2008 Recipient: John Walkup

For 2007-2008, we are delighted to announce that the award has been given to Dr. John Walkup, Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas Tech University and Faculty Commons Regional Representative.

After receiving his Ph.D. from Stanford University, John joined the faculty of Texas Tech where he served with distinction for 28 years. Upon his retirement from Texas Tech, he and his wife Pat joined the staff of Faculty Commons and moved to the Bay area of California of which both are natives. Since 1996 they have established and ministered to faculty groups at the University of California Berkeley, the University of California Davis, San Jose State University, and Stanford University. In addition, John has traveled the world extensively representing Jesus and Faculty Commons in the former Soviet Union, England, Poland, Switzerland, Taiwan, and China; visiting some of these countries multiple times.

In all the time John has been associated with Faculty Commons (and its forerunner Christian Leadership) beginning in 1982, John has served humbly and with great effectiveness. He and Pat organized and served as faculty advisors of the InterVarsity student group at Texas Tech and sometime thereafter John and his colleagues organized the Christian Faculty Fellowship at Texas Tech. John served on the National Leadership Team and the Faculty Advisory Board of Christian Leadership Ministries for many years. Everyone associated with Faculty Commons appreciates John’s wisdom and insights—when he speaks about faculty ministry people listen because he has truly lived what he speaks!

If we are ever going to significantly impact the great universities of the West for Jesus, it will be as godly professors, men and women, embrace the same call that Erick Nilson answered more than 25 years ago and stand beside John Walkup and others to challenge our colleagues to make a difference for Jesus through our teaching and research and through our individual and corporate witness on the campus.