You are still in the course of your profession in Christian higher education. Why write this memoir now?
I wanted to write down about two topics. One is the world of Christian higher education, which I would like each insiders and outsiders to higher understand. The other is the importance of trusting God amid uncertainty. I actually have spent my entire adult life in Christian higher education, working in quite a lot of contexts. But there have also been some unexpected and even unwanted twists and turns. I’ve learned throughout that God is faithful and I can trust him.
Mark Noll published his seminal book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind 30 years ago. What, in your view, is the present state of the evangelical mind?
There were two fronts Noll and others wanted to deal with. One was advancing Christian voices inside the academy. We have seen progress within the variety of Christian academics, including tenured professors in non-Christian institutions.
I see less progress, though, on the second front: cultivating an evangelical mind in local churches. Evangelicalism is marked by an inherent populism, which may work against scholarly voices. And political polarization seems to have magnified these anti-intellectual tendencies.
Another challenge for a lot of Christian colleges is the necessity to deal with pragmatic matters like enrollment and budgets. Schools struggle to create the space for Christian scholars to pursue high-level considering and scholarship.
In Christian higher education circles, one hears an excellent deal about integrating faith and learning. How would you explain this idea to someone outside these circles?
This phrase means various things to different academics. For me, it suggests a really perfect of school integrating faith into their sense of vocation, their teaching, and their scholarship. When I attended Moody Bible Institute within the Eighties, there was an implied hierarchy that treated academia and other professions as less spiritual than full-time ministry work. But God calls some people to turn into academics who glorify him with excellent teaching and scholarship rooted in a Christian worldview.
Integration looks different depending on one’s discipline, but our beliefs should influence our teaching and scholarship. Integration also means helping students understand how their studies make a difference on the earth.
What are among the challenges and opportunities currently facing Christian higher education?
One challenge, at Christian schools and elsewhere, is what higher education experts call the upcoming demographic cliff. Declining birth rates eventually result in shrinking applicant pools, which is the situation unfolding today. When schools struggle to draw students, they also can struggle to support the work of their faculty. Another set of challenges pertains to cultural and political tensions in American society. Christians appear to be increasingly polarized, and a few evangelical schools struggle to span the divide moderately than simply reflect one constituency within the culture wars.
When it involves opportunities, Christian institutions are ideally positioned to supply a deep level of community that students are on the lookout for. Whether they’re Christian or not, students need to be a part of something larger than themselves and to feel like they’re really known by professors, staff, and other students. Cultivating a robust sense of community is profoundly Christian, besides making good business sense.
What advice do you might have for graduate students who need to teach at a Christian college or university?
First, I’d stress the importance of being realistic. It’s a tricky job market, especially within the liberal arts, and finding full-time positions will only get harder. But for those who feel that God is looking you to Christian higher education, then pursue that path. In the book, I recount how my very own vocation has modified over time, from that of a professor to a number of other interesting roles. Remain open to other ways of using your graduate education, try to not look too far down the road, and trust that God will place you where he wants you to serve for every season of life.
What is the longer term of online education?
Online education won’t ever equal undergraduate education in a residential setting. Too much is lost by way of community. But online and hybrid courses offer greater flexibility to teach current students and reach recent audiences, even at traditional institutions. Online courses also can help more students study abroad while still taking courses at their home institution.
Online programs will turn into an increasingly vital income for schools, but they will not be the financial gravy train that many would have forecasted 20 years ago. Still, they do provide other advantages. For example, I proceed to work with Acadeum, an organization that gives a web based course-sharing consortium for independent colleges and universities. This is a creative way for schools to lower costs by accessing online courses from other schools with similar missions.
Why, in your view, should Christian schools emphasize study abroad programs?
I believe these programs are crucial, but some worry that they’ll draw needed resources away from campus. One useful approach in financially difficult times is connecting study abroad opportunities with curricula that students are already committed to by virtue of their majors. Most study abroad programs are currently within the humanities, so one other opportunity is creating similar pathways for the growing number of scholars majoring in STEM disciplines and skilled fields. If our goal is producing well-educated Christian students for a worldwide society, there isn’t a substitute for giving them embodied cross-cultural experiences.
You recently became the founding director of the Michigan Christian Study Center. What role do these study centers play in Christian higher education?
I first became aware of this movement once I was working in Washington, DC, for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and was introduced to the Center for Christian Study on the University of Virginia. I appreciate how this model embeds a lot of the very best features of Christian colleges inside the nation’s leading research universities, with their considerable resources and cultural influence.
Christian study centers cultivate vibrant Christian learning communities that may nurture and support students and professors in pluralistic educational contexts. There will at all times be a spot for personal Christian colleges and universities just like the ones where I’ve worked. But as a faithful Michigan alum, I’m excited to see this recent type of Christian higher education planted there, and I hope something similar will take root at more institutions across the country.
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