Big Week, Part 2: Choral Hall!

Toward the end of the week, we celebrated a major achievement for our department and the university: the building and opening of our first facility designed specifically for music. The space is a beautiful room for choral rehearsals and will also house jazz ensemble and string orchestra rehearsals for the next year or so. Another larger rehearsal room for wind ensemble and orchestra is scheduled to open in the fall of 2016.

Just before the public ribbon cutting, we held a brief event for donors in the space during which our dean, two students, and I spoke. Dr. Gordon also led Chamber Singers in Bruckner's "Locus iste" which was a perfect choice for the occasion.

My remarks ended up being about the legacy we have received and what should be the impact of that on the future. I shared those remarks a few days ago here. In the process of preparing those remarks, I found myself contemplating the contributions of the two men in the middle of organization who led us to this special day. Of course none of this could have been done without the vision of the university's administration or the gifts of donors, but as chair, I have special knowledge of the contributions of our former chair and our dean, Drs. Tindall and Collins, contributions which might be overlooked in the excitement of the event.

Dr. Tindall was brought to Southeastern as chair nearly thirty years ago. He built the department just about from scratch and committed his entire career to "building people" in our programs. He did so with humility through the constant change of these decades in American universities and in Christian higher education in particular. It has been his dream for years and years and years to move that solemn, people-building work into facilities worthy of the endeavor, and he has hung in there until this has finally started coming to pass. Without his service, dreams, and sacrifice - a great deal of which took place before the rest of us came to SEU - we would never have reached this milestone.

And from the dean's office, Dr. Collins has cogitated, advocated, and collaborated pretty much non-stop from his first day on the job to make this milestone a very fine one. He has considered every detail of the building and has masterfully consulted with everyone involved from the architect to the builders to the donors so that the facility would be of the highest quality. His passion and effort has been thorough-going and I simply cannot imagine anyone achieving this better than he has.We are blessed to have him spearheading such works in our midst.

Over, around, and through the work of these colleagues, there is a sense that the entire project is something much bigger than any of us, and this great synergy, spanning from our alumni to the impact of our programs on the distant future, seemed evident at the ribbon cutting. Even bigger than our collective imaginings and our best efforts at plans at the University, I dare say I believe we are finding ourselves within a movement of the Spirit. I hope this strengthens the faith of others as it has mine.