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Striking While the Iron is Hot Note: What follows is the transcript of a speech given by Dr. Heilman at the Annual President's Club Dinner, Campbellsville University, October 26, 2015 By Dr. E. Bruce Heilman, Chancellor, University of Richmond Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, guests, and to the most important constituency of Campbellsville University, members of the President's Club. When earlier I was asked to be the speaker on this occasion, I was without guidelines as to what my subject might be. Since that earlier assignment, however, I made a decision that has changed the nature of my presence at the podium. President Carter has announced a new building on the horizon followed by Chairman Owens publically announcing that I will donate the lead gift toward funding this exciting adventure. So, with the anticipation of a giant step forward in facilities, I caption my comments "Strike while the iron is hot." We must strike now while we have a president who has moved this institution far and has yet the time and capacity to move it much farther. "Striking while the iron is hot" should be our motto. Someone said, the world steps aside to let those pass who know where they are going. What this University is about to do proves the fact that those in charge know where they are going and the results will prove them right. As to the announced contribution of $1 million, my late wife Betty would admonish us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. On an occasion in the past, she advised our daughter who was about 6 or 7 years old not to respond to inquiries about who she was by saying "I am Dr. Heilman's daughter," but simply "I am Terry Heilman." Shortly thereafter a professor passing Terry on campus asked "Aren't you Dr. Heilman's daughter?" "Yes," she replied, "but my mother told me not to admit it." So no self-righteousness is appropriate in regard to this contribution. The fact is we are not being as generous as it may first appear. It is, rather the payment of a debt covered by the whole family of 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. It is their debt as well as that of the family members who are graduates because of the benefits they received in becoming well-educated and professionally successful individuals resulting from their forebears' good fortune in being educated at this place. But, only by understanding the circumstances of the lives of Betty and me, can you fully appreciate why we see ourselves as paying a debt. I grew up on a dairy farm in Kentucky as the son of a tenant farmer, a smart man who didn't finish grade school because his father lost the farm during the Great Depression and took his own life. My dad was 12 years old but had 3 siblings younger so he quit school to support them and his mother. Working as a farm laborer through his teen years, he married my mother whose family also lost their farm. Because 4 children were born to them soon after marriage, dad was never able to complete school or to study for the ministry, which was his ambition. Dad and Mother were self educated and imbued with high ethical and moral standards. Both became leaders in the church and community. With a family of 7 including my grandmother, we boys were expected from age 9 to do the work of a man. This greatly affected my performance in school. Milking cows early in the morning and after school caused me to sleep through classes so that I failed more courses than I passed. Thus I have never completed the required high school credits. I joined the Marine Corps at age 17 at 5'8" tall and 130 pounds. I grew 4 inches taller and gained 30 pounds the first 6 months I was a Marine and became the top scorer on the rifle range using Kentucky windage. I entered combat at age 18 on Okinawa and after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I served 8 months occupation duty in Japan including walking in the ashes of both cities while still hot with radiation. With no ambition to go to college, I reenlisted in the Marine Corps. I had stayed in touch with Bob Oldham who I met in combat on Okinawa. He knew that I had no interest in college and of my poor academic performance. He had entered Campbellsville Junior College and suggested I should give it a try. They will accept anybody he said. I had written to Georgetown College, and the response was discouraging because I didn't have enough high school credits to be admitted. But having later served as Treasurer there for three years with the highest salary next to the president and having been invited twice to consider the presidency, I have great respect for their judgment after the first turndown. So Bob Oldham escorted me on his motorcycle to Campbellsville, where I enrolled with a wave of veterans from World War II, most on probation and all assigned to a wooden barracks with a potbellied stove often red hot during the winter weather. While we were away on a break, the barrack burned to the ground. Then an angel appeared in my life serving pie and when I asked for a second piece, she gave me hers. This led to a date and 10 days later, my proposal of marriage, which she accepted, and it lasted 65 years. We married three months later with President [Dr. John M.] Carter performing the ceremony. The next day he called me into his office and handed me a $10 bill saying, you need this worse than I do. I had given this, my last $10.00, as his