LAS CRUCES - Robert J. "Jim" Decker will be spending his holidays at home in Las Cruces this year, but his thoughts will be with friends in Africa, as a university he helped create in the Democratic Republic of Congo celebrates its 50th anniversary on Thursday.
Decker was the first rector (president), a founder and a continuing supporter of what is now known as Université Protestante au Congo (Congo Protestant University).
"It was then Universite Libre du Congo, in the city of Leopoldville, now Kinshasa," said Decker, 86, sorting through papers and photos in his office in the Institute of Historical Survey Foundation building where he is writing his memoirs.
"When we started, there were 40 students and three colleges: Theology, Law and Business and Administration. Now there are four colleges and 7,000 students, 51 percent of whom are women. In 2006, they started a medical college with 200 students, and 105 of them are women," said Decker, who explained that the university dates its official beginnings to 1959, "when the Faculte de Theologie was established in Elizabethville, now Lubumbashi."
In his memoirs, he describes a tumultuous period in the early 1960s, after the country's independence from Belgium. He writes about a harrowing escape from a military checkpoint where armed guards wanted to detain his daughter after misunderstandings about curfews and credentials.
"I advanced slowly, then mashed the accelerator and was off, expecting to hear shots," before
their escape, he reports.
He and his wife June and their three children, Sondra, Greg and Cynthia, survived an era when safe houses were routinely set up, and 84 foreigners died during the Simba Rebellion.
When conflict forced relocation of the university, they gamely shared facilities and professors with Lovanium University, a Catholic University in Leopoldville.
But "in spite of unrest, in spite of always being on the alert, in spite of uprisings all around the county, we were able to enjoy life. Besides our work with the university, which was demanding and often exhausting, we had good times together," with a cosmopolitan community of friends from throughout the world.
He was asked to stay on as rector after his two-year contract expired, but decided to resign. He witnessed a last bit of history at a final banquet in his honor: "A bomb exploded outside the restaurant: an abortive attempt to assassinate Premiere Tshombe. Fortunately, it was not successful."
After service as regent from 1963 to 1965, Decker was a representative of the Ford Foundation and his family stayed for another two years in the Congo and have not returned since the 1960s.
But since leaving Africa, Decker has been active in generating support and funding for the university in the United States and throughout the world.
"We've raised millions of dollars, and were fortunate to have five supporting sources, churches with missions in the Congo, the California-based Agricultural & Technical Assistance Foundation, the central and provincial Congo governments, European embassies and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). Germany funded all but one of our new buildings and Sweden funded our new library."
He recently resigned from long service on the university's North American Liaison Board and his daughter, Sondra, was appointed to take his place. He continues to serve on an advisory council.
Decker and his artist wife June, who taught art during their years in Africa, now consider Las Cruces their home.
"We visited here for about four years as snowbirds and decided to move. Since 2000, we've been permabirds," he quipped.
His African roots and connections are never far from his thoughts.
He was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, to missionary parents, leaving at age 19 to attend Marion College in Indiana and later earned master's and doctorate degrees in history from Indiana University. He embarked on an eclectic career that included work as an educational missionary in Conga's Katanga and professorial posts in the SUNY (State University of New York) system, was associate dean of students and professor of African history at the University of South Florida, which he helped "successfully launch and expand," and served as a Ford Foundation representative and in educational fund-raising. He was vice president of Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, where the Deckers made their home for 32 years.
He regards his work with the Universite Protestante au Congo as the most significant of his career.
"I have always said that I was the first rector (president)," but "Dr. Newell S. Booth, Bishop of the Methodist church of in the Belgium Congo, was the spiritual father of the university and Dr. Ben Hobgood, who retired as rector in 1970, was the real 'father' of the university. Jean Felix Koli became the first Congolese rector and since that time the administration has been Congolese."
As he completes his memoirs, which he hopes may become a book, he's had a chance to reflect on those crucial years, founding an institution that would help bring educational opportunities to thousand of Congolese students.
"I cannot say they were the most enjoyable or pleasant (years) of my life. I can say they were the most productive and satisfying," he said.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com
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