A Conversation With Dr. Ronald L. Ellis

For some, securing the title of university president is the acme of a successful, lifelong career. For Dr. Ronald L. Ellis, the sitting and only fifth president of California Baptist University, that’s partially true. He measures success as an ongoing pursuit of one’s growth and commitment. “I look at the life cycle of an organization … similar to that of a person, a human. There's a certain level of excellence and acceptability that [I’m] shooting for​.” With regard to his own life’s journey, one could appreciate his perspective.

The child of staunch educators, Eillis weaved a path marked by his love for academics, a firm belief in the Baptist faith, and a devotion to helping change the lives of others. “In a nutshell, you could say the total responsibility of a person is three things: 1. seek God's will, 2. find God's will, and 3. spend the rest of your life doing God's will. It's pretty simple.” So, when the position to assume the role of CBU (still California Baptist College) president fell into place, he knew the journey wasn’t finished — it had only just begun.

Ellis was appointed on November 1, 1994, when the school had a meager endowment of $3.8 million and averaged 800 students — a big deal for a small liberal arts institution on the West Coast at the time. Ellis, however, soon fixed that, boosting total enrollment to approximately 4,700 by 2010. Today, the student population sits just below 12,000, with an endowment, though still promising, at $168 million, up a staggering 4,200 percent.

Between that time, the Louisiana native would see the college officially established to university status in 1998, the finalization of the Ernest Eugene and Billie “Yeager Center” in 2003, and the historic investment and completion of the 153,000-square-foot Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler Event Center in 2017. Fast-forward to 2024, The Raincross Gazette is recognizing Ellis — who is also a first-time author of his newly released book, “We Are Ready” — for his 30-year anniversary in a job only few attain.

In this sit-down interview, Ellis gets candid about leadership, reveals his strategy for enrollment growth, and stresses the importance of maintaining CBU's mission and culture, emphasizing his “commitment to the Great Commission.”

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

The Raincross Gazette: First, I want to congratulate you on the completion of 30 years as president at Cal Baptist. How would you summarize the past three decades in three words?

Dr. Ronald Ellis: Living. My. Dream. That’s it.

According to the American Council on Education, on average university presidents served roughly six-year terms in 2022 — yours is five times that. What influenced you to stay in this appointment for this length of time? 

Well, I knew at a pretty early age that I felt called to be a university president. I thought, ‘You know, I would really love to be at a struggling Baptist college, and I'd like to help turn that college around, and I'd like to be the president before I'm 40 [years old]. I made it at 38. I didn't really care where, but I really wanted to go.

Another influence on me was that I've always admired pastors and college presidents, who are what I call “quarter-century guys” — people who serve 25 years or longer. There's certainly something to be said for people who are in the same role for a long period of time and have success over time because if you're going to be effective and relevant in the ‘90s, to be effective and relevant in the 2000s is going to take a slightly different skill set, and then in the 20-teens, yet again. That really speaks well of a person, and it also keeps it fresh for me because every year is like a new season for a coach. We're not doing the same thing [every year]. It's different challenges, different opportunities, different groups of people. The goal for me from the get-go was: we're going to use quantity to leverage quality. They're not in competition.

Going off of the last statement, who is someone who sticks out to you, who’s been at CBU for a while, and who you've seen grow that reminds you of “quality over quantity”? 

One would be Kent Dacus. He was here when I came as the director of admissions, and we were very simpatico on what we wanted to accomplish. He's been a vice president pretty much since the six months or so I came, and about a year ago, he was made a senior vice president. He started out in admissions for a school of 808 [students], to being over all student services, housing, intramurals, chapel, you know, all these different things. He's had to grow with that [...] span of control, but also the size of those things.

One of the things you have to learn as the organization grows, especially when you have rapid growth, is your ability to hire quality people. More and more, you have to let go. I've had to do this. You have to delegate more to hire better, talented people, showing them where the ditches are, resourcing them as best you can, and then evaluating them and rewarding them as best you can.

2024 is also the 24th consecutive year in the university’s overall enrollment growth. The student population was right below 8,000 in 2014. Today, it stands at a total of 11,931. Walk me through the specifics of what you’ve done to contribute to this growth. What challenges, if any, do you believe must be tackled to satisfy it?

