Embracing the Complexity of Christian University Student Experiences

My working paper outlining chapter seven of my book

In the previous chapter I argued that embracing the diversity of Gen Z students provides a key strategy to avoiding the doomsday scenarios of the demographic cliff and perhaps arrest the program cutting that is rife in Christian universities. This chapter takes that argument a step farther, exploring the ways in which understanding Gen Z can empower administrators and trustees to better prepare for the next decade of Christian Higher Education. Institutions that can move to embrace this generation of students and trust their judgment will position themselves as Fearless Christian Universities that can move beyond culture wars.

Belmont University Admissions Picture

Embracing these students in their complexity will require institutions to move well beyond the wholesome smiling faces that adorn admissions brochures and webpages. Being a holistic Christian community requires accepting students where they are, struggles and all, and not just as the idealized version of Christian College students we advertise and highlight.

Three anecdotes can set the stage for this argument. The first comes from the beginning of my teaching career and the second comes at the end. The third was from a recent interview with a current Christian University student.

In my first institution, I taught the research methods course for the MBA program. One of the students worked in the admissions department and was interested in exploring the preference alumni parents had toward sending their kids to their alma mater. Her advisor told me that she had completed her surveys and found that parents felt that their own children had been sufficiently grounded in the faith to attend the well-known state school. However, they noted, there was a teen in the church youth group who would really benefit. That teen was new to faith, from a family of divorce, and had past issues with drug use. While that student never enrolled, as far as I know, the image of a student with such baggage has remained with me decades later. While not the prototypic Christian University freshman, such a student would challenge lots of assumptions about the educational experience to say nothing of the student supports necessary for that student to thrive.

The second anecdote comes from my last semester of college teaching: the spring of 2020. That was the semester when Covid-19 disrupted everything in higher education and teaching shifted from a small classroom setting to Zoom instruction with students sitting on their beds trying hard to pay attention. One of my students stands out in my memory. First, she got Covid herself and took a while to recover, falling behind in her work. Then Covid restrictions caused an elderly relative with mental health issues to move into the home. As her mother was still at work trying to keep things together, it fell to my student to provide care for the elderly relative. Her work suffered because of these competing demands.

I don’t have specific statistics, but anecdotally I can attest that what was a rare occurrence in the 1980s of a student with lots of baggage coming to the Christian University had become far more common by 2020. Today’s students have more issues they are dealing with. It may be family discord, sexual abuse, illness of theirs or loved ones, sexual orientation and gender identity, ADHD diagnoses, bipolar struggles, depression, eating disorders, racial animosity, and more. This is on top of the “normal” adjustments of college life: dealing with roommates, romantic relationships, classroom expectations, and the like. Moreover, today’s students are more likely to be very open about their past and present struggles.

That brings me to the third anecdote. In a very recent conversation with a current Christian University student where we were discussing this very phenomenon, she told a story of a friend who confided that the friend had suffered a complete mental breakdown in middle school. This significant challenge was simply a part of her biography, like what town she was born in. It may be that there were similar issues among students in earlier decades and now they are simply more willing to discuss them but nevertheless it is clear that Christian Universities cannot ignore these stories.

Trustees and administrators may not know the challenges that students face. Frankly, it is far too easy for faculty members to stay unaware unless they build an intentional bridge to their students. I had a colleague that was somehow always up to date on the latest crisis and I was jealou.

The students who regularly interact with trustees and administrators look far more like the admissions photos than the student body at large. That’s not to point fingers at them. Little of the work of administrators involves the rank-and-file student body. Even interactions with student leaders can occur in a somewhat guarded environment. I loved getting to know student leaders in my administrative days, but it was hard to know them well even over meals. All of that is an even greater concern for trustees who are only on campus for a couple of days two to three times a year.

Navigating the next decade of Christian Higher Education will require administrators and trustees to take a far broader view of the student experience. They need to be preparing the institution for a far more complex understanding of everything: personal crisis, politics, diversity, and faith development. It will require a deeper embrace of what it means for the Christian University to be values-driven, not in the culture war sense, but in the celebration of the core identity of the institution.

John Della Volpe, whose book “Fight” I introduced in the previous chapter, outlines the challenge well. “Generation Z is asking us every day to have the honest and difficult conversations about politics, race, culture, our history, and future that too many parents and school jurisdictions are unwilling to tackle.” The Fearless Christian University is not only willing to have these difficult conversation but sees those dialogues as central to its overall mission.