President, Dr. James H. Costen. Dr. Costen, welcome.

Thank you very much, Cassandra.

Dr. Costen has a few statements he would like to make, and then we will go on with the interview. Dr. Costen.

In this interview, I. First of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity to say a few words about my tenure here at ITC. And I have prepared some things and then we can go into your questioning. I would like to say, first of all, that the things that I'm proud of are listed here. And one is a building of a strong, diverse and a very growingly strong board of trustees. The establishment of a Department of Planning and evaluation. The development of a strong faculty and a strong curriculum. We have a faculty now, including those who will be retiring this year and those who will be employed this year. We will have a faculty of 21 continuing faculty members and they are spread out in the four fields of our curriculum. I have had the good pleasure of employing 12 of the 21 faculty members on our staff. Or 57% of our faculty. I'm very proud to say that nine of the 21 full time faculty members here at ITC are female or 43% of our faculty. Probably the highest percentage of female faculty members of any seminary in the country. Seven of the nine female faculty were employed during my presidency. Of the 21 full time faculty members, 19 have their doctorates. One will receive her doctorate this summer, meaning that we have only one of our full time faculty members at the end of this summer who will not have a doctorate. Few faculty have had published anything prior to my tenure. Today, 16 of the 21 full time faculty members here at ITC have published in major publication houses. On average, about three books are published each year by members of our faculty. Probably one of the highest of all higher education. Faculty members, without exception, are deeply involved in the worship life of their local churches. All are heavily involved in the programmatic functions of the churches they attend. We have established four fully funded faculty chairs here at ITC. We have a strong in-house field education program that was not in existence when I became president. We have a church music degree program that was initiated and the faculty numbers one and a half persons. We have establishment of a missiology and World Religions program here at ITC, one of the few seminaries in the country with a major in world religions and missiology. We have developed an interdisciplinary program, our project called Foundations of Ministry, where students upon entering, get a full sweep of the theological curriculum. We have established a process for curriculum revision. And during my tenure we have had two full curriculum revisions and review. We have a joint degree program established in ministry or divinity and in public health with the Morehouse School of Medicine. We have student assistants now in each of our teaching areas, meaning that our students get an opportunity to share with the professors in the various areas. We have established a number of new programs, dramatic new programs here at the ITC during my tenure. One is the program Black Women in Church and Society. Another is our program in rural ministry. Another is in Pastoral Counseling Center. The Institute of Church Administration and Management. The Extension Education Program, Pan-African Christian Church Conferences. And our student academic clubs in the areas of Biblical studies, geology, history and missiology and world religions. We have completely computerized every aspect of the campus, including a well used computer lab available to all of our students. We have developed a strong journal of the ITC. Probably one of the best journals in theological education. We have reorganized administrative and support staffs. There are 18 administrative and support staff departments here at ITC. These 18 departments have a total of 55 staff members, 38 of whom are female. In addition to the 55 ITC staff members, there are a there are 16 staff members at the six constituent seminaries. Eight of the 16 are female. Of the 55 ITC staff persons, 47 have been employed during my tenure. Of the 16 staff persons in the seminary offices, 12 were employed during my time. We have reviewed and updated the ITC bylaws. We have established the following administrative categories. Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs. We have the Registrar. Director of Financial Services. Director of Institutional Advancement. Director of Administrative Services. Under my administration, he Organization of the Atlanta University Center has been completely restructured. The Woodruff Library has been renovated and computerized at a cost of over $4 million, and information system is currently being instituted in the Atlanta University Center schools at a cost, total cost of about $12 million. Our annual budget today at ITC is $7 million as compared to $1.7 million when I assumed my duties in 1983. We have had a balanced budget in each year except one of my administration. Our endowment has grown from $3 million to almost $10 million. We have had over $30 million contributed to the school in gifts and grants. We have developed a comprehensive strategic plan that has both income and expenditure assumptions, meaning that we know what we want to do and when we want to do it. During my administration, we have built the Turner Seminary building. The Costen Lifelong Education Center, renovated the dining hall, classroom building, campus apartments, installed a new heating and air conditioning system, installed a voice mail telephone system, installed wrought iron fences and gates throughout the campus. And we have built a beautiful new gatehouse. Faculty salaries have been raised from an embarrassingly low level in 1983 to national average or above national average. Today, salaries have been increased in all but one year of my administration. ITC has become well known, well-respected and much involved by its two accrediting agencies, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Association of Theological Schools. My personal involvements have been many and quite varied. I have served during my time as president as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church. I have served as president of the Association of Theological Schools. I have served as a member of the Olympic Advisory Committee and chair of one of its committees. I have been a member of the Atlanta Project Executive Committee, and I currently serve as a member of the East Lake Community Foundation trying to build a new community in the East Lake area. ITC has some of the finest students enrolled in any theological school in the world. We are very proud of these students. They come from every walk of life, second, third career and increasingly those who are coming straight from college. We feel very good about the future of ITC and we look forward to its continuation under my successor, Dr. Robert Michael Franklin.

