The Builders
Boyd and Julia Lammiman resettled their family in Calgary during Canada’s centennial summer, 1967. Over the next seventeen years, Lammiman (“Mr. L”) and the faculty and staff upgraded academic standards and created the “Christian Service Lab” and internship practicum. With Miss Aileen Case, Lammiman instituted predictable administrative process for the school’s academic year. With James Chapman, Lammiman improved ABC’s relations with its constituency, both donors and congregations. Alice Fraser (now, Mitchell), M.Div. (Cincinnati) was made full-time dean and instructor in 1967 till her departure in 1973. Gary Hatt, M.Div. (Emmanuel) was recruited in her place in 1974. In 1975, Ron Fraser, a recent graduate, came on-stream as a full-time instructor. By ABC’s 50th academic year 1981-1982, ABC was financially solvent, its faculty and staff were paid on time, relations with its constituency were warm, and a record number of students was enrolled. When a visiting college president was introduced to an ABC student in 1981, the student exclaimed, “This is the best Bible college in the world!” Mr. Lammiman guaranteed that what had been built under his leadership would serve as a foundation for more things to come when he collaborated with the trustees to recruit a successor and to plan for an orderly transition. With the completion of Mr. L’s ministry in summer, 1984, Ron Fraser was simultaneously installed as the new president.
Among his first acts, Fraser recruited John Wilson to return to Alberta from a new church ministry in P.E.I. to be a full-time instructor. This was only the beginning. Fraser as president and Doug Dietz as chairman of the academic committee led the school in enrolment expansion, faculty and staff development, creation of a degree-completion program, and in a capital building campaign. ABC moved from “599” to the former YMCA facility at 635 Northmount Drive N.W. after a significant renovation. In 2008, ABC achieved accreditation with the Association for Biblical Higher Education.\
Read more about this topic: Alberta Bible College
Famous quotes containing the word builders:
“As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“As we are, so we do; and as we do, so it is done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)