Bastyr University’s founders and current president shared the stage Friday evening in the campus’s chapel, where the speakers discussed where the university had been, and where it is going.

Bastyr was founded in 1978 by Dr. Les Griffith, Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, Dr. William Mitchell and Sheila Quinn as a place to teach natural medicine, though Mitchell died in 2007.

Natural medicine is a passion the three founders said was instrumental in creating the university.

“The power of it was almost overwhelming. The power of how nature and your body work together,” Pizzorno said.

Before Bastyr was founded, Griffith said natural medicine was widely disparaged due to it’s previously unscientific take on medicine. One of the things he believes is invaluable to Bastyr is its research capabilities and scientific processes in increasing legitimacy for natural medicines in mainstream healthcare circles.

“It’s easy to say we started this research idea, but it was a monumental task in that day. A truly monumental task,” he said.

The panelists recollected the early days of the university, which they say was started with a $200 donation and volunteers from around the area. It grew into the largest natural medicine university in the state, and in 1996 moved to its current campus at St. Edwards State Park in Kenmore.

Looking forward, the founders and current president Mac Powell said they feel the university should focus on integrating their students into mainstream medicine, establishing residencies and programs with hospitals and other universities.

“This is a new and dynamic and growing profession,” said Griffith. “We need people who step up and stand out and take the job and take this profession to the next level.”

Pizzorno said Bastyr has run on three broad ideas encompassing advancing a body of knowledge, enacting social change and running on a sustainable business model. He said he hopes the contributions made by Bastyr will eventually reintroduce the idea of the ‘physician healer’ back into medicine, instead of just doctors who treat symptoms of illness.

In laying out his vision for the future, Powell said he will focus on attracting world-class faculty and students, seek grants to fund activities and programs, minimize or eliminate tuition increases and collaborate across disciplines internally and with the community in the Seattle area.

“We really should be thinking of our role out in the world,” he said.