Thank you, Dr. Costen. We really appreciate that. You've covered a lot of the things that I wanted to ask you about. But there are several other questions. We'd like.

Please, please do.

Dr. Costen, you've been the pillar of this community, not just the ITC community, but the Atlanta community at large for a number of years of 28 years that you've served as Smith Seminary dean as well as president of ITC. How did this all happen? In fact, what influence did your childhood have on where you are now and your success?

Well, my childhood a great deal of influence on whatever I have done in life. Number one, I had a mother who taught us that while we were very poor, we were poor as dirt, but that we were important. And she taught us that we could do what we wanted to do. And if we worked hard. I think that that had a great impact on me. Plus, as a child, I had a wonderful church background. My local church provided the support necessary for me to be a college student, and I have never forgotten the fact that they made it possible for me to go to college and to achieve. And I promised them, and I promise God that if I ever achieved, it was going to be full time and not part time.

Okay. Let's talk a bit about your tenure here as Smith Seminary dean. During the Costen Celebration, one of your first pupils, Dr. David Wallace, said that they taught you well because it was a new experience for you. So would you talk about that for a minute?

One thing that I have discovered in my years of ministry, I left seminary in 1950. January of 1956. So I've been in ministry since 1956. I have learned that there is no better preparation for anything you want to do in ministry than to have served in the local church. And so when I came to Johnson C. Smith as Dean in 1969, I was for the first few years, very, very lost. I felt like I was not doing what God wanted me to do. And it was not until I recognized that I could make Johnson C. Smith my parish. It became my little church. And I attempted to try to do for Johnson C. Smit's students what my church had done for me to provide a nurturing cocoon type of relationship. And I gave students my all and the early years of Johnson C. Smith gave me an opportunity to really explore and to experiment on these kinds of things. And I think it was well worth the effort because I felt like I was fulfilled. And I think increasingly the students felt that they were being fulfilled.

What was one of your most memorable moments or experiences while dean?

While dean of Johnson C. Smith? I would say one of the most memorable experiences was to to see and this would be a collective experience to see some of the rough edges of students developed and develop into very highly polished and highly toned experiences where they really hit stride and began to take hold in the life of the church and contribute to the life of the church. I think another was the graduation of Katie Cannon. Katie Cannon was the first Black Presbyterian woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church. And I have had the opportunity of sort of nurturing Katie from almost from birth because she was a young girl in North Carolina when I was a young pastor, and I was the person who talked with her about possibility of ministry and helping steer her through Johnson C. Smith and into her graduate work. So I would say that she would be one of the highlights of my deanship and Johnson C. Smith.

In your opening comments as well as now, you have alluded to the fact that women are extremely accomplished and well equipped to become students and to take on leadership roles and to be pastors and so forth. That was not necessarily the case when you first came to ITC either as Dean and then also becoming president of ITC. You have made some significant strides in that area. Can you talk about those?

Going back to the time when I first came here as the Dean of Johnson C. Smith in 1969, there were six women in the student body of the entire ITC. Women were just as rare as hen's teeth. And this has been a development over this period. I have seen women continue to move not only here, but nationally. And we do not have the percentage of women in our student body that some of the seminaries have today. Some seminaries have as many as 60% of their student bodies as female. Ours would be in the high thirties. These women feel the call of God. And one of the problems that we face here at ITC and I think in the church as a whole, is to create the proper climate for their acceptance. Too many of our churches still do not fully accept women as ministers, and I think this is most unfortunate because I believe that God has called some very fine women to the ministry. And I think that God is not going to be pleased until these persons have full access to every aspect of their calling.

