51����

Issue: Spring 2016 | Posted: April 25, 2016

Louise Towater Lynch-Mills

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Lest We Forget Award

Presented in recognition of longtime service and contributions to the 51���� community.

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Louise Lynch-Mills spent 40 years in higher education, and 34 of those years were spent at Union. She says her time at Union allowed her to build friendships that have lasted a lifetime and facilitate contributions that will last even longer.

Lynch-Mills held many positions at the university. She began working in the art department and later became the secretary to the dean of students.

“I got a lot of face-to-face interaction with students,” she says. “Small, daily interactions turned into lasting relationships.”

In the summer of 1975, while serving as manager of Union’s bookstore and post office, Lynch-Mills supervised the movement of the bookstore and post office from the old campus downtown to Union’s current campus.

In 1985, Lynch-Mills became Union’s first full-time director of alumni affairs. She says the relationships she had built with students in previous years helped her greatly as she began forming alumni chapters and organizing events.

“It was an easy and natural thing to do because I was just contacting old friends,” she says.

Lynch-Mills later served as director of annual giving and director of major gifts, where she facilitated gifts for projects such as the Bowld Student Commons, the Carl Grant Events Center, Miller Tower and White Hall. She also facilitated gifts from donors for scholarship endowments for the university.

She says her work with alumni transitioned well into her work with donors. One of the first major donations she facilitated came from close friends, the McAfee family.

“You get to know the needs of the university, and you get to know the desires of the alumni,” she says. “When you get to match those together, it’s really something special.”

Lynch-Mills says she is grateful to have served under four presidents at Union. She says the initial call to work at the university was a lifeline for her and her family, and she is glad she was able to give back to the institution for so many years.

“What I really want to express is a sense of gratitude,” she says. “God was able to use me as his conduit in connecting Union with donors and alumni, and at the same time connect me with so many people that I love and value.”

Lynch-Mills’ family has strong Union connections. Her mother worked as a dorm mother at the university, and her first husband, Morris Lynch, was a Union graduate and assistant professor of psychology at Union for several years. Her son, Kyle Lynch, is also a Union graduate.

“Union has been such a big part of our family, from my mother to my siblings to my son,” she says. “I keep watching it grow as a place for Christian education, and I am glad I and my family have been a part of that.”