Finding the Soul of Christian Higher Education: Part Two
Evaluating the Risk of Mission Drift in Christian Universities
Robert Benne’s two essays on the Christian Scholars blog that I wrote about on Monday raised concerns about the mission drift of previously religious institutions into mere shadows of their prior commitments. After sharing his own research of six different institutions, he expresses worries about Christian Higher Education writ large.
In the second piece, he explores data from a recent book by Perry Glanzer and colleagues Theodore Cockle and Jessica Martin (hereafter referred to by the first author). Titled Christian Higher Education: An Empirical Guide, it engages in a massive data collection effort, using publicly available information, about hundreds of schools. Surprisingly, my library had an online copy so I was able to quickly get my hands on it.
The authors evaluate several categories of “Christian Universities”. There are chapters on Mainline Protestant schools, HBCUs, Catholic Universities, Evangelical Universities (both Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the International Alliance for Christian Education), “Low Church Protestant” Universities, one Eastern Orthodox school, and Canadian Christian Universities. There is also a chapter on Christian Study Centers at public universities.1
Glanzer uses a number of variables to rate the various institutions to create an Operationalizing Christian Identity Guide (OICG). These range from self-identification as a Christian college, expecting the constituents (students, faculty, staff, trustees) to be Christian, required Bible or Theology Courses in a Religion department, required or voluntary chapel, placing student expectations in religious language, and whether there are student groups supporting other faiths.
There are a couple of curious measures. One is to look for a VP of Mission or Spiritual Development (could be the chaplain) on the president’s cabinet. Another is to focus on a particular Christian Center. They create a summative score by adding up all of the individual factors which ranges from 0 to 27. They drop all schools with 0 from further analysis.
In each chapter, the create subcategories based on the OICG scores. For example, the Mainline chapter is broken down into Largely Secularized (1 to 5.5), Some Christian Influence (6 to 8.5), Significant Christian Influence (10 to 18). They do similar subcategories in other chapters although the score breakdowns for each vary. In the CCCU/IACE chapter, since all schools were over 12, they instead subcategorize by the presence or absence of certain combinations of variables. The appendix shows scores for all institutions in the study.
As with any empirical work, I have some methodological quibbles. Some of the values they use on individual items seem somewhat prescriptive, not descriptive. For example, if the student lifestyle agreement to be grounded in scripture or theology, it’s worth two points. They also sum the total of required religion or theology classes, so that a school with five required courses is “more Christian” than one with two.2 This is part of the problem of using the summated scale rather than using some more systemic measure.
There are some categorical errors in the book. Both Oklahoma Wesleyan and Sioux Falls are treated as Mainline schools when both have been part of the CCCU (and OWU was quite conservative). They report that two schools where I served required students to be Christians when they did not.
In spite of this, the work that Glanzer and colleagues have done is commendable. If the point of the book is to make clear, as Benne argues, that not all schools with a religious background or a denomination in their name is the same as a CCCU school, they accomplish this objective.
In that light, chapter eight is the most important chapter in the book. It summarizes the data gathered across the research and provides a comparison of 366 institutions in the United States. They find that nearly every Mainline and HBCU school scored below 12, while nearly every CCCU/IACE/Low Church school scored above 12. Moreover, they evaluate this by comparing significant variables across the institutional types.
This is where we can really evaluate Benne’s concerns about mission drift in Christian Higher Education. If you look only at the CCCU/IACE schools, between 87 and 100 percent demonstrate the key OICG factors the authors think are important. The factors where they are lacking are having a VP for mission, requiring more than 2 religion/theology courses, having a Christian Center, or requiring students to be Christians.3
Benne was still worried about what would be taught in those courses and whether the mission central factors were operationalized. Glanzer and colleagues share this concern in an excellent conclusion but with a twist.
They raise the concern that schools could lean too far into the Christian rhetoric while operationally operating like every other institution when it comes to budgets, discipline, community, or strategy. They distinguish between “Christ-assumed versus Christ-animating” stances and encourage the latter.4
So there is a risk of mission drift in Christian Universities, but it’s not the one Benne is worried about. It lies instead in the separation between institutional claims and requirements, and operating in ways that run counter to those claims. We can see this in how [downsizing] “restructuring” decisions are made and communicated. We can see it in Chris Gehrz’ reflections on work versus calling that wonders if the latter is taken advantage of. We see it in striving to take the conservative side of whatever culture war topic is on the table because that’s what donors expect.
Glanzer’s research shows that CCCU schools have the infrastructure and cultural identity that can ground them in challenging times. This should allow creative action rather than a defensive stance. They are not about to “lose their way” — even if they have a DEI office or a multicultural requirement or create an LGBTQ+ support group. These latter points aren’t the central variables that keep them on course. It is that infrastructure and the people who hold each other in community that protects the Soul of Christian Higher Education.
I chatted recently with Rick Ostrander, formerly of the CCCU, who is establishing such a center at the University of Michigan.
At Spring Arbor, I taught two required courses in the core. One was a sophomore course on diversity and community and the other was a senior course on calling. Neither of these would be counted in their score although they reflected both scriptural and theological material.
I would have dropped these variables as outliers, but it’s not my study.
A distinction I could have used in my book.
Also remarkable is how only some things seem to count as mission-drift, like having a DEI officer or learning about race/ gender/ class inequities, or having LGBTQ-sympathetic policies or clubs, or letting staff hang rainbow flags on campus, etc. But not things from the last few decades, like expanding professional programs and their faculties, even though this are only tangentially (if at all) connected to Christian mission; or making sure a college continues, so as to be financially competitive, to rely on adjuncts (whom you can rarely confirm that they are indeed Christians!) and pay them rock-bottom rates, even though they are teaching some of the same core classes as our crucial tenured Christian faculty; or, Idk, paying your tenured mid-career faculty so little (for decades) that they all feel horribly undervalued, and need (even for purely financial reasons) to leave for elsewhere or for other careers entirely, because their sense of calling has been killed off by working for such a place... all the while nevertheless hiring costly administrators that add little value, or constantly 'partnering' with outside consultants on hiring new administrators, or figuring out why alumni don't give, or why not enough students want to enroll...
Evangelicals always seem to have a fear- and victim-based mentality, and an interest in policing the purity of their Christian commitments, so it's clear (from the armchair) that they would constantly be worried about mission-drift... but it's striking to me that for many of them, when it comes to their colleges, they seem unable to parse the (supposed) dual threat, namely: survival as a college vs. the possible 'mission drift' of become more inclusive/ welcoming/ etc. After all, we see that the fate of many Christian colleges is closure... is that preferable to becoming a Baylor or a St Olaf or a Vanderbilt? What is more, it is quite unclear to me whether typical evangelical families value such colleges enough to send their kids to them... On the one hand, many conservatives are anti-elitist esp. about education; but on the other hand, Christian families with means are far more likely to direct their kids to prestigious institutions with cultural/ career cachet, which is exactly what happens with the college-bound students of Catholic high schools: they try to get their kids in to Ivies, or maybe the Notre Dames/ Gonzagas/ Fordhams/ etc. of the world, never even considering the CCCU schools. Some sociologist should look into whether evangelicals talk a big game about the importance of their CCCU schools while nevertheless sending their own kids elsewhere.