“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Prov. 16:9). Do you have a plan for the next few years? Geneva College has one, and it changes the way I think about my work.

Many readers of this magazine will already be very familiar with Geneva’s education and work. Even so, I want to provide a comparison from my personal experience of how Geneva is different from other higher education institutions based on the way the school approaches planning for the future.

My wife, Katie, and I were both Geneva students and attendees of College Hill (Beaver Falls, Pa.) RPC when we began to date in our sophomore year. We both could tell you a lot about a Geneva education and why we would recommend it to anyone thinking about college. I do not have room to tell you about the many ways it prepared me for the next few years of my life and for the job I started right after graduation. I have had many opportunities to thank God for how my professors encouraged me to think critically about how I communicate, and how to approach working in different environments.

I graduated from Geneva on a Saturday, and on the following Tuesday morning I reported to work for another similarly sized liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. The school shared many characteristics with Geneva—small classes, a similar student-to-faculty ratio, lots of green grass and old trees on campus, and NCAA Division III athletics.

I was hired in that school’s office of communications and marketing and spent three and a half years doing marketing and public relations work. The Lord blessed me with the opportunity to apply what I had learned in the communication major at Geneva to my everyday work. I’m thankful for the time I had there, the relationships I maintain with a number of my former colleagues, and the tremendous amount of knowledge and experience I obtained.

I was comfortable in that position; so about six months ago when Katie showed me a job posting on Geneva College’s website for a position in the Office of Marketing Services and Public Relations, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave the place I had gotten to know so well. But after some wise counsel from my wife and time to pray about the idea, I applied.

A few weeks later, I found myself at a new desk, in a new role, yet in a place that was familiar to me. I began administrating Geneva’s social media accounts, working on enrollment mailings, and supporting a variety of communication from the college—all tasks I was familiar with. But it felt different.

Now, having been in my new position for a few months and having a chance to think about why it is so different, I want to point out what I see as a major point of distinction between Geneva and other similar institutions.

In my first year at the other college, I was appointed to the strategic planning committee. Our committee worked directly with the president to develop a plan for the next five years, laying out the mission of the institution, establishing strategic objectives, clarifying core values, and projecting a vision for the future of the school. As the graphic designer on the committee, I became the keeper of the document. I came to know that plan well during the year it was developed, meeting often with the president to revise its content.

Geneva has recently adopted a new strategic plan, too. It was thumbtacked to the corkboard above my desk when I arrived on my first day. It has the same sort of structure of mission, vision, core values, and strategic objectives. But it has one additional section that the other school’s plan did not: Foundational Concepts, a summarized list of the college’s “Foundational Concepts of Christian Education,” which was adopted more than 50 years ago.

I do not have space here to list them in their entirety, but I commend the Foundational Concepts to you. The summary listed in the strategic plan is a set of seven statements on which all the work of Geneva College is based. The first is, “God is the source of all truth.” The second is, “Education rests upon the historic Christian faith contained in the Scriptures.” You can find all seven in detail, along with the full document in the “About” tab at Geneva.edu.

My previous school claimed a historic affiliation with a church denomination, but I would not call it a Christian institution. Geneva treats the Word of God as the final authority. The other school and the denomination with which it is affiliated do not. Geneva is distinct by holding to a statement of faith, being subject to ecclesiastical governance, and, ultimately, having a foundation in Christ.

The administration, faculty, and staff at Geneva College all individually profess faith in Jesus Christ and maintain active membership in a local church congregation. This individual relationship with God provides a unique unity in the community and gives the mission and core values in the strategic plan some heft. At other institutions, the mission and vision of a school are upheld only by mutual agreement of its constituents. At Geneva, the mission and vision are rooted in a mutual relationship with God. That distinction is obvious in every interaction I have with each member of Geneva’s community.

Having a strong foundation in the Word of God enables an institution to make intentional decisions about how it will structure its academic offerings. Geneva College has carefully selected a core curriculum rooted in the Foundational Concepts, which seeks to provide every student with opportunities to learn about being human and relating to the Creator. Of all the courses we took at Geneva, Katie and I remember our core classes clearest, as they had a major impact on how we viewed the work in our other classes.

What has impressed me in the past year is student buy-in. Students are going all-in on the unique Geneva experience. The best way I can demonstrate this is by recounting an experience Katie and I had sitting in the stands at the end of a Golden Tornadoes football win this past season.

The team on the field was celebrating their triumph, the crowd was cheering, and the marching band was playing the fight song. As the song ended, we expected the band and the team to begin to dissipate, but we were surprised to hear the band strike up another tune. The name of the tune was Mission, but readers of this magazine might have recognized it as the tune to Psalm 117B from The Book of Psalms for Worship.

For the past few years, the Geneva community has ended its chapel time by singing Psalm 117 together, a tradition that has taken root in our school spirit. Our students even sing it together during commencement immediately after they graduate. What struck me was that, as the band played the tune, students throughout the stands began to sing along. More striking to us was that when the band finished we noticed two players on the field belting it out again, sincerely praising God for His love and faithfulness:

“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! All you nations, extol Him; extoll Him, all you peoples: for great is His love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.” There is something different about a Geneva education, and students are buying in.

A final outworking of a biblically founded strategic plan I would like to highlight is how Geneva talks about excellence. Both institutions I worked for make claims about striving for academic excellence in their strategic plans. Excellence is a term used a lot in higher education to mean “outstanding,” or “of the highest quality.” An educational institution can only claim to strive for the highest quality if it acknowledges the Creator while studying the creation. An educational institution that keeps the triune God in view delivers a more complete picture. By acknowledging that all truth is from God, Geneva humbly strives to provide the highest quality of education possible.

All of that said, let me request a few things:

Pray for the work of Geneva College. Pray for the students who engage with our community. They are getting to know God better, exploring His creation, and discovering ways they fit into it. Pray for the faculty. They are entrusted with the minds of the students and the momentous task of integrating Christian faith and learning. Pray for Geneva president Dr. Calvin Troup and the leadership of the school. They keep us aligned with the strategic plan, and they often make hard decisions. Pray for staff who keep the institution running, recruit students every year, and care for the campus and the community. And if you have time after you pray for all of those people, please pray for the social media guy who tries to keep everybody informed and engaged!

Engage with the Geneva community. If you use social media, go ahead and follow Geneva College on whatever platform you use. It’s a great way to stay up to date with institutional news, get a sense for what is going on throughout the year, and potentially inform your prayers on our behalf.

Care about Geneva College. Talk to high school students about Geneva. Encourage them to visit. If you are a member of the RPCNA, even if you aren’t a Geneva alumnus, it is your school. By the grace of God, we will continue to equip students for service to God and neighbor. Pro Christo et Patria, For Christ and Country. If you are interested in Geneva’s strategic plan, you can find it here.

Caleb McCracken is the content, communication and social media coordinator for Geneva College. He graduated from Geneva in 2016 with a degree in communication. He and his wife, Katie, also a 2016 Geneva grad, live in Beaver Falls, Pa., and are members of College Hill RPC.