Unlike most others, I have also had the privilege of being called to return to SJCC as a faculty member, and have just completed my 20th year of teaching here at WJU. So I think I know what I am talking about when I say that this entity, this institution, whether SJBC, SJCC or WJU, is a special place. Not because God somehow ordained it to be, but because of His love for and work through those connected with the institution, and because of their faithful love, over many years, for God and for one another, expressed through their work here.
Over those years, many things of course have changed. I remember mom Arneson’s cinnamon rolls after chapel, made from scratch and warm out of the oven, oozing with sweet, buttery goodness. In 1980, were they only 15 cents? With coffee for a dime? Te best snack ever invented, for sofa- cushion change, and on the honor system—drop your change in a cup, and get your coffee and snack. Now, that quarter (and two more dollars) will get me a Starbucks grande dark roast from Te Shack,
and Chef Davin preparing meals that are again made from scratch, but with an upscale-restaurant instead of a home-cooked flair. Te thread that runs through and binds all these generations is the faithfulness and devotion of those who have cooked—perhaps millions of meals. If you have ever been fed by one, pause for a moment of gratitude for the hands that worked to nourish you.
Many other things have become more professional too. San Jose faculty and staff will remember campus clean-up days, when we spent Saturday mornings washing windows, trimming trees, and cleaning classrooms since we couldn’t afford much custodial staff. Now we have an army of silent workers, all giving time and energy to keep the Rocklin campus looking its best. While we might miss pickup games of volleyball in the quad after chapel, we now have a plethora of planned activities to delight all who are interested (Air Band or Humans vs. Zombies anyone?) Chapel has gone from forty or fifty of the faithful (small numbers
I know what I am talking about when I say that this entity, this institution, whether SJBC, SJCC or WJU, is a special place.
the new campus coffee house. In between, for you late 90s folks, there was the ill-fated Godly Grounds, in the damp basement of an Orvis Avenue house.
And the food, for those old enough, do you remember the many motherly or grandmotherly kitchen women? Te ones who made three home- cooked meals every weekday to nourish hungry college student appetites and later went home to cook for their families on Sundays, leaving dorm students hungry. Tey also provided advice, and a shoulder to cry on when needed. I imagine there were such faithful women and men from the first days of the dorms of SJBC. And then there were the years of transition, some of them rather lean in the last days of the San Jose campus, to Deb and her Bon Appétit staff in Rocklin, and now to Danny
since, believe it or not, chapel hasn’t always been required) gathered on folding chairs in the gym on the San Jose campus to eight or nine hundred of the faithful gathered on folding chairs in the Academic Warehouse.
Te greatest change of all is not in our mission of preparing Christian servant leaders, which remains the same, but the identity of the school as a Christian liberal arts university instead of a Bible college. While SJBC/SJCC graduates have always gone on to employment and volunteer service in a number of occupations, the university now also actively prepares graduates for careers in business, government, science, the arts, public school teaching, and more. Soon, the university will add degrees in health care, technology, and other up-
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