Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recognized Adam W. Greenway, ninth president of the institution, on Friday (April 24) with a presidential portrait during a special ceremony.
“We want to welcome back to the Southwestern campus the ninth president,” said President David S. Dockery, whose presidential portrait was unveiled last month in a ceremony held in the Rotunda of the B. H. Carroll Memorial Building.
See related stories on Adam Greenway.
“Everyone in the room is aware of the challenges of the past seven years,” Dockery noted, “but it’s our hope today that this will be a genuine step toward living out our grace filled core values and the exhortations from the Apostle Paul found in Romans chapter 12, for us to live in harmony with one another, and so far as is possible for us to do so, to live at peace with one another.”
Dockery added, “We pray today for the Lord’s divine blessings on Adam and Carla Greenway.”
In addition to Greenway’s work to “navigate the challenges of the COVID season,” Dockery credited him with various administrative and academic reforms, campus improvements, additions of key staff members, and bringing a number of current faculty members to Southwestern, making the seminary “stronger today” because of them.
“I want to say personally that I will always be truly grateful for Dr. Greenway’s kind invitation for me to return to my alma mater in August of 2019,” he said. Dockery earned the master of divinity degree in 1981.
‘How good it is to be back’
Greenway, a 2002 master of divinity graduate of Southwestern who served as president from 2019 to 2022, expressed appreciation for the portrait and ceremony, noting “how good it is to be back home under the dome,” he said.
“Whatever may have transpired in the past, as far as I’m concerned, it is time to put that in the past,” he said, expressing confidence that “because I trust that our God is a good God, and that His Word is true, then I do believe that the best days for the Greenways are not in the past, but in the future, wherever He leads and whatever that means. And the same is true for you.”
Greenway continued, “I celebrate whatever God chooses to do and to bless Southwestern Seminary. … I will celebrate what happens from here into eternity,” quoting the first verse of the seminary hymn, “Lead On, O King Eternal.”
In addition to Carla, who earned the master of arts in Christian education from the seminary in 2002, the Greenways’ children, Wade and Caroline, also attended.
Greenway currently serves as a member of the City Council of Frostproof, Florida, and he and Carla both serve at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Avon Park. According to his social media account on X, Greenway also is founder and CEO of Nonprofit Transitions Solutions, Inc., which focuses on helping organizations navigate leadership transitions.
Portraits of the institution’s first through eighth presidents are displayed in the Rotunda. Greenway’s portrait is displayed with Dockery’s outside Truett Auditorium, which adjoins the Rotunda. Southwestern was founded in 1908.
The portrait was painted by Jonathan Linton, an artist who also recently completed the official portrait of Glenn Youngkin, former governor of Virginia.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written and originally published by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Baptist Paper contributed to this report.
