Niel B. Nielson (born 1954 in Dallas, Texas) is former president of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, United States. [1]
He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University.
He began his career as an assistant professor of philosophy at Bethel College in Arden Hills, Minnesota, but soon departed for the world of business.
Between 1984 and 1997, he served as an executive officer in various Chicago based companies, including for two years as Senior Vice President of Chicago Research and Trading Group, Ltd. From 1996 to 1997, he worked as partner and trader for Ritchie Capital Markets Group, LLC. He holds several investment company directorships, including 13 directorships of closed-end funds associated with the First Trust group of funds, 39 directorships of exchange-traded funds associated with the First Trust group of funds, and one directorship of the First Defined Portfolio Fund LLC. [2]
In 1997, he left the business sector to become Associate Pastor of Outreach for College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, where he remained until 2002, when he became the fifth president of Covenant College. [3] He resigned as president in July 2012. He was succeeded by J. Derek Halvorson.
During his Covenant presidency, he served on the boards of directors for Good News Publishers/Crossway Books, Allied Arts of Chattanooga, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, and Covenant Transportation Group, Inc., where he functioned as chairman of its compensation committee. [2]
In November 2009, Nielson signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideals that go against their religious doctrines. [4]
Nielson is married to Kathleen (née Buswell), and, together, they have three grown sons. Kathleen is the granddaughter of former Wheaton College president, J. Oliver Buswell. A Wheaton alum, Kathleen also holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English literature from Vanderbilt University, and has written many popular Bible studies.
Wheaton College is a private Evangelical Christian liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois. It was founded by evangelical abolitionists in 1860. Wheaton College was a stop on the Underground Railroad and graduated one of Illinois' first black college graduates.
Gordon Haddon Clark was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian. He was a leading figure associated with presuppositional apologetics and was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He was an expert in pre-Socratic and ancient philosophy and was noted for defending the idea of propositional revelation against empiricism and rationalism, in arguing that all truth is propositional. His theory of knowledge is sometimes called scripturalism.
Mark Allan Noll is an American historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Research Professor of History at Regent College, having previously been Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Noll is a Reformed evangelical Christian and in 2005 was named by Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America.
Elbert Henry Gary was an American lawyer, county judge and business executive. He was a founder of U.S. Steel in 1901, bringing together partners J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles M. Schwab. The city of Gary, Indiana, a steel town, was named for him when it was founded in 1906. Gary, West Virginia was also named after him. When trust busting President Theodore Roosevelt said that Gary was head of the steel trust, Gary considered it a compliment. The two men communicated in a nonconfrontational way, unlike Roosevelt's communications with leaders of other trusts.
James Calvin Spivey is a former American middle-distance runner and Olympian. Spivey took up competitive running in Illinois where he became one of the best high school runners from his state. He was the 1982 NCAA DI men's 1500-meter champion with Indiana University. Spivey enjoyed a long Olympic career, in which he participated in the Olympic Summer Games in 1984, 1992, and 1996.
Arthur Frank Holmes was an English philosopher who served as Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College in Illinois, US from 1951 to 1994. He built the philosophy department at Wheaton where he taught, wrote about the philosophy of Christian education, and participated in the creation of the Society of Christian Philosophers. Wheaton College President Philip Ryken said "It would be hard to think of anyone who has had a greater impact on Christian higher education than Arthur Holmes." Holmes died in Wheaton, Illinois, on October 8, 2011, at age 87.
The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of only six university-based schools of religion in the United States without a denominational affiliation that service primarily mainline Protestantism.
Gratz College is a private Jewish college in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origins to 1856 when banker, philanthropist, and communal leader Hyman Gratz and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia joined to establish a trust to create a Hebrew teachers college. Gratz is a private liberal arts college located in a suburban setting and is primarily a commuter campus with online courses.
Jonathan Blanchard was an American pastor, educator, social reformer, and abolitionist. Born in Vermont, Blanchard attended Middlebury College before accepting a teaching position in New York. In 1834, he left to study at Andover Theological Seminary, but departed in 1836 after the college rejected agents from the American Anti-Slavery Society. Blanchard joined the group as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy" and preached in favor of abolition in southern Pennsylvania.
David Edward Maas is Emeritus Professor of History at Wheaton College (Illinois), United States. He was first appointed to Wheaton's faculty in 1970 and retired in 2010.
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001 that worked with half of Chicago's public schools and was funded by a $49.2 million, 2-to-1 matching challenge grant over five years from the Annenberg Foundation. The grant was contingent on being matched by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was one of 18 locally designed Annenberg Challenge project sites that received $387 million over five years as part of Walter Annenberg's gift of $500 million over five years to support public school reform. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge helped create a successor organization, the Chicago Public Education Fund (CPEF), committing $2 million in June 1998 as the first donor to Chicago's first community foundation for education.
Charles Stephen Evans is an American philosopher. He is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard and has also published extensively on subjects including philosophy of religion and the relationship of psychology and Christianity. He is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University.
The Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College is a music conservatory located in Wheaton, Illinois. It is both a department and professional school of Wheaton College. It currently has 21 full-time faculty members and approximately 200 undergraduate music majors, and is fully accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. The Conservatory also operates a Community School of the Arts, serving the music and arts education needs of the surrounding community.
Lyle H. Lanier was an American experimental psychologist and writer.
James Oliver Buswell, Jr. was a Presbyterian theologian, educator and institution builder.
The Wheaton College Men's Glee Club is an all-male glee club, at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois currently conducted by Dr. Jerry Blackstone.
V. Raymond Edman was an American minister and author who served as the fourth President of Wheaton College in Illinois from 1941 to 1965.
John Robert McRay was an archaeologist, and professor emeritus of New Testament at Wheaton College (Illinois). He directed archaeological excavations in Israel, and "his articles have appeared in [several] encyclopedias and dictionaires". He "has lectured widely on archaeology and the Bible at various colleges, universities, professional meetings and churches in the United States".