Chattanoogan: Derek Halvorson - A President For The Next Generation

The 2012 election that took place recently did not take millions of dollars of campaign funds for candidate Dr. Derek Halvorson. In fact, when the position of the president of Covenant College on Lookout Mountain became available, Derek did not expect to be occupying the not so-oval-office.

“I didn’t think Dr. Nielson would be going anywhere soon. He made the announcement a year in advance and I got a lot of phone calls and emails asking if I was going to come back to Covenant. But I thought Covenant would have such a strong candidate pool that I would not make it to the short list,” Derek says.

He was born in Atlanta but grew up in the San Francisco Bay area as well as Charlotte, N.C. Derek first came to Covenant as a high school senior when searching prospective colleges.

“I was a finalist for a Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina, had a full tuition scholarship at Duke and had an appointment to the United States Naval academy,” Derek states. With a smile he continues, “…and then I had a scholarship of a little Presbyterian college on top of a hill outside of Chattanooga.”

At the time, Navy was the hardest school to get into in the country. Derek turned down Duke, North Carolina and Navy to come to Covenant in 1989.

His father, Steve Halvorson, was a bond and commodities trader working at several large banks, while his mother, Dr. Marni Halvorson, was an educator who recently stepped down as head of a prep school in Charlotte. His parents’ career paths would lead Derek and his three younger brothers unknowingly heading in the same direction.

“My brother, Hans, is a professor of philosophy at Princeton. One of my younger brothers, Kurt, is managing a $26 million portfolio in LA and the youngest brother, Hoyt, is managing the Frist family money in Nashville; so two of us went into education and two of us into finance,” Derek says.

All of the Halvorson young men ended up attending Covenant College here in the South. “Mom was a California girl and Dad was a Wisconsin guy, so I am not really a Southerner,” admits Derek, and he quips, “I didn’t try fried okra until I got out of college.” 

Having a grandfather and uncles who were officers in the Navy, Derek had ideas of joining as well. “Mom’s dad also became a pastor after the military and my dilemma was could I be a military chaplain and carry an assault rifle?” Derek laughs. “I wrote to the chaplain at West Point when I was in 6^th grade and proposed that question and he was very gracious to write me back!”

Bagging groceries at Harris Teeter grocery store in North Carolina was the first job Derek had before coming to Covenant on the McClellan Scholarship.

“I’d like to think I picked up a genteel Southern accent while growing up in North Carolina.”

“I would have loved to have been a professional soccer player, too. I played in high school and college and a little while after; I played for Chattanooga Railroaders which was sort of the predecessor to CFC here in town,” Derek asserts.

The deciding factor for Derek to attend Covenant was when he visited and stayed in the dorm with students and heard them carrying on a debate that took place in class.

“I could tell that Covenant was serious about undergraduate education. When I visited North Carolina and sat behind a 500-person sociology lecture peering down at the professor way down in the auditorium, I realized the students didn’t know the prof and the prof didn’t know them – and at Duke the prof was more interested in talking about his own research and his own work and didn’t seem nearly as interested in helping students learn,” Derek reveals.

He knew that Covenant was a place where faculty invested in the students and manifests those students who were getting excited and ready to learn.

“Obviously it is in a beautiful location and I knew I would get a great undergraduate education that was seriously Christian. It was where I was going to play in a competitive soccer program and have a lot of fun while I was doing all those things,” Derek attests. 

“Covenant attracts creative students who choose to come to a thousand-student college and who are not just following the herd. They think a little bit differently. When students are getting in line to go to whatever their local state university is - our kids are from 46 states and 21 countries and are from all over the place - they are independent thinkers,” he says.

Being a history major, Derek planned to become a history professor. He traveled all over the country playing soccer with the team. He had a great experience at the liberal arts and science college and was given a solid foundation for his unique career path.

“I kind of took a detour and spent time in the financial markets. But that helped me decide that I really wanted to be in academia,” Derek explains.

He met his wife, Wendy, in Chicago. Derek had moved to Tucson, Ariz., to obtain his masters and married Wendy while he was there.

Maneuvering as cunningly as a chess piece with a plan, Derek conducted research while on fellowship in England and went back to Chicago where he obtained his PhD at Loyola University.

He did teach while at Loyola and got his doctorate in history hoping it would carry him to a professorship.

“I had an opportunity to come back to Covenant in 2003 to work in the advancement office, which was a little bit confusing for me because I really wanted to be a history professor. I felt I would be a better educated professor if I understood what happened on the external side of college,” Derek insists.

His work involved marketing, branding and PR for the college and he ended up doing major gift fundraising for the college.

“A few older, wiser heads said to me, ‘I recognize that you would like to be a history professor but you have a pretty unusual career path having spent time in financial markets, and marketing/branding, PR, with major fundraising, and you have a PhD. Perhaps what you are being prepared for is not for the classroom, but a presidency’,” Derek relates.

It became certain as things began to unfold that it was God’s calling to bring Derek not only the office of presidency but also back to Covenant. Derek did not think the position at Covenant would be available for a long while, so in 2008 when a college classmate who was an English professor in California called him telling him there was an opening for president at Providence Christian College, he went through the steps of interviewing several times though not really expecting they would call a 37-year-old man to be their president.

“I had convinced myself that I was called to be a professor, but in 2009 I became the second president at Providence Christian College. I never would have envisioned that was going to happen,” Derek confesses.

When he had heard the announcement that Dr. Nielson would be leaving Covenant, Derek kept doing his job and then a year ago he received a call from the chairman of the board asking if he would be willing to put his name in the hat.

“I probably wouldn’t have done it for any other institution, but I have such deep love for Covenant and a deep appreciation for what it has done for me and my family. It was daunting knowing that there were 112 candidates for the job and somehow they landed on me,” Derek says humbly.

“What I hope for the future is that Covenant won’t change while a lot of other colleges are - at least in some ways. I am deeply committed to Covenant maintaining its Christian commitment. One thing we do really well is face to face interaction between faculty and students.  Covenant has always held a view that education is more than just a transmission of data from one head to another. It is about the shaping and forming of Christian people. The students see their faculty model for them what engaged Christian life might look like,” Derek upholds.

A great concern for him is keeping Covenant affordable. “It’s a big issue for a lot of folks right now. That is a big priority for me. Dr. Neilson did a lot of work connecting us with potential partners in places around the country and abroad where we can have partnerships with like-minded institutions and people in other parts of country and around the globe,” he insists.

A few students gathering in conversation near Carter Hall were asked about the new guy. Jimmy Barnett spoke for the group saying, “I helped him move into his office. He was super friendly and told us about his old school. We recently played an intramural soccer game against him and his team was ‘secret service’ - it was pretty funny being that he was the president. They were really good. He’s still got it,” he laughs. “It was real fun – they killed us.”

The young president and his wife have an 11-year-old son named Banks and an eight-year-old daughter named Whitman. Banks somewhat remembered friends he knew in Chattanooga previously and it wasn’t as hard on him, but Whitman had a best friend that she did not want to leave in California.

“They have adjusted very well. Chattanooga is such a wonderful place for a family and we have loved jumping back into life here.  We spend a lot of time hiking and spend time down on the riverfront. The kids have become huge fans of Clumpies Ice Cream and they also like being here on the campus. They think they have 1,000 older brothers and sisters,” Derek laughs.

After being asked if he will guide his own children to attend Covenant he jokes, “I will push for it …because they would get a break on tuition.”

jen@jenjeffrey.com