Students tend to come to a university because of [certain] majors. ‘Do you have nursing? Do you have engineering? Do you have teacher ed? So, while I listen to everybody, we need to have programs that are in demand and are sought after. I use two types of programs that we look at: one is “impact programs,” and the other I call “gap programs.” An impact program is when other institutions in the area offer that program, but for whatever reason, it's impacted, and they're not able to continue to grow it as rapidly as the market would want. [CBU] programs [fall in the other category]. For example, we have the only Bachelor of Science in Nursing program on a campus in Riverside County, as well as the only architecture program in the Inland Empire — if you count the Inland Empire as two counties, Riverside and San Bernardino — and the only aviation program on a four-year college campus. So, those are some examples of programs that are filling a gap, you know?

I also use a principle I call “opportunity planning”; [I got] the idea from the red letters in the Bible. Over and over […] Jesus was looking for opportunities to serve. Christ is looking intentionally to minister to people where they are. A corollary would be that you see what you're looking for. I've tried to model for our people that we need to be looking in Jerusalem — our Inland Empire — and [ask]: how do we minister to people within our mission statement? Instead of telling the market what we want to do and how to deliver it, why don't we see what they're telling us is needed? You can find opportunities anywhere, [but] if it's in conflict with our mission, we don't do it.

So, in 2004, I thought, ‘Is there a conservative Christian college doing science, technology, engineering, and math in a really robust way? Why can't we be that university? There's a lot of needs for that in the Inland Empire and beyond, and it fits with who we are.’ I put a plan together, and we adopted “8080 by 2020,” which was the idea that we would have 10x the number of students in 2020 that we had when I came in ‘94. We completed that vision in 2015, five years early. From 2003 to 2019, [CBU] averaged net fall-to-fall increases of over 600 [students]. In terms of capacity challenges, we constantly need more acreage, more housing, and more food service.

CBU is a massive employer. Recently, it was announced that more than $100 million was donated to the university over the past four years — much being invested back into the campus to fund scholarships, academic programs, and athletics, among other things — which greatly surpassed the $40 Million Endowment Challenge started in 2021. In what areas would you like to see additional campus development? Are you aware of any upcoming projects?

While that’s a wonderful growth, our endowment is still not where it needs to be for an institution our size. From a relative standpoint, it still has a long way to go to be a significant thing, but it's been wonderful. I would say that the way I look at the maturation process of the university, I think we've done a strong job of building very strong academic programs. We built a really strong campus culture. You know, there's a lot of good, [but] the demographics have slowed down. This area, and other areas, is just not growing like it was in the 90s and the early aughts. The Inland Empire is beginning to feel like maybe there are fewer high school graduates, that type of thing. I think we're not going to have the explosive growth that we've had in the past, and that's okay.

Looking at [our] really strong programs, we need to endow them because that sinks roots down. I think this next phase we're in we'll continue to grow, but at a slower pace. I think you'll begin to see more emphasis on making [the programs] steadfast, stronger — that type of thing.

Aside from these gifts being used to support CBU students, tell me your views on how/why this makes the university’s role as an economic leader in the Riverside community so significant. 

I think the endowments give us staying power. We anchor, in a sense, this part of Riverside, and we also bring new money into the city. When I look at economic development for cities, cities that thrive are bringing more money in. Riverside is blessed with four higher education institutions. From an economic standpoint, it's hard to even imagine, ‘Is anybody else in the industry doing something like that?’ So, I think all four institutions, together, are a tremendous cluster asset for the city of Riverside. And I think CBU plays a fairly significant role economically.

[In terms of impact], it's hard to go anywhere and not see license plates or bumper stickers that don't say alumni, California Baptist University, or CBU mom or dad. That's really a small thing, but indicative that there's a lot of people [in Riverside] who receive their education here, are staying here, and are employed, raising their family, and all that. So I think we make a major contribution to the quality of life.

In an article published back in 2014, you said, “Education was highly valued in my household, as well as reading extensively.” You were surrounded by educators in your family, and at an early age, you earned a master’s degree in educational administration and, later, a PhD in higher education administration. Aside from these environmental influences, what drove you to pursue this career path?

I've always been heavily influenced by both the Baptist Church and education. Education has been a very strong thing. From a very early age, I would read the newspaper. I would read Reader's Digest, Newsweek magazine, and Sports Illustrated. Do you know what I would read? I didn't know you weren't supposed to read everything. I just read it. And I think that had an impact on me [...] just reading about science, politics, current events, and music and everything. All of those things hardwired together, I think, is great preparation for all the things you deal with in a job like this.

But also it created a love. I love the music [at CBU], the plays, you know, all the different activities that we have, and the lectures — it's just very stimulating. And I love helping other people live their dreams. You get talented people, and being able to give them a platform where they can live their dream, that helps the organization accomplish its mission.