So one of the programs here at ITC is the Black Women in Church and Society. Why do you think it's such an important program, particularly during this aspect in the life of ITC and also in its relevance to not only women but also to men?

When this program was first established, I remember going to New York, to the Ford Foundation, to talk to them about it. And it was designed to give women students the kind of background, since many of them are not accepted in pulpits. It is a program to give them the kind of background that would enable them to have the experiences of an ordained clergy person, but also to be able to associate their theological training to secular delivery services in any given community, giving them a kind of employability that they would not normally have had. And so that program has been most important in that regard, in terms of its expansion to include men. It was the design that while men are certainly not women in ministry, they do need to have the same kind of sensitivity to the kinds of concerns and the kinds of problems that women face as they attempt to minister. And so we did broaden the program to include men. But the major emphasis has always been, and I hope will continue to be, on providing these opportunities for women to gain the experiences necessary to make sure that they can have employment opportunities upon completing their work here at ITC.

Let's talk a bit more about your experiences while at ITC as president. We talked about the memorable people and occasions at Smith, but what about ITC? What are some of the things that stand out most?

Oh, my. Too many to talk about. Here again to see the the students who come raw as gourds, green as gourds. And to see them leave with self-confidence and knowing who they are, what they are about, and what they have to contribute. That's I probably would say that's number one. Number two is the the just large number of our students who leave here and go on to be some of the world leaders in the area of religion. And I have only to refer to many of the countries of Africa. It is so inspiring to go to places like Kenya, to Ghana and to Nigeria, to South Africa, to to Zambia, to Cameroon, to Sudan, and to see our students in the very top level of leadership in these churches, in these in these countries, not in subordinate positions, but they are leading the churches in terms of their positions of leadership. That would be another one of the real glorious things. I would say that in the third place would be the fact that ITC is no longer considered just a Black theological seminary. ITC in the halls of accrediting associations and in the minds of those who know theological education best, is considered one of the strong theological seminary in the United States today. In fact, in one of the strongest in the world. I attended last summer the World Organization of Theological Schools in Nairobi, Kenya. And I was amazed, truly amazed at the awe with which this seminary is looked upon across the world. I would say that would be a very high point in the life of this institution. And then I think another would be its growing financial stability. We're not there yet, but we certainly are a far cry from where we were or a far cry from where many of the other seminaries are today.

You talked a bit about some of the alums who are in African countries, and we'll talk a bit more about what you will be doing when you retire in that regard. But when you think of outstanding alums of ITC who comes to mind? What persons come to mind?

Oh, in many areas. Bishop Charles Blake, for example, in the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Cornelius Henderson in the United Methodist Church. I mentioned Katie Cannon and the Presbyterian Church. A person like Spencer Gibbs, Bryant George, Darius Swann in the Presbyterian Church, in the CME Church, Bishop Thomas Hoyt, one of the finest bishops in that church, a strong graduate of this institution, a strong scholar preacher. In the AME Church. Young ministers like, Oh, I can't think of his name, but in South Carolina, South Carolina has more, more AMEs and preachers than people. But the A.M.E. Church has some strong people. Michael Bouie. For example, in the Baptist, it's just a pantheon of people. Cameron Alexander, Howard Creecy. We could go across the country. Joe Ratliff. And find other persons who have made wonderful contributions. I could go on in every denomination, not only the six that make up ITC, but many, many others in other denominations who have come to ITC. We have made our contribution in just about every field imaginable.

When you came to ITC, you developed an ethos. Would you talk about that ethos, what it is and what it has meant to you while being president of ITC?

