The Doctor is in.

Dr. Al Erisman, former Director of SPU’s Center for Integrity in Business, wrote his 2015 book on business, faith, and calling from the life of Joseph titled, The Accidental Executive. That title reminds me that my 44 years as a college staff and faculty member could be called The Accidental Instructor. In these times when people move through many employment situations over their careers, I can say I went to college in 1973 and never left. But this summer, I will finally leave “the Academy.”

In 1975 at the University of Washington, I changed majors from Electrical Engineering to Economics in my Junior year. But I chose to keep my undergraduate teaching assistant job in the College of Engineering. My goal was to become a High School teacher and Cross-Country coach. But during my last quarter, as I was earning my teaching certificate, the Engineering faculty I worked for asked me if I’d like to teach there. I learned the value of having great mentors when in January 1978, I became a Lecturer in the UW College of Engineering at the age of 22.

For the next twelve years I taught Engineering Graphics and FORTRAN Programming, and later Engineering Statistics and Engineering Economy at the UW. (I'd actually taught my first FORTRAN class when I was a Senior at West Seattle High School.) This was a theme over my entire career. Computer skills have always been in demand.

While teaching at the UW, I earned an M.Ed. degree in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in measurement and statistics, and followed that with a year of seminary classes and a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies. My “collateral field” of study for my doctorate, however, was in Industrial Engineering where my background in Economics and Statistics was a good fit. By the time I left the University of Washington, I was the undergraduate chair of its Industrial Engineering program.

The only job interviews I ever had were with two organizations in 1989. I had a series of interviews with both IBM and SPU. SPU made the first job offer. I’d felt called to Christian Higher Education and was delighted to become the coordinator of SPU’s Adult Learner Program. While I was assured that this staff position could not become a path to a faculty position, I enjoyed academic advising and working in Demaray Hall. But I had not been at SPU a year before Dr. Karl Krienke, dean of Seattle Pacific’s School of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, asked me to teach EGR 1101 Graphics and Descriptive Geometry.

The following year, Dr. Ken Knight, dean of the School of Business and Economics, asked me to teach a section of BUS 6171 Quantitative Methods, and a few weeks later invited me to become his school’s MBA Coordinator.

By the mid-1990’s, the Internet had come to SPU and I designed the business school’s first web site in HTML. It turned out that whatever staff or teaching role I was assigned, my technology skills and interest followed. This was especially true when Dr. Alec Hill, my next dean in SBE, asked me to become the school’s technology manager. I would become a member of the SBE team which would help our school achieve AACSB accreditation in 2000. Also in the mid-1990’s, I began teaching the BUS 1700 Spreadsheets class, a course I would continue to teach until this my final quarter here.

Also in 2000, I was first given the title “Instructor,” but this title was no more than a courtesy one until the Faculty Senate granted me faculty status in 2013. I’d been teaching at SPU for 23 years and was finally and officially a faculty member.

As I write this, I recall that 41 years ago this month Mount St. Helens blew up and God got my full attention and allegiance. That evening after the eruption, Jesus became my Savior and Lord. It was His words that encouraged me not to choose to climb the academic ladder. Instead I chose the path of a servant. I won’t claim that this verse applies fully to me, but it has guided my career. “The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:11-12.

This June, as I retire to my garden and grandchildren, and to my other gig as a Bible teacher, I am gratified that the SPU Board of Trustees has granted me Faculty Emeritus status with the designation of Instructor Emeritus of Spreadsheets and Business Statistics. It was not the career I’d planned, but it was the one God assigned to me, and indeed, Father knows best.