Since coming to Trevecca in 2007, Peg Cooning has embodied servant leadership in her role as vice president for the Office of University Engagement. As the longest-serving development officer in Trevecca history, she has worked with a variety of teams throughout the years, including marketing, church, alumni and community engagement, event planning, and career development and connections.
Cooning plans to retire at the end of December, closing out a remarkable career in advancing the University’s growth and mission.
“I believe Peg has the heart of Jesus,” shared University Provost Tom Middendorf. “She has led with the prompting of the Spirit and set an excellent example of servant leadership for our community. Her legacy at Trevecca will be a gift that serves generations of students long after her tenure. We believe that a Trevecca education is transformational, and it is overwhelming to think about how many people have been and will be impacted by the foundation she built over the last two decades.”
“We started these groups as a regular way of talking with our donors and expressing gratitude for giving consistently every year,” Cooning said. “We also began the annual Trevecca Giving Day and Giving Day Gala, which is our annual spring celebration of the entire community coming together. These things are built into Trevecca now, and it’s been important for us to create and sustain those cultural moments.”
Throughout her tenure, Cooninge also established a development team to broaden and deepen the University’s engagement with alumni, churches, businesses and organizations.
“Jen Showalter has done an incredible job at engaging with our alumni of all ages,” Cooning said of her alumni engagement officer. “Michael Johnson, who leads the effort with churches, has deepened relationships with congregations while Don Hastings, our officer for senior adult engagement, has led estate and legacy giving with excellence. These are people and processes looking to the future for Trevecca. You want your legacy to be something that lives well past you. I think that’s where I hope I’ve left an impact.”
Cooning also influenced faculty engagement in terms of investing. Under her leadership, employee giving grew an average of 60-70 percent annually while Board of Trustee and Alumni Board giving reached 100 percent annually.
In overall fundraising, she and her team have raised almost $90 million in total funds since her first full fiscal year in leadership. She cultivated a record amount of giving in 2024 at just under $10 million. She also helped raise funds to construct the Boone Business Building, Jackson Center for Music & Worship Arts, Reed Bell Tower, Hardy Alumni Center and the Urban Farm barn.
“I’ve learned how important it is to just become a catalyst in helping someone fulfill their own passions with their generosity,” she explained. “For example, I could assume that because someone was an athlete that they’d be most interested in supporting University athletics. But it’s only when I develop a relationship and learn where their heart lies that I could discover their passion may be in a different area like music.”
In the world of philanthropy, Cooning says it’s easy to get caught up in an organization's immediate needs.
“But if we stay in the mindset of helping someone fulfill their own passions, there are a lot of intersections that relate to an institution’s needs,” she said. “Building deep relationships with others leads to helping them fulfill their passions through the work of the University.”
Lepter, a professor emeritus, had chaired the communication studies department and taught at Trevecca for 24 years before retiring in 2016. Both he and Cooning had lost their spouses within the past decade.
“During intermission we chatted,” Cooning recalled. “I didn’t think anything about it. The next day he sent me an email and said, ‘I have this extra ticket to the symphony and I want to know if you wanted to have it.’
“I thought, Oh how nice, he’s giving me a ticket. Then I reread the email, forwarded it to my daughter and asked, ‘Is he asking me out?’ And she immediately sent back a note and said, ‘Yes, and you better say yes!’”
Cooning hadn’t been on a date since losing her husband. “I didn’t know the clues,” she said with a laugh. “We went to the symphony together and started dating. A year later Covid happened. By then, we knew we were going to get married. We didn’t want to have any big ceremony or anything like that. The campus was closed. Nobody was supposed to be on it.”
“That was the clandestine part of it,” Cooning said lightheartedly. “Other than our immediate family, no one knew we were going to be coming on campus and getting married. We announced it after the fact. I’m a rule follower, but it felt good to break the rules in that way.”
In addition to getting married in 2020, Cooning also completed her online Master of Arts in organizational leadership from Trevecca. “My work is based on relationships, and I wanted to understand firsthand the experience of our online population,” she said. “It gave me helpful insights to go through the program myself. Plus I had always wanted to get my master’s. It only took me 40 years!”
Cooning had earned her bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in 1980. Prior to her work at Trevecca, she also served at West Virginia Wesleyan College for 12 years as vice president for external relations. She previously served as vice president of communications for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association for six years and began her career serving in communications and fundraising roles at nonprofit organizations.
As she looks forward to retiring at her home in Hermitage, Tennessee, Cooning says she is most grateful for the friendships she has made during her time at Trevecca. “More than anything, the blessing has been the incredible people that I’ve been able to work with these past two decades. They've made my life better.”
The University’s commitment to truth, authenticity and integrity, expressed through its motto “Esse Quam Videri” (to be rather than to seem), is something Cooning says should never change.
“It is what distinguishes Trevecca from other places,” she said. “I hope we never lose sight of wanting to be authentic in everything we do. Our world is built on facades. Yet at Trevecca, people can find what it means to live an authentic life. To keep offering this experience is the most important call for Trevecca for its future.”