"That's my president!"
Trevecca Nazarene University students have likely heard this phrase shouted across the school cafeteria more than once over the last year or so. It happens whenever Trevecca President Dan Boone and student Kenna Tatum run into each other.
Except Boone is the one calling out proudly to Tatum, a senior now in her second year as student body president.
"It just puts such a huge smile on my face," she said.
Tatum isn't the only one heading into her final chapter at Trevecca. Boone, who has served as president since 2005, recently announced his plan to retire after the 2026-27 school year ends. The pair will help Trevecca celebrate its 125th anniversary as they wrap up their time at the small, private Christian university off Murfreesboro
Pike.
As new students flocked to campus and the organized chaos of move-in unfolded on Aug. 25, Tatum was on hand to welcome people as they arrived. She took time out from her orientation week duties to talk about her experience with Trevecca and Boone and what it's meant to her over the years.
Tatum reflected on Boone's penchant for connection and fun. She talked about how he and his family enjoy the school's long-running annual "Paint-a-Palooza," which involves an explosion of color as students fling paint at each other to kick off the school year. And while Tatum knows Boone has plenty of serious work to do leading the university, she never felt he used his role to exert power.
"He's one of us," she said.
As Boone heads into his final year, The Tennessean sat down with him to talk about his retirement, his legacy at Trevecca and what's next.
Boone reflects on two decades of leadership
Boone's nearly 22 years of leading Trevecca have been marked by growth in both enrollment and diversity on campus. He also made a college education affordable for young immigrant students who would not otherwise have the means to get a degree. He worked closely with Dr. Mike Spalding, the late founder of Equal Chance for Education, which offers scholarships to immigrant students who don't qualify for in-state tuition or financial aid. Boone said that work has helped hundreds of students earn degrees from Trevecca over the years.
"For us, this has never been a political issue," Boone said, adding that the international work of the Nazarene church extends to 165 nations. "It's who we are."
Diversity on campus rose from single digits to 44%, Boone told The Tennessean in an interview last year. And the school has increasingly rolled out service projects around its often troubled neighborhood. Boone said Trevecca has embraced the neighborhood around it, turning it into a classroom. Students have taught kids how to tend bees and grow crops, along with taking on tough issues like homelessness, poverty and public health.
Boone has also led the university through its share of challenges, from the recession in the early 2000s to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Most recently, he's helped the school navigate mounting financial, political and technological pressures. With waning interest in college education, rapidly shifting federal policies on student loans and international students and the boom in artificial intelligence, Boone said it's been a tall order to keep up.
"No one in their right mind ought to want to go and lead one of these things," he said of colleges and universities. "It really takes someone who has a calm demeanor, a deep conviction. ... The current college generation needs a particular kind of formative experience during their college years, to prepare for the chaotic world they're going into. And you have to have that kind of courage."
But Boone has faith that Trevecca, along with the next president it selects, will find a way to navigate trying times and carry on its long legacy of empowering students, staff and graduates to make a difference. He used the growing impact of artificial intelligence, or AI, on education as an example.
"AI is going to be able to produce and deliver knowledge much more effectively than professors can. But AI cannot give wisdom. It cannot create character," he said. "It cannot discern truth from manipulation. It can't embed a work ethic in a person. It can't put integrity in the middle of a person's relationships. ... The world is going to need more of what we've been doing for the past 125 years."
A look back at Trevecca's history
As he sat in his office tucked into the alumni center off Lester Avenue, the main drag through campus, Boone recounted a moment in Trevecca's history when the school almost didn't survive. The school, which started as a small teaching group for parishioners under The Rev. J.O. McClurkan in 1901, eventually expanded and opened a campus in East Nashville.
In the heart of the Great Depression, A.B. Mackey was at the helm as the school was forced to file for bankruptcy. The story is documented in "The Reminiscences of Dr. A.B. Mackey" by Homer J Adams. Mackey traveled to Kentucky to look at a recently closed college as a last-ditch effort to find a new home for the school. But the campus was in such disrepair that he decided against it.
Defeated, Mackey realized he didn't have enough money to return to Nashville.
"Now that fixes it. Trevecca College is dead, and I can't do anything about it, and I might as well go back to my home in Kentucky and forget all about it," Mackey recounted thinking at the time in the book.
After buying his ticket to Kentucky, Mackey said he felt God compelling him not to give up. Despite having very little money left, he struck a deal with the bus driver to get back to Nashville. He arrived with just seven cents in his pocket — exactly enough to cover the taxi fare to the storage facility that had "the entire remains of Trevecca" inside, the book said.
From there, Mackey made sacrifices to ensure that Trevecca could continue, including moving it to its current campus. Mackey's actions are something Boone is deeply grateful for 90 years later.
