Randy Harp sat down with Mission University president Mark Milioni to discuss the name change from Baptist Bible College to Mission University. There are two videos. The first video is the official announcement video produced by Mission University. Watch this video first. The second video is the recorded interview. (To watch in 4K, watch on YouTube.) Below the videos is a close transcript of the interview.
Interview Transcript
Randy Harp
Obviously, the number one question is why? Why is Baptist Bible College changing its name to Mission University?
Mark Milioni
Yeah, I’ve already had people accusing me of all kinds of things. So it is a great question. It’s a fair question. Let me give you a little bit of background, from my perspective.
I hadn’t been the president of BBC for two months, and I went to a family reunion, and I sat down next to my uncle Gene Milioni. He was in the very first graduating class. I was already worn out. I was already questioning why I would have done this. Why did I do this? Because I was starting to learn.
My Uncle Gene. He looked at me and he said, “Have you ever thought about changing the name?” “No, Uncle Gene, I haven’t.” He is the ultra-conservative one in our family. And he’s, he was a fundamentalist! And it just shocked me that he would even suggest that. And again, I hadn’t been president for two months. And I’m like, I haven’t, “No, I haven’t thought about that.”
He said, “We used to tell Dr. Vick all the time. He said, “For other students, students of business, and education students, they would be more apt to choose it if you did that.”
And I, you know, I just tucked that away and didn’t think on it much more. I had bigger things to worry about at the time.
Moving forward, we had to conquer some major financial issues. We dealt with major academic issues. Today, we are in such good standing in those areas. Even through COVID, it was difficult. Then we started online education and that really began to open our eyes to realizing there is a whole world out there that may be interested. And we just began to learn. We talked to a lot of people. We brought in consultants and learned a lot.
A Christian enrollment company came and met with us and investigated what we were doing because every Christian college, especially ministry-focused colleges, was declining at a crazy rate. Very few are choosing ministry as a full-time occupation today.
Out of 70,000, they surveyed 70,000 Christian high school students who were looking for a Christian college. What degrees are they looking for? What colleges are they looking at?
We didn’t even measure on their study. Less than 1% of Christian high school students were considering any kind of ministry as their vocation.
At the same time, we have several missionary students, but they’re getting a business degree because parents, and even pastors, are recommending that. Students who want to go into church ministry are getting a business degree because their family doesn’t want them to get a ministry degree.
It is hard to think of how a college like BBC is going to exist. Looking at our name, it identified us to our Fellowship. And in our Fellowship, you know, we are fishing in a very, very small pond. Our name just drew us to a very small pond. So we thought about that.
And then a couple of years ago, what finally kind of pushed me to really think through this and start the process and begin a discussion with our trustees. It was at a Fellowship Meeting, two pastors right in a row. It was, I think, one of those God things, that came up to me.
The first one said, “Hey, brother Mark, have you ever thought about changing the name?” He said, “I could send a lot more students there if you did. Parents would like that.”
And then the second one said, “Hey, have you ever thought about changing the name? I have students that probably would choose it if you did.”
And, you know, it’s things like that that are just so crazy stories like that, and it just began to come together. We have gone through so much to get where we’re healthy today.
I’m talking to our Fellowship now. I mean, this is my home and my heart. I have more people outside of our Fellowship who want BBC than our own Fellowship. And that’s hard. So, we began thinking through all that.
And then there are two more reasons that really kind of pushed us.
This is going to help our students when a student goes to interview for a job, when they fill out their resumé, if they’re a business student or an education student, it’s going to help them, you know, not have to explain or apologize, you know, for having a business degree from a non-recognizable college in that in that realm. So it’ll help our students.
It will help our missionaries. Some missionaries have mentioned this now and then. Just since we’ve been discussing this, we’ve had multiple missionaries ask us to please do this. They have to put down where their degree is from when they go to other countries. We get requests all the time from missionaries asking for a diploma with a different name on it.
And so I it’s going to help. It’s just going to help us in a lot of ways.If a missionary wants a new diploma, or if anyone wants a new diploma, they can request one. We will have it on our website soon. But anybody who graduated previously can request a new diploma.
RH
It’s not Mission College. It’s Mission University. What’s the benefit of being a university?
MM
The definition of a university is having multiple schools. And until we went online, we didn’t have that. We really didn’t qualify for that. There are a lot of other colleges out there that use the name university. The university in the academic world is a higher status, and it is a more recognizable academic product. But we never really qualified. But now we do. In fact, we’re adding this fall, we’re adding an MBA, as well as a Master’s in Education. We are looking at adding some things like that. So now we qualify for that title.
I just think the name fits. Mission University. It flows. Everybody really loves it. And it’s safe to say that it describes us pretty well. Yeah. You know, if you had to pick a name, this is a pretty good one.
