The Value of a Lifelong Investment

Interview with Dr. John McVay, AACU president

by Jacque L. Smith

Dr. John McVay, president of the Association of Adventist Colleges and Universities and president of Walla Walla University, remembers his first moments on a Seventh-day Adventist college campus. At the start of his college experience, he found his way into a huge gymnasium for registration. When he sat down in front of his academic advisor, his knees were knocking.

“I was scared to death,” said McVay. “Then the wonderful Christian gentleman looked from my paperwork and up into my eyes and said, ‘You know John, you can be anything you want to be.’ From that moment on there were people on that campus who looked into my eyes and said ‘You can be whatever God calls you to be. You can do it.’ They saw more in me than I saw in myself. For me that repeated experience from a variety of prayerful, wonderful people made a real difference in my life.”

And now more than 30 years later, as McVay explains in the interview below, this same transformational commitment to helping students find their God-inspired future still permeates Seventh-day Adventist higher education.