David S. Dockery: a 30-year Legacy of Presidential Leadership in Christian Higher Education

MARK D. KAHLER 

In the Fall of 1995, Union University was looking for a new president.

The candidate pool was narrowed to four. In October, David S. Dockery and his wife Lanese were invited to the campus in Jackson, Tennessee for two days of interviews.

Dockery looked around the room and realized he didn’t know anyone.

As Chief Academic Officer at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dockery had made many acquaintances across the educational realm of the Southern Baptist Convention. But his connections with this Tennessee Baptist school were few.

“I had only been on the Union campus one time to speak in chapel in 1993,” Dockery recalls. “I knew a few Union grads and knew of several others, but had no real ties to Union.”

By contrast, Hyran Barefoot, the outgoing president, had served in faculty and administration posts at Union for 30 years before finishing nearly another decade as president.

Would an educational community so accustomed to the same faces opt for an outsider as president?

But the well-spoken Alabamian quickly won over the search committee and later the full Board of Trustees.

“The two-day interview in October went extremely well,” Dockery says. “The committee fell in love with Lanese.”

Soon after, on December 8, 1995, David S. Dockery was elected the 15th president of Union University.

No one at that time could have known that they witnessed the start of an extraordinary story. It would be marked by transformational leadership.

Carla Sanderson was one of the Union selection committee members in 1995 who later served under Dockery’s leadership as dean of nursing and provost.

Today, she says Dockery “was the architect of my leadership style and laid out the blueprint I wanted to follow.”Dockery’s presidential leadership includes Union University (1995-2014), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, (2014-19) the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE, 2019 to present) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (2022 to present).

“When future histories of western Christian education are written, his story will find a prominent place in a prominent chapter,” says O.S. Hawkins, who serves alongside Dockery as chancellor of Southwestern Seminary.

A native of Tuscaloosa, Dockery grew up near Birmingham, and spent his initial undergraduate years at the University of Alabama. He finished his bachelor’s degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He earned master’s degrees at Grace Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Texas Christian University. He received his PhD from the University of Texas system.

Dockery did not start out seeking a presidency or a string of prestigious academic credentials. His aspirations in those early college years were rooted in the world of sports.

BRYANT AND NEWTON

“Coach Newton was a people-focused leader. He cared about you, whether you were an All-American or a student worker like me.”

-David S. Dockery

More than 20 years before that job interview at Union, University of Alabama student David S. Dockery had been chosen from among three classmates to serve as a fully-scholarshiped student manager on the men’s basketball team, eventually earning him not only a scholarship, but three varsity letters and initiation into the A-Club.

During his fourth year with the athletic department, in January 1974, the team took a charter flight to Knoxville prior to facing conference rival Tennessee. At the team hotel, the baggage arrived from the charter flight, but something important came up missing: the large bag containing all of Alabama’s uniforms for the next day’s practice and the upcoming game.

Young Dockery now faced a problem he had never encountered. Looking up at the laser-focused glare of legendary Alabama men’s basketball coach C.M. Newton, Dockery knew he had to find a way to solve the problem.

“Coach Newton basically looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to practice tomorrow afternoon, and we need practice uniforms, and we’re going to play on Monday night. We’ll need game uniforms,’” Dockery recalls.

In an unfamiliar city without his own transportation, the Alabama student hailed a cab and returned to the airport, but the bag was gone. He tracked the truck that had taken the plane’s remaining cargo and eventually found the missing item at a postal facility, where the large laundry bag accidentally had been mixed in with mail bags.

Dockery quickly had the uniforms laundered and in place at the next day’s practice before anyone on the team knew they had been missing.

“I had been sweating all night long wondering what was going to happen if I didn’t find them,” Dockery says now with a smile.

It was an early glimpse into the resourcefulness in the face of hardship that would make Dockery one of the most respected leaders in the recent history of Christian higher education. Pastors, theologians, and Scripture undoubtedly shaped his educational and leadership philosophy. But some of the first influencers were Alabama athletic legends.

As a student bunking in the University of Alabama athletic complex, he occasionally shared an elevator ride with Hall of Fame football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and had a long association with Newton.

From Bryant, Dockery says he learned the importance of planning in detail for the task ahead. In Newton, he witnessed a love for empowering people.

“Coach Newton was a people-focused leader,” Dockery says. “He cared about you, whether you were an All-American or a student worker like me.”

A quirk of history: many decades earlier, after Bear Bryant the student earned his Alabama degree, the future coaching giant took on his first paying job as a physical education instructor and coach at, of all places, Union University.