Yes, I believe that today, more than ever, it is necessary in the higher education to put emphasis on values. I think that's the missing ingredient in general in society today. The the feeling that values can be downplayed and still maintain a high level of of acceptability. So upon coming to Johnson C. Smith and ITC, I developed a four tiered understanding of ethos, which I called the ITC ethos. The first was honesty. It has been and is my desire to see our students honest in all of their endeavors, not just the fact they don't steal, but honest in terms of truly developing themselves according to God's gifts, honest in terms of their relationships to others, honest in terms of what they do with their lives and the investment of their lives. It is a sin, as far as I'm concerned, for a person to be given much and to return little. I think that that's the part of the honesty. Another prong in this ethos is integrity. Integrous lives are important lives for me. There are some people who have no. Put no value on their word. I'd like to think that one's word is the most important thing that they own. And I like to see people who are integrous, who whose word is their bond. If they say something, they mean it. Some people just say things to get out of the kitchen where the heat is, and they have no understanding, no appreciation for fact or whether it is true or not. So integrity is the second. The third is industry. I believe that more is achieved through sweat to through perspiration than inspiration. I think that working hard is one of the greatest things that a person can do. Not many people are are geniuses. Not many people just can absorb without a great deal of work. But a person who works hard, they can achieve as much as those persons who are truly inspired and who are truly intellectuals. And I think that industry, the ability to work hard toward the achievement of goals will in fact help achieve goals. And then the fourth prong is commitment. Being convicted to and by things. What I give myself to, I give myself to achieve certain things with every fiber of my being, with all of my energy, committed to high ideals, committed to serve the Lord and in my living in my lifestyle, committed to serve people. So the ethos is HIIC, honesty, integrity, industry and commitment.

I have watched your grandson Josef come to campus and actually grow up on campus. And I think what I see, what I personally see has been those sorts of things that you've instilled in him.

I would hope so. I'm not always aware. I don't I don't try to dingdong slogans at my. Didn't do it for my children and haven't done it for my grands. But I would like to think that what I have said in the way I have said it and how I've lived my life would communicate these kinds of things to him. So if you have seen that, I must admit to you that I'm very flattered because I would like to think that my grandchildren, whom I think are the finest children God ever, in any way, are being recognized for who they are and what they exude.

Dr. Costen. What's been your greatest challenge in the 14 years you were president?

My greatest challenge here at ITC as president has been to move the institution from marginality. Quite frankly, Cassandra, when I became president, ITC was on its last legs. It was considered to be a school that had outlived its usefulness. In fact, each year it was slipping into further deficit. I inherited a school with just slightly under $1,000,000 of deficits. I inherited a school that the accrediting agencies had almost given up on. The foundation world was not interested at all in providing financial support for the institution. I would say that my greatest contribution to ITC has been to put all of this behind us. To raise the the level of public relations and you have been instrumental in this. ITC is no longer a well-kept secret. We have a story to tell, a wonderful story, and you have done that quite well. And as a result of having told that story we have produced, it's not just been an idle story, idle talk we have produced. And as a result now, of the 226 seminaries accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, ITC consistently is in the top five of these seminaries in terms of support received from foundations. It is very unusual for a seminary to average over $2 million a year from foundations. But for many of the years of my presidency, we have received over $2 million a year from foundations. So going back to your original question, I would say the greatest challenge that I have faced has been to try to find the resources to move ITC to a position of solidity and to erase the marginal life that it lived. And if you ask the question about what our greatest challenge is in the future, I will say that it will be to move our endowment from its current position of about $10 million to about $25 million because only then and in in unrestricted dollars only then, when you have the income from this kind of endowment, can you truly launch the kinds of programs that you would like to have and that you deserve to have. Now we we are doing all right, but we could do so much better if we had the income from a larger endowment that would help us to truly develop our program to the fullest.

If you could take a day out of the life of ITC and your presidency from perhaps the first few months of being President at ITC and compare it to yesterday as president, what would it be like?

A day current?

Yes.

As it compared to a day in the past. I would say that a day today is spent smiling a lot about pride. I'm so proud of ITC. I am truly proud of ITC, students, faculty. We have a faculty the likes of which you don't see every day. Today I'm I spent a great deal of time cultivating funding sources, visiting people who have shown interest in ITC. When I became president, I think I had some of the same pride in the in the school, but we didn't have a whole lot to be proud of at that time. Things had gone down hill so fast. The days were spent just trying to find someone who knew enough about us to go talk to about the school. We were trying to have a small capital campaign doing those early days, and the strategic study or the feasibility study indicated that we were not going to be too successful because the people who could give us the money didn't know anything about us. That would not be true today. I think that that would be one of the major differences. Ours now is in, I would say, the in the business world, and we'll call it the marketing phase. Then it was in the the cultivation stage and the the stage of of getting your product to the point where it can go on market.

