Part 1: Dr. David Burks’ rise and early years of presidency
Dr. David Burks said when he first arrived on campus as a student in 1961, he had no intentions of staying for long. Surprised by aspects of student life like curfew and a mandatory chapel for no credit, he said that he planned to transfer to the University of New Mexico as soon as possible. Yet Burks said that as he interacted with students and faculty members like Dr. Joe Pryor, he began to fall in love with Harding. Though he said he would have never believed it at the time, it was at Harding where he would spend the majority of the coming 52 years, first as a student and SA president, then as a professor, and now as its president.
In addition to his time as SA president, while in college as a business student Burks joined Beta Phi Kappa and was a photographer for the Petit Jean yearbook. He also met Leah Ann Gentry, a queen in his club and former president of Zeta Rho, who became his wife in August 1965. As a senior, Burks saw the inauguration of Dr. Clifton Ganus as Harding’s third president. Ganus officially took office the day Burks graduated.
“It was the last year of Dr. Benson’s long, 29 year presidency, so there was a lot of transition going on,” Burks said. “If you put that in context with the fact that in 1987 I would turn around and be asked to be president, that was just an interesting turn of events, because when I served as SA president I had no thought — period — of returning to Arkansas as a teacher. I had no thought of teaching and no thought of really anything that actually happened in my life.”
Shortly after graduating and getting married, the newlyweds moved to Texas for Burks to continue his business education at the University of Texas. Burks said that as a graduate student he also taught three undergraduate principles of accounting courses at UT. Upon completing his MBA, Burks took a job with Exxon Corp in Houston, but only nine months later received an unexpected offer to teach accounting at Harding, which he took. After a year and three months in Houston, Burks returned to Harding in 1967 as the director of placement and instructor in business.
“We knew we loved Harding, so the opportunity to come back to this community and try to be a part of it was simply appealing,” Burks said. “I always said I would never be an administrator and I didn’t want to teach, but the opportunity, when it came, to spend my life working with young people teaching just was very appealing. It really was not a hard decision to come here, even though it was about half of what I was making at the time, but that didn’t seem important at all.”
In 1972, Burks briefly left Harding to do doctoral work at Florida State University in the area of administration and finance of higher education. Burks said his time at UT and FSU gave him an opportunity to have his faith challenged, and it greatly strengthened his belief in the value of Christian education. From his experiences outside of Harding, Burks began a “Facing the Issues” class at the College Church of Christ and integrated a business ethics class into the business curriculum.
Over the next 15 years, Burks moved up the ladder within the business department, published a book and became director of the American Studies Program in 1982, but his longest role began when Ganus stepped down and Burks took over as Harding’s president in May 1987.
“It always has to happen sooner or later,” Ganus said. “I retired from the presidency in 1987, after 22 years and the reason I did was I just felt it was pretty good timing at 65 to do it. I had determined before I retired that even though I was going to stay here on campus and even though they wanted me to stay here in the same office, I would not be in (Burks’) way at all. I have tried hard not to get in his way, not to second-guess any of his decisions that he made or to have anybody come to me to discuss their grievances; I wouldn’t listen, and they knew that. The transition, thus, was very smooth.”
Mike Allen (’88), a former SA president and treasurer who was also a Bison newspaper and TV12 staff member, said the smooth transition was apparent to the student body as well.
“I saw a lot of similarities between Dr. Ganus and Dr. Burks,” Allen said. “They both cared a lot about Harding and about the student body. There was never any doubt about who was leading the school. It was Dr. Ganus and then it was Dr. Burks. We weren’t looking around at each other saying, ‘Gee, I wonder who’s in charge around here?'”
The first five years of Burks’ presidency were filled with challenges, Burks said, like how to increase enrollment and handle the need to replace aging utilities and to renovate buildings on campus. Between 1987 and 1991, among other events and projects on campus, five dorms were renovated, the Heritage Cafeteria was expanded, Allen Hall was planned and the Brackett Library replaced the Beaumont Memorial Library. Yet Burks said the most important mission during these early years, as with every other year of his term, was the Christian mission of the university.
