Maryville College Board of Church Visitors plans 25th-anniversary celebration
March 10, 2025
For 25 years, the Maryville College Board of Church Visitors has worked to uphold ties to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the broader Christian community that date back to the institution’s founding more than two centuries ago.
In 1819, the Rev. Isaac Anderson first opened the Southern and Western Theological Seminary in a small clapboard schoolhouse in downtown Maryville. Later this month, past and present members of the Board of Church Visitors will celebrate the organization’s 25th anniversary only a few dozen yards from that original site, at the Maryville College Downtown Center where the “Our Shared Call to Hospitality” will spotlight the ways in which the College strives to serve the community.
“The relationship between Maryville College and the Presbyterian church has been a long-standing and evolving one,” said the Rev. Jessica Kitchens Lewis ’07, the College’s chaplain and director of campus ministry. “From our early moments of being founded by a Presbyterian minister and functioning as a seminary, the Presbyterian link was solidified. As a member of the Association for Presbyterian Colleges and Universities and with our voluntary covenants with the Presbytery of East Tennessee and the Synod of Living Waters, those ties are still strong and being lived out. Maryville College’s history, present and future are filled with connections to the broader faith community, and I believe the Board of Church Visitors is an important part of that, in all time frames.”
The Board of Church Visitors was established during the tenure of the late Dr. Gerald Gibson, the College’s 10th president, whose administrative priorities included stronger ties to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the broader Christian community. Peggy Cowan, a retired professor of religion and former chair of the Division of Humanities, was part of its creation from the beginning, when she represented Maryville College in the Rhodes Consultations on the Future of the Church-Related College, held in the late 1990s. The meetings were designed to foster discussions on the campuses of attendees about what church-relatedness looked like at the college level, and the conversations among roughly 25 of her MC faculty peers were rich and lively ones, she recalled.
“Participants represented a wide range of academic disciplines, length of service at MC and religious perspectives, and they met several times over the course of a semester,” Cowan said. “Overall we agreed that Maryville offers a much-needed alternative to secular institutions that rule out faith questions as a legitimate part of academic inquiry and those religious institutions that consider some tenets of faith to be authoritative and immune to academic inquiry. These discussions and the development of the Faith and Learning Statement provided the context in which Dr. Gerald Gibson established the Board of Church Visitors.”
From the beginning, said MC Director of Church Relations Kathleen Farnham, the board was designed to cultivate and nurture relationships, including ones both interfaith and ecumenical. From young alumni who go on to become church professionals, to faith leaders who see and respect the relationship MC has maintained with the Presbyterian church, the 30-member body continues to serve as a vocal advocate for the church-related college experience offered by MC, and the Scots who take advantage of it.
“Today, the 30-member Board of Church Visitors are alumni, parents and friends from across the Southeast, representing multiple faith communities,” Farnham said. “Individually and as a group, the Board of Church Visitors are advisors, partners, advocates and supporters who are committed to exploring issues important to the greater church and the College, creating mutually beneficial partnerships; supporting the work of campus ministry and vocational exploration; expanding the circle of interest for the College; and being a welcoming community for students faculty and staff.”
With support from Gibson’s successors, Dr. Tom Bogart and current MC President Dr. Bryan Coker, the board has served as a group of dedicated ambassadors designed to highlight MC as a College with a role to play in areas of faith, as well as a commitment to producing graduates who serve in a number of church-related fields. While the work is ongoing through the support of students, faculty and staff in the Center for Campus Ministry, the Maryville College Concert Choir and various other College-related areas, the board meets in person annually, usually at the same time as MC presents the annual Cummings Conversations, open-to-the-public lectures and workshops that focus on the intersectionality of faith and academics.
This year is no different. The Board of Church Visitors’ 25th-anniversary meeting begins Monday, March 24, and will include an opening lunch and program on “Our Shared Call to Hospitality.” An afternoon presentation of the College’s Hospitality and Regional Identity and Fermentation Science programs of study, as well as a panel discussion on “The Science, Art and Theology of Hospitality” will follow in the afternoon. Cummings Conversations speaker/theologian/baker Kendall Vanderslice will lead an afternoon workshop before delivering her keynote address at 7 that evening, and the meeting concludes on Tuesday, March 25, after morning workshops, a 25th-anniversary celebration luncheon at 11:30 a.m. in the William Baxter Lee III Grand Foyer of the Clayton Center for the Arts, and the MC Chapel service.
“Each year the Board of Church Visitors meeting works to accomplish four things: explore and have meaningful discussions about topics important to the Church and the College; learn about new developments and emerging programs at MC from the president and other key leaders; lead planning to support the overall welfare of the College primarily through Campus Ministry, MAST [Maryville Adventures in Studying Theology], Admissions and Church Relations; and seek opportunities to create mutually beneficial partnerships,” Farnham said.
In so doing, the members come away with a better understanding of the College, stand ready to serve when called upon, and advocate for MC as an institution that recognizes faith and spirituality as every bit as important to student development as academics. Such a legacy over the past quarter-century epitomizes, Lewis said, the call by Anderson all those years ago for his followers to “do good on the largest possible scale.”
“As we mark the 25th anniversary of the Board of Church Visitors, we will undoubtedly look back at all the wonderful ways this group has contributed to and supported our campus community, but we are also looking forward to how this relationship will continue to evolve, grow and prosper as we strive to further live out the tenants of faith and learning at Maryville College,” she said.