A new place of rest and connection is arriving on campus this summer as construction wraps up on the Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing in the Mabee wing of the library, with an official grand opening planned for the fall.

“I knew I wanted that space to be almost like a place of refuge and rest,” said Dr. Claire Davidson-Frederick, director of the Saunders Center, “a place where you can go and experience Sabbath and quiet reflection.” 

Before coming to ACU, Davidson-Frederick was the director of the program ENGAGE Youth Theology Initiative and taught the story of Jesus and the Church as an adjunct professor at Lipscomb University.  

Director, Dr. Claire Davidson-Frederick, and Senior Fellow, Dr. Richard Beck, of the Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing (Photo courtesy of Matt Maxwell)

Davidson-Frederick earned her master’s degree in divinity from Lipscomb and was the first woman to teach a text course in the Bible department at the university. She earned a doctorate in ministry from McCormick Theological Seminary and commuted to Chicago for her doctoral residencies. 

Prior to moving into ministry and higher education, Davidson-Frederick was a singer/songwriter in the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee.  

“I had seen the potential of healing through the arts,” she said. 

After the ENGAGE Initiative was discontinued, she reached out to Carson Reed, who told her about the Saunders Center. The center is inspired by and dedicated to the late Landon Brady Saunders, and Davidson-Frederick said she heard Saunders speak at lectures and resonated with his messages. 

ACU inherited archives of Saunders’ sermons, radio broadcasts, articles, letters and personal correspondence with other ministers and business leaders. Davidson-Frederick said through the archives, she has grown to know him well since his death. 

While they study human flourishing, Davidson-Frederick said they are using different lenses – spiritual, social, emotional and mental health. The senior fellow of the Saunders Center is Dr. Richard Beck, professor of psychology, and Davidson-Frederick said Beck adds a balance, contributing his psychology knowledge. 

Davidson-Frederick said she recalled growing up in a time when church was very much about drawing borders around who was in and who was out, and Saunders was about “expanding the tent” and “reaching outside the walls of the church,” aiming to foster inclusivity.  

“He was reaching them with the love and the joy and the core message of Jesus,” Davidson-Frederick said. 

Landon Brady Saunders, a public speaker, preacher, and supporter and friend of ACU (Photo courtesy of ACU).

Saunders was a preacher. One of the churches he preached at was Minter Lane Church of Christ here in Abilene. Davidson-Frederick said that Saunders wanted to look at human beings the way Jesus did. One way Saunders practiced this was by sitting at tables with others, as Jesus did throughout the Gospels.  

“A lot of people would say when they sat down to have a conversation with him, he was such a good listener, and you felt like you were the only person in the room – like, that you were the only person, maybe on Earth,” Davidson-Frederick said. “He just loved people through the act of listening.” 

Saunders began serving as the president of Heartbeat Inc. in 1971. In addition to speaking for the radio service, Saunders also dedicated time to public speaking. He spoke about problem-solving in interpersonal communication, personal reflection and crisis management.  

Heartbeat’s website offers opportunities to listen to Saunders’ messages, and the center to be built in the Brown Library will also provide places to hear his voice and teachings. Heartbeat cites Saunders’ mission as “to foster ongoing conversation and reflection on the primacy of joy.” 

After a year and a half of fundraising, Davidson-Frederick and her team reached their goal in December 2025, and they had their construction kickoff meeting the first week of school this semester. 

“By MLK Day, they were pulling up with a construction dumpster and pulling down the ceiling and brick and drywall, and I walked in, and I couldn’t believe it,” Davidson-Frederick said. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s happening.’” 

A rendering of inside the Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing (Photo courtesy of Dr. Claire Davidson-Frederick).

The construction is projected to be complete in May, around graduation, and they will have a kickoff and ribbon cutting in the fall. Davidson-Frederick said the center might be a cell phone-free zone.  

“One of the things I’ve been toying with is the idea of making it an unplugged space,” she said. “You can come in to disconnect from the outside world, but to connect with God, yourself and other people.”

The space will also be geared towards students who need rest, including nap pods – especially for commuter students who cannot go home during the day.

“We’re going to normalize napping, rest and Sabbath,” Davidson-Frederick said. “This is your place to come, and we want you to nap. We want you to feel rested and whole.”

Staff, faculty and students gather for ‘Things That Really Matter’ lunch (photo courtesy of Dr. Claire Davidson-Frederick).

In the meantime, the center has many active programs – one of which is The Things That Really Matter, a small-group chapel that meets once a month.  

The faculty and students involved gather monthly to discuss a topic that interests or concerns students over a meal. Davidson-Frederick said some topics that they recently covered are how to live an unhurried life in the digital age, the Sermon on the Mount in human flourishing, and learning spiritual disciplines, like practicing Sabbath, from Dr. Dorothy Andreas. 

“What we want students to learn is how to incorporate habits and practices that will not only sustain their spiritual lives, but their academic lives,” Davidson-Frederick said. “Because you’re going to need to find balance now.” 

A group of students studying abroad in Ireland with the Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing (photo courtesy of Jodeyah Mills).

Another program involved with the center is a May Mester in Ireland. Davidson-Frederick said she and Beck brought a group of students to Ireland last May to learn about Celtic spirituality and the Irish monastic tradition, learning to see the sacred in the everyday. 

“God is everywhere,” Davidson-Frederick said. “He’s not just inside the church walls, but he’s in creation, in nature.” 

The center also encourages faculty to research the relationship between Christianity and human flourishing. Last summer, they sent eight professors across varying disciplines to Rome to participate in the Makarios Conference – a conference hosted by Baylor, Harvard and the Australian Catholic University. 

“We got a lot of good feedback from their experience there,” Davidson-Frederick said. “We’re also sending a group to Baylor in February for a conference on AI and human flourishing.” 

In March, students can expect to hear from a renowned Croatian theologian, Dr. Miroslav Volf, a scholar, author and theology professor at Yale. He will speak at Monday Moody Chapel and then at a public lecture – for chapel credit – at 7:00 p.m. on Mar. 16 at the Williams Performing Arts Center. 

While May approaches and the construction progresses, students can remember the core purpose of the Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing.  

“Our mission is to embrace joy and foster spaces of rest and renewal,” Davidson-Frederick said, “and promote the essential elements of a good and flourishing life for students at ACU and beyond.”