This Q&A with Abilene Christian College president Dr. John C. Stevens appeared in the 1971 Prickly Pear yearbook.

Prickly Pear: What is the role of a college?
Stevens: I believe the role of a college is to provide opportunities to the student for development intellectually, spiritually, socially and physically; in other words, it is to be primarily an educational institution. I think a college is making a mistake when it becomes so activist in the problems of society that it forgets that its functions are to make it possible for people to study, to meditate, to reflect, to discuss and to prepare themselves for future roles. Naturally, this does not mean that there is no activism during the college years, but you can destroy an educational institutional by forgetting that it is just primarily that.

Prickly Pear: Does a Christian college as such differ in any way in its role?
Stevens: The Christian college is unique in that it does have certain basic presuppositions and those have to do with our espousal of Christian values. We understand very well that it is not completely objective, and we advertise to the whole world that we are a Christian institution. I hope, however, that this does not mean that we will be less than impartial in our study of all questions. Any questions can be studied at a Christian institution of higher education. We should be scrupulously honest in our effort to be fair in our presentation of points of view that may differ from our own. Nevertheless, we do espouse certain very definite principles.

Prickly Pear: ACC openly follows a policy of only hiring faculty who are members of the Church of Christ. How can you be sure that you can do this and still offer quality education? How can you be sure that you are not passing over better teachers?
Stevens: Of course, this is always a matter of judgment to some extent, but you can find prospective teachers who have achieved certain standards in their educational career, have the advanced degrees, and have done their work at reputable universities. Then they also have the type of personality which would indicate that they would be good teachers.  With the present supply of good teachers we believe that we can continue to insist that they be Christians without sacrificing quality at all. In fact, we believe Christianity adds quality.

Prickly Pear: What is the role of a college president?
Stevens: The president of the college is supposed to stay pretty well informed an all phases of the operation of the institution. This does not mean that he makes all the decisions or runs all the operations. There are good people in charge of the various departments of the college. But the president has the responsibility of stimulating further actions by these people. He has a coordinating function in seeing to it that all divisions of the institution work together. I do feel that the president of the institution has the responsibility of trying to keep the institution institution moving ahead on all fronts.

Prickly Pear: Do you feel that you are isolated from any one of the various groups because you have to deal with just heads of divisions?
Stevens: This is, of course, a real problem. I wish the president of the institution had the time to visit with each teacher, and for the matter, I would personally like to be acquainted with every student. Obviously, this just is not possible, so he does have to rely on things coming through channels.

Prickly Pear: What contacts do you have with students?
Stevens: I meet regularly with student leaders, and I trust that the Students’ Association offices are held by those who are representative of the student point of view. Then, of course, I have many contacts with students, but not with all the students as I wish I had. I do feel that our present ideas of student government make it possible for all students to see to it that their viewpoint is expressed. Furthermore, teachers get a good many of the viewpoints of the students in their classrooms and in personal visits, and so we try to keep up with student opinion this way. I’ll have to say that I get a good deal of profit from reading the student press. This is why I’m in favor of having a student-edited newspaper on the campus where students do express their points of view, and this to me is educational.

Prickly Pear: What is the relationship of the administration and the student press?
Stevens: A lot of people off campus become quite disturbed about articles in the Optimist, Letters to the Editor, and just plain news reports, and this indicates that students sometimes express points of view that are at variance with the established policy. Those of us who are on campus understand these things better, and I personally am altogether in favor of frank and open expression of views by students. Fundamentally, the student has the last word in an institution anyway, because if the student doesn’t like the institution, he votes with his feet; he simply walks away and doesn’t come back to school.  Therefore, it is to the interest of the institution to be very sensitive to the student points of view.  Furthermore, I would say that in my experience with the students they have shown a great sense of responsibility, because so long as the majority of our students are likewise committed to Christian values, they want it to be a Christian college.

Prickly Pear: What encouragement do you give the student press?
Stevens: I don’t know that I give much encouragement.  I do try to have regular meetings with the editor and his staff. I defend them from charges often. Perhaps I spend more time defending them than actually encouraging them, but I believe that the editor knows that we expect him to be responsible. We don’t want an irresponsible, negative press because that isn’t good journalism. And that isn’t in keeping with the standards of a Christian institution. But we do encourage the student press to be truly representative of responsible viewpoints.

