For Inquiring Minds:
Dr. Andy Chambers
To those who are unaware, Dr. Andy Chambers is the current Senior Vice President for Student Development-Associate Provost (that's a mouthful) for MBU. He is the 2nd person in the For Inquiring Minds series from MBU, but as stated in my previous article on Marie Tudor, other colleagues will be included eventually. As for now, this is a piece for inquiring minds interested in Dr. Andy Chambers.
Dr. Chambers currently works in Student Developing where he oversees things such as housing, athletics, campus ministry and the Academic Success Center. In his 20 years at MBU he has quite the reputation, and is definitively the man you'd go to if you hoped to get something done as a college student. Now that the official brief is done, let's get to the fun things I learned from my interview with Dr. Chambers.
In his life, Dr. Chambers has married Diana chambers (30 years so far and the marriage is still going strong), had 4 kids, 2 grandkids and more than his fair share of work to keep everything going. A busy man such as Dr. Chambers is more than justified in working and leaving as quickly as possible, but that's not what he does. Instead, he eats meals with the students in the cafeteria and goes with them to chapel. He makes a point to be there when he can for the students.
In his time, Dr. Chambers has gotten to see many a troubled student finally "get it," and the feeling of joy that he gets from knowing he helped to cause that revelation that changed the student and got them to take ownership of himself has made this process his official favorite part of the job (runner up is that he has locally roasted coffee in a blend made specifically for him and Dr. Lacey. It's available on the MBU campus at the Perk and is known as the MBU Blend). Despite that revelation being his favorite part of the job, his fondest memory comes from students who were still having issues. One year on his birthday, several pranksters moved an entire dorm into his parking spot (furniture and whatnot) and left their ringleader asleep on the bed (as shown below)
It's lovely to see students take initiative like that. I wish I'd been of the mind to ask what year the kid was in. After all, Dr. Chambers told me himself that the 1st year is the hardest with senior being a groove. When asked for some advice for those who may be struggling, he told me that he wanted them to take this seriously. Hit the books, get help, and take responsibility for yourself (that is apparently a big problem. Marie Tudor had similar advice. I wonder if the trend will hold later?). He voiced his concern that students might have too many cases of overprotective parents never letting their kid sink or swim on their own, so now they need time to learn or they just act lost.
Dr. Chambers has a hobby of reading in his spare time and especially loves mafia readings. The idea of a city ruled by crime is pretty interesting, and reading itself is never in too bad a taste for someone as high up as he is. He plans to finish his career where he is and finish strong, striving for God each day along the way. After his father passed this April, Dr. Chambers remained faithful and looked to God to guide him (as he did). As a last little piece of advice for students, he told me that information and to let everyone know:
"Faithfulness is underrated," and that "God is good, and he's worthy of giving your all for him." - Dr. Chambers.
Check out next week's article of For Inquiring Minds when my interview with Dr. Alton Lacey, MBU's President and our last part of the MBU issues for a little while.
