Bluffton University

Coming Full Circle

03/20/2026

Now back on campus, Dickson is serving on the advancement team, as well as overseeing special projects and grant writing, work she sees as deeply relational.

Helping others find their place

Kathy Dickson ’03, MDiv, still remembers the kitchen table covered in college acceptance letters. “I had 12 acceptance letters on my kitchen table,” she said. “My parents sat me down one night and said, 'You really need to narrow this down.’” But Bluffton already felt right.

“It wasn’t just the feeling I had when I came on campus and how I was welcomed, and the beauty of campus. It was also sitting through some faculty seminars and realizing, I want to do this. I want to learn from these people, and I want to be here.”

Dickson arrived planning a different major, but through conversations and time spent in the Career Development Center (CDC), her path shifted. “I used the CDC a lot and discerned by the end of my junior year with my advisor that I could write an honors project and graduate as an English major.”

Alongside theater and writing, she found belonging in Camerata Singers after a sports injury changed her plans. The experience opened doors she hadn’t expected. “I could become a better singer and travel all over, took my first flights, went to Europe, and all over the country with that group.”

Still, what kept her at Bluffton was simpler. “It just felt like it definitely was the community.” She served as a hall director and worked multiple jobs on campus, learning about different departments and enjoying the close interaction and mentoring by faculty and staff, as well as the opportunities for spiritual growth.

After graduating, Dickson planned to stay one year working in student life and the Career Development Center. “I said, OK, one year. I’ll stay one year. And then 10 years later, I was still here.”

During that decade, she discovered work that felt like a calling, walking alongside students as they discerned their futures just as she had done during her undergraduate time. “I knew the tools that helped me, so I wanted to be helpful to others,” she said. “I knew that I could meet with any person and help them find ways to discover their place, find meaning and purpose for what they were doing at Bluffton and beyond.”

While working full-time, she earned a master of divinity from Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO), focusing on disability theology and nonprofit and community leadership. That passion later shaped projects like helping to create an accessible campus garden area in addition to the school’s farm, allowing people of all abilities to participate. She also managed multiple projects that connected the central Ohio community with the seminary’s farm.

Dickson’s career took her away from Bluffton to MTSO for 12 years, where she worked on those projects as well as oversaw the vocational discernment program, the contextual education program, and multiple special projects and grants. But the connection to Bluffton never faded. “It was hard to leave the first time,” she said. When her husband, Alex Sider, accepted the role of Bluffton’s president in July of 2025, the decision felt like a shared calling.

“When Alex said yes, it just brought back my yes,” she stated.

Now back on campus, Dickson is serving on the advancement team, as well as overseeing special projects and grant writing, work she sees as deeply relational. “Advancement work […] is really about reconnecting with people and making those connections that are very meaningful—it’s work to advance the mission of the institution for all.”

Whether writing grants, supporting faculty ideas, or meeting with alumni, community members, and students, she’s motivated by possibility. “Part of that work is dreaming about what could be here,” she said. “Some of it’s innovation and some of it is helping to support what’s already happening.”

She’s also been struck by the generosity of Bluffton’s extended community since joining advancement. “I have been tremendously humbled by the generosity of our alumni and friends and supporters. I have been floored by that and probably took that for granted as a student.”

At its heart, her goal is simple: bring people together. “Trying to discern the best ways to bring everybody who wants to be on the boat into the boat… because it’s our college, our university. It’s everybody’s.”

For Dickson, returning to Bluffton isn’t just a career move. It’s personal. “It’s the purple chapter,” she said with a smile, noting the shift in her wardrobe returning to purple once again.

And if she could design her perfect day?

“If I could, to sit down with every student, every faculty, staff person and alumni and come to know their story.” For Dickson, Bluffton has always been about helping people find their place. “The people and network of the Bluffton community near and far never cease to amaze me, including the new students who come and join the Bluffton story. I really believe in what we do here.”