“Welcome to chapel,” his voice rings through JPAC every Tuesday morning at 10, making students lean forward and listen to whatever he has to say next. With a voice as recognizable and enchanting as Dr. Rex Horne’s, Ian Cosh has ruled the chapel stage for 24 years.
Cosh, now the vice president for community and international engagement, was born in the town of Carrickfergus, located in Northern Ireland and grew up 15 miles farther north in Larne.
Walking over to a giant, illustrated map of “Historic Ireland,” he points to the dots behind the glass that represent the early years of his life. As if remembering in vivid detail, he adds, “On a clear day, you can actually see Scotland from Larne.”
At the age of seven, his family moved to Zimbabwe, Africa, then known as Southern Rhodesia, where he spent the rest of his adolescent years.
After marrying his wife Sharon, they moved to South Africa, living there for five years before moving to the United States in 1984.
“One of the blessings we had when moving was that Sharon just happened to be an American citizen because she was born in Texas while her dad was an international student at ETBU and I was a British citizen,” Cosh said. “So in terms of our options to travel, most places were open to us.”
The Cosh’s, like many, discovered Ouachita by word of mouth through southern Baptist missionaries to South Africa with whom they had become close friends.
“That seems to be oftentimes the way it works with Ouachita,” Cosh said. “It’s our own graduates that go out across the world that introduce other people to their alma mater and that was the case for us.”
Once arriving in Arkadelphia, Cosh began his career at Ouachita as the director of the Baptist Student Union and also director of religious activities for a decade. His job included running the office now known to students as Campus Ministries and being in control of chapel, much as he still is today.
“It’s hard to believe that I’ve been presiding in chapel that long,” Cosh said. “I get to meet a lot of interesting people.”
Beginning in 1997, Cosh helped launch a new project on campus. The Center for Family and Community was later named the Elrod Center for Family and Community.
He has since added a job with the Grant Center for International Education to his list of campus involvement.
In addition to being a member of the Ouachita community for over two decades, he is the father of five Ouachita graduates, all of which participated in a study abroad program during their time as students. Four of them even married Ouachita boys.
The close-knit community of Arkadelphia and the closer-knit bubble of Ouachita aided in filling in some of the gaps left in the Cosh girls’ lives with all of their extended family living across the ocean in Africa.
“Growing up around Ouachita, I think, was a very positive experience for them,” Cosh said. “When you have children and work on Ouachita’s campus, they come to plays, they come to football games, some of them went with me on mission trips. The girls were always hanging out with really nice college students even when they were little kids. OBU for them was a good place for them.”
Cosh admits Ouachita’s close proximity to home gave his girls the best of both worlds.
“They had the house to come to when they needed a break from campus and the campus to go to when they needed a break from all of us,” he said.
With all his daughters grown and married, he is holding out hope for his grandchildren to be future Tigers.
“We’ve got eight grandkids and one on the way,” Cosh said. “Surely you would expect a high percentage of them to come to OBU. I’d really like that.”
Starting the Elrod Center from scratch and trying to make service part of Ouachita’s culture, getting involved in the international part of OBU and ministry activities across campus highlight Cosh’s most cherished memories during his time in the bubble.
“I think 18-22 is the age when people are mature and very open to new ideas. They are such a great age group to be working with,” Cosh said. “They have a lot of energy and if it wasn’t for the students, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as it is.”
Cosh said working with college students is what he loves doing and it tends to have boundless benefits.
“Keeps you young at heart,” he said with a laugh. “We may be falling apart, but there’s certainly no reason for us to not be young at heart.”
Though he never anticipated his life to bring him from Ireland to Zimbabwe to a private college in Arkansas, Cosh is thankful for the path the Lord put him on.
“This was never on our path, but as often happens through the journey of life, you get led in certain directions. You bring to the table your best thoughts, humanly speaking, but God’s also involved in our lives. Those two interplay in ways we don’t understand but God guides us in a particular way,” Cosh said. “I really do feel like the Lord led us to Ouachita. It’s been a great experience and a great 24 years of ministry.”
