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CONTEXT VISION MISSION VALUES CHARACTER
Cities and Mega-Cities. Populations of 25 million-plus.
Home to 2/3rds of all human beings.
New York City.America’s global city.
Host of the world’s governments, economy, culture.
Inspiring people’s dreams everywhere.
Nyack College.Its home: Manhattan.
Its character: Christian.
Its mission: Change the world.
Nyack University.College becomes University.
3000 students from 60 nations, 80 faith traditions.
Hungry for learning. Bound by love. Committed to serve.
ONLY MANHATTAN
ONLY NYACK
NYACK COLLEGEin Context with
Vision, Mission, Values and Distinctive Character
Summer 2014
NYACK COLLEGE
MANHATTANNEW JERSEY
BROOKLYN
STATEN ISLAND
STATUE OF LIBERTY
FINANCIAL DISTRICT
EA
ST
RIV
ERHU
DS
ON
RIV
ER
32NYACK COLLEGE • CONTEXT & COLLEGE
We are entering a future of intense global urbanization in which ethnic, religious, economic and cultural differences will distinguish but no longer separate us physically or geographically from others – a future is already present in New York City.
CONTEXT & COLLEGE
“What has been will be again,
What has been done will be done again;
There is nothing new under the sun.”
Eccl. 1:9 (NIV)
differences will exist, but not in isolation. Insulated
institutions will shrink in value and importance;
institutions that welcome diverse cultures and
speak multiple languages will become dominant.
The alternative to community in such settings is
unacceptable hostility (magnified from what we
see in the “Arab Spring”). Diversity will be ordinary.
Communication will be global, instantaneous, and
pervasive. Privacy will be a memory. Cooperation
across every human boundary will be imperative.
We will live, or we will die, in communities of
intimate difference.
Explosive growth of charismatic Christianity,
especially in the Global South (Africa, China, India,
Latin and South America), is already the world’s
largest religious movement. It rises from the bottom-
up; it is not imposed from the top-down. It promotes
the value of religious experience over religious dogma,
the equality of women, and the urgency of engaging
human suffering with a prophetic call to justice
while diminishing the institutional and intellectual
sway of Western Christianity. It accounts for one
observer’s note that “Africa is now one of the Christian
heartlands.”
New York City holds a unique position in this emerging
global context. It is the largest American city (8.5
million) with the largest immigrant population. Its
immigrants are no longer passing through, as they
did in previous generations that filled the American
West. New York City has transformed itself from a
“gateway city” into a “global city.” What lures the
African immigrant or Argentinian student is what
also brings the millionaire Kuwaiti entrepreneur or
French film director: Manhattan is the center of the
world’s economy (Wall Street), host to the world’s
governments (United Nations), teeming with creative
energy from Harlem to Broadway, reporting on world
events through the Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, and networks now including Al Jazeera.
This is the City made famous by the promise that all
who come will be welcome, even those bringing the
fewest possessions (“Give me your tired, your poor…”).
No American needs tour the world to experience the
culture of every tribe and hear the sound of every
tongue. They need only to get on the subway in New
York City. Or they may come on a Sunday morning to
worship in the more than 150 congregations of African
Christians within the City.
Nyack College’s earliest history was written in the social
ferment of New York City in the late 19th Century’s
tidal wave of immigration. For the ensuing century,
it relocated mostly to a nearby town from which it
took its name: Nyack. When it returned full-force to
Manhattan in 1997, it immersed its long tradition in
the river that brings the modern world to America.
With this move, and the subsequent commitment to
stay, Nyack became one with the global trends that
flow to our collective future.
Its presence now firmly rooted in Manhattan, Nyack
is a recognized Christian college on the Island. The
challenges that confront all American higher education
are here as well: relevance in a constantly changing
world, excellence in an arena of intense competition,
costs which increasingly burden the poor and middle
class. With its faculty and staff already 50% women and
minorities, its student body already representing 60
different nations and scores of faith traditions – Nyack
is uniquely positioned to equip global leaders from
every nation for service in the 21st century. It is
at home in the shadow of Ground Zero, a stone’s throw
from Wall Street, within sight of Ellis Island. When
students come to Nyack’s Manhattan campus, they
come through the power and the brokenness. They
hear the craving for hope and see the carnage of 9/11.
They experience, in the words of Mark Gornik, “New
York as global city…a place where charismatic joy and
witness have come to flourish.”
