Willie E. Hucks II, assistant to the president for Mission and Culture at Andrews University, has been elected to serve as the Ministerial Association director for the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In this role, Hucks will be tasked with leading and developing professional development, mentorship programs and further support for Adventist pastors and pastors-in-training across the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Micronesia and several other island nations. Hucks will be finishing out the fall semester with AU and will officially begin his new role in January 2026.
As a new NAD administrator, Hucks brings administrative experience, having served as the associate ministerial secretary for the General Conference of SDA from 2010 to 2016, prior to working at Andrews. At Andrews, Hucks initially worked as an associate professor in the SDA Theological Seminary and later as the chair of the Department of Practical and Applied Theology (PATH). After becoming the assistant to the president for Mission and Culture in 2024, Hucks continued to teach Seminary classes, totaling nearly a decade of educational service.
Hucks shared that he was first contacted by the NAD President G. Alexander Bryant about being the ministerial director on Oct. 15, about three weeks before the NAD’s Year-End Meetings and elections. Despite knowing he was then being considered, Hucks was still surprised to learn that his name had been chosen.
“He [Bryant] asked for a CV. I sent him a CV a couple of days later, and I literally didn’t hear anything else about it until the Friday before the election,” said Hucks. “It was at that time when he informed me that my name had been approved by the nominating committee, and a vote would be taken on Sunday. So, at that point, yes, I was shocked.”
Although he will no longer be working for Andrews or any other academic institution directly, Hucks plans to continue working closely with Adventist colleges and universities to help strengthen enrollment and retention of theology and ministerial students. Hucks cited a drastic decrease in enrollment of undergraduate theology majors across institutions within the NAD as a major issue he plans to address in conjunction with the NAD’s Education department.
“A lot of people want to go the chaplaincy route,” said Hucks. “The Seminary is full of chaplaincy specialists. Not as many want to go down the road of ‘I commit my life to pastoral ministry in a church with a congregation.’ So that’s what I look forward to the most. How can we build our ranks, retain those ranks and continue to prepare them throughout their ministry for the changing challenges of pastoral ministry?”
During his tenure as an AU professor and administrator, Hucks said he most enjoyed engaging with seminarians and the wider “magnificent student body” on a daily basis. He also expressed gratitude to his colleagues in the PATH Department and Jiří Moskala, the dean of the SDA Theological Seminary, for their leadership and support over the years. He also expressed his deep appreciation for President John W. Taylor V, AU leadership, and the “stellar” faculty and staff with whom he worked and who remain committed to the mission of the university. Hucks also mentioned the Shabbat Initiative, an emphasis on wholistic rest as a way of life, which he started in his recent role at Andrews.
“I wanted to do something about the culture of unease, where there’s a certain unsettled state, a stressed-out state,” said Hucks of Andrews. “I’ve seen the start, not the culmination, but the start of a culture shift that says, let’s focus a little more on relationships and not on productivity, for productivity’s sake. …There was, in my opinion, less of a focus [on campus] on ‘who I am’ and more focused on ‘what I do.’ And I felt that we needed to get away from that.”
Having only served about a year and a half as the assistant to the president for Mission and Culture, Hucks said that he “would love to have seen” his and the Diversity Council’s plans for what mission, culture and diversity on campus can look like. The position was met with criticism and concern from many in the Andrews and Adventist communities after Taylor’s administration announced that it would be replacing the vice president of University Culture and Inclusion position. Michael Nixon held that position from 2017 to July 2023, and Danielle Pilgrim briefly took on the position in an interim role before resigning due to alleged “harmful practices demonstrated” by the Taylor administration. This scrutiny led many to view Hucks critically, who acknowledged that there were advantages and weaknesses to his position compared to the vice president role.
“My biggest, if I can use the word, shortcoming, was that while I could spend time with students, I was not able to spend as much time with them as my predecessors could.” Hucks continued, “I do believe that the evolution of the position allowed the strengths of my predecessors to have a stronger theological underpinning, not to take away from any theology that they did.”
Taylor shared with the Student Movement via email that the AU administration had not received prior notice of Hucks’ candidacy for NAD Ministerial Association Director, but affirmed that his presence on campus will be missed and that Hucks “is an excellent choice for this role.” Taylor also shared that once the timeframe for Hucks’ official transition from Andrews is finalized, a standard process will be initiated to hire a new diversity officer. This eventual hire will be the fourth diversity officer the university will have in as many years.
Taylor also affirmed that Andrews will continue to value culture and diversity, citing the University’s Statement on Diversity and Unity for Mission, and stating that their relevance “finds its anchor in Scripture.” Hucks expressed that he hopes to see a continuation of the position and the Andrews administration tackling mission, culture and diversity.
“I would also like to see space given to my successor to be able to fully explore each one of these elements,” Hucks shared. “Mission and culture need time to be fully hashed out, but not at the expense of diversity. Diversity needs the time to be fully fleshed out, but not at the loss of the theological foundation for mission and culture.”
Hucks also expressed that he wants diversity to be clearly articulated and acknowledged as part of Andrews’ world changers mission, which can be carried out on campus in part through student cultural clubs and other initiatives, and off campus through a variety of projects and mission efforts. This ties in well to Hucks’ other desire for Andrews, which is for it to better market itself more widely, particularly with how it engages with the Berrien County community.
“I think Andrews is far more engaged in the community than people realize,” said Hucks. “That’s not to say that we’re doing it perfectly, but we’re doing so much more than people realize, and when we do a better job of marketing our community engagement, that will lead to more community engagement among faculty, among staff, among students. And not just market it here, but market it outside of the periphery so that people [in the Berrien community] understand Andrews is here for us.”
At the Andrews University Student Association Town Hall on Nov. 12, Taylor announced that the AU administration will formally start its search for a new diversity officer in January.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.