation of students in COBA for the needs and technological advancements in the workforce was at the forefront of the renovations the building has undergone. Students and staff returned for the start of the 2022-23 school year to an updated classroom wing and reimagined learning spaces for students. A more advanced and visible finance lab provides students with industry tools to practice real-life trading with faculty mentors at their sides, and an upgraded digital experience lab adds more room for this growing technology program. And, coming Fall 2023, current and prospective students will be welcomed by a renewed atrium to be named in honor of former dean Bill Petty (’64) and his wife Donna (Guinn ’64).

But it’s not just giving to the physical brick-andmortar spaces that make a difference in the lives of ACU students. Donors also give to scholarship funds, helping attract more students to the

university and, in particular, to COBA, thanks to the Nicholson-Upp Endowed Scholarship. Donors also provide their time and expertise to return to campus and share their knowledge with the next generation of business leaders.

And in December, COBA received the largest academic gift in university history, a gift of more than $29 million from the late Dr. Bill and Janie Dukes that will establish the Dr. William P. and Janie B. Dukes Excellence in Finance Endowment. That gift will also support prestigious finance student scholarships, prepare students to attend highly preferred graduate programs, and establish endowed faculty positions in finance. In recognition of this historic gift, the university will launch the Dukes School of Finance in the College of Business Administration in 2023.

“Donations come in many forms, and we would not be able to provide the professors, the facilities or the transformative experiences without them,” said Tim Johnston (’80), assistant dean of COBA. “We are fortunate that our alumni are generous people. But their generosity of time is also critical to our success. Alumni return to campus and share insights that help set students on a different career trajectory. Our alums help students understand what it takes to break into various career fields.

“The day-to-day performance of our alumni provides us with a great reputation of excellent workers,” Johnston said. “That opens the doors to exciting employment opportunities for our graduates.”

Jane Clark, enrollment and student success manager at COBA, said that connection is powerful in shedding light on how donors make a difference in the lives of students, faculty and staff.

“The COBA difference at ACU is built on the foundation of strong connections,” Clark said. “Connections among our students, staff, faculty and alumni. The generosity of our alumni strengthens those relationships through fellowship, experiences and opportunities. A student comes to ACU seeking a business or technology degree, but they graduate with so much more. We want to inspire, equip and connect Christian business and technology professionals … with the vision and service of our past, present and future students. That is so much more than an ACU COBA degree; it is the building of a legacy.”

It’s part of a legacy that began with A.B. Barret’s dream in 1906, a legacy that lives on today.

Swinney Financial Markets Lab opened in Fall 2022 with Bloomberg terminal

Steve (’94) and Linda (’94)