Southwestern community thanks God for Dockery during presidential portrait unveiling

President David S. Dockery was honored with the unveiling of his presidential portrait in the B. H. Carroll Memorial Building Rotunda at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on March 12, an event held in conjunction with Founder’s Day, celebrating 118 years since the seminary was chartered.

The Rotunda filled with students, alumni, friends, trustees, faculty, and staff attending the event, including seventh president Ken Hemphill, Board Chairman Robert Brown, and Chancellor O. S. Hawkins, who was honored with the L. R. Scarborough Award at a luncheon later in the day.

Brown noted that while celebrating Founder’s Day, which is a time to recall the vision and courage of the founders and early leaders of the seminary, the Southwestern community also wanted to celebrate the current president, who himself graduated from Southwestern in 1981 and for almost four years has led the institution out of a tumultuous season.

“Since 2022, the seminary has taken major steps toward overall health with a renewed commitment to prayer and institutional stewardship,” Brown said. “Building upon the best of the Southwestern tradition and guided by our six core values, the entire Southwestern community has committed themselves anew to Christian faithfulness, to the love of God and others, to Christian unity and cooperation, as well as to academic seriousness in order to prepare men and women from all over the world to serve the churches, to engage our cultures, and to take the Gospel to the neighborhoods and the nations. During this time, the seminary has experienced a remarkable turnaround with a renewed dedication to the Southwestern mission and to our confessional convictions.

“This has come by God’s grace through the steady and capable leadership of President David Dockery.”

Despite his accomplished resume in his more than 30 years of experience in Christian education, Brown said Dockery would never ask to be celebrated, but would rather “celebrate the faithfulness of God to the Southwestern greater community.”

Hawkins said what he considers the “secret to the rebirth of Southwestern” in the past 42 months is the times of prayer led by Dockery in the Rotunda each Monday during the academic year, when faculty, staff, and students gather to pray for the institution.

Just as Israel was encouraged in the Old Testament to remember the works of God, Hawkins encouraged the audience to remember earlier Southwestern presidents used by God in the life of the institution: B. H. Carroll, first president and founder; L. R. Scarborough, the second president, who Hawkins said branded the seminary with a focus on evangelism and missions during his leadership; and fifth president Robert Naylor, who led the seminary into a time of growth while remaining faithful to the founder’s intent.

But Hawkins said he now adds Dockery’s name to that list of Southwestern greats.

“He saved this seminary from financial collapse, a multitude of years of deficit spending, from enrollment decline, from faculty and trustee relations that were tattered and frayed, from reputational ruin, and on and on I could go,” Hawkins said.

While previous leaders had a role in building the seminary into the institution they envisioned, Hawkins said Dockery had the much more difficult task of rebuilding the seminary, undoing former procedures so Southwestern could be a place of transparency and good stewardship.

“So when we walk through this Rotunda and these halls in years to come and in generations to come, and see the portrait of Dr. David Dockery, it’ll be a great reminder to us of thanksgiving that this was the man that God raised up for such a time as this, literally to save an institution that was at a doorway of collapse, financially and in every other way,” Hawkins said. “… So, today, we honor the Lord by honoring Dr. Dockery with this portrait, and we give thanksgiving to God for the gift He’s given us in you, Dr. Dockery, for saving our school for generations to come. Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Provost Madison Grace read a statement written and affirmed by the seminary faculty and on behalf of the staff, which also expressed gratitude to God for bringing Dockery to Southwestern in such a timely manner.

“We thank God especially for His blessing in providentially making David Samuel Dockery our 10th president at a critical moment when we faced manifold challenges from diverse directions,” Grace read from the statement, which also stated, “Dockery encouraged us from the moment he entered the President’s Office to pray for God to bless the work of our hands. Our seminary has become a campus of the bowed head, where we continually dedicate ourselves through weekly times of prayer.”

Under Dockery’s administration, the statement said Southwestern has experienced three consecutive years of meeting goals in unrestricted giving while increasing operational revenue and decreasing operational expenses, as well as three consecutive years of enrollment headcount increases.

Dockery also led the process of adopting the Advance Southwestern 2030 Plan and the six core values, prioritizing institutional advancement, and creating a positive campus culture.

“We Southwesterners thank God for making David S. Dockery our president for such a time as this,” Grace read from the statement. “His emphasis on prayer, his admirable leadership, and his excellent scholarship as well as his devotion to family and our community, have encouraged our faculty, staff, administration, students, alumni, trustees and friends to expect a wonderful future for the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

Dockery expressed deep appreciation to all involved in the unveiling event, the faculty members who drafted the statement, and Steve Ko, the alumnus who painted the portrait, which Dockery said includes details special to him, such as his academic regalia, the Bible in his hand, books in his library that he edited or authored or that were gifted to him, and a photo from the Union University campus, where he was visiting as former president of the institution when he received the invitation to lead Southwestern. The portrait project was completed as a result of generous gifts from anonymous donors.

Dockery also thanked the Board members and others who first provided him that opportunity to return to his alma mater.

“I fell in love with Southwestern Seminary 45 years ago,” Dockery said. “At that time, I could have never, ever envisioned this day. It’s an extremely rare privilege to serve as president of a Christian higher education institution or an institution of theological education, but it’s even more rare opportunity to serve one’s alma mater. Thank you for granting me this amazing blessing.”

Dockery said it was a surreal moment, standing in the Rotunda with his portrait in the same space as other presidents, naming Carroll, Scarborough, and Naylor who had significantly influenced the institution. But while he said he was grateful and recognized the great honor, Dockery said the day, celebrated annually as Founder’s Day, is ultimately about connecting the legacy of those early leaders to the present moment and into the future, while celebrating God’s faithfulness.

“This day is for the Southwestern community, bringing together yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” Dockery said. “Moreover, today is about our great God, about His providential, covenantal faithfulness to Southwestern Seminary. It’s this majestic faithfulness about which we have sung this morning that has sustained this institution and provides hope for Southwesterners in days to come.”

Dockery concluded, “I’m certainly thankful to and for each one of you, but let us all today acknowledge afresh on this day our deep dependence on our Lord. Let us continue to trust Him to provide for, protect, enable, and sustain this institution that we love. So together on this day, let us conclude by saying thanks be to God from whom all blessings flow.”