fee for marrying us. It was the last and only $10.00 I had. Although Betty was reprimanded because we were caught holding hands, things changed rapidly when Johnnie came marching home. We had spent our college years in defense of our country. Collectively, we had experienced combat, had ships blown out from under us, had survived airplane crashes, and various vehicle accidents, where death was not uncommon and serious injuries were frequent. Thus, the contrast of college life was substantial. But for me, the effect of college was enormous. I came to realize the truth of the admonition of William Butler Yeats, that "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." Campbellsville College changed me into a motivated and highly ambitious person. In Revelation 3:8 we read, "Behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it." Such was the pathway for my future and that of my wife. While Betty was academically qualified, she had no money. Her mother died when she was 16. Her alcoholic father assumed no responsibility for her or her 4 sisters, ranging in ages from 2 to 14. They had to be placed in an orphanage. This college granted her a work scholarship to pay her way. She travelled with a trio when the President spoke at churches on Sunday mornings. After we were married, she worked at the five and dime store for $0.10 an hour, and I worked in the chair factory for $0.12 an hour. We rented a war surplus trailer for $16.00 a month on what is now the football field, with a community bathhouse providing mostly unheated water in the dead of winter. Campbellsville College gave us both a good foundation. It was a launching pad, worth all we are giving and more. Had I not been given a chance here, I likely would not have attended college. Thus, I would not have met my wife and become President of a college and a University, neither of which I was qualified to be admitted as a student. After graduating from Campbellsville with a 3.8 average and a year at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, I became a professor at Vanderbilt University before I finished my undergraduate degree. Yes, I am designating a million dollars for all these reasons and for this new building which can be a visible expression of quality, style, functionality, and character for the whole campus and community. Students do not learn from the other end of a log in this day. Even Mark Hopkins would recognize that fact were he here today. We fool ourselves if we think buildings are secondary to being the best we can be. As the Ransdell Chapel transformed the spiritual landscape and the Montgomery Library, the academic, this structure will highlight the architectural style of the campus for the future. It will represent the largest building on campus, the most expensive, and the most diverse in function. It will be a bridge between the University and its external publics. The building will accommodate admissions, alumni, and career services plus other activities compatible and essential, perhaps including wellness activities. These functions represent relationships with thousands coming from off campus as prospective students and their families, graduates returning as alumni, and executive recruiters of graduating seniors. With this as a first impression rather than old houses converted, guests will experience quality and compatibility. This addition will be so configured as to accommodate more activities of the Greater Campbellsville community as well. Following this evening, there will be an opportunity for all President's Club members and the greater Campbellsville Community to engage in raising a $1 million to match my million debt payment plus up to $3 million being raised from foundations and other individuals, a one to 4 ratio. Thus, a contribution of $10,000 will guarantee $50,000 toward the building. So with contributions from those in this room and beyond, we can reach $1 million in short order and break ground with the funding complete. Thus, you will determine when we break ground. I dare say that almost without exception, everyone in this audience could contribute a minimum of $5,000 to place your name on a plaque in the building showing that you made possible a historic happening. Many of you who are capable must give more in order for the $1 million to fill its space in the puzzle. Some, as I have done, will want to pay off your debt. Some will reflect on already giving to the President's Club, to the general campaign and now are asked to contribute to this announced venture. Yes, that's true in my case as well. But, I had to reflect, as you will, on the fact that without my best commitment this won't happen or so far into the future that some of us won't be around. Opportunity knocks at inconvenient times. As Thomas Carlyle said, "Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can." We cannot add debt for this new addition; that's why I have made my commitment now. To fill the spaces in the puzzle, everybody must chip in. Everything that has ever happened has happened because somebody dreamed that it could and would happen. The Museum of the Marines has a bronze plaque on which the names of the founders are inscribed, and I am eternally grateful that my name as a Marine for 72 years is on that plaque. Over the years, projects have tended to be brought about by individual funding. Thank goodness, for without the Montgomery family, we would be short a library, or the Ransdells, no