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History of InterVarsity's Multiethnic Journey


INTERVARSITY'S MULTIETHNIC JOURNEY

written by Neil Rendall and Pete Hammond
edits by Kylene Hong

When InterVarsity started in the USA in 1939 there were 1 million college students in a country with a population of 139 million people. The college campus was an elite place and it was 98% White. The attitude of Whites, North or South, towards Blacks and other minorities was negative and oppressive. For Blacks nothing had changed since the end of the Civil War in 1865. It was almost mentally impossible for Whites (Christian or not) to believe that Blacks or Latinos could be equals to Whites in any aspect of life -- this was true in 1865, in 1890, in 1940, in WWII and in the years that followed.

It was into this racist world of the 1940s that IVCF was born. And it is amazing that we began to take steps to face racism in ourselves and in the larger campus world as our ministry developed in those early years.

This is a list of some of the key benchmarks and pioneers in our history of seeking to deal with race and reconciliation. These people and events illustrate the long process of IVCF/USA serving and reaching majority and ethnic minority students, and learning how to become a multiethnic and multi-cultural Christian ministry in American higher education.

1944-1948 Jane Hollingsworth (Haille) in NYC confronted an IV Board member when she refused to permit Black students in her home for the city's monthly meetings. Jane's Biblical honesty breaks the Board member's racism and her home is opened to all students.
1948 On June 5, the IVCF Board passed a 3-point resolution:
  1. A Christian group in a Negro College shall be accepted without distinction as an IVCF Chapter.
  2. All national IVCF conferences shall be on a non-segregational basis.
  3. Since colored people relate segregation and the Christianity which we represent, we must demonstrate that in Christ there is neither black or white.
1947-1949 African American Eugene Callander and Chinese American Hon Sit came on as part-time staff in New York City while they did their graduate work in the city. They were InterVarsity's first staff of color.
1948-1952 Gwen Wong’s appointment added a gifted Asian American woman to the IVCF staff team. Gwen pioneered the student work in Hawaii.
1952 The Board of Trustees approved the IVCF policy of appointing Negroes as full time InterVarsity staff. In the debate over this with the Board, each IV staff said they would tender their resignation if a Negro staff did not have the same status as the rest of us.
1952-1954 Ivery Harvey as a Black staff worker pioneers IVCF's ministry to the Historically Black colleges in GA, AL, NC, SC, and VA. Ivery was a student in IVCF at Wayne University in Detroit, MI. He continues today as a friend and occasional advisor to our senior Black staff.
1957-1963 Ruth Lewis (Bentley) was IVCF's third Black staff worker. She worked with students at the Black schools in the Southeast. Ruth's ministry on campus was during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.
1966 Pete Hammond comes on staff in the SE and begins to lay the foundations for a ministry that reaches out to both Black and White college students in LA and MS and then to the rest of the Southeast region.
1967 200 Black students attended Urbana 67. After an all night prayer meeting by a group of these Black students, they presented a petition to IV leaders. The list of demands called for changes in IVCF if it was to touch the lives of Black American college students. It was a scary time for IVCF leadership.
1967-1976 Paul Gibson became the 4th Black IVCF staff worker. At Harvard, Paul was discipled by his White staffworker, Butch Dickerson, who challenged him to come and help lead IV in reaching Black students. Paul pioneered Black student work in Southern California before moving to work in New York City in 1970. Paul was part of that Black prayer meeting at Urbana 1967.
1968 After Urbana 67, IV's President John Alexander called a meeting with Black student leaders Elward Ellis, Carl Ellis and Rev. Bill Bentley to discuss the issues coming out of the petition given at Urbana. Results:

- An Urbana Student Advisory Committee was formed.
- A promotional film to recruit Black students to come to Urbana 70 was created.
- Upon the recommendation of these Black student leaders, Tom Skinner was invited to be a plenary speaker at Urbana 70 where 600-700 Black students attended. The largest number of Black students until Urbana 2003.
1970 Thom Hopler and his wife Marcia come back to the US after spending 10 years in Kenya with African Inland Mission. Thom gave IVCF it's Multiethnic Biblical Base and a view of God’s work in history crossing cultural divides.

Neil Rendall moves to Metro NY/NJ as the Area Director and partners with Paul Gibson and Conrad Sauer to provide leadership for the NY/NJ ethnic concerns.
1973 After being a staff volunteer for a year, Rudy Hernandez comes on staff in 1973 in AR and OK. Rudy is IV’s first long term Hispanic staff. He is appointed AD of TX in 1977 and is the first Hispanic American to hold that position. He develops a major focus on reaching Mexican American students in South TX. Rudy left staff in 1987 and in 2002 was appointed to the InterVarsity Board.
1974 Chinese American, Donna Dong joins staff and serves Northern California students and develops Asian student outreach. She continued as the senior Asian American staff in the USA until her appointment in 2002 as the Multiethnic Ministry Coordinator for IVCF/Canada.
1975 IVCF Vice President, James McLeish, and Southeast Regional Director, Pete Hammond, partner with Paul Gibson and the Black staff in the country to create the Black Staff Fellowship (BSF).
1979 Nina Lau-Branson convenes the first gathering of Asian Staff in IVCF, and served as the first part-time coordinator for Asian American Ministries. There were 6 staff at this gathering, and it was a historic first step that formed the beginnings of IV’s Asian Staff Fellowship and the Asian American Ministries department we see today.
1980 Elward Ellis joins InterVarsity and accepts the appointment as the first National Director of the Black Campus Ministry.
1981 LaFe (“The Faith" or "Latino Fellowship”) was formed under the leadership of Rudy Hernandez and Ruth Lewis (Cole) and a core of Hispanic staff who wanted to see IV develop an effective ministry to Hispanic students.
1983-1985 Senior staff, Jeanette Yep, assumes the coordinator role full-time for the Asian American Staff Fellowship.
1983 Elward Ellis, Ruth Lewis (Cole), Jeanette Yep and Regional Director, Jim Lundgren, pioneer “The Multi-Cultural Institute” as a national training event for staff from all four ethnic streams in InterVarsity at that time: Black, Asian, White and Hispanic.

