APU Secures $1 Million for Endowed Chair in Citizenship and Civic Virtue

The Fletcher Jones Foundation announces its grant of $1 million toward the Endowed Chair in Citizenship and Civic Virtue in Azusa Pacific University’s Honors College. The Endowed Chair will ensure the permanent presence of a top faculty member with expertise in teaching about civic virtue, the responsibilities and blessings of citizenship, and the leadership skills essential to a free people. By fostering the moral and intellectual character of civically minded young people, APU will shape tomorrow’s leaders and positively impact the future.

“The university is grateful to the Fletcher Jones Foundation for this generous gift that will strengthen APU’s efforts to cultivate leading Christian scholars and citizens who will engage society with virtue,” said President Paul Ferguson, Ph.D., DABT. “Emerging as a significant funding initiative of the university’s new Strategic Plan, this is the first of three endowed chairs that will help advance APU as a model Christian University for our culture and times.”

“The Fletcher Jones Foundation is honored to continue our long standing partnership with Azusa Pacific in helping establish the Endowed Chair in Citizenship and Civic Virtue,” said Executive Director and Treasurer of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Mary J. Spellman, Ed.D. “The foundation has long been a supporter and champion of the importance of the liberal arts and civic engagement; this chair is a wonderful embodiment of these ideals.”

By establishing the Endowed Chair in Citizenship and Civic Virtue, APU will contribute to the national conversation on the role of civic virtue through works of scholarship and commentary. Students will learn what democracy requires of its citizens and will benefit from an education that promotes moral and political principles and practices concerned with the welfare of the community as a whole.

“The Endowed Chair will contribute to the Honors College goal of producing leaders and citizens, equipped and worthy to assume positions of influence, having grown in wisdom, virtue, faith, and eloquence,” said David Weeks, Ph.D., dean of the Honors College.

The Fletcher Jones Foundation, based in Pasadena, Calif., was endowed from the estate of Fletcher R. Jones, co-founder of Computer Sciences Corporation. The primary mission of the Foundation is the support of private, independent nonprofit colleges and universities in California.

Azusa Pacific’s Honors College offers in-depth learning in small, discussion-based, seminars that explore life’s big questions and that facilitate close relationships among faculty and fellow students. The Honors College aims to help students rediscover the wisdom of the Christian tradition, restore moral and intellectual virtue to a place of prominence for aspiring leaders, and reclaim the classical quest for truth, beauty, and goodness.The American Council of Trustees and Alumni named APU’s Honors College one of five “Hidden Gems” in the nation, recognizing the exceptional value this challenging academic program holds for students.