Convocation Pays Tribute to Trust Education Program

The idea of an undergraduate trust education program was conceived by a young law student long before it became a reality at Campbell College in 1968. In remarks delivered by Jimmy Witherspoon, director of trust management, and written by Campbell Chancellor Dr. Norman Wiggins, Wiggins explained how a prudent law dean and one of the trust industry’s most esteemed professionals helped him formulate that idea. Wiggins’ remarks were delivered at the spring convocation of Campbell University’s Lundy-Fetterman School of Business on Wednesday, January 26.
“As strange as it may seem, it all started in the fall semester of my senior year at the Wake Forest Law School when Dean Weathers called me to his office and invited me to be one of 25 students in a course titled Estate Planning,” Wiggins said. “Knowing the course was offered in only three or four law schools at the time, and knowing that the dean of trust business in the United States, Gilbert T. Stephenson, would be the teacher, I accepted immediately.”
Wiggins enrolled in the course and was soon offered a job as an assistant trust officer at the Planters Bank of Rocky Mount. There he became familiar with the American Bankers Association graduate programs in banking and trust and did some part time teaching for the American Institute of Banking. In 1954, Wiggins asked Stephenson why trust education was not taught as a formal body of knowledge by colleges and universities. Stephenson suggested that Wiggins explore the idea with his alma mater, Wake Forest, but the college displayed little interest in the program. In 1968, one year after Wiggins was asked to become Campbell’s third president and more than 11 years after pitching the idea to Wake Forest, Wiggins established the first and only trust and investment management program of its kind in the U.S.
In the late 1990s, the number of trust majors at Campbell grew to over 150 and the 3/2 BBA/MBA degree program was launched. Today, over 200 students are enrolled with approximately two-thirds of these students choosing to complete the 3/2 program. Campbell began offering the Master of Trust and Investment Management (MTIM) degree in 2003.
D. Kim Johnson, Campbell alumnus and executive vice president of Branch Banking and Trust Company, remembered his favorite professors and early faculty members in the trust education program-Clif Miller, Allan Schlipp, Herbert S. “Bud” Croft, and Bill Strange. “I have always been drawn back to the program’s faculty and the influence they had on my life,” Johnson said. “If I had it to do over again, I would start at Campbell and the Trust and Investment Management program.”
Dr. Ben Hawkins, dean of the Lundy-Fetteman School of Business, brought greetings at the ceremony and Becky Kelly, chairman of the Trust Education Foundation and senior vice president of Virginia Commonwealth Trust Company, spoke to students about the future of trust and its career opportunities. The invocation was delivered by Joseph Berry, assistant professor of business, and the benediction was given by Robie Butler, assistant professor of business. Special music was performed by 3/2 trust major Daniel Jernigan.
Developed from Campbell’s first Department of Business, established in 1893, the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business was formally established in 1983. It offers undergraduate degrees in business administration, accounting, trust management, computer information systems, economics, international business, and golf management, as well as a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Trust and Investment Management. Reporting an enrollment of over 1,000 students, the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business is one of only 14 schools in the nation to have a golf management program approved by the PGA and the only school in the nation to offer Trust and Investment Management degree programs.
 

Bulletin 0017-1/27/05