Judson College celebrates growing enrollment

Judson College reported a 5 percent increase in enrollment during the school’s report to the annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention.

President David Potts told messengers the school has ample reason to celebrate its 165th academic session. The Harrison Center for Academic Excellence is to be completed in the spring of 2003. The center is funded by the James I. Harrison Family Foundation.

The new facility completes a 10-year, $10 million effort to upgrade academic facilities at Judson. The Harrison Center will contain three of the five aca­demic divisions of the college (education, humanities and social sciences) and 10 of the 19 majors. Noting that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Potts jokingly said the trend of large universities forming small special honors colleges is the larger institutions’ way of “trying to be Judson College.”

Judson students, according to the Book of Reports, remain active in worship and missions. The college offers corporate worship opportunities during the fall and spring semesters and praise and worship on Monday nights. Two groups of students com­pleted missions assignments during spring break, participating in building renovations projects in Anniston and Montgomery.

Missions programs

Twenty-three students participated in summer missions and three 2001 Judson graduates are journeymen with the International Mission Board.

Faculty members at Judson, Potts said, are interested and involved in the lives of their students, helping to guide them through their college years in matters of education as well as spirituality.

“We’re seeking not only ways to improve their intellect, but their souls,” he said.

In expressing what he believes is God’s will for Judson, Potts referred to Luke 2:52. “We want to give all our students the opportunity to grow ‘in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man,’” he said. “Judson is a unique place that seeks to meet the needs of young women.”

The uniqueness of Judson College is apparent in its student body, especially in a group of young women called the Judson College Ambassadors. This year, as every year, the ambassadors served coffee and doughnuts at the college’s booth at the state convention exhibition area in Shades Mountain Baptist Church’s Christian Life Center. The ambassadors and college administrators feel the service is the least they can do for the convention.

Giving back

“We’re grateful for the support we receive and this is just a way of giving something back,” said assistant vice president for enrollment management Charlotte Clements.

In addition to pulling coffee-and-doughnut duty at the convention, the ambassadors represent the school in a variety of capacities such as giving campus tours, talking with prospective students about life at Judson and representing the college at off-campus functions.

“I chose Judson for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with being an all-women’s school,” said Christy Davis, a Judson ambassador. “I never applied anywhere else. The first time I walked on campus, I knew that was where God wanted me.”