President Dondi Costin shares his accomplishments in new leadership position

“I stand here today as a Liberty University-trained champion for Christ, and I cannot wait
for Vickey and me to get here and invest our lives into others so that they can go and do the same things that God has allowed us to do,” Dondi Costin said in a press conference March 31, 2023.

Soon after that press conference, Costin officially stepped into the role as Liberty University’s new president, following Jerry Prevo’s retirement.

Once Costin arrived at Liberty, he began to concentrate on the University’s organizational culture. As part of Liberty’s strategic planning process, Liberty began working with Best Christian Workplaces to survey Liberty’s faculty and staff, understand the lay of the land, and see how things were running.

“One of the things I learned on the way in was that there was a strong desire to focus on our organizational culture,” Costin said. “The simplest definition of culture is, ‘the way we do things around here,’ so we started to examine how we do things at Liberty.”

According to Costin, working with Best Christian Workplaces has helped establish a baseline of how things are going, which then helps advance the ball from here.

“We took a look at where we were, got a read on of what was working across the university, and began exploring ways to enhance our culture and improve our operations,” Costin said. “Any new leader would have done the same thing; it was just my turn.”

Costin also spent his first year at Liberty reorganizing administration roles to better fit Liberty University’s needs during this season.

“For starters, we streamlined the senior leadership team to reflect best practices in university administration.” Costin said. “We formed a president’s council to ensure each major function is well represented, facilitate communication across functions, encourage healthy deliberation in making major decisions, and foster collaboration and accountability as those decisions are executed.”

Tying in his experience as the former Chief of Chaplains for the Air Force, Costin described how the university’s organizational structure looks remarkably similar to a standard military unit.

“A university looks a lot like an Air Force unit, in terms of how it’s structured,” Costin said. “The leader’s job is to make sure the right people are in the right seats, doing the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons.”

Costin said that throughout his first year, his three greatest needs have been wisdom, discernment, and stamina.

“When people ask (my wife, Vickey) and me how they can pray for us, I give them three things,” Costin said. “I say, ‘wisdom, discernment, and stamina.’ We love the university, we love students, and we love all the activity. But we have no choice but to rely on the strength of the Lord as we do here what he has called us to do.”

Costin credits his ability to fulfill the many duties of Liberty’s president to his faith, as well as his wife’s support.

“I would say that Vickey does a good job of making sure that we have enough time together and that we’re not wearing ourselves down,” Costin said. “She is a good governess, I would say, in terms of our schedule. We hope that God gives us the stamina to keep going and that we make wise choices in where we spend our time.”

Costin said he has enjoyed the opportunity to serve students at the university that gave so much to him during his time as a student.

“Liberty found a way to meet me where I needed to be met educationally, and it took off from there,” Costin said. “Having the chance to be the president has been a great experience, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store.”

Smith is the news editor for the Liberty Champion. Follow her on X