"Trevecca came within seven cents of not even existing," Boone said. "A.B. Mackey truly saved Trevecca. We shouldn't be here today."
As Boone talked about his long career, first as a pastor and eventually as a university president, his stories often intertwined with those of his family. His wife, daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren have all been actively involved at Trevecca over the years, with many of them becoming students and staff members themselves. The family filled a few tables during the Aug. 20 Trevecca President's Dinner on campus.
Trevecca graduate Kristin Bledsoe was on hand to emcee as hundreds of students, staff, alumni and community members gathered. She finished her bachelor's degree in 2006 after leading the women's basketball team as a star point guard during her undergraduate years. She went on to earn a master's and a doctorate from Trevecca and joined the university's staff. She currently works as the dean for Trevecca's school of leadership and interdisciplinary studies and as an associate professor.
Bledsoe said Boone often encouraged her as a young student. Now that she's part of the leadership team at the school, she said that hasn't changed. And while his retirement comes with mixed feelings, Bledsoe knows Boone's influence will continue long after he leaves his role.
"Anyone who's interacted with him and really ... had their lives touched by him were changed for the better," Bledsoe said. "He's left us all in a better position."
Brodrick Thomas, who leads the Trevecca alumni association and is an adjunct professor, said Boone is like a father to him. As he considered pursuing his master's at Trevecca, he said, his mother was nervous about her son attending a Nazarene university. But when the two heard Boone speak while visiting campus, that changed.
"She said, 'Baby, you can go study under that man any time,'" Thomas said.
Thomas went on earn two more degrees at Trevecca and has held various roles on staff. He said Boone commissioned him into the first-ever role focused on diversity at Trevecca. Broderick held the title of director of community engagement and reconciliation from 2016-2021.
Boone's wife shares about the 'bittersweet' end of a era
Boone and his wife, Denise, met as students at Trevecca. They have now been married for nearly 55 years and have three children and eight grandchildren. As her husband mingled with attendees at the dinner, Denise Boone looked across the room with a sparkle in her eye.
"I love that man," she said.
She lit up as she talked about the senior pranks students have played on her and Boone, including covering their lawn with more than 400 plastic forks one year. In recent years, graduates have taken to handing her husband a tiny object as he hands them their diploma. One year it was pennies. Another year, when commencement landed on Cinco de Mayo, it was tiny plastic maracas. She said Boone collected the maracas into a bucket and then threw them out into the sea of graduates at the end of the ceremony.
"The kids went bananas," she said. "It was great."
She also talked about her husband's two bouts with cancer and what it took to see him through. The second was the roughest, during which he took several pills a day, got hormone shots and underwent radiation therapy. They didn't widely share his illness and leaned heavily on his cabinet to help lead the university.
"That was a really difficult year," she said.
She said she is thankful her husband is now cancer-free and is looking forward to what comes next after his retirement. And for her personally, the job as the first lady of Trevecca is not an easy one to let go.
"It's bittersweet," she said. "We both love doing this. It's been the joy of our life to serve this community."
What's ahead for Boone and Trevecca
Trevecca is expected to announce a new president in November, which coincides with its annual homecoming. The new president will take over in July. Boone said he'll be on hand to offer as much support as needed to help his successor transition into the role.
To celebrate its 125th anniversary, Trevecca has an ambitious slate of events, projects and celebrations planned. The plans span everything from carrying out 125 service projects to an oral history project to document its 125 years. Hard copies of the history project are set to publish next summer. More information can be found at trevecca.edu/treveccas-125th-anniversary.
Once the calendar hits July 1, Boone said he doesn't have any plans set. That's no accident. After more than two decades with the title "president," he plans to spend a few months to remember who he is outside the role. An already prolific author, he said he's already got ideas for more books he wants to write. He's also looking forward to spending more time with his wife and family.
For all the ups, downs and accomplishments he's ushered in at Trevecca, Boone said it's the stories he hears and the connection with students and parents that have impacted him most. He'll remember the feeling he gets when he puts a diploma in a new graduate's hands and the tears in the eyes of parents as they thank him for the impact Trevecca had on their children.
"I know that when I place that diploma in the hands of a graduate ... that we are giving the world a gift, and that these people will serve in ways that make a major difference," Boone said.
He recalled one conversation with a mother from Nashville's Napier neighborhood, where Trevecca has an urban farm that employs middle and high school students. She told him other people in the neighborhood tried to teach her son how to use a gun, but the university program taught him how to plant a tomato instead.
"Those are the moments that will go with me," Boone said.
Rachel Wegner covers education and children's issues for The Tennessean. Got a story you think she should hear? Reach her via email at RAwegner@tennessean.com. You can also find her on X or Bluesky under the handle RachelAnnWegner.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Retiring Trevecca president talks leadership, legacy and what's ahead
