Welcome to the new year of 2018! At Harding, we reflect on 2017 and the numerous accomplishments of our talented students and faculty. We also gaze forward with optimism to the opportunities that lie ahead. God is so good. If you are one who makes resolutions for the new year, may they be less about things to be accomplished and more about encouraging relationships and storing our treasures in heaven.

This second edition of the President’s Council Compass includes articles that reflect on the past semester. We have also included information regarding upcoming events of the spring semester. We hope your plans include a trip to our beautiful campus and a visit with some of our wonderful students.

Thank you for being an active part of our President’s Council! Your gifts to Harding help support our students so they can have their own Harding experience. You have blessed us with your generosity. May you continue to lift up Harding University in your prayers as we prepare our students to use their God-given talents to make a difference in this world.

Dr. Bryan Burks

Vice President of University Advancement

Directions from the President

Dear President’s Council:

One of the blessings of working in a university is that your life follows the rhythms of the academic year. There are definite start dates, end dates and seasons to catch our breath and prepare before we start all over again. For the rest of society, this experience of beginning again is concentrated in our celebration of the New Year. We look back to evaluate, learn, grieve and celebrate, and then we look forward with new hope and great resolve to make the coming year better than the year before. I pray that this new year fills you with a refreshed spirit and a firm resolve to make 2018 “the best year yet.”

This New Year finds Harding University at the mid-point of our strategic planning for the next five years. We have been asking for your counsel and input for the past several months, and we devoted the entire President’s Council meeting at Homecoming to this important project. We are still open for your feedback and ideas as we devote ourselves to having the new strategic plan ready for the Board to consider at their meeting in May. I guess you could say that this is our university’s way of making New (multi-) Year’s resolutions. Harding University has been in the business of getting better and better for over ninety-three years, and that process continues as we look ahead to the coming years. Happy New Year!

Dr. Bruce McLarty

President

Upcoming Harding Events

January 8: University classes start the second semester

January 15: President’s Council Reception at Rhodes-Reaves Fieldhouse

March 5-9: Spring Break

March 21: Say Thanks Day

March 30-31: Spring Sing & President Council golf tournament/meeting/brunch

May 5: Commencement ceremonies

President’s Council Reception at Rhodes-Reaves Fieldhouse, January 15^th

We invite you to a come-and-go hors d’oeuvres and dessert reception in the Reaves Room of the Rhodes-Reaves Fieldhouse on January 15^th 6-8:30 pm (i.e. half- time of Lady Bisons’ game until half-time of Bisons’ game) The Lady Bisons will take on the Arkansas Tech Golden Suns at 5:30pm and the Bisons will take on the Wonder Boys at 7. Be looking for emails over the next month to register you and your family for this great event for fun, food, and fellowship!

Note: We ask that you do not use the Reaves Room to watch the game due to the limited space. If you need general admission seats to the games, we will provide those for you and your immediate family members.

Say Thanks Day, March 21^st

Our 7^th annual Say Thanks Day is scheduled for Wednesday, March 21, 2018! This day is set aside to inform the students on how important donors like you are to them! Last year on Say Thanks Day 2017, we had hundreds of students write personal postcards, as well as make phone calls to some of the donors. There was a scholarship given out to a student who participated in the day! This year, we will again be sending postcards and calls of thanks.

President’s Council Spring Meeting, March 30-31^st

Be on the lookout for the 2018 President’s Council Spring meeting registration brochure and email! See below for a tentative schedule. Each household is eligible for two complimentary tickets to one of three Spring Sing performances, titled “Heroes and Villains” and will be available at www.hardingtickets.com closer to the event.

Schedule of Events for the President’s Council Spring Meeting

Friday, 8 a.m. President’s Council Golf Tournament, Searcy Country Club ???

Friday, 8 p.m. Spring Sing show, “Heroes and Villains,” Benson Auditorium

Saturday, 10-11:30 a.m. Spring 2018 Business Meeting, Burks American Heritage Building, Founders Room

Saturday, 11:30 a.m. President’s Council Brunch, Founders Room

Saturday, 2 p.m. Spring Sing show, “Heroes and Villains,” Benson Auditorium

Saturday, 8 p.m. Spring Sing show, “Heroes and Villains,” Benson Auditorium

A full schedule of campus-wide Homecoming events, go to www.harding.edu/springsing .

We look forward to having you on campus!

Summary from our October 2017 President’s Council meeting

Visioning the Future Together

Our Fall meeting held the morning of October 21^st focused on how the University and the President’s Council can help to vision the future together. During the meeting, President McLarty highlighted the five strategic priorities within the strategic plan “A Community of Mission: Strategic Vision for Harding University 2018-2023.” These priorities included: creating a community of mission that is Christ-centered, affordable, successful, diverse and collaborative. As an open discussion, many helpful comments and suggestions were compiled and sent to the President. All input from the President’s Council, faculty, staff, students and alumni will be reviewed as the plan is finalized and presented to our board of trustees in this coming May. Thank you in advance for your engagement in this important process for the university. Together, we can build a stronger community of mission. We seek God’s blessings upon this visioning process.

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President’s Council Homecoming tailgate

We were blessed us with a sunny, but windy day for the PC tailgate on the GAC front lawn. Over 600 of our members and their families joined us for hamburgers and brats and all the fixings. Many enjoyed our ice cream sundae bar, as well! Our thanks to Classic Fare Catering (Aramark) for the delicious food and to the band Harmonic Revival for providing the entertainment. A great time was had by all! We look forward to Homecoming 2018 set for October 19^th and 20^th.

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Gather to Give 2017

On November 28^th, we challenged our alumni, friends and students to help us reach a goal of $100,000 for need-based student scholarships. We are pleased to announce that $181,728 was raised through gifts from 287 donors, plus many current students. Because we reached our goal of $100,000 for the Harding Fund, a generous donor matched the gifts to total $281,728! These gifts have given more students the ability to attend here and experience why it’s great to be at Harding! Thank you to all the President’s Council members that participated!

The Waldron Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business

Dear President’s Council.

At the Waldron Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business, our mission is to support innovation and entrepreneurship. New courses in entrepreneurship allow students to learn best practices for startups, and pairing students with local business is an indispensible real-world component of the learning process. Competitions such as the Arkansas Governor’s Cup team business students with innovators from various disciplines to develop business plans to take exciting new products and service concepts to market. Students sometimes come to the Waldron Center with very specific personal goals for future businesses, and we rely on alumni and campus partners to participate in teleconferenced panel discussions to help them understand practical considerations from those with experience in the desired field.

For instance, we may assemble a panel of individuals who each have experience in logistics, construction, health care, the restaurant business, or in missional nonprofit ventures. The experience of patent holders is always of interest, since navigating the process of acquiring a patent is intimidating to students. Panels may be used for classes or workshops. We welcome both new and long-term family business owners, those with relevant legal experience, app creators, design professionals, and marketing professionals who can speak to issues that are common to startups. We are also interested in featuring a variety of alumni businesses on the Waldron Blog. If you have a business story you’d like to recommend, send us a tip so we can make more Harding entrepreneurial success stories available to our students and network of followers.

If you’re interested, but not sure where your experience might fit in, contact Waldron Center Director Kenneth Olree at olree@harding.edu. We look forward to continuing to enrich our index of available expertise to help our student entrepreneurs succeed.

Thank you!

President’s Council Feedback

We welcome your feedback on this newsletter. Please let us know what you would like to see more of or how we can tailor this newsletter to meet your needs.
Send your feedback to advancement@harding.edu.

On January 5, 2018 / Uncategorized

Volume 2, Issue 1