This is where Nyack College will become Nyack
University. This is where Nyack will demonstrate the
power of love in action, where the Gospel will be
incarnated as good news, where we will welcome the
stranger and send her out a graduate who knows that
she – like Nyack itself – is called (in the words of St.
Francis of Assisi) to “…preach the gospel and,
if necessary, use words.”
This is the world God loves. This is the future in
which we are called to be healers. This is Nyack
College gathering strength in the global future’s
American home: New York City.
In a world called into existence by the voice of God,
that same voice pursues us relentlessly. Generation
to generation, the call is undiminished and unchanged.
It is never new, nor can we resist it. We are restless in
a world that knows more suffering than forgiveness,
seasons of agony more than moments of comfort.
Seeing this world, we hear that familiar voice
whispering with the quiet affection of love or
shouting with the urgent demand of The Preacher:
“Tikkun olam…heal the world!”
But if the Divine voice stands above time, calling us
to make whole what has been broken, within time
change is our constant companion. Sociologists and
demographers label our generations by what differs
and distinguishes us: Baby Boomers, Generation X,
Millennials. Change is everywhere, from global social
trends to the details that define our families; the change
is deep, hugely transformative, and coming faster than
ever. Already we see the shifting cultural patterns,
demographic waves and social patterns that will define
the world into which those entering college in 2015 will
graduate. With us, they will either lead or react, but
none of us can avoid the change.
Above all else, it will be a world of increased, intense
urbanization. Three-quarters of the human race will live
in mega-cities with populations of more than 20 million.
If cultures of the past were apt to have borders around
them – the family, the village, the congregation, the
tribe – in mega-cities where the poor are stacked and
packed together, where people from every tribe and
tongue struggle for the resources that will make them
“middle class,” the distances among cultures will be
measured in inches, not miles. We will not be able
to escape those who are most unlike us; we will
live with them.
To serve wisely and well in a world of such global
concentration, universities and their students will
need to be prepared for, even comfortable with,
intimacy with difference of every kind. Religious
symbols and dress may identify and shape us,
but they will not separate us. Racial and linguistic
54NYACK COLLEGE • VISION
In a world of intense urbanization and heightened communication, shrinking isolation and remarkable challenges, Nyack will become a diverse, loving community, a network of academic and supportive programs and partnerships designed to promote learning through action as well as ideas, service through leadership and innovation as well as charity, and God’s forgiving love as the source of human meaning and belonging.
VISION
collaboration with others whose passion and values
we share. We will seek lessons and equip leaders that
enable us to bring hope to the hopeless, demonstrate
purpose to the purposeless, and give voice to those
silenced by oppression.
Ours will be a community that invites partnerships
with institutions whose missions align with our own.
We will seek partnerships across the spectrum of
higher education and Christian innovation, both in the
U.S. and globally, and will look especially to partner
with those who share a tradition of and passion for
learning. We may differ in doctrine or emphasis from
our partners, but we will welcome our partners’ gifts of
insight and embrace our common service so that – in
our partnerships as in our community – we continually,
humbly learn to love and serve others.
We will be unashamed of our vigorous search to instill
love in our relationships and learning, our research
and service, our partnerships and our graduates. We
will strive to understand the world in all its richness,
revealed through science and the Scriptures, so we may
better love the world as God has taught us to love.
Nyack College will soon become Nyack University, a
uniquely Christian uncommonly diverse community
rooted in the love of God and of our neighbors. Some
members of the community will be American-born and
native to New York City. But immigrants, the children
of immigrants, “adult” and “non-traditional students”
will constitute the majority of new members in our
community. Many will be women with dependent
children; some of these women are themselves
inspiring stories of courage born of suffering and
oppression. Many will come from groups heavily
impacted by charismatic and experiential traditions.
Some will still be in prison when they first
experience Nyack.
The University will be a community within New York
City in which we are all learners – faculty, staff,
students and friends. All who join the community
will be teachers; all will be learners. Learning in this
University will be a whole-life experience blending the
rich inherited traditions with the urgent need for
action in a world crying to be healed.
The University will maintain and improve on Nyack
College’s record of graduating nearly 50% of low-
income students who enroll, a higher percentage
than five of the six CUNY colleges to whom it can be
compared. The almost one-half of Nyack’s students
who come from other colleges where, in many
instances, they struggled to advance, will be especially
well-served by this University, not only because Nyack
has a substantially higher success (graduation) rate
with low-income transfer students than most other
New York City colleges but also because the graduate
students may benefit most from being part of a
community which is at once global and local.