Well on his way toward a bright career path in sports management or sports journalism, Dockery’s focus shifted greatly during a six-week-long summer student retreat in Mexico in 1973, where he sensed the call to full-time ministry.

But colleagues and contemporaries alike have seen the Bryant-like attention to planning and the Newtonesque love of people developed into a unique Dockery brand of leadership marked by the highest levels of scholarship, achievement, and integrity.

RENEWING MINDS

“Most people commenting on my years of presidential service, almostwithout exception, point out that one of the things that has distinguished my service from many others has been the commitment to continue to try to write.”

-David S. Dockery

Undoubtedly, Dockery has been a leading scholar-president within Christian higher education. Few can match his body of work: 15 authored books, 39 edited volumes, 300 chapters, articles, and book reviews, 155 major presentations, and more than 30 significant educational, denominational, and community honors.

The impact of his writing is unmistakable.

For example, as many Christian colleges planned their faculty workshop sessions each year, Dockery’s 2007 book titled Renewing Minds (B&H Academic) became required reading at both smaller colleges and larger universities around the country. The book brought fresh perspectives about serving church and society through Christian higher education. It emphasized thinking Christianly about every discipline from a biblical worldview.

“Renewing Minds is a robust and thoughtful defense of the necessity and deals of Christian education, coupled with a shrewd and wise assessment of the challenges and strategies of the future,” Oxford University professor of historical theology Alister McGrath wrote at the time of publication. The legendary J. I. Packer claimed the volume was “in every way a landmark book.”

In 2018, Dockery and Chris Morgan released Christian Higher Education: Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition (Crossway). The brilliant historian Tommy Kidd claimed that this excellent volume “deserves a place on every Christian educator’s bookshelf.”

A gifted editor, Dockery has shown great talent for bringing together just the right voices to speak to complex, relevant issues.

In addition to the volumes noted above, he has served as a key series editor in some form for the following: The New American Commentary (serving as general dditor for the first six volumes and as New Testament editor for 11 more volumes, B&H); The Christian Standard Commentary (serving as consulting editor for 4 NT volumes, B&H); Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition series (serving as general editor for a 15-volume series with Crossway); The Theology for the People of God Series (co-editor of the first six volumes of a projected 16-volume series, B&H); and the forthcoming IACE Faith and Learning Series (general editor for a projected five-volume series with B&H).

In addition to Christian education, his writings have covered biblical studies, biblical authority, biblical hermeneutics, theology, church, Christian worldview, ministry studies, and cultural engagement. The meticulous writing and editing during his 30 years as president will continue to be reviewed and applied for generations.

But even while serving as a president, his legacy has spread widely across the decades.

A LEGACY OF PRESIDENTS

David's "coaching tree" is one of the most prodigious in our generation of Christian educators because of his long term intentionality. 

-Ralph Enlow, IACE Board Chair and Past President, Association for Biblical Higher Education

“He’s been a fruitful leader at more than one institution, but through his mentoring, his fruit has grown on a lot of other people’s trees.”

-Ed Stetzer, Dean and Professor of Leadership and Christian Ministry, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

In an era where there are sometimes deep campus divisions between faculty, staff, and students, Dockery learned to bring them all together -- and then watch them thrive around the table.

As a president leads, those serving alongside take constant note of the decisions and how they formed. They see everything up close -- both mistakes and triumphs. It can inspire or discourage aspirations toward a presidency.

In Dockery’s case, it encouraged eight others with whom he served to consider the call to serve as an institutional president.

Among them, Gene C. Fant leads North Greenville University in South Carolina, after serving in Dockery’s administration at Union. Fant says decision-making was among the most powerful lessons he learned from Dockery.

“He never sticks a proverbial finger in the wind to make decisions,” Fant says. “He always drives his decision-making in alignment with his theological and philosophical foundations.”

Barbara McMillin, president of Blue Mountain Christian University in Mississippi, saw Dockery’s leadership style at Union while she served as associate provost and dean of instruction.

“His passion for and commitment to Christian higher education have been contagious,” McMillin says, “motivating many of us to carry forward his vision and invest in shaping the next generation of Christ-centered leaders.”

Charles Fowler served under Dockery at Union as vice president for university relations and now heads Carson-Newman University in Tennessee, where histenure as president has been marked by growth in enrollment and giving.

“Over the past two decades, no individual has invested in me as much as David Dockery,” says Fowler. “He has offered wise counsel, created opportunities for me to lead, and recommended me to others.”

