Dr. Clyde Cook, President of Biola University from 1982-2007, influenced countless lives for Jesus Christ during his almost 73 year pilgrimage. My wife and I had the privilege of speaking to him for about an hour last spring prior to his official retirement. We were impressed by his heart for Christian higher education and his balanced perspective on the value of both academic rigor and spiritual formation. May his tribe increase.
A Biola University statement reads:
Dr. Clyde Cook served as Biola University’s president for 25 years, from 1982 to 2007, with a unique background as an educator, administrator and fourth-generation missionary.
Both his great-grandparents and grandparents were missionaries to China, and his mother followed in their footsteps. While traveling there by ship, she met her future husband, an officer on the ship, and a year later was married to this Christian sea captain from Scotland.
Born in Hong Kong, the fourth of six children, Clyde was faced with adversity at an early age when the Cook family was imprisoned in three different concentration camps during World War II. In 1942, by God’s grace they were reunited in South Africa.
After five years in South Africa, the Cooks came to the United States and settled in Laguna Beach, California, where Clyde was named California Interscholastic Federation basketball player of the year in 1953. He was offered athletic scholarships to thirteen different major universities.
Clyde received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Biola University (1957) and his Master of Divinity (1960) and Master of Theology (1962) from Talbot Theological Seminary. He earned his Doctor of Missiology (1974) at Fuller Theological Seminary.
After graduating from Biola, Clyde served as the school’s Athletic Director from 1957 to 1960. From 1963-1967 he and his wife, Anna Belle, were missionaries with O.C. Ministries (Overseas Crusades then) in Cebu City in the Philippines. During this time Clyde participated in pastors’ conferences, city-wide crusades, lay institute training, youth conferences and Bible school teaching. He traveled extensively, visiting more than 72 countries in athletic and drama evangelism and to represent Biola University. In 1971, he spent six months in the Philippines helping to set up theological extension education programs.
Returning to Biola in 1967 as an Assistant Professor of Missions, Clyde was then appointed Director of Intercultural Studies and Missions and helped to develop Biola’s nationally acclaimed program in cross-cultural education. Called to the presidency of O.C. Ministries in 1978, he ably guided the mission organization to an increased level of financial stability and multiplied foreign field effectiveness.
Clyde served on the Biola Board of Trustees from 1980 to 1982 when he was invited by a unanimous vote of the Board to assume the seventh presidency of Biola University on June 1, 1982 and became president emeritus on July 1, 2007.
Dr. Cook served for seven years on the Board of Directors of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and one year as its chair. He also served for six years on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and served as the president of that organization for two years. He served on the Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation task force as well as serving as a member of the steering committee for the Fellowship of Evangelical Seminary Presidents. He served for six years on the executive committee of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of California.
On Friday, April 11, 2008, Dr. Cook passed away at his home in Fullerton, California.