Dr. Costen let's talk a bit about the students. We are upon graduation, about to graduate another I think about 85 students.

Yes. Plus the certificate.

Yes. About 105 extension education persons who will be receiving the certificate in theology. What advice can you give to them? And then what advice can you give to new students who are just here and embarking upon the adventure at ITC and answering the call to ministry?

That's a fairly easy question for me. I tend to be very single minded in this regard. I feel that the advice that I would give students upon leaving ITC is that their ministry is going to be significant in direct relationship to how hard they work and then secondly to it will be significant if they will get out of the way and let the Lord lead them. I think that too often people in leadership positions make too much of leadership positions and they assume that they have to change their style. They assume that they have to become pompous. They assume that they need to change their voice to sound authoritative. And I believe that if you can go into ministry, just being who you are. When we were in seminary, we used to have a little ditty and I'll use it here. It's not very good English, but it makes the point, be who you is and not who you ain't. Because when you is who you ain't, you ain't who you is. That little ditty, I think, speaks volumes as to what I would hope our students would do upon going into ministry. So that would be the first point. And you asked a second part of that and that was?

Yes, advice to incoming schools or those who are just new here.

I would suggest to them that they recognize that they are coming to to school to learn and to deepen their understanding of ministry and to drink deeply, to drink deeply, to become students of ministry. So often people want to do too much, too soon. And I would like to suggest that students entering seminary will make the library a very popular place, that they would make their courses here at ITC and and any course they take find as much information as they can find in those courses and prepare for their ministry. They will have plenty of time to execute their ministry, but they need to get the background so that they can upon being called upon, they can answer present. And that's one of the things that I find is missing today. So often students will come in and they don't want to study because they want to be out doing things. And I contend that they will have plenty of time to do things, but they need to do now is to what they need to do now is to gain the background required. I am surprised at how many things I'm called upon to do every day that I cannot tell you for the life of me when I learned it. But you learn it when you least expect it. And you use it under some of the most adverse conditions and some of the most surprising conditions. And so just to be ready so that when the bell rings, you can start running.

That's great. I like that. Some years ago you started the, something that was just different for most presidents. You at commencement rehearsal would give everyone a dollar and give them some words of wisdom about stewardship. What was the meaning of that gesture?

Well, then and now it is absolutely required for students graduating from historically Black institutions to support these schools. There was a time when it didn't take much to operate these institutions and they could get by on on a song. But today it is a very expensive operation, and it is not a very good telling mark for a person to absorb the education of this institution or any institution and not feel a sense of obligation to help support the institution upon going into their professional service. The dollar that was distributed to our students was nothing but a reminder that they have been given, and the hope is that they will continue to give back to the school. And you'd be amazed to know how many students as I have gone around the country, have that dollar framed in their on their office walls, and some have a little inscription under it, the date it was given and the like as a reminder. But increasingly, we are getting alums to contribute to the school and when they write back, they will mention the fact in partial payment of the dollar that you gave us.

That's great. Dr. Costen, if you had a couple more years at ITC is there any unfinished business you'd like to complete?

Yes, I would like to build the endowment of ITC to $25 million. Again, I say that that is one of the real needs that the institution has. I would say another need would be to to we are very close, but I believe that our optimum number of degrees students would be about 500. So we would need to build our student body by another 50 or 75 students and to diversify the student body even more than it is. And it is a very diverse student body now, but I think that it could be further diversified. I would say that another one of the things that I could do if I were going to be here would be to help ITC as a whole appreciate the Treasury it has in its international flavor. I'm not sure that many of our students truly appreciate the contribution of the students from Africa and other places in the world. They are they are civil. It's not a matter of not according them, their just respect. But I'm not sure they really appreciate the royalty in their midst. And I would love to see this become a much greater understanding than it is. These persons from these various points of the world are not tabula rasa. They do not come with a blank sheet. They come with a great deal to offer us. And I'm not sure even our faculty truly takes advantage of what we have in our midst.

Well, perhaps some of that will change because we have the first time in the history of ITC, our first international president. President, who is an international student.

