The First Dixon at Cedarville 50 Years Ago

Back in 1971, the Dixon name became well known at a small Christian liberal arts college in Ohio. The imprint of that one person is still visible everywhere on campus today. But most noticeably, on the lives of countless students.

Yes, Pat Dixon, wife of chancellor and former president Paul Dixon, has left her mark on Cedarville University. She was here seven years before Paul, who became president in 1978.

Pat was a well liked and respected public school teacher in Chattanooga, Tennessee, her hometown, when she got the call from then-Cedarville president Dr. James T. Jeremiah to join the education department faculty. This began a 25-year career teaching in the English education program.

In 1996, Pat shifted into her role as assistant to the president, namely her husband. Her salary the first year? $1. Her earnings increased after that, but she wasn’t in it for the money – she loved Cedarville and desired to bring her eye for design to the interior and exterior of the University’s buildings. She wanted the look of the University to match the quality of its programs.

While she enjoyed using her tremendous sense of balance and beauty, her primary love has always been teaching students and pouring into them. She led students on missions trips to Hungary and China and was always on the lookout for someone God had called her to invest in.

“As young girl growing up, I was in a Christian home, but I went to camp one year, and this college student was my counselor, and she just poured herself into me as a 14-year-old,” Pat shares during the podcast. “She just told how to have devotions; she poured into me spiritual truth. I always valued that, and I always said to myself, ‘I want to do that to others, pour myself into a student.’ Even now as we’re retired, and we’re moving here and there, I always pray that God will lead me to someone that I could pour myself into.”

Pat is a prayer warrior, and she shared about her prayer life in an article for the Torch back in 1982.