Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 27, 2010
Lee University President Conn enjoys growing niche
Erica Tuggle
Dr. Paul Conn has been the president of Lee University since 1986 and seen the many changes for good and bad within higher education since then. He has maintained a teaching position in psychology as well as the president’s role during this time and has authored or co-authored 20 books in his writing career.
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Since Dr. Paul Conn became the president of Cleveland, Tenn.’s Lee University in 1986, the student enrollment has grown from 1,000 students to now over 4,000 students. The steady growth for 24 years is a mark of a product in demand, Conn says, as Lee University fills the niche of being a private Christ-centered institution that is big enough to offer a variety of majors and activities but maintains the small university feeling.
Conn grew up in Cleveland, attending elementary school at the Mayfield building (now part of Lee’s campus) then went on to Bradley High School and attended Lee when it was Lee College. He found a lifelong interest in psychology after his first introductory class, which he still teaches today, and attended graduate school for his masters and PhD. in psychology at Emory University. He returned to Lee, this time to teach the subject for 13 years before becoming president.
Conn says what he enjoys about Lee is the interactions he has with students, and reminds us he started out to become a teacher and not an administrator. From eating in the dining hall amongst students to leading the chapel services Lee has twice a week and then to teaching his psychology classes, he gets to be near the young minds he works to broaden. Although he spends a chunk of time with donors, lawyers, architects and others, he says this is enjoyable, too, to be a part of the creative process of trying to execute a vision of the school and campus.
In his time at Lee, Conn says he feels best about the broadening of the scope of people whom the institution serves. While he admits that when people talk about his presidency, they praise the growth of the university in enrollment and building, he says these structures are built simply to further the students.
“We have grown a lot and done a lot of campus development, and I think maybe presidents tend to get remembered for the buildings because those stay around after the president leaves. But those buildings are very much a means to an end of broadening the range and appeal of Lee for students,” he says.
As a Christ-centered university, the experience of college here is a different world in which the conversation about God is part of the culture of the campus, that state universities are not allowed, he says. A state school cannot talk about ultimate values or promote values, because that is not its role, he says.
“For people who want to ask and answer all these questions at the same time, at Lee you can major in accounting and pass the CPA and ask and answer and explore and argue and take positions on what it all means,” he says. “The penalty for this is you don’t get any state money.”
This doesn’t mean that all students who go to Lee are Christians, he adds. Students aren’t asked if they are a Christian when they apply, and can graduate as a non-Christian, but, he says, while they are at Lee, the whole university is going to talk about Christian values.
“We don’t think there is another place quite like us in this region,” he says. “We are not trying to service one particular range of religious system, and our niche to not be a small family school or big commuter college. But there in-between is a niche, and we feel we serve the important function for students who are looking for that in-between experience.”
The simple act of leading athletes in prayer before a game or taking a religious stance in a classroom is the freedom that becomes a part of the culture and ethos of the campus to give Lee this distinction, Conn says. For more and more students to be willing to pay more to attend Lee than a state school, he says this shows the experience to be worth a premium.
“Something motivates young people to be motivated to be in an environment where it is not intellectually sterile which we believe institutions that don’t ask the big questions are missing a part of what life is really all about,” he says.
Lee University has just finished a major campus development program that has been ongoing for the past four years called “Press Towards the Mark.” The $34 million raised to fund new buildings is wrapping up the project on Sept. 24 with “Celebration 2010.” Conn says the university will dedicate the event to the Lord, have a choir sing and invite their donors and the public to visit.
“During the four years, we built a health clinic, a school of religion building, a new dorm complex and are now wrapping all that up, and we are seeing what comes next,” he says.
Before his presidency, Conn authored or co-authored 20 titles on various public figures in business, politics, sports and entertainment, four of which have been listed on the New York Times bestseller list. His title, “The Possible Dream” was the No. 7 bestselling non-fiction book of 1977, selling an estimated nine million English-language copies.
Besides having his own Wikipedia entry, Conn also has bobblehead doll versions of him floating around the community. He says these started when students were honoring him at a dinner and have now grown with student demand, although he declined when asked to put the dolls in the campus store.
“I was kind of self conscious about it, but my granddaughter has one and daughter told me that my granddaughter had [the doll] on the nightstand and tells the bobblehead doll goodnight. It melted my heart, so it can’t all be bad,” he says.
Conn spends three or four mornings a week running with his daughter who lives in town, and spending time with his other two children out of
town and his nine grandchildren (six of whom live in town). He is married to Darlia Conn, who teaches piano in Lee’s School of Music.
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