How would you describe the value of higher education in the modern era?

Do the research and understand what you expect from a college degree: critical thinking skills, credential, maturation, social development/skills, as well as potentially life long friends and even spouse in a positive environment where others are there to improve themselves and their futures.

If you were to give advice to someone forging a path in your position or leadership in general, what would you say?

First, know why you want to be in a leadership position. Is it to hold a position or to accomplish a mission? I consider myself in the latter. If you have a strong desire to help others live their purpose, a college presidency can provide a strategic position to make a significant impact.

Second, prepare yourself with a terminal degree that will provide the theoretical basis as well as the credential to be competitive in the presidential marketplace.

Third, gain a broad base of higher education experiences that test and stretch your abilities and skills, and along the way, seek to have key accomplishments in each role that likely wouldn't have happened had it not been for you being in that position. Document these key accomplishments on your resume for each position held, even part-time positions, if appropriate.

Fourth, I need to understand the conditions for success and be willing to go where the opportunity is.

We’re coming off the heels of one of the most historic presidential elections in U.S. history. I feel it appropriate to ask, as a university president, how do you ensure the safety of diverging beliefs on a faith-based campus, especially in the wake of rising national aversion to conservative Christian values?

As a private institution, just like a restaurant or anything, we’re very welcoming, but we serve [a certain] kind of food, you know? If you're looking for Chinese food, you might go to a Chinese restaurant. But if I go in there and demand hamburgers, I'm not sure that's what they're doing. We welcome everybody who wants to be a part of this community. We respect everybody, but it needs to be mutually respected. Don't come here to change us.

The word we need to go back to is tolerance. I can work with a lot of people that don't have the same worldview I do. We could do economic development together, and we can do this. But we don't have to agree and affirm each other. What is that about? I think that's been a big change that people are saying has gone too far. I'm who I am, you are who you are, and we can live next to each other, prosper, and do mutual things together. So I think we would be better served as a society if we had more tolerance for each other instead of trying to make everybody agree or something. We don't need to agree. We need to be tolerant.

Many, if not all, CBU students today would fall into the Gen-Z category, a population much more reactive to culture and media than past generations. What’s your take on how university leaders (i.e. yourself, faculty, etc.), especially on Christian campuses, should be responding to contentious federal/state policies? Does CBU have a strategy to mitigate such issues?

We're traditional Christians; we're Baptists. It's in our name, it's who we are, and we have respect for everybody, but we are who we are. One of the things we would try to do with every generation is to help you with what we consider eternal truths: long-term values and wisdom. If you get hung up on what I would consider more faddish stuff, I say, ‘The best way to live your life is to know where you want to end up. So, envision yourself as you're about to draw your last breath. And as you get ready to do that, what is going to create that little upturn on the edges of your mouth as you play the video of your life? Whatever that is, spend the rest of your life doing those things.’ Live your purpose, as [CBU] would say.

I’m committed to the Great Commission. I’m willing to be wrong on that, and that is the way I've tried to live my life. I'm not getting entangled in whatever the item du jour is in 2024. To me, it's more valuable for your soul, or anybody else's soul, for me to not get involved with that stuff.  I’m not going to take the bait. I'm going to love people within my understanding of the gospel in the Baptist faith, and that's who I am. We're able to use this wonderful institution to reflect our interpretation of Jesus Christ and his love for humanity, and we try to exercise that with the Great Commission. If we can teach, disciple, baptize, and love people ‘till he comes back, that's my answer.

If you were to reflect on your relationship/tenure with CBU, what would stick out as your most memorable career highlights?

Well, I mean, there's so many, but one of my favorite things to do, and I really mean this, is to stand at the windows on [my office] doors when the classes are changing and just look at the students out there and the smiles on their faces, and realize that this is one of the best times of their lives. They're here voluntarily. They're trying to better themselves — that's why you go to college. They're interacting with peers. They could meet a spouse, lifelong friends, they're gonna have experiences.

I have a very small part — and many of them don't even know me or won't know what role I’ve played, and it doesn't even matter. But that is so deeply satisfying to me, to just know that you're having an impact on people like that. It all comes back to seeing those smiles and then, of course, when they walk across that stage [at commencement]. The joy you see, the sense of accomplishment that we provided a degree in a culture that we think has, you know, really been beneficial for that person.

Where do you see yourself in the next five years— the next decade? Have you considered retirement? Do you have a plan for leadership succession?

You would be the first one to know. It'll come when it's time.