Prickly Pear: On what basis is the student press censored?
Stevens: It isn’t censored, really, at all.  In other words, we don’t read the stories before they go into type. There is a faculty sponsor for the student press, and if a story is questionable to the editor himself, we expect him to be responsible enough to confer with the faculty advisor. If there is some possibility of libel, or if it turns out that a story is based on very bad information, then the faculty advisor and the editor to discuss this together, and sometimes a story may be cut. As a regular rule, we would rather meet after the paper has been published and discuss the issue with the idea of analyzing how it could be improved rather than have censorship in advance. We do not censor the stories; I don’t read the stories in advance, and no member of the administration does. The faculty advisor doesn’t read the stories in advance. But, frankly and fortunately, the editor does consult the advisor as he should if there is a story that is questionable.

Prickly Pear: What purpose does the yearbook serve as a part of the student publications?
Stevens: The yearbook is the most valuable. It is one of the finest sources we have for preserving the real history of the college. I don’t know of anything more valued in a person’s library than the yearbooks of the years that he was in college.

Prickly Pear: What is the relationship of the student government and the administration?
Stevens: The student government is primarily an advisory group. Student government does not set the overall polices of the institution. There are certain areas in which student government does have primary responsibility for operation. For example, they bring speakers and other programs to the campus. When the student senate passes a resolution it ultimately comes to me, and my desire is to be most sensitive to the recommendations of the student senate. I think that during the past two years we have accepted virtually every recommendation and that’s not because the senate will always have its recommendations accepted. You have to have the presidency of the college finally responsible for these matters. A weak presidency is not good for a college, and I think this is accepted throughout the educational world. But at the same time, so long as we have a responsible student, the president of the college should listen very, very carefully to recommendations from the student government, and I like to accept the recommendations myself.

Prickly Pear: Why is there not an ROTC unit on campus?
Stevens: Years ago when ROTC was being considered for Abilene, we made an application for it, but frankly, our neighbor to the west, Hardin-Simmons University, just had more political clout and they got it. We were not eligible because there was no need to put two units in the same city. Now, I’m of the opinion that we don’t need ROTC because our students can take it at Hardin-Simmons.

Prickly Pear: Why did tuition go up this year?
Stevens: Just the old cost of living; inflation has continued to hurt us. With our faculty salaries so very seriously below other college and universities in Texas, perhaps an average of $3,000 per person, we had to strengthen our faculty salaries. We are striving to hold down administrative costs and similar costs, but we wanted to raise teachers’ salaries. Of course, the increase in tuition was not restricted to that because it was necessary to meet rising costs. For example, when we built our new buildings and air-conditioned them, we realized that utilities would go up. Our utilities bill at Abilene Christian College, exclusive of telephones, is $264,000 per year and our telephone bill is $100,000 per year. Of course, this is because we have telephones in all dormitory rooms, but costs have just gone up.

Prickly Pear: Did the rise in tuition mean that the students at the Abilene campus are subsidizing the students of the Fort Worth and Garland campuses?
Stevens: No, each of those campuses will be a completely self-contained operation, operating on a balanced budget, and no money will be drained from here to there, whatever. In fact, that’s a Board stipulation, that we cannot take money from here to subsidize the operations in those two cities. We just are not going to operate in that way. Each campus will be on a balanced budget.

Prickly Pear: What is ACC’s position on the pending state legislation concerning grants to students in independent institutions?
Stevens: We are all for it. I believe it gives students the freedom of choice to which they are entitled. It will save the state of Texas vast sums of money, and it will make it possible for private colleges to continue to serve. We don’t want Abilene Christian College to become a school that is just for rich people. We would like to be able to take students of character regardless of their economic status. This is just another way of helping them attend the college of their choice.

Prickly Pear: What has ACC done to promote this legislation?
Stevens: We have taken a very vigorous role in promoting it. We have one man who has actually helped coordinate the program for the entire state, and that’s vice president Robert D. Hunter of public relations and development. Chancellor Morris has worked extensively in connection with it, and so have I and the members of the administration. Our board members have been very active, as have various alumni and members of the National Development Council and the Advisory Board. We just think that it is a very good thing for the state of Texas as well as for the individual students desiring to attend private colleges.

Prickly Pear: What is the aim of administration?
Stevens: In today’s world the Christian college is vital. It just appears to me that there are too many people in our society who have lost their direction. They’re bored, they don’t know what to do with their lives, and colleges like Abilene Christian must continue to espouse a constructive program of life. We hope that students who go through this institution will leave with a sense of mission and a desire to serve which will make their lives useful, fruitful, happy, meaningful. We think we need more people today who want to try to be part of the solution instead of just adding to the problems. That’s what we’d like to think Christian education can help students do.