Issue: Spring 2018 | Posted: June 1, 2018
A Brilliant Visionary
Influence of Robert E. Craig, Union's 13th President, Still Seen at Multiple Institutions
By Nathan Handley ('15)
On May 19, Abbie Williams walked across the stage to receive her Union University degree. During her four years at Union, Abbie made connections with many friends and mentors. But she also made a special connection with her family.
Abbie is the granddaughter of Robert E. Craig, the 13th president of Union. Craig was the longest-serving president in Union’s history, joining the university in 1967 and serving for nearly 20 years. Abbie never met Craig, who died in 1992, but aspects of her grandfather have been present throughout her life.
She says his ideas of hard work and determination were passed down to her through her mom. His dedication to Christian faith and education have always been the cornerstones of their home. But in being a part of the Union community, Abbie thinks she has gotten to know him even better.
“Sometimes when I walk around campus, because I never met him, never got to have a relationship with him, I think, ‘I’m walking the same paths that he walked,’” Abbie says. “There’s no other place on earth I can say that except here.”
Abbie says she has seen Craig’s vision for Union playing out, and she has seen how he influenced the many students and employees he worked with at the university.
“I’ve met a lot more people that knew him,” Abbie says. “It’s been interesting to hear from them.”
Abbie Williams looks at photos of her grandfather, Robert E. Craig, in the Union archives.
One of the people Abbie has met is Carroll Griffin, a Union graduate and recently retired director of marketing and enrollment for Union’s School of Adult and Professional Studies. Abbie worked as a student worker in that office, and Griffin says he was elated when he realized that Abbie was Craig’s granddaughter. Griffin met Craig as a freshman at Union in 1967 and later worked under him as director of student enlistment.
“All the students respected and admired Dr. Craig because he deserved it,” Griffin says. “He was a quiet man, but once you got to know him, you could see a sense of humor. I loved making Dr. Craig smile.”
Griffin says Craig was a humble and modest man, and he always made sure his employees knew they were appreciated and were doing good work. He says part of the genius of Craig and what made his endeavors was his ability to surround himself with expert people and to delegate.
“His philosophy was always, ‘Hire good people underneath you, and then let them do their job,’” Griffin says.
Cherrie Craig Williams, Robert Craig’s daughter and Abbie Williams’ mother, says she heard this refrain from her father many times, and it has influenced the way she does her work. Williams is an associate professor of communications at Motlow State Community College in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
“What he was at home, he was at work,” she says. “And what he was at work, he was at home. He was a very genuine man.”
Williams says that authenticity allowed Craig to relate to people at all different levels. She says anyone who met Craig on the street would probably not know he was a university president— his best friend during his time in Jackson was a maintenance worker at a local factory, and his favorite recreational activity was gardening.
She says this part of his personality was useful when it came to making business deals and decisions, such as the decision in the 1970s to purchase land in north Jackson and move the Union campus.
“He could talk to the person who had a lot of money, and he could talk to the person who did not,” she says. “He related to them the same.”
At Union, Craig is still most remembered for this decision to move the university in 1974 from its historic downtown campus to its current location in north Jackson. The downtown campus was landlocked, and Craig knew if the school were to grow, it would have to move.
“That decision was transformative for the institution,” says Union University President Samuel W. “Dub” Oliver, “It was a considerable risk to move this far out. There was nothing out here but cornfields and wooded property. Now of course in hindsight, it was brilliant.”
In Craig’s plan for the campus, everything—from the cafeteria to the gymnasium—was housed under one roof. That building is now the Penick Academic Complex, where his granddaughter Abbie had classes every week.
Oliver says he sees no way the school could have grown at the rate it did without Craig’s decision to move.
“Who knows what would have happened, but because he had that vision and because he worked to bring it about, we’re able to enjoy what we enjoy today,” Oliver says.
Union is not the first place Oliver has enjoyed the benefits of Craig’s work. Before coming to Union, Oliver served as president of East Texas Baptist University, Craig’s alma mater and the place he went to serve upon leaving Union in 1986.
“He was beloved there,” Oliver says. “He was like a giant. Everybody talked about Dr. Craig and how amazing he was.”
Craig left Union to help ETBU out of a difficult situation. The school was struggling, and most assumed it was going to close when Craig arrived. But Craig was able to turn the situation around, and enrollment nearly doubled during his six years as president there.
“Dr. Craig was effective at so many things,” Oliver says. “Number one, recruiting students. Number two, fundraising. But also he was very engaged with the Baptist churches in the community. That’s part of his legacy here at Union as well.”
Oliver says Craig would do things some would describe as quirky, but they were very effective. One year at ETBU, he gave Christmas bonuses in two dollar bills so that when the bills were spent in the community, the community would see the value of the university.
Bob Agee, former president of Oklahoma Baptist University, worked with Craig for 10 years at Union in various roles. He says he can remember Craig’s unique strategy in purchasing the land for the new Union campus.
“He bought property on both sides of the 45 Bypass, both the property where Union sits and the area across the road that was a peach orchard,” Agee says. “Then he sold the peach orchard right away to pay for the buildings. That’s just the way he thought through things.”
Agee says Craig was an exceptional leader in his understanding of what a distinctively Christian and Baptist university ought to be. He says Union’s administrative council in the years he was president was one of the most effective leadership teams he has ever seen. Craig could select people who would carry out the vision and mission of the institution, organize a leadership team and define their roles clearly.
“Serving on that team was tremendous preparation for my leadership as a college president,” Agee says. “He held us all accountable for our assigned tasks and strengthened Union’s commitment to be an intentional, Christ-centered institution. He wanted Union to be excellent in every arena and to stay close to its faith heritage.”
While Craig had a shrewd understanding of business and how to grow a university, Cherrie Williams says she sees only one reason for his success.
“He gave absolutely everything to God,” she says. “My dad never underestimated the power of prayer. He knew that when he took things to God, God’s will would be done.”
Williams says her father’s dedication to Scripture was the foundation of their family life. She can remember countless family devotions, biblical counsel and family prayers. She says Craig’s faith was integral to his home, and that’s why it was so important in the institutions at which he served.
Craig came to Union from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, where he had taken it from a two-year to a four-year college. According to James Alex Baggett’s history of Union, many in Jackson protested his appointment at Union and feared that his commitment to Christian foundations, biblical principles and Baptist heritage would undermine the success of the university in West Tennessee.
“They were protesting the fact that he was coming because he was going to make some changes that people didn’t like in regard to the fidelity to Scripture and the Christ-centeredness of the institution,” Oliver says. “I was not surprised that Dr. Craig would be a champion for higher education, being faithful to the authority of Scripture and maintaining that in Union’s identity.”
Williams, herself a Union graduate, says she has seen Union grow over the years since her father left, and she is grateful to have had men like Hyran E. Barefoot, David S. Dockery and Oliver to continue the good work done by Craig and his team. With Abbie’s graduation, all three of her daughters have graduated from Union.
She says it is comforting for her to know that after her father is gone, he would be pleased with what has happened at Union University.
“On his tombstone, he wanted placed, ‘This one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last,’” Williams said. “At all the colleges that he’s touched, that’s what’s happening. He’s continuing to have an impact on the world for Christ through these schools.”