President's Message: Momentum

Looking Back on 2025

Looking back on 2025, the signs were unmistakable. We received the largest gifts in FPU history: the $21.9 million King Richter scholarship endowment and a $10 million Lilly grant for the seminary. Enrollment exceeded goals. We completed a clean audit and several successful program accreditations. Athletics advanced by beginning the transition to the CCAA and launching STUNT. Donors helped upgrade our nursing simulation lab. Across campus we renewed learning spaces, gathering places and fields, while our digital and media presence expanded. Taken together, these are more than headlines; they signal a hopeful future for FPU and the Central Valley we serve.

Momentum in This Issue

You’ll see that trajectory in four features in this issue:

Future Impact. The seminary’s Lilly Endowment grant will strengthen pastoral formation and theological innovation for years to come. You’ll meet a student whose calling was shaped by a previous grant.

Reach. Momentum looks like Mary Sierras, whom I met at the degree-completion orientation. Her social media feed received an FPU post at just the right moment. She said “yes” to finishing her degree and is evidence that smarter outreach must always point to real relationships.

Student Experience. We believe students deserve the very best and we want them to feel care in the details. Read about how one student’s idea led to Valley-favorite coffee shop Kuppa Joy finding a home at FPU.

Athletics. Our women’s volleyball team is winning on the court and living the right way off of it–cohesive, resilient and rooted in spiritual formation. That’s momentum that multiplies.

Moving in the Same Direction

Momentum grows when prayer, generosity and discipline work in the same direction. Scripture reminds us, “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Thank you for praying, giving, supporting and cheering. Together we move with purpose, carrying a mission of Christ-centered learning into the lives of students and the future of the Valley and beyond.

André Stephens, Ph.D.
President