LeTourneau President

Claiming our mission field

LeTourneau University has emerged as one of America's great Christian universities.  Quietly and perhaps with too little fanfare, the institution has developed from Mr. LeTourneau's technical institute to a comprehensive university with six schools of recognized academic quality.  Our residential campus in Longview is near capacity with record enrollment.  Nearly two thousand additional students are enrolled in graduate and professional programs across Texas and online from around the world.

God has used the faculty, staff, and students of LeTourneau University to do great things in the past 60 years.  It will be exciting to see what's next.

A campus committee charged with strategic planning for the university's future is today sending thousands of emails across the LeTourneau Nation asking what others see as next for this fine institution.  What are we doing well and not so well?  What opportunities do we have for new academic programs?  Where is God working and how can we continue to join Him in that work? 

The University Board of Trustees approved a vision statement in 2008:

Claiming every workplace in every nation as our mission field, LeTourneau University graduates are professionals of ingenuity and Christ-like character who see their life's work as a holy calling with eternal impact.

This vision follows directly from our founding.  R.G. LeTourneau was a strong voice for allowing God to use your unique gifts and talents for ministry even if full-time Christian ministry was not your calling.  He claimed his workplace as a mission field and used his business and engineering opportunities to point others to Christ.  This vision also challenges us today to send more graduates into more workplaces.  It challenges us to join the Holy Spirit in the growth of the faith around the world.  

It is clear that God has uniquely equipped LeTourneau University to answer Christ's Great Commission in the workplace by graduating competent professionals with a Christian worldview and a heart for serving others.  The engineers, aviators, teachers, scientists, and business professionals who leave here can have eternal impact, one workplace and one life at a time.

How do we best implement this vision over the years to come?  That's the task of our strategic planning.  If you receive an invitation to participate in our survey, please take a few moments and do so (your responses will go straight to an independent research group and remain confidential).  And please pray that we will listen to God's direction and proceed in a Matthew 6:33 manner, seeking first the kingdom of God in all we do.

New Abbott Aviation Center

New student orientation ends tomorrow and returning students having been moving back into campus housing over the weekend.  Fall 2009 classes begin Tuesday morning. 

Twenty years ago, LeTourneau College became LeTourneau University.  This fall will always be remembered for the opening of the new Abbott Aviation Center at the East Texas Regional Airport.  For the first time in many years, the entire School of Aeronautical Science will be under one roof:  all classrooms, labs, and faculty.

And the flight center has been moved to the new Abbott Center.  The LeTourneau Nation fleet has officially moved from the old LETU hanger across the airport to the new 50,000 sq ft Abbott Center.  All the training aircraft have been moved from the Mobberly & Green campus to the airport also.

Here's a video recording the special moment: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hLwviqkFC8

LeTourneau University was named the nation's best overall collegiate aviation program earlier this year.  With the new Abbott Center, greater things are still to come.

Welcome Home Heroes!

We are still at war.  In the noise caused by our severe economic downturn, political change, healthcare debate, and the rest, it is easy to overlook the fact that American soldiers are still in harm's way.  In fact, the war in Afghanistan has reached a new deadly level of intensity.

Hundreds of thousands of returning military heroes have passed through the DFW airport in recent years.  Most every day transports arrive at the international terminal and soldiers spill off the plane to make connecting flights to "home."  And every day, a group of everyday Americans are there to waive flags, applaud, shake hands, and just give a sincere "thank you." 

Yesterday, LeTourneau University was there to join in the homecoming celebration. 

As I've written recently, the nation recently did the right thing for these post 9/11 vets by increasing the GI education benefits so they can attend any public university tuition free.  LETU has decided to participate also and so these qualifying veterans will also be able to attend LETU tuition free.  What a blessing it is to serve those who have served us.

And you know our hearts.  LETU staff were there to greet the soldiers yesterday not just with signs and handshakes but with prayers of intercession.  We ask God to protect them and their families and to give us victory over our enemies around the world.

LETU offers free tuition for Post 9/11 Military Veterans

Flying above Longview, Texas shortly after the end of World War II, R.G. and Evelyn LeTourneau spotted an empty U.S. Army hospital and saw in it the potential to serve returning war vets.  Harmon hospital became LeTourneau Tech and opened for students in Fall 1946.  Many of the first students were WWII veterans preparing themselves for success in the post-war economy. 

LeTourneau University was founded to serve our military heroes.  It is still our honor to do so.  That's why yesterday was such an important day for us.

At a ceremony in Virginia, President Obama marked the launch of the Post 9/11 GI Bill, the so-called Yellow Ribbon program.  Veterans will have new and more generous educational benefits available beginning this fall. 

If you are a post 9/11 vet (or you know one), spread the good news:  you can earn a quality LeTourneau education and pay no tuition!   (see press release)

See our GI website for details:  www.letuvets.com

At yesterday's ceremony, President Obama got it right:

"We do this not just to meet our moral obligation to those who've sacrificed greatly on our behalf and on behalf of the country," Obama said in a 12-minute address before some 350 veterans, advocates and other officials gathered at George Mason University in Fairfax County. "We do it because these men and women must now be prepared to lead our nation in the peaceful pursuit of economic leadership in the 21st century." (Washington Post)

The men and women who choose to defend our nation against terrorism are people of character as were those who served in World War II.  LeTourneau University is built on the servant leadership of Jesus Christ -- we value that kind of character and we are proud to serve those who have served us.

LETU Aviation is Nation's Best

Did you miss this news in the busyness of your summer?  LeTourneau University is the nation's best aviation program!    Click here for details

Congratulations to Dean Fred Ritchey, Brad Wooden, Roger Braun and our talented students. 

Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Written from London by Alain de Botton, a new book examines the workplace:  "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work."  Here is an interesting thought from the author:

"As a society, we have put our belief in two great ideas:  work and romantic love.  Historically, our faith in these grew up together.  We started to believe that you should marry for love at roughly the same time as we started to think that you could work not only for money, but also for self-fulfillment.  These are two beautiful ideals, but they are also infinitely demanding.  It is hard to go for long without hitting a crisis in one or other field -- and feeling very much like a failure for doing so."

Preparing the next generation of leaders to go into the workplace as Christ's ambassadors -- equipped with a Christ-centered worldview, is our mission at the university.  This book documents just how important the workplace is.  It is where most of our time and energy is spent.  And our role at work is very much intertwined with perceptions of self and the world. 

Mr. de Botton notes that we have evolved to think of our work as more than just about money but also that we work for self-fulfillment.  I'm sure he's correct.  Most would say that an ideal job would bring both monetary and ego rewards.  I'm sure Mr. de Botton is also correct when he concludes that we most surely face failures in the workplace that hit at the core of our self-esteem.

What would Christ have to contribute to this tarnished ideal?  He might remind us that we are more than the sum of our possessions, even more than our professional successes at work.  He might call us to not go to work with self -satisfaction as our goal but to go about our work as if we are working for God himself.  The workplace can and should be a place of self-fulfillment but this satisfaction comes from working for God, not self.

The world's most famous man?

As the world mourns the death of Michael Jackson,my thoughts have been returning to a young Bedouin boy I met in the deserts of Jordan.

At a Jordanian tourist attraction, he was selling rides on his camel -- a great adventure for someone living in the Texas suburbs.  As part of his sales pitch (delivered in nearly perfect English), he told us the name of his camel.  The camel's name was Michael Jackson.  I remember laughing at the randomness of it all.

One of the many things said about MJ in the last several days was that he was the most famous person in the world.  Perhaps he was.  He was known in the Jordanian desert anyway.

The camel named Michael Jackson demonstrates the power of American popular culture.  The entertainment industry was persuasive enough to take a boy from Gary Indiana and make him a celebrity in even the most remote corner of the world. 

For Christians entrusted with the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is a reminder here.  The world is smaller than we think.  It is certainly a smaller, flatter world than that of the first century church.  The pervasiveness of English, the coverage of satellite communication, and the power of western culture make this a small world indeed.  Like never before, it is possible to go into all the world and make disciples.  For a leading university like LeTourneau, many global doors are open to our faculty and students; opportunities for us to extend our classrooms into nations where our engineering, aviation, business, education and many other skills are much needed. 

The young Bedouin boy knew MJ.  But, did he know JC?

Living out your faith at Disney

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to speak at John Maxwell's Maximum Impact simulcast.  Thanks to everyone at Mobberly Baptist Church in Longview for hosting a few hundred people.

While there, I heard Al Weiss speak.  Al is president of Worldwide Operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.  He has spent his entire career at Disney and one of his major accomplishments was the launch of the Disney Cruise Line.

Al told the story of taking the final plans for the new Disney Cruise Line to Disney CEO Michael Eisner.  The original plan for the Disney ships included a casino.  Casinos are standard fare in the cruise business and a major profit center.  The son of a pastor and a devoted follower of Christ, Al was not comfortable with the casino.  He had a proposal for Eisner:  could he eliminate the casinos if we would guarantee to replace the lost revenue with expanded business.  Eisner reluctantly agreed. 

For Al Weiss, this issue was a perfect opportunity to live out his faith in the workplace.  And choosing to operate with a Christian worldview does not mean choosing to settle for less success.  He knew that without casinos, he could create an even more family friendly environment that would ultimately grow revenues.  It is similar to the Chick-fil-a strategy of closing on Sundays but also earning more in six days than the other fast food restaurants earn in seven.

Another birthday and anniversary

Sunday was Mother's Day.  It was also my 49th birthday.  And Monday was the 24th anniversary of my marriage to Marsha.  A great time!

God has blessed me with good health, wonderful children, and a wife that is still my favorite person to share time with.  These are the real treasures of life.

A crisis of ethic proportions requires a new generation of ethical professionals

In just a few days, we will do again what LeTourneau University has been doing for over 60 years -- we will graduate another cohort of men and women well prepared to make a difference.  They will enter our world at an extraordinary time.

I believe a LeTourneau educational experienceis unique and more valuable than ever before.  That was underscored in a recent op-ed article published in the Wall Street Journal.  The author is John C. Bogle, one of the deans of Wall Street.  He was the founder of Vanguard Group Mutual Funds and has become one of the most respected voices in the world's financial community.

Jack Bogle wrote that theseextraordinary economic circumstance can be labeled a crisis of ethic proportions.  He describes self-interest out of control.  It's a long excerpt, but you'll find the following full of truth:

"The result is a shift from moral absolutism to moral relativism.  We've moved from a society in which 'there are some things that one simply does not do' to one in which 'if everyone else is doing it, I can too.'  Business ethics and professional standards were lost in the shuffle.

"The driving force of any profession includes not only the special knowledge, skills and standards that it demands, but the duty to serve responsibly, selflessly and wisely, and to establish an inherently ethical relationship between professionals and society.  The old notion of trusting and being trusted - which once was not only the accepted standard of business conduct but the key to success - came to be seen as a quaint relic of an era long gone."

In the next few days, we will graduate students in Longview and Houston that have been well prepared in the "special knowledge, skills and standards" of their profession.  Most universities stop there and see the work of higher education as complete.  LeTourneau recognizes the development of the soul as essential as the development of the intellect.  I pray LeTourneau graduates will be an important part of the solution to the world Mr. Bogle so well observes.