Homecoming Review: The Anchor Still Holds

Homecoming Review: The Anchor Still Holds

Dr. David Chow receives CIU Alumni of the Year Award

Dr. David Chow (center) is joined by his wife Karen in receiving the Alumnus of the Year Award from CIU President Dr. Bill Jones

By Melissa McCutchan

CIU student writer

November is a busy time at Columbia International University: exams are looming, the holidays are coming, and for one exciting weekend, alumni return to CIU’s campus for the annual Homecoming celebration.

This year’s Homecoming festivities took place Nov. 6-7, with the theme “Anchored: Appreciate the Past, Anticipate the Future.” The weekend included class reunions, fireworks, a special showing of the CIU Players’ “Alice in Wonderland,” and a variety of other activities.

“I’ve been coming ever since I finished in ’99,” alumna Luadell Edmond said.  “I enjoy coming to see the changes [to the campus] and the people.”

Current students, faculty, and alumni gathered for the Alumni of the Year Chapel on Nov. 6, which honored Dr. David Chow (’75).  Chow serves as the president of Ambassadors for Christ, a ministry that reaches out to Chinese intellectuals and Chinese students who are studying abroad.  The Alumni Association also posthumously awarded Alumni of the Year honors to Chow’s father, The Rev. Moses Chow (’58).

“I believe the Lord wanted to use this [award] as a milestone of encouragement to me, to end well and to end strong,” Chow said.

Chow also spoke at the annual President’s Banquet that evening, where he emphasized the importance of evangelizing Chinese students studying abroad in the United States and mobilizing them to take the gospel back to China.

“The [Chinese] people have found God (in the United States), and they go back [to China] with a sense of purpose: ‘To Know Him and to Make Him Known,’” Chow said reciting CIU’s motto.

Reflecting on his CIU experience, Chow said that he is “forever grateful to God and indebted to CIU for the life-transforming education I received as a student here.”

“It is good to be changed, but even better to be transformed,” Chow added.

On Friday, the Alumni Association also hosted the fourth annual “speed meeting,” where current students meet with alumni for five minutes at a time to swap stories about their time at CIU, including stories about favorite professors and pranks pulled on classmates.

“I have enjoyed meeting with students the most,” said Jean Takeuchi (’78), a former Alumna of the Year.  “That is one big thing I came for.”

Students, alumni, and faculty also gathered to cheer on the Rams men’s soccer team on Saturday, who suffered a tough 3-2 loss to Chowan University.  At halftime, the athletics program honored the team’s seniors, who were freshmen when CIU played its first ever intercollegiate athletics in 2012.

“You have been everything I desire for our program to become,” CIU President Bill Jones said to the seniors at Saturday’s game.  “You are champions not just on the field, but off the field.”

The weekend concluded with the annual CIU Bowl, a flag football game otherwise known as the North-South game. There was no women’s game this year, but the men engaged in a hard-fought battle, with the South team defeating the North 8-6.

For alumni who couldn’t make back to campus this year, the Alumni Ministries Department is already encouraging alumni to save the dates for Homecoming 2016 to be held on Nov. 4-5.

See photos from Homecoming 2015 on the CIU Alumni Relations Facebook page here.

See a video of the Alumni of the Year Chapel here