That is true.

Of the SCL.

I was so pleased to hear that.

So perhaps those things will change. Dr. Costen, what advice would you give to our incoming president?

I would not be so presumptuous as to give a great deal of advice to our incoming president. We are going to have a period starting in a few weeks, in fact, from the 1st of May to the 1st of July, when he will be here with me full time. And I have already said to him that I do not plan to fill his head with my agenda, that he will need to ask me what he wants to ask me, and and I will give him any response that I have. But I do not plan to in any way influence the next president of ITC except for things that he feels is necessary.

Finally, let's talk about retirement. Your wife said on a videotape that, Jim, just what are you going to be doing? Does it mean you're going to be cooking? But she also acknowledged the fact that she likes cornflakes.

Well, I am I can cook cornflakes quite well, but I'm equally good with Frosted Flakes. I can I can do either of those quite well. And so maybe we might just have corn flakes for breakfast and Frosted Flakes or Puff Wheat for dinner. In retirement. Cassandra, I back in 1974, visited Kenya for the first time and invited a person from that church and provided a scholarship for a minister of the church in Kenya Presbyterian Church to come to Johnson C. Smith. And since 1974, we have provided scholarships for 22 persons from Kenya to come here and to study. And about 17 or 18 have gone back now. And as I indicated, they are in very significant positions in the life of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. They have asked me through there and they are the secretary general, for example, the last three have been our graduates. They have asked me to come and to help them in the area of theological education. They have two areas for the training of theological students. One is in the seminary, the St. Paul's Seminary, which is a an ITC in Kenya. It has about five denominations related to it, but often they do not have enough money to provide a class. And so they will have a class entering this year and maybe not another class for the next two years. And so they want me to assist them in raising money to make sure that they will have a class each year. Another theological institution is called the Pastoral Institute. It's in a place where Kenyatta was born and raised in Kikuyu, about 30 kilometers outside of Nairobi at the Pastoral Institute. They put a lot of stress on the training of laypersons for ministry. In Kenya, a typical minister will have 10 to 12 points in his parish. And he will have the need to cover all of these points, to try to minister to 12 congregations and some as many as 15, 16, and sometimes on bicycle. So the Pastoral Institute was created to provide an opportunity for the training of laypersons who can provide some ministry for these congregations. And the minister will get to each one of those congregations maybe two times in a quarter. Providing for baptism, providing for the sacrament of the Holy Communion, and doing those things that are necessary and sacramental. But the laypersons can be trained to take some of the strain of the day to day off of the clergy. They have asked me to come to Kenya to be the director of development. So I will be raising money here in the United States for those two causes. I personally want to establish a third cause, and that will be to provide some kind of ongoing continuing education in the life of that church in that country. Because often upon graduating from either St. Paul's College, Theological College, or the Pastoral Institute, that is the extent of their blush with formal education. And I would like to do some kind of continuing education exposure that will give them annual opportunities. So essentially that's what I will be doing. I'm hoping to be able to build early on, perhaps the first year, a guesthouse that will house 40 or 50 people. And we can bring church groups who will come to experience the life of theological education there. We can share other aspects of ministry with them. Itinerating them to certain high points and then spend a couple of days doing what every visitor to Kenya wants to do, and that is to go on a photographic safari, taking them to Tsavo to some of the other wonderful game parks in Kenya, and then asking them to not only on the spot or upon returning, contribute to the upkeep of theological education. That's going to be the basic structure that I'm going to try to function under to bring people there in small or large groups on some kind of rotating basis to let them see the vitality of this church as one of the fastest growing churches in the whole world. The Presbyterian Church is 100 years old now. Melva and I had the opportunity to visit with that church in 1991 when it observed its centennial. And I was the leader of a delegation of Presbyterians from this country, and it has grown in this 100 years to be a church of about 4 million people. And it's they are constantly establishing new churches.

Dr. Costen I wish you the very best and Godspeed also.

Thank you so very much. And thank you for this opportunity of sharing these random thoughts with you.

Great. God bless you.

Thank you.

Thanks. That was great. I'm really glad we had this.

Thank you sir.

Yes sir.

A perfect example.

Absolutely. Absolutely.