Both as an institution, and as individuals, we will learn
and serve as neighbors. We will reject the safety of
isolation to embrace the City that is our home. Our
testimony to the Gospel will be most evident in our
rigorous commitment to love our neighbors, not judge
them; to serve, not to oppose.
The University will be committed to the healing of
the nations and the transformation of every human
enterprise. The economic divides that separate rich
and poor will call us to explore and expand models
of justice and mercy. We will invite those burdened
by wealth to find joy in a community of giving. The
call to be stewards of God’s creation will bring us into
76 NYACK COLLEGE • VALUESNYACK COLLEGE • MISSION
Love.
American higher education famously shows reverence for intellectual achievement and athletic
prowess. Nyack believes there is a better way. We aspire to follow in the footsteps of our founder,
A.B. Simpson, who held that love is the seed of wisdom that flowers best not in philosophy
alone but also in behavior (“It is impossible to have faith without love, or to have Christ alone
without the fullness of fellowship,” he wrote). Love is a gift, given by the Giver who is Love. Love
is an action, shown when care for the neighbor exceeds concern for self. It calls us to serve with
gratitude and to lead with courage, no matter the cost. Above all else, it is love that weaves
diversity into community and nurtures the humility that makes room for learning.
Truth.
Truth is more than accuracy. A thermometer may accurately report the temperature but it cannot
tell us the meaning of heat. Truth, by contrast, speaks to us of what has meaning, what matters,
what gives value to our days and purpose to our lives. Nyack is not a repository of truth, as if
it could be contained in a library. Rather, Nyack is a community of seekers, motivated by love
to find that truth which can make us free to serve in science and art, business and technology,
government and healthcare, charity and education.
Humility.
It is humbling to acknowledge how little we know, how imperfectly we understand and how
falteringly we lead. But humble hands are needed to open the doors to learning in the classroom,
in the community, in the world. We begin by acknowledging that we do not know; therefore, we
must learn. We learn by listening, including hearing ideas we do not hold. We learn by asking
what others need, and how we might bring them joy or comfort. We learn through exhausting
work, by the struggle to do and be better. We learn by hearing ideas and acting on promises,
within and far beyond the classroom. With great learning will come great wisdom and, with
wisdom, great humility.
Faith.
Our lives are not our own, nor are they given for ourselves only. Nyack is a community that hears
God’s call to walk the Way, know the Truth and fulfill the Life embodied in Christ Jesus. We will be
open and willing, ready to follow wherever service calls, as an institution and as individuals, joyful
servants of the Servant who has called and fed us.
Community.
The institutional model for Nyack College and University is not that of a school, nor of a church,
nor of a business or charity. Nyack is modeled on a community of committed individuals and
institutions, a community recognized not for its sameness but for its diversity. It is a gathering
of people persuaded that they share a common purpose, which is service. It is an assembly of
young and old, drawn from many nations and traditions, who come together in New York City to
learn and practice the truth. What motivates this community is a broken, pain-riddled world in
need of healing. What binds this community is love.
Nyack College exhibits, and Nyack University will embody, a set of historically ingrained values that give testimony to our character including Love, Truth, Humility, Faith and Community.
VALUESNyack University will be a community of individuals and institutions that create messages and models which, in imitation of Christ, seek to transform human relationships, heal the world, inspire lifelong learning and develop global leadership.
MISSION
Nyack will become a community called into a healing
relationship with all of creation. It will be a global
community within a global setting, New York City.
It will be a community of great diversity that finds its
oneness, its cohesion, in its transforming purpose and
restorative love. Its consuming passion will be
the missio dei, God’s mission to heal the world.
Nyack will become a community rich in partnerships
with other institutions and individuals. Partnerships
remind us to be humble, to recognize that we do not
possess all truth or all resources, that wisdom and
gifts have been given to others from whom and with
whom we may learn and serve. Partners provide a
path to strength we cannot create alone, and bring an
opportunity for celebration of the diversity of God’s
gracious gifts. Partnering is itself a servant strategy
enabling Nyack to become a catalyst enabling others
to grow stronger for the good of all.
Nyack’s partnerships and graduates will extend the
University’s reach from the campus in Manhattan to
the great cities of the world: London and Rome, but
also Manila and Jakarta, Delhi and Lagos, Sao Paolo
and Mexico City. No community on earth will be beyond
the reach of this community based in New York City.
