Oakwood University Returns to the North American Division

By AT News Team, July 7, 2015:   At the close of the business session on July 6, 2015, General Conference (GC) president Ted Wilson announced that the GC annual council (October 2014) and the North American Division (NAD) year-end meetings (November 2014) voted to move Oakwood University oversight from the GC to the NAD.

Two other institutions that also went through transitions were Pacific Press and the Review and Herald Publishing Association. Pacific Press moved from a GC publishing house to an NAD publishing house, and the Review transitioned from a full-functioning press to a press in name only. Retained by the GC, the name is now on works already being published by the General Conference.

For Oakwood University (OU) the transition began about a year before the decision was voted at annual council when the board started determining the best organizational placement for OU within the denomination’s structure.

“The General Conference is expanding rapidly,” said Leslie Pollard, Oakwood University president. “We just added at this GC 35 more unions. That’s wonderful, but Oakwood’s constituency’s not represented in that General Conference room.”

Pollard emphasized the importance of being at a level within the church structure where OU could exercise its biggest impact.

“We’re at home,” Pollard said. “Have you ever gone home and you exhale because you’re at home? That’s the sense that it has. That Oakwood is in its right home, and Oakwood will do its best work going forward because it’s placed appropriately.”