Hail to the Chief played Monday morning as Dr. Stead was saluted by students in his political studies class. The professor has been here for 49 years, was the academic provost, and is currently on TMU’s board of directors. He grew up in California, attended John MacArthur’s father’s church, and received his Ph.D. from USC. 

“I’ve primarily been in academics my whole time here, mainly in the classroom, which I enjoy still the most. I’ve also been in administration to some degree, off and on, since ‘78. The difference is when I was even up to being provost here, which is the highest academic position in the university, it is primarily concerned with academics, not encompassing the entire school.”

President John MacArthur’s position for the past few years has been to create and uphold the vision and direction of TMU. This includes raising funds to support this vision.  

“So far, it’s been very gratifying. I’m very at peace with dealing with faculty, academic issues, those kinds of things,” said Dr. Stead. “I’ve done it for so long, but now what I have to do is think about myself in terms of being responsible for everything on this campus. That’s a lot.”

His current goal as interim president is to make sure the next president will have an easy transition into the role.  

“Challenge number one is to get off probation, that’s way upfront. A second one would be to continue to work on our campus culture, in terms of administrative relationships to faculty, staff, and students; we’ve been doing a lot of work on that in the last year. A third one would basically be continuing to gather support from our board of directors as well,” said Stead.

Our campus is currently on probation by WASC and by next year we’ll hopefully know if our accreditation will continue.  

“Our March letter was not what we expected, but we are in a review process right now. I don’t know how successful it will be, but our job then is simply to keep us trying to do those things, and they’re not very many,” said Stead. “There’s only a couple of things that we still need to work on, but all we can do is just keep working on those things. We’re in a timeframe now though and we don’t really control the timeframe, you know?”

Joshua Allen is a senior, political studies major from Honduras and has studied under Dr. Stead during his time at TMU.  

“I certainly look forward to going to a school under his leadership,” said Allen. “While it’s a bummer Dr. MacArthur had to step down, there’s not a doubt in my mind that Dr. Stead is going to use his gifts of leadership to continue driving the university in a God-honoring direction.”

The president is still publishing the Community Connection for the rest of the year but isn’t sure about continuing it next year.  

“I think it’s really important. It’s a way for the students to have a feel for what we’re thinking about up here. We always do some interviews with staff and faculty so students can kind of get a better idea of what’s going on in different departments,” said Stead.

Overall, Stead’s impact on the campus has been strong for the past 49 years and he’s adamant about continuing that presence on campus as the president.  

“Plus, I’m very concerned about the staff that they see my presence in the dining center or a building and grounds. That they can have confidence that I’m here all the time. Students can’t always walk in, but they can always come to see Alison and get an appointment with me,” said Stead.

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