chapel, the Gossers no to several projects. Other names are in prominent places - the Noe family, David Morris and others, who made projects possible. But this time it can be different for everyone can participate. For all who contribute $5,000 or more, will be listed on a plaque bearing the name as having made the building possible. You will be the one who made it possible and proud of it for as long as the building stands. If you were told that only your contribution of $5,000 or more stood in the way of $4,955,000, how many could turn down that challenge. I hope no one. So, with my $1 million and your $1 million plus $1 million from foundations being pursued and the contribution of an individual pending, only $1 million remains. And as to the final $5 million, it will be the selling the parts of the facility such as the career center, it will be named for somebody who wants to see that happen, for the alumni center, why wouldn't some alumnus or alumna who would know that for the rest of his or her lifetime and far into the future, the alumni center would bear the name of that particular person proud to be a graduate of Campbellsville and able to give a half million dollars for that privilege of naming the alumni center. So, bit by bit, we will sell the building for naming privileges. And as soon as the design of the building is finished, the various parts will be sold as rights. Some accounting firm would surely want to name the career center with Campbellsville being the top school producing first time highest percentage of passing the CPA exam. So there will be names for floors, for rooms, for activities to make everything available to produce the fifth one million. It is not ours to put a camel through the eye of a needle but rather together to take advantage of a window of opportunity that might never again present itself so clearly. "A rising tide lifts all ships," so that this community is lifted higher as its University is elevated to new heights of academic quality by way of the best facilities. Julius Caesar said that there is a tide in the affairs of men when taken at the flood leads on to fortune, omitted all the voyage of their lives are lost in shallows and in miseries. The tide will either lift us up or wash us under. You and I will make the difference. I have already expressed my position. Now I wait to see whether 400 others will match what has been announced that I will do. I hope that all of you will ride the tide with me. So I challenge you, I charge you, I applaud you, I commend you, and I leave you with a direction before you with an arrow pointed ahead and I say to you that there is nothing more satisfying than success. Emerson said, "Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do all that we can whether we like it or not." I know that I can compel none of you to do anything. But, if I inspire your best, then Emerson's theory will be fulfilled. Everything that succeeds is like a puzzle. Your part of this puzzle is the $1 million to match the $4 million from other sources. Once this puzzle is complete, we can initiate the project which will further heat the iron and spark the momentum which says to the world and to each one of us that Campbellsville University is still leading the parade of progress among private church related colleges. If you will do your part, I will continue my effort at working the rest of the puzzle as it cannot become a picture in its place on campus if any piece is missing. Just in case any of you among the faculty and staff believe that after 65 years as a senior administrator in higher education I have overlooked the most important contributors of the enterprise, I have not. Sometimes there is lag time following the benefits of confidence building and observed momentums by actions recognized as progress by the contributing public. Actions speak louder than words and these actions will, as already they are, inspiring giving more than many words. We can see action and progress along with needed improvements. I end with words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his "A Psalm of Life" - Words that awaken me anew to the wonder of mankind as opportunity is seized and responsibility accepted. Tell me not, in mournful numbers,And, as we labor, we will not have to wait long for the results to come. Progress for this University comes only if we continue to dream dreams, and see visions. We must think big, and act courageously. All must be prepared to set the example, and lead out in action, create the confidence, sustain the mood, plant the stepping stones and keep things going so as to induce others to follow. Walt Disney said, "If you can dream it, you can do it." Certainly the dream and the vision must include necessary resources. What has been announced tonight in resources for important projects is unprecedented in amount in a short period of time. It creates a wave of momentum that can carry us into the future, clothed with confidences and anticipation leading to a new level of optimism capable of lifting us above any hurdles that might otherwise have obscured our dreams for the future. Almost any charge given by inspired, ambitious, energetic, and positive leaders can be the foundation for success. We now have the kind of leadership of which we should continue to take full advantage and press forward "while the iron is hot." This story was posted on 2015-10-28 14:40:49
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