Felix Theonugraha served in various vice-presidential roles under Dockery’s leadership at Trinity in Illinois, working both in student life and spiritual life roles before becoming president at Western Theological Seminary in Michigan in 2019. Dockery’s presidency at Trinity was cut short by health issues, but Theonugraha says the impact of that leadership was nonetheless resounding.

“Dr. Dockery took me under his wing and mentored me from the moment he arrived at Trinity,” says Theonugraha. “He invited me into meetings and conversations so that I could see, learn, and experience first-hand the kinds of decisions a president must make.

“Even now, in my own leadership, I often find myself asking what Dr. Dockery would do and drawing a few plays from the ‘DSD playbook.’”

Likewise, Fant observes that Dockery makes it a priority to prepare his proteges for excellence.

“I have never known another leader who delighted in preparing people for other work elsewhere like he does,” Fant says. “He is so incredibly openhanded with opportunities, with his network, and with his leadership lessons.

"I have rarely traveled to a place where I haven't run into someone who was mentored by President Dockery.”

Vital campus leadership extends far beyond the president’s office. Faculty leaders and classroom instruction are at the core of a university’s effectiveness.

Some, whom Dockery has mentored, hold important academic positions in strategic population centers.

Sanderson, who served on the Union search committee, later became vice president of Chamberlain College of Nursing, based in suburban Chicago.

“David Dockery is a major influencer whose focus is the people of God for the purposes of God,” Sanderson said. “From his wide sphere of influence, he gives himself to others by campaigning for their appointments to significant positions for kingdom building purposes.”

Sanderson says Dockery is that rare leader who works tirelessly to help individual colleagues find their highest callings, even if that results in vacancies on his own staff.

“For the many years I have known him, he has been mentoring, making introductions, opening doors, and fostering networks for the good of the people he leads,” Sanderson said.

Kimberly Thornbury served as dean of students at Union under Dockery. Today she is vice president for programs and partnerships at Murdock Charitable Trust near Portland, Oregon.

“He is steadfast, brilliant, prepared, and focused,” Thornbury says. “He asks just the right questions to bring out the best in the leaders that surround him.” “His leadership reminds me that, regardless of title, every person has something valuable to offer,” says Theonugraha. “One of the most life-giving responsibilities of a leader is to create space for people across the institution to use their gifts.”

Several other college presidents Dockery has mentored through the years include many who never served with him on the same campus. The list includes John Senyonyi, former leader of Uganda Christian University, the largest Christian university in Africa; Dondi Costin, president, Liberty University; the late Jon Wallace, former president of Azusa Pacific (Calif.); Evans Whitaker, long-time president of Anderson University (S.C.); Oklahoma Baptist University’s former and current presidents, David Whitlock and Heath Thomas; Drew Flamm, president, Grace College and Seminary; Stan Norman, present at Williams Baptist University, and other presidents, provosts, vice presidents, and deans.

"David Dockery is one of Christian higher education's most significant and influential leaders in the past 50 years,” says Whitlock, who now serves as president at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. "He is the single most transformative leader in Christian higher education during the last half century."

During Dockery’s years at Union, the institution saw 16 straight years of enrollment increases, resulting in the non-duplicating headcount increasing from less than 2300 to more than 5300. During this same time period, net assets at the university tripled while the operational budget more than quadrupled. At the conclusion of his years of service at Union, he was granted an honorary doctor of letters, named president emeritus, and given the faculty title of university professor of Christian thought and tradition. Upon his departure from Trinity a few years later, he was named honorary chancellor, given the faculty title of professor of Christianity and culture, and the institution bestowed on him an honorary doctor of divinity degree.

Jason K. Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, also learned much from Dockery. “It is impossible to conceptualize Christian higher

education in America without the name David Dockery,” says Allen.

STANDING STRONG AMID THE STORMS

“We started getting calls from family and friends to see if we were okay. And they were saying ‘we just watched the news, Union just got hit, and it was just a nightmare. Moment after moment, the news just kept on getting worse and worse.”

-Sophomore Rachel Daniel, Union University, February 2008

In the early evening hours of February 5, 2008, an EF-4 tornado swept across Jackson, Tennessee and tore a $45 million path of destruction across the Union University campus in less than two minutes. Students were trapped under rubble and debris on campus. More than fifty students were taken to the hospital; at least seven sustained longer-term serious injuries. Incredibly, no one was killed despite the direct hit on campus classroom buildings and student living spaces.

Union had what was deemed to be adequate insurance protection in place. But even effective policies contain caps for certain categories of damage. The Union damage often exceeded those caps. It became clear early in the recovery effort that Union would have to raise about $18 million required to repair the damage and make the school a viable choice for students in Fall 2008.