Nyack will create transforming messages by pursuing
truth while remaining grounded in love. Some
messages will take the form of words; others will be
expressed most clearly in deeds rather than words
alone. Such messages will speak to the human spirit
as well as the human mind, will draw knowledge from
sources as diverse as modern science and ancient
Scripture. Nyack will develop transforming intellectual
models which bring together truth and love, and social
models that demonstrate the strength of diversity
in communal life, that give evidence to the power of
justice and hope in economic and political systems.
Nyack will equip its graduates with knowledge based in
experience as well as intellect, enabling them to work
and communicate respectfully with people of many
races and religions. Nyack’s graduates will know they
are stewards of God’s creation, servants in God’s world,
called to lead in every sphere of human activity with
wisdom, gentleness and compassion. The spirituality
of this community will be marked by its embrace of
whole people, body and soul, all created imago dei
[“imaging God”]. It will welcome the suffering, knowing
that to suffer is to be human. It will affirm the rightness
of justice and the need for mercy. It will see itself as
swept into the missio dei [“mission of God”]
in which it was founded a century-and-a-quarter ago.
Nyack University will be a community that knows
learning has no beginning and no end, and has no
geographic borders. This community will be filled by
those committed to learn so long as they live. The
Nyack community will welcome partnerships that
broaden our learning, from daycare centers to hospices,
from the markets of Wall Street to the market in Lusaka,
from artistic performances to science labs, knowing
that partnerships inspire deeper learning and greater
global leadership.
98
Nyack College has grown from a 19th Century Missionary Training Institute toward what it will soon be, a great University. It is unique among institutions of higher education including, but not limited to, Christian higher education.
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER
NYACK COLLEGE • DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER
Nyack is a diverse, urban community.
When the people of Nyack College
assemble, they understand dozens of
dialects, represent scores of nationalities,
and represent life in mega-cities around
the globe. Our unity in diversity is
cherished evidence that love can unite us.
Nyack is at home in the “global city,” New York City.
Nyack University will not merely be
located in New York City; it is an integral
part of the global community. Nyack
is a fellow-citizen committed to the
neighborhoods and businesses, hospitals
and congregations, families and social
service agencies of New York City.
Learning is universal at Nyack.
Every member of the Nyack University
community is a learner, seeking the truth
and acting in love. Learning occurs in the
classroom and in the community, through
listening and through acting. Learning is
a result of thought and action, reflection
and implementation.
Learning is a strategy at Nyack, not an end.
Although Nyack is an educational
community, research and learning are
not the ultimate purpose. Learning is a
strategy in service to this community’s
goal: transformation, the healing of the
world. We learn by serving, and we learn
again so that we may serve more wisely.
Nyack is welcoming to all.
The laws and standards for colleges and
universities are observed at Nyack. But
every effort is made to open the doors to
all who could and would come, whether
they come from immigrant homes or
nearby apartments, the cells of a prison
or homes of prestige. All who wish to
belong to this community are wanted,
and we will do all in our power to make
learning accessible.
Nyack’s structural model is communal.
Most institutions seek autonomy; Nyack
seeks partnerships. It actively courts
other institutions to join in the mission of
transforming the world. Its partnerships
are not extraneous; they are intrinsic
elements of the institution (community)
itself, a part of who Nyack is as well as
how it serves.
Nyack embodies the radical Christian tradition of A.B. Simpson.
Late in the 19th Century, Nyack’s founder,
A. B. Simpson, was persuaded that the
good news shared with him included an
urgent call to ancient practices: feeding
the hungry, caring for the widow and the
homeless, bringing to all who are lost a
message of hope and transformation.
Simpson’s gospel, radical as it appeared
to some, was designed to trouble those
who were comfortable and to comfort
those who were troubled.
His was a plan in which worship was
“much more than an association of
congenial friends who listen once a week
to an intellectual discourse and musical
entertainment and carry on by proxy a
mechanism of Christian work.” He sought
an institution “that can be at once the
mother and home of every form of help
and blessing which Jesus came to give
to lost and suffering men, the birthplace
and the home of souls, the fountain of
healing and cleansing, the sheltering
home for the orphan and distressed, the
school for the culture and training of
God’s children….” (A Larger Christian Life,
Simpson, 1890).
ONLY NYACK
MANHATTAN - 2 Washington Street, New York, NY 10004 // 212.625.050 • ROCKLAND - South Boulevard, Nyack, NY 10960 // 845.358.1710 • www.nyack.edu
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