Tribute to Edward "Chip" Anderson
Original: Tributeto Edward "Chip" Anderson
by Laurie Schreiner, chair of the Department of DoctoralStudies in Education and professor in the Higher EducationLeadership Doctoral program at Azusa Pacific University(CA).
On July 5, 2005, Dr. Edward"Chip" Anderson went home to theLord he loved, after spending his life "beingwhere God wanted him to be and doing what God wanted him todo." Chip came to Azusa Pacific Universityin 1999 as a professor in the Doctoral Studies in Educationprogram, after spending 28 years at UCLA in capacities as varied asveterans' services, retention, counseling psychology, and theGraduate School of Education.
A leading authority in retention and advising, Chip has been apassionate and committed advocate of a strengths-based approach toeducation, and his influence has been felt in hundreds of highschools, community colleges, universities, churches, andorganizations. Co-author with Don Clifton of StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths inAcademics, Career, and Beyond, Chip was instrumental inigniting the "strengths revolution" -- the commitment to changingthe paradigm in higher education from deficit-remediation tostrengths development. He believed that the key to studentsuccess was already within the student, and that by encouragingstudents to become the persons God created them to be they couldachieve excellence and complete the work that God had designed themto do. Students responded to this call on their lives, hungryfor the sense of meaning, purpose, and direction that anappreciation of their strengths gave them.
Chip spoke on hundreds of college campuses and has impacted thelives of many across the CCCU. His strengths of Belief,Strategic, Activator, Achiever, and Connectedness combined in apowerful way to transform lives. As he said toward the end ofhis life, "With Connectedness, I realize there isa 'Master plan' that brings each person into my life, and I knowthat what I do with my life will have a 'ripple effect' long afterI am gone."
In honor of Chip's desire for the"ripple effect" to continue afterhe is gone, the Chip Anderson Strengths Legacy, a memorialendowment fund for researchers to continue the work instrengths-based education that was so important to Chip, has beenestablished at Azusa Pacific University through the Center forStrengths-Based Education. Donations can be made to AzusaPacific University, Center for Strengths-Based Education, P.O. Box7000, 701 E. Foothill Blvd., Azusa, CA 91702-7000.
We covet your prayers for the Anderson family and the APUfamily as they mourn their loss, and we rejoice in the sureknowledge that Chip has completed the work God has called him to doand is now in the presence of the One whom he loved first andbest.
