Alvin O. Austin

Last updated

Alvin O. "Bud" Austin (born January 6, 1942 in Tampa, Florida) was the fifth president of LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas from 1986 to 2007. Since July 2007 he has held the role of University Chancellor, in accordance with the wishes of the Board of Trustees.

Contents

Life

He was raised in Florida and Utah before attending Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, graduating in 1964. He was named Alumnus of the year in 1986 by this institution. He graduated from the University of Mississippi with a PhD in higher education. [1] He married Samantha Jane Bates in 1965 and has three children.[ citation needed ]

Career

Austin's career has been primarily in the administration of institutions of higher learning, having spent over thirty years working at a variety of schools including North Park College and Theological Seminary in Chicago, Seattle Pacific University in Washington, and Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Austin has a PhD in Higher Education Administration from University of Mississippi and a master's degree from California State University in Los Angeles. His early career was grounded in student affairs administration.

He guided LeTourneau University over two decades in its transition from a small regional technical college to one of the leading Christian universities in the USA. During his tenure, LeTourneau grew dramatically in enrollment, endowment, campus facilities, programs, and scope. [2] Austin's career focused on providing a high quality and personal educational environment with an uncompromising dedication to committed Christian faith. [3] He retired in 2007. [4]

He is the acting president of the American Southwest Conference Executive Committee: a conference of sixteen colleges and universities located in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas which are members of the NCAA Division III athletic conference. Austin is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas (ICUT).

He continues to provide consulting services for small and medium-sized colleges and universities. He travels widely and maintains his primary residence in the Longview area near his children and grandchildren.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longview, Texas</span> City in Texas, United States

Longview is a city in, and county seat of, Gregg County, Texas, United States. Longview is located in East Texas, where Interstate 20 and U.S. highways 80 and 259 converge just north of the Sabine River. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a population of 81,638. Longview is the principal city of the Longview metropolitan statistical area, comprising Gregg, Upshur, and Rusk counties. The population of the metropolitan area as of 2021 census estimates was 287,858.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belhaven University</span> Christian university in Jackson, Mississippi, US

Belhaven University is a private evangelical Christian university in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1883, the university offers traditional majors, programs of general studies, and pre-professional programs in Christian Ministry, Medicine, Dentistry, Law, and Nursing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the Cumberlands</span> Christian university in Williamsburg, Kentucky, U.S.

The University of the Cumberlands is a private Christian university in Williamsburg, Kentucky. Over 20,000 students are enrolled at the university.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ark-La-Tex</span> Region in the United States

The Ark-La-Tex is a socio-economic tri-state region where the Southern U.S. states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas join together. The region contains portions of Northwest Louisiana, Northeast Texas, and South Arkansas as well as the extreme southeastern tip of Oklahoma, in McCurtain County, partly centered upon the Red River, which flows along the Texas–Oklahoma state line into Southwestern Arkansas and Northwest Louisiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiley University</span> Private historically black college in Marshall, Texas

Wiley University is a private historically black college in Marshall, Texas. Founded in 1873 by the Methodist Episcopal Church's Bishop Isaac Wiley and certified in 1882 by the Freedman's Aid Society, it is one of the oldest predominantly black colleges west of the Mississippi River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Southwest Conference</span> College athletic conference

The American Southwest Conference (ASC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference, founded in 1996, whose member schools compete in the NCAA's Division III. The schools are located in Texas and Arkansas. The conference competes in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's track and field, and women's volleyball.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LeTourneau University</span> Private university in Longview, Texas, US

LeTourneau University is a private, interdenominational evangelical Christian university in Longview, Texas. Founded as LeTourneau Technical Institute in February 1946 by R. G. LeTourneau with his wife, Evelyn, the school initially educated veterans returning from World War II. Total annual enrollment is nearly 3,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Edward's University</span> Catholic university in Austin, Texas, US

St. Edward's University is a private, Catholic university in Austin, Texas. It was founded and is operated in the Holy Cross tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northeast Texas</span> Region in Texas, United States

Northeast Texas is a cultural and geographic region in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Texas. Geographically centered on two metropolitan areas strung along Interstate 20—Tyler in the west and Longview/Marshall to the east, the areas of Greenville, Mount Pleasant, Sulphur Springs, Paris, and Texarkana in the north primarily along Interstate 30, and Jacksonville and Palestine to the south are also major cities within the region. Most of Northeast Texas is included in the interstate region of the Ark-La-Tex.

