1979 President Bill Draper initiates new chapter for college.

Draper grew up in Texas, graduated from Bethany Nazarene College in 1951 and later earned his Master's degree from the University of Kansas. It was at Bethany that he was saved and found his calling to the ministry. He brought his own model of leadership to the campus, and an agenda shaped in part by attitudes in his area of the country. Draper's own religious experience at college, and the sight of his own daughter receiving spiritual help at a college revival, forged a strong personal commitment to the priority of evangelism in Nazarene colleges. He was committed to the students, to helping them find the spiritual help and guidance that would make them Christians, and safe and supportive church men and women. Additionally, the role of the college was "not just to educate the mind, but also to form character in a mold shaped like a cross." His goal was to have students willing to "accept, live, and work under authority." A Nazarene college was the great opportunity of the church to help young people in a crucial stage of their lives. His pastoral concern for them was genuine. Draper had a clear vision of what a Nazarene college should be like, and what he needed to do to make this a Nazarene college. He was a man of integrity with the courage of his convictions. Like a straight arrow, he would not bend or break under pressure.

He believed education in a Nazarene college should be content-based and conclusion-oriented. A college education, the new president told trustees, should provide students with the information they needed to qualify them for their specific areas of interest and make them successful. The new president moved on several fronts to change the direction of the college. His goals and persona made him hugely popular among Nazarene pastors and constituents, and for the first two years of his administration the districts paid a higher percentage of their educational budgets. To arrest the decline in the Nazarene ratio, the president and trustees decided that all district budget monies would be removed from general institutional support and used exclusively for Nazarene students in the form of tuition grants. They thought raising tuition and then subsiding Nazarene students would help solidify the Nazarene base and discourage non-Nazarenes from coming. But this was not the Mid-West. The area "was too affluent" and the non-Nazarenes "came anyway." The Bresee and Wiley vision of a holiness college open for all of good moral character who had a thirst for learning was now in competition with a Cantrell vision of a very different sort, a vision of a small college filled with students in hearty accord with the behavior rules, just like it was during World War II. Such a college would seem safer and neater. From his position of academic dean Keith Pagan tried to explain that the declining Nazarene to non-Nazarene ratio should not be seen from only one perspective. The campus might actually become more Christian and more evangelical because of the strong evangelical bias of many of these students, and the college might be in a much better position for capital fund campaigns. Beyond that, the college only survived because of the non-Nazarene students. "The number of Nazarene students enrolled during the past few years would not have enabled the College to operate. In a very real sense, the non-Nazarenes have preserved the Nazarene college for the Nazarene student." The president created the Community Dinner on the last night of faculty workshop, recognizing that staff should be more visible and accorded more appreciation. All college employees were invited, not just faculty, and gifts were given for years of service. It was an important means to break down hierarchy and meet each other as people of dignity. He reorganized the administrative council into the President's Cabinet and left the vice presidents in place. He met with district superintendents as an inner group before trustee meetings, for he knew they were the center of power within the trustees. Student enrollment declined the first year after Brown's death. There were fears throughout the academic world that a declining college-age population in America would lead to a long-term decline in enrollment. Nazarene educators probably feared even more, for two other Nazarene colleges had suffered through severe problems when their enrollments declined following the creation of two new Nazarene colleges in the 1960s. In response the president determined that the next year would be the Year of the Student. The president was visible on campus, and his genuine interest in the students showed. When asked what he liked, he listed such things as riding horses, planting trees, country music, sports, juicy cheeseburgers, and preaching. Students identified with this human side of their president.

From Promise and Destiny: Grace in the History of Point Loma Nazarene University by Ron Kirkemo


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