But the spring semester was the immediate concern. Dockery and his recovery team met in a sorority house living room, one of the few places on campus that had power in the first days after the tornado.

There was no playbook for responding to such an unprecedented disaster, which at the time was the largest natural disaster to ever hit a campus in the

U.S. Dockery called the leadership group and the campus at-large to prayer, trusting the Lord for wisdom and needed guidance. Under Dockery’s leadership, the team found a local church-owned hotel that was converted to a makeshift residence hall. Another church opened its Sunday School rooms for classes. One of the largest businesses in the city offered their conference rooms to Union’s School of Business. Despite the widespread damage, the semester that had started just days prior to the tornado resumed within less than three weeks and the semester concluded successfully.

With most of the campus housing condemned and razed, some of West Tennessee and North Mississippi’s largest competing construction firms teamed up to rebuild the housing and other parts of the campus in time for a fall semester start.

Carson-Newman president Charles Fowler served as Union’s vice president for university relations at the time of the tornado. He was responsible for the

fundraising effort that helped rebuild the campus.

“David Dockery has provided three decades of presidential leadership that is characterized by conviction, inspiration, and vision,” Fowler says. “He has accomplished this by being an incredible team builder.”

In the immediate aftermath, Dockery’s vision and team-building skills, which Fowler mentions, became crucial. Everyone on the Union leadership team had jobs to do aimed at recovery. Not every task necessarily fit neatly into existing job descriptions, but his vision for what needed to be done in a timely manner prevented serious disruption of Union’s programs and helped seniors graduate on time.

Not all campus storms stem from inclement weather.

University presidents spend many hours examining budgets and making difficult choices.

In October 2022, Dockery was asked to provide leadership for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. The job at his alma mater carried with it some serious financial challenges -- issues that got the attention of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

Southwestern has not lost its accreditation, but serious sanctions came down from SACSCOC in May 2023, indicating Southwestern lacked resources and a demonstrated, stable financial base to support the mission of the institution and the scope of its programs and services.

The accrediting body also determined Southwestern had not managed its financial resources and operations in a fiscally responsible manner, and that the board had not ensured that the financial resources of the institution provided a sound educational program.

“We recognized that the institutional culture needed to change as much as the financial patterns,” Dockery, the seminary’s 10th president, wrote in April 2025, some 31 months after assuming the presidency.

The board created a new Board Policy Manual and worked with consultants to adopt a new approach to oversight in line with the accreditors’ expectations. Over the past 39 months, the unrestricted operations have improved by almost $10 million while the overall net assets have increased by $31 million. Enrollment headcount and credit hours taught have increased for three years in a row. Southwestern remains hopeful for a positive report from SACSCOCin June 2026.

“At Southwestern, David has brought stability and recovery in a time of deep institutional crisis,” says R. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and IACE Senior Fellow. “The recovery at SWBTS is a tribute to his personal leadership.”

Malcolm B. Yarnell III, is research professor of theology and editor of the Southwestern Journal of Theology. He understands the seminary’s history and looks at Dockery as a transformational president, even though Dockery is only in his fourth year of presidential service.

“Transformative presidencies either establish a firm foundation or fundamentally reform an institution for the benefit of its constituencies,” Yarnell says. He observes that Dockery led Southwestern in “recovering our health in morale, finances, and student numbers.

“The churches, faculty, and trustees, as well as the staff, students, and alumni alike are deeply appreciative of his leadership through one of the most difficult

periods of our history.”

Many on campus also point to a renewed emphasis on prayer under Dockery.

“At the very beginning of his tenure, he called the entire seminary community to prayer, not as a one-time event but as a regular rhythm embedded in our campus culture,” recalls Ashley Allen, an assistant professor who also serves as assistant to the president. “He makes time for students, faculty, and guests who ask of his time and his expertise.”

Students took notice of the changes.

Chris Kim, a PhD student at Southwestern, sees Dockery as “a man of prayer and a genuine servant leader with a humble heart.”

“The change in the trajectory of Southwestern under his leadership has been nothing short of God’s provision,” says Gabriel Ward, a current student inDockery’s doctoral seminar. “I am continuously encouraged as I witness his academic precision and humility.”

“David S. Dockery is God’s right man at just the right time at Southwestern Seminary,” says Jim Wicker, professor of New Testament. “His strongemphasis on prayer is undoubtedly an important factor in our steady positive growth in financial stability and student enrollment in the years of his presidency.”

UNITING CHRIST-CENTERED EDUCATORS

“IACE’s mission is to unify, synergize, and strengthen collective conviction around biblical orthodoxy and orthopraxy, cultural witness, scholarship, professional excellence, and resourcing of Christian education at all levels.”

