Wake Forest Career 1954-1959
Baptist Student Union Director 1954-1956
In 1954, while a student at Southeastern Seminary, Ed became the part-time director of the Baptist Student Union (BSU) at Wake Forest College. He worked for Dr. J. Glenn Blackburn, a fiery red-head who Ed claims as one of his most important mentors. At the time, Dr. Blackburn was pastor of the Wake Forest Baptist Church and also served as the Wake Forest Chaplain.
Ed was comfortable in this job — after all, he had recently graduated from Wake Forest College and then the Wake Forest Law School, knew the community and the students. Yet he also looked at the opportunity as a seminary student exploring different kinds of work within his new vocation.
He also had an eye forward towards change. For example, in 1954, he began to envision a change to the pre-school retreat for the BSU executive board held just before the Wake Forest College school year opened. Ed proposed that incoming freshman also be invited, an opportunity which would allow them to meet the BSU leadership and get to know more about the college at the same time. His proposal took shape in 1955, with two retreats held at Camp Kanata.
Each year, he took initiative to improve and expand the retreat. In the years after the move to Winston-Salem, he began to invite campus ministers from other denominations to take part. Also, as the retreat grew, it was moved to the YMCA’s beautiful Camp Hanes in Stokes County, NC, less than one hour from the campus.
Over time, the pre-school retreat — now the Pre-School Conference — became a multi-day program of mini-courses taught by faculty members, discussion groups on a variety of topics, sports, swimming, periods of meditation and silence, worship, guest speakers, nightly music and campfires. The Conference closed with a communal worship service the final morning before students, ministers, and faculty returned for the new school year.
What was happening at Pre-School Conference in the decade between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s reflected what was happening with Wake Forest’s Campus Ministry. Over the next decade, Ed and many others shared a vision for Campus Ministry which would incorporate other denominations of faith and unify students through spirituality. He also continued to engage and remind faculty, staff, and administrators of the legacy of Wake Forest as a Baptist school, which at times seemed to be swimming against the tide of change.
Baptist Campus Minister, 1956-1959
When Ed and Jean made the move to Winston-Salem, they were part of a unique stage of Wake Forest’s history. The College came to the City, and Winston-Salem welcomed it with open arms. Ed and Jean remember a reception held at the Coliseum where all the faculty and administrative staff were introduced to the community, walking down the steps one at a time as their names were read aloud.
There were also dinner invitations for each of the faculty and staff, invited in small groups to dine with ‘host families’ in the city. Ed and Jean attended a lovely event on Stratford Road and remember it fondly. They felt warmly welcomed in the College’s new home.
Ed continued his position as Baptist Campus Minister. The scope of his work, and that of the chaplain, had grown. On the old campus, the Chaplain’s job was an extension of the Church pastor’s position. Now the jobs were separated, and J. Allan Easley of the Religion Department served as interim chaplain 1958-1959. In the summer of 1959, L. H. Hollingworth became the Wake Forest Chaplain and served through 1969.
One new element was the work of pastoral care. Wake Forest’s medical school — then called the Bowman Gray School of Medicine — was already located in Winston-Salem. In 1957, Ed completed the course in Clinical Pastoral Training at the North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Bowman Gray. His certificate was signed in July 1957 by Richard K. Young, Director, and Everett Barnard, Associate Director of the Department of Pastoral Care.
Comments
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I arrived on campus in the Fall of 1961 to attend the Baptist Student Union Pre School Retreat just prior to freshman orientation. I had no idea of what I was entering. As green as green could be, I had never even seen Wake Forest until that moment. Ed had invited three different thinkers, each representing a different stream of Christian theology. One was a liberal from Duke Divinity School; another, a religion professor from UNC-Chapel Hill holding forth on neo-orthodoxy while the third was the editor of conservative Christianity Today magazine. My roots were Alabama Baptist and three years at a preparatory school that sometimes resembled a crucible for thought control. Suddenly I entered this rarefied context of dialogue, probing, challenging and questioning at a camp on the advent of freshman orientation. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. It was fantastic. Marvelous. Eye-opening. Ed continued to provide presence, affirmation and trustworthy support in my undergraduate experience. He was a central figure for helping me sort through personal and vocational challenges. He helped me to begin to see myself as worthwhile as a young adult. I now know that all too many university graduates never had such a person as guide. How privledged and how blessed I know I am to have had Ed in my corner. As I was completing preaching and celebrating Eucharist at an Episcopal church this morning in northern Arizona, Ed’s name flashed through my mind. I knew that I am able to do what I do in part because of him. Thank you, Ed.
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