Tireless Educator.Former Superintendent Keeps Up Furious Pace

Those Broken Arrowans who have been on the receiving end of one of Clarence G. Oliver, Jr., Ed.D.'s smiles knows that the warmth it generates truly comes from his heart.

But this time, Oliver, 68, has a real reason to smile. "I'll be cutting back from 70 hours a week to 40 hours a week," he said, smiling.

Oliver, who served as superintendent of Broken Arrow Public Schools for almost two decades, has announced that he will step down from his position as Dean of Education at Oral Roberts University and instead will be an instructor there at the graduate school of education.

Oliver has served as an administrator at ORU for five years. He will be serving on the faculty for a new degree at ORU, the doctorate in administration and leadership, a degree program which he was initially hired to design. The degree is for those seeking to become school administrators, primarily superintendents. The degree has three branches: one for traditional, 'K-12' schools; one for private Christian schools; and one for secondary Bible institutes.

"I've felt, for years, the need to be involved in preparing young school administrators," Oliver said. "It (the

degree) is for those individuals who aspire to a higher position."

The only three institutions at which such a degree is available in this area are the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas, Oliver said; but ORU, he said, is the only place in this part of the country which offers branches specific to Christian schools and Bible colleges.

Oliver's first course, 'Facilities - Planning and Management,' will be offered this summer. By joining the faculty, Oliver still can play a role in academic administration, as an instructor.

Oliver, a native Oklahoman who was born in Ada, arrived in Broken Arrow with his family in 1955. "I really feel that I'm a Broken Arrowan not by birth but by adoption," he said. "We've (his family) lived the majority of our life in Broken Arrow."

Though he's always been a teacher in one capacity or another, Oliver once puri;;ued a career in journalism. When he was still in high school, Oliver was asked to teach a Sunday school class and also was involved in the Boy Scouts. After fighting in the Korean War, Oliver "felt a calling" to get involved in education. "Not everyone believes in it (a 'calling')," Oliver said. "It's not unlike that which people who become ministers feel."