-From the Mission Statement of the International Alliance for Christian Education

Southwestern Seminary was one of many Christian institutions facing serious challenges on a variety of fronts. This was especially true heading into the pandemic year 2020.

Some Christian institutions experienced significant enrollment declines, often due to competition from lower-priced tuition at state-supported schools. Social pressures intensified at church-founded schools to conform to moral standards outside biblical norms. Mission drift became more common.At the same time, unprecedented opportunities grew in developing nations around the world. For example, the need to educate willing pastors reached critical mass in parts of Africa and Asia.

Dockery looked at the situation and, with others, envisioned an organization that would cross denominational and geographic lines to provide support foreducators committed to both orthodoxy, adherence to biblical truth, and orthopraxy, living out faith-related principles in action as well as words.

His well-established practices of leadership development and firm commitment led to meetings in 2019 that would shape the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE).

When IACE publicly launched in January 2020, it connected this complex field of challenges around four vital areas: Intellectual Discipleship, NextGeneration Leadership Development, Encouragement and Connections, and Research and Advocacy.

Within its first few years, IACE was sponsoring Faculty Development Conferences and bringing in leading Christian experts to address challenges, including enrollment decline, mission drift, and even the application of Artificial Intelligence.

Carl Zylstra, who retired after 16 years as president of Dordt University (Iowa), serves as vice-chair of the IACE board of directors.

“David Dockery embodies an amazing combination of vision, conviction, academic acuity and administrative adeptness,” says Zylstra. “That he has chosen to use that remarkable array of talents in the service of Christian higher education has truly been a blessing to the wide range of people and institutions he has touched.”

As of November 2025, IACE has 90 member institutions and 33 like-minded ministry partners. Members represent 28 U.S. states and about a dozen

countries.

Nathan Finn works closely with Dockery within the IACE, co-editing the organization’s academic journal it publishes and speaking at various conferences. For all the broad outreaches of the organization, Finn sees the IACE president’s personal attributes integrated into the larger grouping of schools and ministries.

“Dr. Dockery exemplifies the integration of personal integrity, intellectual depth, institutional intelligence, and kindness toward others—including those with whom he might disagree,” says Finn, who serves as Kalos Chair for Intellectual Discipleship at North Greenville University, where he also directs the Institute for Faith and Culture.

“In my own leadership style, especially as an academic and pastor, I have tried to follow his example in each of these areas.”

DOCUMENTING THE DOCKERY LEGACY

“A leader who transformed institutions, and the people and places around them, not through loud charisma but through quiet character.”

-Author Andy Pettigrew on the legacy of David S. Dockery

It is likely future generations will focus frequently on the Dockery legacy.

But two Christian scholars are working to produce books designed to document Dockery’s contributions to Christian education for present-day readers.

Andy Pettigrew is director of NextGen Mobilization for the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board (IMB).

His new book, Steadfast: The Leadership Journey and Model of David S. Dockery, for which Reformed Theological Seminary chancellor Ligon Duncan wrote the Foreword, will be available in May 2026 (B&H Books).

“I set out on this journey because I was both personally and professionally moved by a leader who transformed institutions, and the people and places around them, not through loud charisma but through quiet character,” Pettigrew says.

Convinced the world needs more leaders like Dockery, Pettigrew has spent years doing doctoral research to answer the question “What defines David Dockery?”

At the foundation of his answer, Pettigrew cites two characteristics upon which Dockery has built his career.

“Dockery-type leaders today... build their lives on the centrality of Scripture and pursue Christ-centered excellence in all things,” Pettigrew says.

Chris Hanna is dean of theological studies at Highlands College in Alabama. Hanna says Dockery was a major influence long before they ever met. He sought out Dockery as a mentor who exhibited strength in areas Hanna wanted to cultivate.

“His thirty years of presidential leadership represent one of the most stabilizing and influential legacies in modern Christian higher education,” says Hanna, who has authored the upcoming book, The Educator’s Sacred Calling: David Dockery on Theology, Leadership, and Higher Education (Wipf & Stock). The book should be available in late 2026 or early 2027.

Hanna ads: “Through his scholarship, institutional leadership, and genuine investment in people, Dr. Dockery has shaped universities, strengthened leaders, and served the church with remarkable faithfulness.”

“We need that kind of leadership now more than ever,” concludes Pettigrew, “and the faithful example of David Dockery stands as a model for us all.”

Mark D. Kahler is the founding director of communication for IACE. He has worked under David S. Dockery’s leadership since 2004