Welch College Vice Provost Matthew McAffee has been selected as a Fellow in the Executive Leadership Institute of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association (TICUA), according to President Matt Pinson. The Executive Leadership Institute is a new initiative of TICUA president Dr. Claude Presnell to provide specialized training for up-and-coming leaders in Tennessee independent colleges and universities.
“I am excited that Dr. McAffee will be taking part in this new institute,” President Pinson said. “As a promising young leader at Welch and our new Vice Provost, he will benefit greatly from the interaction with some of the finest higher education leaders in the industry and will be able to bring these experiences to bear in his leadership at Welch College.”
Speaking of the first session of the institute, which was held at Rhodes College in Memphis, Presnell said, “It was an incredible success! The Fellows were hosted by Rhodes College president Bill Troutt for the two-day event. During this first Session we provided the Fellows with their personalized leadership assessment profile, explored the ‘thriving leaders’ framework, and dug deep into the Institute’s first topic of institutional governance and board development.”
Faculty for the Institute have included distinguished higher education leaders such as Dr. Rich Morrill (chancellor of the University of Richmond), Dr. Bill Troutt (president of Rhodes College), and Tim Fuller (senior VP/owner, CREDO). The Institute will gather at nine different independent college and university campuses across Tennessee, once a month, over the 2016-17 academic year. The last meeting and graduation from the Institute will be in May of 2017.
A native of New Brunswick, Canada, McAffee is a 1999 graduate of Welch College. An M.Div. graduate of Southern Seminary, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Chicago. He has served full-time at Welch since 2010, teaching as well as serving as Campus Pastor, a role he gave up in August to serve as Vice Provost.
McAffee has written numerous articles in popular and scholarly periodicals such as ONE Magazine, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and the Journal of Biblical Literature. He recently jointly authored the Welch College Press book, Sexuality, Gender, and the Church: A Christian Response in the New Cultural Landscape. He and his wife, Anna, who serves as women’s resident director at Welch, live on-campus with their four children, Abigail, Lydia, Samuel, and Marianne.