Ellis A. Fuller

After Sampey’s resignation, Ellis A. Fuller, returned to his alma mater to serve as its sixth president. He soon inaugurated a series of building projects that changed the Seminary’s campus, adding a student center, cafeteria, post office, seminar rooms, bookstore, radio studio, and classrooms during his term. Of all his projects, however, the community valued none more than the Alumni chapel, described as “a Georgian colonial structure with imposing spire,” by historian William Mueller. This initiative provided the campus with a worship place of stately simplicity. (1)

Dale Moody

Southern’s faculty grew rapidly in this era, from eleven full-time faculty members in 1942 to fifteen in the School of Theology alone during Fuller’s tenure. Two notable additions were Dale Moody, renowned professor of New Testament Interpretation, and Wayne Oates, professor of pastoral theology. This third generation of faculty shared academic talent and a progressive bent in their theology. Along with these changes to the seminary’s corps of faculty, the seminary expanded its academic program when it opened the School of Music in 1943.

In 1948, the seminary transgressed the social codes of the South when it granted African-American student Garland K. Offut a degree at the fall convocation. Awarded the doctor of theology degree, Offut won a standing ovation from the seminary community. Prior to this occasion, Southern had not allowed students of color to enter a formal academic program, a practice in accordance with Kentucky state law. Seminary faculty members J.B. Weatherspoon and E.A. McDowell led Southern to reconsider its racial policy and break state law in granting Offut his degree.

J. B. Weatherspoon

Doctoral student Clarence Jordan also advocated integration and societal equity in an age of racial division. Jordan later cofounded a settlement in Georgia named Koinonia Farm that incorporated these ideals into its unique vision of community. His devotion to social justice inspired Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller to begin his global housing project.

The presidency of Dr. Fuller met a tragic end in 1950 when the President suffered a heart attack while preaching in California. One year later, trustees named another Southern alumnus, Duke K. McCall, as Southern’s next president.

(1) William Mueller, A History of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 218.

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