John Walkup,
Electrical Engineering
Texas Tech University (Emeritus)
FC Faculty Representative
Scripture exhorts me, as a follower of Jesus, to store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth where treasures will not last.
If I ever had doubts about this, they were removed when I retired from my faculty position at Texas Tech University after 27 years of teaching and research.
High Hopes
I had high hopes that my department would recruit a young researcher as my replacement who would maintain the quality of our Optical Systems Laboratory research team. We graduated about 75 M.S. and Ph.D. students during my tenure, and received approximately $5 Million in research funding.
Instead, optics research was de-emphasized. Within two years of my retirement, the laboratory that we had taken years to assemble was effectively cannibalized. As a result one colleague left for industry, and another cut back his personal research. These events initially left me feeling very discouraged.
However, as I reflected back on my academic career, I realized that the accomplishments and acclaim are fleeting. My lasting legacy is not the papers I published or the NSF, DOD or NASA grants – it is the impact I have had for Jesus Christ on the lives of my students and colleagues.
Please don’t get me wrong about the importance of excellence in our professional careers. Clearly, we are exhorted in Scripture to do our work heartily as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23). My research brought me plenty of recognition – and it’s tempting to live for that. My point is that no amount of worldly success and recognition is as significant as that which we do to represent Christ as His ambassadors on our campuses.
They Could Remember That Day
Shortly before I retired, three former undergraduate students shared with me that they could still remember the day 20 years earlier when I introduced myself – including the fact that I was a Christian – during the first class of the semester.
Such experiences convinced me that our students are actively searching for clues as to who we are as people, and will respond if they are convinced we care more about them than how well they perform in our classes.
My ministry now with CLM in the San Francisco Bay Area has given me the privilege to work with some very intellectually gifted faculty. My desire is to help them hear God’s call to value their relationship with Him above everything else in life, and to value relationships with people who do not yet know Him.
(c) 2005 John Walkup