RH
We talked about what’s changing, obviously the names changing. Let’s talk about what’s not changing.
MM
Well, just about everything is not changing. We are talking about his new, big shiny thing right now. But honestly, students, when they come back into class, nothing’s changing. It is the same atmosphere, same classes, same professors.
I want to assure everybody our beliefs are still the same. Our doctrine is still the same. Our relationship to the Baptist Bible Fellowship is still the same.
I’m a product of BBC, and I’m proud of that. I’ve always been proud of that. I know who we are. I know what we believe. I know our heart. Our atmosphere is not changing. Our standards are not changing. None of that is changing.
Honestly, it’s not as big of a change as really what we’re putting out there today, because the product is still the same.
RH
This is a similar question. We know what’s not changing, but there are still some people who might have a concern or concerns. What do you have to say to that pastor or that missionary who is concerned about the state of the college now?
MM
I know it should raise concern. If I had been back in my old church and heard this, I would be curious. I’d be really curious. So what does that mean, and what’s happening there?
I think there are some things to know.
First, our Trustee Board is filled with pastors from the Baptist Bible Fellowship. In our discussions, we’ve never had a topic that had more unity than this. It’s just been amazing to see the Lord work all of this out. So I think the testimony of our trustees.
Second, I’ve been here 12 years. If I wanted to be trendy and cool, I would have done it already. You know, I didn’t wait 12 years just to get to this point to do this. I’m not a trendy guy. I don’t do things to be cool. I do what I feel is right. And I think we’ve proven that. I’ve made the right decisions when we dealt with finances and academics and online and COVID. Our track record is pretty good.
My life, my history, and my family are all tied up from Temple Baptist in Detroit through the Baptist Bible Fellowship and BBC. And so, you have every right to look at me, every right to look at our trustees, every right to ask that question. We have been steady.
Randy, you’ve been in our classroom. You know who’s teaching. You know what’s going on.
That’s what needs to be asked. They need to ask who is doing this and what’s going on.
RH
Kind of along those lines, you said in the in the press conference earlier today that part of the “Why now” question is you wanted to wait until you had all the right pieces in place. The right faculty, the right staff, the right administration, the right trustees, everything kind of fit together. Talk about that just a little bit.
MM
When you go through what we’ve gone through. We should not be alive … but God. Time after time after time, we’ve made it. And now we’re progressing forward in a lot of areas. The team that’s come through that with me, I mean, we have solid people in the right places.
We have the right finances. We have the right academic standing. We have the right faculty. We have the right atmosphere. Our atmosphere on campus is wonderful. I’m very, very proud of that. You know, we’ve got the right partners. We’ve got the right the right vendors that we work with. All these are the right processes and all the right data points that academic institutions have to have. It just all came together at the right time. And I think the right name.
RH
So the name is changing, and everything else is basically staying the same. What have we not talked about, maybe other things that are changing? What else is happening on campus?
MM
We are expanding our degree opportunities.
So we’ve had a lot of pastors say, “Do you offer a criminal justice degree?” And we haven’t. But today, we do. So we have partnered with a couple of different institutions so a student can come and live on campus, experience the life, the atmosphere, the biblical worldview, the maturing process that we have through student life, as well as all the Bible, all the chapel, all the church and all that, and then take part of their degree through another institution. But it’s also through us so we can offer just about anything now that students are looking for.
So a student can come here and they could essentially graduate with two bachelor’s degrees, one from us and one from a partner institution. It’s really a cool thing.
COVID made so much of this happen. The government and accreditation agencies basically took down the walls that that used to be in place.
Parents like this because they like BBC, they like the atmosphere, but we just didn’t have some of the degrees that they would like for their kids.
That is one thing, another would be needing to fix up the outside of some of our facilities. We’ve done a lot of the inside and still have more to go, but the outside looks like it did when I was here.
RH
You showed some pictures this morning, and I know nothing is set in stone or firm, but just kind of some ideas on a couple of buildings.
MM
I’m excited about that because it needs to happen. When you drive past our campus, you don’t get excited. It still looks old. And so we really are excited about the opportunity to fix up the exterior. We need to.
I’ve made a pact that if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right, and we’re going to be the best because this is for God.
Academically, nobody’s better than us. I’m very proud of that. But it was because of a choice. If we’re going to do it, we’re gonna do it right. And I want the same thing to be said about our campus. So that’s a big thing that’s coming.
We got big dreams and goals. The finances and plans … we’re trying to figure that out right now.
RH
Do you think by Fellowship Week some of that can be shared, not that it will be finalized, but can share some more information?
MM
Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think we’ll be able to have some plans. Yeah, I hope between now and then we will at least have some signage. That’s the first thing is just to change some of the signs that we have.
RH
So you think there will be new signs up by Fellowship Week?
MM
I hope so. We’ve got some ordered now, and there’s some big ones that we’re trying to figure out how to do it.
