OBU President Emeritus Bob Agee to Speak at Founder’s Day Feb. 5

January 31, 2020

Dr. Bob Agee, president emeritus of OBU, will deliver the Founder’s Day chapel address Wednesday, Feb. 5. The service will take place at 10 a.m. in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium.

Founder’s Day is held each year near the beginning of the spring semester to commemorate the University’s incorporation in 1910. Founder’s Day is also dedicated to honoring those who have faithfully served as faculty and staff at OBU in the past.

Agee is not only president emeritus of OBU, but also worked as a professor, dean and vice president of religious affairs at Union University. He is the founder and senior consultant of Agee, Stewart and Allen Development, a company that specializes in long-range strategic planning, board training, leadership development, fund-raising program design and development, and executive coaching. He has been a pastor of many Baptist churches in Tennessee and Kentucky.

He has served in Baptist higher education for more than five decades, serving as OBU's 13th president from 1982-98. During his presidency, the University experienced significant growth and attracted national recognition for the quality of its faculty, its students and its education programs. The university also became known among church-related colleges and universities for its involvement in missionary outreach and international activity. Following his retirement as president in 1998, Brotherhood Dormitory was renamed Agee Residence Center to honor him and his wife, Nelle.

Agee has been involved actively in numerous national educational and denominational activities, serving in leadership roles for various national organizations. Following his retirement from OBU, he became executive director of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools. The organization, which became the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities 2006, includes 51 Baptist-affiliated schools across the nation. He served at the IABCU for nine years. He also worked as the executive director of the Consortium for Global Education for four years.

A graduate with honors from Union University with a degree in history and religion, Agee earned both an M.Div. and D.Min. in pastoral ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the George Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. He holds an honorary D.D. from California Baptist University and an honorary Doctor of Humanities from OBU.

While a student at Union from 1956-60, Agee earned eight athletic letters in cross country, track and tennis. During his time on the cross-country team, they won four conference championships, and in 1958 and 1959, they went undefeated, winning the southern regional championship and competing twice in national championship meets. He was the editor of “The Cardinal and Cream;” assistant editor of “Lest We Forget,” the University yearbook; president of the Rutledge History Club; member of the Nestor Club, a scholastic society of the top 12 male students; winner of the Strickland Oratorical Medal; and member of “Who’s Who is American Colleges and Universities.”

In 1999, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. He was then inducted into the Union University Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. He has also been listed in “Who’s Who in American Education” since 1990.

Agee has many published works, including, “Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation,” “The Reason for the Season,” and “An Unlikely Story: Memories and Reflections on Life’s Journey,” while also authoring chapters in many other books.