Courtesy of the University of Jamestown
JAMESTOWN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Dr. James S. Walker, the tenth president of the University of Jamestown, died last month. He was 88.
Walker and his wife, Nadine, came to then Jamestown College in 1983. He began work during at a time when the college was facing serious financial challenges. His work paid off, and the college’s enrollment doubled before his retirement in 1993.
“I will forever be indebted to Dr. Walker for taking a chance on me when he hired me to be the University’s first Controller,” current University President Polly Peterson stated. “I admired his confidence, his humor, his incredible ability to recall every useful, and often useless, fact ever written. Most importantly, I admired his ability to lead with both kindness and accountability. He was the right person for the right time in our school’s history and his legacy will live on as one of the University’s greats.”
Staff members also reminisced on Dr. Walker’s service to the University of Jamestown.
“Dr. James Walker was an innovative scholar, pastor, and servant leader whose presidency brought Jamestown College from the brink of closing to a state of regional prominence, financial health, and record enrollments,” Associate Professor Katherine Stevenson recalls. “He was a remarkable humanist and theologian who had studied with distinction under Prof. Dr. Karl Barth at the University of Basel in Switzerland, but was equally at home visiting with Presbyterian parishioners in small-town North Dakota churches.”
She continued, “He preached on weekends anywhere he could to share the gospel and raise awareness of the mission of Jamestown College. He was joyful, humble, wise, and empathetic. He never forgot a face and faced the challenges of his Jamestown College presidency with a rare combination of optimism, faith and realism.”
Retired Associate Professor and Library Director Phyllis Bratton spoke on Dr. Walker’s work keeping the college open during his service.
“Dr. Kroeze reopened the place, but Dr. Walker kept it from closing again, and that’s the truth,” she stated. “Dr. Walker was a very good person to go to with a problem, because he was a problem solver. He was a very kind person but also a very direct person, so you always know where you stood with him.”