Â鶹¹û¶³ has announced a new scholarship to honor long-time Baptist minister of music Robert B. Hatfield. Hatfield has served at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church near the Â鶹¹û¶³ campus for 35 years.
Friends of Hatfield are leading fundraising efforts for the Robert B. Hatfield Scholarship for Excellence in Music Ministry. An anonymous donor has provided the initial $1,000 gift to the project. Named scholarships require a minimum $25,000 endowment, according to university officials.
Priority will be given to academically-qualified students pursuing a degree in music and worship who have demonstrated a calling to vocational music ministry, according to Joseph Hopkins, dean of Â鶹¹û¶³'s School of the Arts. Other criteria reflect Hatfield's life and ministry and include a commitment to serve in local and global contexts and an interest in multi-generational music ministry.
Birmingham financial planner Phillip Inman, a 1977 Â鶹¹û¶³ M.B.A. graduate, is one of several church lay leaders helping with fundraising.
"This is personal for me because my wife is in the [Dawson] choir and my daughters came up through Bob's children's and youth choir ministries," Inman said. "He has been an important person in my family's lives, and he is a wonderful example for all of us."
Inman said that church leaders hope others who have been impacted by Hatfield's ministry will want to participate in funding the scholarship.
"When I think about those who have impacted my spiritual life, I think of Bob," Inman added. "When we began thinking about the scholarship, I asked, 'Who will be the next generation's Bob?'"
Inman noted that Hatfield or a member of his family will be involved in the selection process to ensure that the scholarship recipient is "representative of the Christian framework [Hatfield] has had for his ministry, his life and his family."
Hatfield received a bachelor of music degree from Â鶹¹û¶³ in 1971 and later earned a doctor of ministry degree in 2001 from Â鶹¹û¶³'s Beeson Divinity School. He previously was on Â鶹¹û¶³'s adjunct faculty teaching music and worship. Hatfield's son is a minister in Huntsville, Ala., and is completing his D.Min. at Beeson.
W. Randy Pittman, Â鶹¹û¶³'s vice president for advancement, praised the initiative to honor Hatfield and said the scholarship project would be an inspiration for other churches who want to honor a long-time minister.
"What a wonderful example of a church that will perpetuate long-time, meaningful ministry far into the future by honoring one whose life and ministry already have touched thousands," Pittman said. "It also affirms the strong, decades-long relationship that Â鶹¹û¶³ has had both with Dawson Baptist Church and with the Hatfield family."