IV President, James McLeish, established the President's Ethnic Committee under Jeanette Yep to research IVCF programs and needs in multiethnic development.
1985 New IV President, Gordon MacDonald, establishes the BCM National Advisory Committee to coach the president and national leadership of IVCF. Then President MacDonald created a Multiethnic Task Force of 10-12 senior staff active in multiethnic ministry. Jeanette Yep leads the task force and President MacDonald commissions it to answer the questions: “What would InterVarsity look like if it became a true multiethnic ministry?” and “What changes will be necessary in the structure if this is to be accomplished?”
1986 The Multiethnic Task Force completes its work in December of 1986. In 1987, Interim President Tom Dunkerton incorporates almost all of the recommendations into IV’s organizational structures, and the phrase in the original vision statement “reaching the campus in all of its ethnic diversity” and the creation of the Multiethnic Ministries Department came from the work of the Task Force.
1988 Interim President Tom Dunkerton appoints Pakistani Dr. Samuel Barkat, as the first VP of the new Multiethnic Ministries Department.
1992 With President Steve Hayner and former Canadian President Samuel Escobar as co-chairs, a task force of 25-30 people from within IV and outside of IV met 3 times over the year to develop a theological foundation for multiethnicity in IVCF as a movement. “The Commitment of InterVarsity to Biblical Multiethnicity” is the position paper of this task force.

BCM sponsors their first National Black Student Conference in Atlanta, GA.
1996 In March, VP Sam Barkat holds the first Multiethnic Staff Conference near Chicago. Asian, Black, Hispanic and European American staff met together each morning for worship and teaching. For the rest of the day they gathered in ethnic specific groups to work on issues facing their particular communities. The conference has been held every 3 years since 1996 in various locations.

The Word and Life Study Bible is published. It is a joint venture between Thomas Nelson Publishing and InterVarsity. Pete Hammond led the project with 10-12 staff and friends of IVCF doing the study notes. The notes on “Race and Ethnicity” in this Bible may be the only such Bible study helps on this issue published in the USA. The themes of work, economics, ethics, the city, women and environment are all issues related to God's call for justice and righteousness in society and on the college campus.
1997 Paul Tokunaga becomes the full-time National Coordinator for Asian American Ministries, after serving in a variety of leadership and management roles since 1973 when he first came on staff with InterVarsity.
Late 90s In Southern CA, IVCF staff Lisa Harper, Doug and Sandy Schaupp develop "Race Matters." This is a tool to help Asian, Black, Hispanic and White students talk to each other about the issues of racism and reconciliation in their chapters and on their campuses.
2000 At Urbana 2000, students are the most ethnically diverse group of people that have come to this great mission conference since it began in 1946.

At the conference, five Native American leaders helped us in leading Native American workshops and participating in the Native American Lounge programs. They were prayed for on the plenary stage and danced at the extended evening worship time. All of this has moved various staff in 2001 and 2002 to attend First Nation gatherings. IVCF’s first National Native American staff training event was in November 2002. Paula Harris, former staff in the Missions Department with Urbana program, provided invaluable leadership. She along with several of the MEM staff made this possible.

Orlando Crespo appointed national director of LaFe.
2002 InterVarsity hosts National Staff Conference. This was the first time in our history that we as a whole staff team had worked on these issues of Shalom and multiethnicity at a National Staff Conference.

Paula Fuller becomes the first minority chair of IV Board of Trustees.

President Alec Hill appoints Phil Bowling-Dyer as director of Black Campus Ministries after having served on staff for ten years in the San Francisco Bay area.

The fourth triennial BCM national student conference, “Atlanta ‘02”, has about 400 students and staff in December.
2003 Jeanette Yep, a senior staff who has provided great leadership for over 20 years in the development of IVCF’s commitment to become a multiethnic ministry, is appointed as VP and Director of the Multiethnic Ministries Department.

Urbana 03 sets new benchmark numbers with the largest attendance to date, including the largest attendance of ethnic minorities.
2004 The LaFe Staff Team holds its first National Latino Student Conference in San Diego, CA, in December. The theme is “Embracing Our Identity: for Such a Time as This.”
2005 Paula Fuller is appointed Vice President and Director of the Multiethnic Ministries Department.

Atlanta 05, the fifth triennial National Black Student Conference, sees record breaking attendance
2006 The Multiethnic Staff Conference helps provide healthy perspective and process of what the Lord has been doing in the movement in the areas of multiethnicity and reconciliation. The Multiethnic Ministries Team provided directional leadership for how multiethnicity, as a core InterVarsity value, will continue to deepen and influence our work on campus.
2007-present The journey continues...
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