Part 3: Dr. Burks faces challenges of Harding’s expanding student body
As enrollment continued to grow in the late 90s, Dr. David Burks said he continued to focus his presidency on utilizing Harding’s existing resources while also expanding campus by building new facilities and by preparing unused parts of campus for future growth.
Beginning in 1997, one of the first issues caused by growth, Burks said, was deciding what to do about chapel as the student body outgrew the Benson Auditorium. Burks said he greatly prefers having everyone in one chapel, but ultimately the board agreed to have two split chapels, until more seating was added to the Benson a few years later.
“One of the things you find when you’re president is that — and this is the way it ought to be — you are moderating a great big family,” Burks said. “The fact of the matter is, the family preferred two chapels and I preferred one. I went with the bigger group, which is the faculty, and they preferred two. I like the one, simply because I like being together, but from a disciplinary point of view, two is better.”
Former student Phillip Murphy (’98) said the switch to two chapels went smoothly for most students and was a sign of growth and changing times for Harding.
“It was a seamless change from an upperclassmen’s point of view,” Murphy said. “Of course, the freshmen didn’t realize a change because it was all new to them. Besides, it wasn’t as if Harding was the first school to create two chapels. Some of our sister institutions had been utilizing split chapel services for some time before we implemented it. At the same time, it was a significant change and a departure from the Harding norm. It was a sign of growth. It became just another step to expanding the size of the student body.”
Among the first major building projects during those years came in the form of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Music and Communication. Dr. Arthur Shearin, professor of music and chair of the department of music, said the Reynolds Center was a necessity for Harding’s music programs, which previously met in the Lee Building.
“The building, built with brick and timbers salvaged from Godden Hall, was totally inadequate for our department’s work,” Shearin said. “The department of communication had no home of its own at the time … We now have a facility that meets professional accreditation standards for programs of our nature. I personally am grateful every day, when I come to work, to President Burks for his excellent leadership, without which the Reynolds Center would not have come about.”
Former student William Waddill (’99) said the new building brought much welcomed modernization to the music and communications programs.
“We felt like we jumped from the 1950s to the 2000s in a week,” Waddill said. “The weekly performances were instantly made more professional simply by the acoustics and the setting. The building was for sure something to brag about and we were proud to be the first set of music majors in the building. I was personally positively affected by the work of Dr. Burks in making such a dramatic change for the music and communications departments happen.”
Burks said the addition of the Reynolds Center and an enterence from Beebe Capps to the south side of campus, spurred furrther expansion.
“It wasn’t just (the Reynolds Center),” Burks said. “It was the decision to place it on the south side of Park Avenue, because we didn’t have anything over there at that time other than the Ganus Athletic Center. What we had was a railroad track that divided the campus, so basically people viewed anything on the south side of the railroad track as not part of Harding.”
Burks said the need to add an entrance from Beebe Capps and the need to make room for future buildings led him to try to find a way to have the railroad tracks that were between Park Avenue and the Reynolds Center removed.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done as president,” Burks said. “Union Pacific was a huge bureaucracy. It was just unbelievable. I will just say that I don’t think (removing the tracks) could have ever been done before, I don’t think it could be done today; just a lot of things fell into place, a lot of the right people came together. Everyone in town told me it could not be done, but it happened. It has been such a blessing, I think, to the campus because it opened up and people today I don’t think even know that the sidewalk that goes up and down is where the track used to be. It made it so much easier to expand in an area where we needed to expand.”
Among the changes on campus came the renovation of the Rhodes Field House in 1998. After years of playing in the Ganus Athletic Center, the Bisons and Lady Bisons basketball teams returned to the court that in recent months has gained national attention when it was voted as the Best Road Trip Destination in College Basketball. Men’s head coach Jeff Morgan said the renovations began as a sort of joke, but Burks quickly made them a reality.
“I can remember sitting in the Rhodes with Dr. Burks and coach Harnden during a Harding Academy game in the Rhodes,” Morgan said. “We all began dreaming about what you could do with the place. I went back to my office that night and drew up on a legal notebook pad what we had dreamed about. I gave it to coach Harnden the next day and he put a letter with it and sent it over to Dr. Burks. We were kind of half joking, but within a month, Dr. Burks had the architects here.. The next November we opened the season in front of about 4,000 in a 3,100 — seat Rhodes Field House, it was awesome.”
In addition to the building projects and changes to how chapel was done, Burks also authored a book, oversaw the expansion of the Stevens Art Center and led Harding in its 75th anniversary, among many other things. Still, he said, before all else he kept Harding’s mission as a Christian institution central to his presidency.