Robert Gilmour "R. G." LeTourneau, born in Richford, Vermont, was a prolific inventor of technologies related to earthmoving machinery, and founder of LeTourneau Technologies and LeTourneau University. His factories supplied machinery which represented nearly 75 percent of the earthmoving equipment used by the Allied forces during World War II, and more than half of the 1,500-mile (2,414 km) Alaska Highway in Canada, "Alcan", was built using LeTourneau equipment. Over the course of his life he secured 299 patents, relating to earthmoving equipment, manufacturing processes, and machine tools.

Thomas James Kirk II operated several fraudulent higher education organizations, including LaSalle University in Mandeville, Louisiana, the University of San Gabriel Valley, and Bienville University. Kirk's "LaSalle University" was shut down in 1996 following a raid by the FBI. Kirk was indicted for tax fraud in 1996 and, after a plea agreement, was sentenced to five years in U.S. federal prison. Kirk later died in January 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Wolf</span> American baseball player (1904-1979)

Raymond Bernard Wolf, nicknamed "Bear" Wolf, was an American football and baseball player and coach. Wolf was a native of Illinois and an alumnus of Texas Christian University (TCU), where he played college football and college baseball. He played professional baseball for two seasons, and appeared in one Major League Baseball game for the Cincinnati Reds in 1927. Wolf served as the head football coach at the University of North Carolina (1936–1941), the University of Florida (1946–1949) and Tulane University (1952–1953). He was also the head baseball coach at his alma mater, TCU, from 1935 to 1936 and the athletic director at Florida from 1946 to 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Texas</span>

Texas has over 1,000 public school districts—all but one of the school districts in Texas are independent, separate from any form of municipal or county government. School districts may cross city and county boundaries. Independent school districts have the power to tax their residents and to assert eminent domain over privately owned property. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) oversees these districts, providing supplemental funding, but its jurisdiction is limited mostly to intervening in poorly performing districts.

Peter T. Flawn was President of the University of Texas at Austin from 1979 to 1985. He was also a geologist and educator.

Dr. Dale A. Lunsford as of February 1, 2021 is the Chancellor of LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aubrey K. Lucas</span> American academic

Dr. Aubrey K. Lucas is an American academician, and the former President and current President Emeritus of the University of Southern Mississippi. Lucas received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi and attained his Ph.D from Florida State University. In 1975, Lucas became the 6th President of the University of Southern Mississippi. He also served as chair of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and on the board of the American Council on Education.

National Black Graduate Student Association (NBGSA) is a non-profit interdisciplinary organization for graduate students of African descent in the United States. The national headquarters is located at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The association was established to address the needs and concerns of black graduate and professional students, and to encourage black undergraduates to pursue advanced degrees. NBGSA provides resources for ensuring the academic success of African American students and aids in developing networks of emerging black scholars, with the goal of diversifying academia and enriching the larger community.

References

  1. ↑ "Trustees". Archived from the original on 2010-05-06. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  2. ↑ "TSHA | LeTourneau University".
  3. ↑ "EEN". Archived from the original on 2002-11-25. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  4. ↑ "News Releases 2006 | LeTourneau University". Archived from the original on 2010-12-05. Retrieved 2010-02-21.


Flag of the United States.svg Crystal Clear app Login Manager 2.png

This biography of an American academic administrator born in 1940–1949 is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.