JEFFERSON CITY — Randall O’Brien was inaugurated here on Oct. 30 as the 22nd president of Carson-Newman College.
O’Brien was named president of the East Tennessee college in July of 2008 and assumed the office full-time in January of this year.
He was officially installed as the CEO of the Tennessee Baptist Convention-affiliated institution in a ceremony which included trustees, faculty, staff, students and former presidents Cordell Maddox and James Netherton.
Marvin Cameron, chairman of the college’s board of trustees and pastor of First Baptist Church, Kingsport, observed that “among his many skills, Dr. O’Brien is a scholar of the Old Testament. More than 2,000 years ago a person in the Old Testament was asked this question: ‘Who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this?’
“It is the firm belief of the board of trustees that Dr. Randall O’Brien has come to this position through the grace and mercy of God,” he said.
The investiture ceremony included greetings and best wishes from James Porch, executive director-treasurer of the Tennessee Baptist Convention; Michael Arrington, executive director of the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities; and a host of other dignitaries.
Senator Lamar Alexander delivered the keynote address after an introduction by Ambassador Victor Ashe.
Alexander reminded O’Brien that “you have come to a good place — a place of strong passions.”
The U.S. Senator, a former president of the University of Tennessee, also told O’Brien that “I have great respect for the job you are undertaking.”
In his inaugural address, O’Brien noted that “we have entered a new era in higher education” and that there is a need for reform.
“Obsolescence is not limited to manual typewriters, 8-track tape cartridges or party-line telephones,” O’Brien analogized.
“Senescence is not limited to America’s roads, bridges and downtowns. Everything ages, including higher education; much becomes obsolete, including academic programs, information delivery systems and approaches to education.”
He noted that “accessibility and affordability are major issues, along with years of study required to complete a degree. Distinguishing between price and cost is critical. It’s hard to control the price of a college education when the costs continue to soar, including energy, insurance, maintenance of aging buildings, construction costs of new facilities, technology, salary needs and other operational costs.
Changes must come in innovative pricing, degree reform, green initiatives, structural reform, alternative scheduling, distance learning, continuing education and in the globalization of higher education, to name but a few,” he said.
As an answer to the need to adapt, the new president announced that in January the college will offer 10 programs of study wherein students may receive a baccalaureate degree in three years.
In keeping with the event’s “Future of the Past: Celebrating Our Heritage and Hope” theme, O’Brien noted the institution’s 1851 founding by Baptists in East Tennessee, its location on the banks of Mossy Creek, name changes and its move to coeducation in 1889, when Carson and Newman Colleges became one.
“With classes born in the church, this sacred academy stands as a testament to Providence and prayer,” he proclaimed, adding with volume, “What a glorious past!”
Calling C-N “a star within a breathtaking galaxy,” O’Brien cited a host of colleges established before 1865 that “came forth from church organizations or devout Christians with intentional Christian ends in mind.”
But by the early 1900s, “the secularization of higher education had displaced the dominant Christian intellectual position in state universities and major private universities, and by the 1960s, in most church colleges, as well,” O’Brien said.
Doubting that typical Ivy League schools or major state universities will endeavor to integrate faith and learning, O’Brien queried, “Do we really believe our public and major private universities will choose to become bastions of Christian orthodoxy?”
The role of schools like Carson-Newman is therefore clear O’Brien asserted.
“… Let us champion both free academic inquiry and committed theological loyalty. We in the academy make much of academic freedom. Then let us in our Christian colleges freely dare to view life through a Christian lens, freely dare to let truth and error compete for residence in our minds, freely dare to be who we were created to be.
“Let us read widely, listen deeply, reflect critically, observe studiously, present effectively, debate delightfully, write masterfully, analyze keenly, question honestly, dissent respectfully, think Christianly and live gratefully in the presence of our Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer God.”
