| News From The Campaign for Seattle Pacific University
Alumnus Funds Hall of Fame
He is a Korean War survivor of the horrors at Choisin Reservoir.
He has prospected for oil in Venezuela, sung with the Seattle
Opera, and been named Seattle’s Landlord of the Year by former
Mayor Norm Rice. But of all the things Al Hendricks ’54 has
done, one of the most personally satisfying is funding Seattle
Pacific’s Falcon Legends Hall of Fame to honor Falcon sports
stars.
Each year, Hendricks is a guest of honor at the Hall
of Fame induction luncheon held during Homecoming. He and
his wife, Narci, are present for every major Falcon home game.
They vaca- tioned in Europe twice this past summer so as
not to miss the SPU women’s crew team in their historic debut at the famed Henley Women’s Regatta. Says Athletics Director
Tom Box, “When I told him I needed someone to support the Hall of Fame,
Al immediately responded, ‘I’m your guy.’”
Hendricks owns the 86-unit El
Capitan Aparments on Seattle’s Capitol Hill and in more than 30 years
of ownership has never hung out a vacancy sign. “I operate under the
Golden Rule,” he
says, and he has a lengthy waiting list of prospective tenants to prove
it.
Faculty Members Pursue Grant Dollars
In only her third year at Seattle Pacific, Associate Professor of Psychology
Margaret Marshall wrote a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposal
worth a potential $1.1 million. The Early Career Award Grant would
be a key piece of funding for the University’s growth in the sciences, earmarked
for new faculty research projects and focused on the integration of teaching and research. One of the exciting components of the proposal is money
to hire both undergraduate and graduate students for research assistantships. These are “opportunities they would typically only have at larger
state universities,” says Marshall.
Marshall’s is one of more than three
dozen proposals submitted in 2003–2004, two-thirds of which involved
faculty. The growing number of grant requests includes those submitted
to the National Institutes of Health and the Fluke Corpo- ration.
Marshall underscores that for Seattle Pacific to position itself
as a premier Christian university, it must attract signifi cant grant
funding, which in turn allows professors and students to gain prominence
in their fields.
Churches Include SPU in Their Budgets
John Clark
believes that the Seattle Pacific University vision is contagious.
The pastor of Wenatchee Free Methodist Church, Clark says that
Seattle Pacific is a line item in his church’s annual
budget because the University’s vision to engage the culture and
change the world is “big and bold.” He is solidly in support of President
Philip Eaton “because
it’s exciting to get behind a courageous leader who knows what it
takes to form leaders for the future.”
Clark is among the pastors of churches in Washington state that
financially support SPU, or are considering it in the new year. “I
will certainly advocate for that,” says Gary Gonzales, senior pastor
at Timberlake Christian Fellowship in Redmond, Washington. “We have
lots of our students at SPU and a mutual passion for educating the
transformational leadership of tomorrow.”
Mark
Abbott, campus pastor to Seattle Pacifi c and senior pastor
at Seattle’s
First Free Methodist Church, adjacent to the University, says that
the church board plans to add SPU to the operating budget. “We have
a shared history,” he
notes. “People
from this church began the school. We share facilities and are starting
a 5:00 p.m. Saturday service in part to appeal to younger adults,
including SPU students. To add SPU to our budget is a symbolic expression
of our institutional support.”
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