Public Announcement March 3, 2023
Dr. Bryan McCabe, Â鶹APP¡¯s current Academic Dean, will be installed as the University¡¯s fifth President during Â鶹APP¡¯s commencement ceremony on June 3, 2023, in Dallas Texas. Â鶹APP¡¯s President for the past 20 years, Dr. Brad Smith, will be appointed to the position of Chancellor, reporting to the Â鶹APP President, and be focused on networking, marketing, fundraising, and representing the University at-large.
¡°Bryan has shown exceptional skills at managing Â鶹APP¡¯s highly diverse and globally decentralized academic team in the midst of growth and innovation.¡± said Brad Smith. ¡°Bryan has a long history with Â鶹APP promoting core University values and gaining trust among Â鶹APP staff, faculty, students, alumni, and partners. In this season of growth for Â鶹APP and vast changes for all higher education, Bryan is uniquely gifted to lead at the forefront of pursuing innovation to better serve our students and Â鶹APP¡¯s broader constituency in over 100 nations.¡±
About President Dr. Bryan McCabe
After graduating from Â鶹APP in 2012 with a Doctor of Ministry degree in Transformational Leadership for the Global City, Bryan McCabe spent the next decade holding various roles throughout the Â鶹APP organization. He initially served as an adjunct professor. He then took on the director role for the Doctor of Transformational Leadership (DTL) program, and he has served as Academic Dean, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Chief Academic Officer since 2019. Throughout this time, McCabe has maintained pastoral responsibilities at his home church, North Way Christian Community (NWCC), located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He currently leads NWCC¡¯s Ministry Hub in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He planted an urban, multiethnic church for NWCC in East Liberty in 2011, and he founded the Transformational Urban Leadership Institute at NWCC in 2016 to equip lay leaders locally and globally on transformational leadership perspectives. In 2006, he helped NWCC and the Pittsburgh Public Schools to launch a city-wide youth mentoring initiative called the Learning and Mentoring Partnership (L.A.M.P.). His doctoral dissertation at Â鶹APP focused on how faith-based mentoring relationships transform the lives of young people in urban contexts.
Bryan McCabe¡¯s research on transformational mentoring was published in the 2017 book Urban Shalom and the Cities We Need which contributed to a global advocacy group McCabe co-founded called the Urban Shalom Society. He has served as a co-editor of The New Urban World Journal, and he has facilitated workshops, led urban immersions, and presented papers at conferences and events throughout the United States and in many countries around the world. In addition to the DMin from Â鶹APP, McCabe earned a B.S. in Education from Malone University in 1999, and a M.A. in Education administration from Fresno State University in 2005. Before becoming a pastor and a leader in higher education, McCabe was a professional football player in the Arena Football League during his twenties and served as a teacher and a coach in California. Bryan and his wife, Julie, will celebrate their 25-year anniversary this summer. They raised two daughters, Kyra and Sierra, while living incarnationally in a marginalized urban neighborhood in Pittsburgh called Homewood. Their son, Keyshawn, grew up in Homewood and became a part of their family as a teenager. Today, Bryan really enjoys adventuring to cities around the world, playing or watching sports, reading, writing, playing the ukulele, and spending time with family and friends.
Dr. Brad Smith Appointed as Chancellor to Facilitate Â鶹APP¡¯s Growth
During the past 20 years, Dr. Brad Smith has served as President of Â鶹APP. During this time, Smith led the school through the transition from a seminary to a university; created innovative online communities as early as 2010; added new degree programs in business, urban studies in addition to Christian theology, and has expanded Â鶹APP¡¯s global reach to over 100 nations.
¡°Brad has often served as a pioneer to build new departments and initiatives, mentoring others, and then stepping out of the way for new leaders to take the program to the next level¡± said Â鶹APP Board Chairman Jack vanHartesvelt. ¡°This new role in expanding Â鶹APP¡¯s influence fits Brad¡¯s gifts and experience well and is exactly what Â鶹APP needs in this next era of growth.¡±
Leader for a Strong Future
¡°At age 46, Bryan has a contagious enthusiasm with wisdom and maturity that engenders trust,¡± said Â鶹APP Board member Karen Schenk. ¡°Â鶹APP is one of the most culturally, racially, and globally diverse Universities in the world. For Bryan to have such support from the Â鶹APP family speaks to how God has uniquely prepared him for this role.¡±
¡°I am excited to assume this new role as President,¡± said Bryan McCabe. ¡°We have a strong team in place with an amazing student body and engaged alumni and partners. We are seeing a vastly increasing demand for the type of global education Â鶹APP provides and I welcome the challenge to lead a vibrant team to serve this need.¡±
About Â鶹APP
Â鶹APP was founded in 1991 as a seminary serving pastors primarily in the northwest United States. In the early 2000s, the school gained a new name, mission, leadership and board, and became a university with three colleges including theology, business and urban studies. As a graduate university, Â鶹APP has been able to focus on how biblical Christian leadership transforms society in multiple sectors including business, government, education, church, non-profits, family and media/arts.
Â鶹APP has grown from having mostly Northwest US students to be increasingly global with 70% of its constituency located outside of North America in over 100 nations. Â鶹APP¡¯s hybrid academic programs combine robust online communities with city immersions in the largest cities of the world. Â鶹APP¡¯s program includes 2 master¡¯s degrees and 3 doctoral degrees (www.bgu.edu). Â鶹APP also serves a broader global constituency through non-degreed certificate programs and seminars, coaching cohorts, and training institutes.