At the end of the summer, Stafford North will be stepping down from his position as Church Relations Director for Oklahoma Christian University, but North plans to continue teaching at a part time level. He will no longer have a permanent office on campus, but he will still have a presence.
North discussed his retirement and longtime career with the Talon.
When did you first come to Oklahoma Christian?
North: “I first came in January of 1952 and was 21 years old. I had finished college and was about through with my masters, I was still working on my thesis. I was getting a degree in speech. … I had gone to Abilene Christian and they got a hold of me and asked me to come and so I did. So I came and I taught speech and Greek and Bible and tennis and sponsored the school paper. You know we were small. We had about 100 students at the junior college.”
Where was your schooling?
North: “I went to Abilene Christian and I went to LSU for my masters. After I had been here for two years, I took a leave and went to Florida State University to get my doctorate.”
What do you think some of the biggest differences between OC then and OC now are?
North: “Obviously the size is different. We had 100 students, now we have 2,500. Bartlesville was a smaller town, now we are in a major metropolitan area. A lot of things are the same; I think our goals are the same, to be a college — that is high quality, that is done within a Christian atmosphere. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of students we’ve been able to get. We had really good students. Bailey McBride was one of our students in those days, for example. You don’t get much better students than that, you know. The rules were a little stricter; you probably wouldn’t want to go back to those days. Women couldn’t wear slacks in those days, they had to wear dresses … society was different, you know. I think a lot of things remain the same, even though a lot of things are different.”
What have been some of your favorite memories from your time here?
North: “Well, there have been a lot of them. My wife and I have worked on a lot of things for Oklahoma Christian throughout the years. We used to have lots of students in our home. Some of the most interesting times were getting our accreditation early on. It was pretty major task. When I returned from Florida in the fall of ‘56, I served as the assistant to the president. In ’58 I became academic dean and was dean of the college for 21 years. I’ve served in executive positions over the years for 38 years. During that time I always taught classes.
The Learning Center was a very interesting project. Dr. James Baird, father to our Dr. Baird, was the president and we needed to build a library. Our library was then where the registrar’s office is now. But we need to expand our library. We wanted to build a building for the library. To do that we needed to get some foundation money, so we needed to make it something special. We decided we would design in that library a study carrel for each student; we would specialize in the use of audio recordings for learning. The student would have, at his or her carrel, a headset, and a dial, and they could dial one of 140 recordings that were available at the same time.”
How do you plan to stay connected to Oklahoma Christian?
North: “I turned 85 about three weeks ago, and I decided it was probably about time I made a change. I’ll still teach two classes in the fall. So, I’ll still be connected, but that is what I am teaching now. Two classes so I will retain my teaching load, but I won’t be doing my church relations work or directing the lectureships and stuff like that. I’ll still be teaching for a while, I’ll be hanging around. I’ve been blessed with good health. I’ve never missed a class for illness, in my 61 years.”
What will you miss the most?
North: “Since I’ll be teaching I’ll still have the opportunity to have the contact with the students. I’m sure that I’ll miss being here every day and going to chapel and being part of the flow of things. I’ll probably — I expect there will be some things, some committees I’ll still be present on. It’ll be different. I’ll probably do some more writing and my wife will probably have more things around the house that she’d like to have done.”
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