RH
Talk about one other new thing. This morning at the press conference, athletic director, Darin Meinders, shared a little about the athletic program.
MM
We have been so blessed athletically. I mean, several years ago, this was before we had our current coach here. I personally canceled everything because I was frustrated. I was disgusted. We had students here that didn’t fit in. When I got here, the whole department was just bad. I laid it out. I said this is who we are and this is who we’re going to be.
Our athletes today come from some of the godliest families that I’ve met around in southwest Missouri. Even some of our churches now have baseball and basketball players here. It’s very exciting because these families have kids that fit here. They’re wonderful young men and young women.
Every single week, I spend hours meeting with students and their families. I had three visits yesterday. And I lay it right out. I say we are a small, private, conservative, Christian college. And you’re going to have Bible and you’re going to take this many ministry classes. And you are going to be involved in chapel. And you know, if you understand that, that’s great. If you don’t, then there are plenty of other colleges. They all get it. It really is a great atmosphere.
But the exciting thing is we’re not just sweet, good Christian guys.
We’re good. Our teams are really good.
We won two (basketball) national championships in the last three years.
Our baseball team is good. We went to the Christian College World Series last year, and we didn’t lose any players from last year to this year. This will be the third season that we’ve had baseball. The coach is pretty excited, and I think we’re going to have a good year.
RH
So, in essence, you let everybody know when they come in exactly who BBC is, and everybody’s welcome as long as they understand that. Right? That’s not new news to you. Didn’t G.B. Vick say the same thing? Didn’t he say that everybody is welcome as long as you know who we are?
MM
You know, sometimes we get it backward. If we have a very narrow funnel, then very few can come in. But if we have a wider funnel, then let’s train them to become Baptists. Let’s train them in Baptist doctrine and that’s what we do. They all go through those classes.
RH
Isn’t Ray Adams still teaching Baptists Distinctives and Baptist history and church history?
MM
That’s right. He is.
RH
Before we wrap it up, I have just a couple more questions. What’s next? What now? What’s on the horizon? If you could dream a little bit, what’s it look like?
MM
It is still important for us to grow. We don’t live on endowments. We are tuition-driven. So that means need students. We’re close to that critical level that will help us to continue to stay positive so we can do some facility enhancements and things.
So I hope we’ll continue to grow. We’ve grown 20% each of the last three years, which is great. But at our size, that’s not a huge number. So we’re still getting there. But I really hope that will continue to grow and see that happen because that will just help us.
And honestly, it’s not just about me. It’s not just about Mission University. This past year not only did we grow in athletes, but we also had our largest incoming mission, a ministry class. The rising tide is bringing all of them up. We need to do this if we want to have a ministry school.
Sometimes I have to put my business hat on and this is all part of that. I’m hoping we will continue to see growth and that we will continue to see more ministry students.
RH
We need our pastors to continue to send students to Mission University.
MM
We do!
I finished my Ph.D. last year, and my dissertation examined what influences students to choose ministry as a vocation. And there are some major things that my whole paper was on. But the number one thing was a mentor, or in their words, was their pastor. Their pastor or youth pastor showed an interest and invested time, involved them in ministry, and encouraged them to go to the right college and go into ministry.
Yeah, that’s got to happen. And I don’t know how much of that is really happening.
RH
Is there anything else you want to add or say to the pastors and missionaries? Are there any questions that I didn’t ask?
MM
Today, while we were in the chapel for the press conference, our new website came on … www.mision.edu. I think it is a great name for a website. This new website has all the introduction stuff to Mission University but also our new website that has all of our information on it.
I would say to a church or a pastor that may say, “Why do I need to keep supporting?”
Your support is needed now more than ever. Your money is not going to make anybody rich. Your money is going directly into helping students come. And the students who come from our churches get the best scholarships.
I would ask for you to not only continue giving but to consider even bumping that up a little bit. You can make a check out to Mission University or to Baptist Bible College.
Our corporate name is still Baptist Bible College and probably always will be.
RH
I don’t know if we addressed this yet, you just mentioned still being Baptist Bible College. That’s still part of Mission University, correct?
MM
That’s right. And I don’t think we did in this interview. Yes. I thought it was important to keep. A university is made up of different colleges. Our ministry and Bible studies college is going to stay Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary. I think that’s important. We’re not getting rid of that name.
Someday, we will name the College of Business and the College of Education, but that will be down the road.
RH
If someone has questions about Mission University, where is the best place to find answers, or what is the best way to touch base?
MM
The best place is the new website, mission.edu. The phone number has not changed. You can still call (417) 268-6000. You can still email me at president@gobbc.edu or my new email address which is president@mission.edu.
Excellent interview! Thanks President/Dr. Milioni and Dr. Harp.
Great interview! Helpful information. Forward!!