Murdock Trust Awards Concordia $300K for Leadership Center

Grant will support director position at Center for Applied Lutheran Leadership

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust awarded Concordia University a $300,000 grant to fund the Art & Carol Wahlers Center for Applied Lutheran Leadership (CALL).

The grant, the third highest 2010 grant awarded by Murdock, will allow the Center to hire a full-time director and develop programming to inspire and advance, existing and future Lutheran leaders.

"Generous Murdock funding will enable the Center for Applied Lutheran Leadership to address the critical need to improve the way we make religion and spirituality come alive in a meaningful way for youth and young adults," said Concordia University Provost Mark Wahlers.

The Art & Carol Wahlers Center for Applied Lutheran Leadership is a joint venture between Concordia University and the LCMS Northwest District that supports the Lutheran church in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the broader Christian community. It focuses on leadership enhancement, missions and the spiritual formation of youth and works to engage professional church workers and lay leaders throughout the Pacific Northwest in wrestling with and seeking answers to the critical questions facing the ministry.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust was created by the will of the late Melvin J. Murdock, the co-founder of Tektronix, with the mission of enriching the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants and enrichment programs to organizations seeking to strengthen the region's educational, spiritual, and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways.

Jim Pressnell, Concordia's director of church relations, added that CALL focuses on many of the issues the Murdock Trust deemed essential, including the need to increase the number of professional church workers in the Northwest.

"The Center targets the root causes and does so in a creative way that takes into consideration the broader regional context, not just the University community," Pressnell said.

Additional, ongoing funding for the CALL director and leadership programs will be provided through the EP Weber Family Endowment at Concordia University. For more information or to contribute to the endowment contact Jim Pressnell at jpressnell@cu-portland.edu or 503-493-6574.

CALL is located in Concordia's George R. White Library and Learning Center. For more information about CALL, visit http://www.cu-portland.edu/call.

This event was posted by dthomas@cu-portland.edu.