Chuck Taylor’s final day as Chowan’s interim president will come on the last day of spring break. He and his wife, Carol, will quietly, and perhaps gleefully, return to Rocky Mount to resume their interrupted retirement.

From the beginning, he said he would do his best to make decisions on items that couldn’t wait. He pledged not to be a passive interim president, and he delivered. When we appeared ready to break, he held us together. When we lacked direction, he created a path. 

In October, I was invited to provide a historical perspective of Chowan. I talked about Chowan as light. Education and knowledge bring light to the darkness of ignorance. Light is illumination. Light is faith. A faith received from God lights Chowan’s way, guiding its journey through time.

I then shared how Chowan’s story, in all its lightness, has traveled across the decades, through deep struggles and dark times, but always led by people of faith, lighting the way for a future glowing with optimism.  

On that October evening, I named individuals, Chowan Lights, if you will, who have illuminated the way from 1848 to the present. I did not name Chuck Taylor in October because I knew I would do so today.

President Taylor, since last spring we have relied on your light as a way to see through the darkness, to remind us to have faith in Chowan’s future. You provided this light by being fully invested in the faculty, staff, and students and by realizing that Chowan needed someone to light the way.

Your light, a light-filled with possibilities, has guided us over recent days and weeks and months. There is a promise in this light, a promise for all of us – faculty, staff, and students; a promise of a call toward a greater work; a promise of a place “that, in a true Christlike spirit, welcomes people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences;” a promise of what Chowan’s future can be; a promise of everything so light.

The Spirit of Chowan Award is intended to honor extraordinary individuals who so embody the light of the University that they warrant recognition by the University community. This may be a student, faculty, staff member, or friend of the university who has overcome significant adversity or who has remained committed to the mission of the University or who has served as a role model in his or her personal relationship with God or who has embodied the spirit of the history, mission, and perseverance of the University.

Since its establishment in 2002 through the vision of the late Jewell Faye Glover, a Chowan Trustee, only fourteen individuals have been awarded this honor.

President Taylor, for your commitment to the mission of Chowan University, for your unquestionable honesty and integrity, and for displaying the characteristics of a servant in the model of Christ, it is my honor on behalf of the trustees, faculty, staff, and students to present you as the 15th honoree of the Spirit of Chowan Award.