Shorter University's Donald Dowless on value of Christian nurses: Who else would you want at your deathbed?

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LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – Shorter University President Donald Dowless made a strong case on Tuesday for the value of the faithful Christians who are graduating from his school’s nursing program.

“One of these nursing students may one day be the last person someone on their deathbed gets to talk to,” he told the Georgia Baptist Executive Committee in a meeting at North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville. “Do you want someone from a Baptist school who has been trained to share Jesus Christ as part of the loving care of that person? That’s what I would want.”

Dowless briefed Executive Committee members on some of the latest news from his Rome campus, including that Shorter still has Georgia’s top-ranked school of education, that the Christian Review again ranked the university as one of the best in the Southeast, that all the faculty and staff are committed followers of Christ, and that the gospel is preached in chapel every week.

“Thirty student athletes have prayed to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior this semester,” he said, getting boisterous applause from about 100 committee members and Georgia Baptist Mission Board staffers.

“We have 1,350 degree-seeking students at Shorter, and each one of them have the privilege of studying under professors who have shared a testimony with me of their own salvation experience and of how they’re sharing Jesus Christ with their classes,” he said.

Dowless said he’s thankful to the Georgia Baptist churches that help support Shorter’s mission by giving through the Cooperative Program.

“We believe that to whom much is given, much is required,” he said. “Because Georgia Baptists are so generous to us, we believe that we need to be as diligent as we possibly can be. It’s important that we measure up. It’s important that we have high academic standards.”

In the Lawrenceville meeting, Dowless said about 200 Shorter students recently went out into the community to minister to residents and to share the gospel.

“One lady told me, ‘These three Shorter students came into my business, and I thought they were asking for money,’” Dowell recalled. “She said, ‘I was stunned when they said what can we pray for you about today?’ They’re sharing the gospel with the people of Rome.”