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Hi John - Thought provoking as per the usual. My wife works for Wheaton College in their Urban study "abroad" program so this need to attract new demographics is integral to her program's survival.

I'm curious what you think about proposals like Jason Shulman's in The Synthetic University which argues the way forward for colleges and universities is in finding shared purpose and innovative collaborations. Your argument seems to presuppose a particular business model in Christian higher education around competing for fewer and fewer students. So I wonder with Shulman if the clear coming scarcity in the market neccitates an entirely new model for Christian higher education that brings institutions together in new ways. I haven't read Shulman's book but his thesis is intriguing.

Here's an excerpt on the Stanford Social Innovation Review: https://ssir.org/books/excerpts/entry/change_resistance#

I have access to it on JSTOR (thank to UChicago - my employer) if you want me to pass along excerpts.

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I'm interested in the argument. Took a quick look.

My argument in the next part of the chapter is that Christian Universities need to expand their reach beyond evangelicals students without abandoning their core ethos. The thrust of the whole book is the Fearless Christian University worries less about the boundary maintenance that plagues most Christian schools, places the real life experiences/questions of their students at the center of their operation, and then teaches the church about how to address those student questions and concerns. As such, the FCU becomes a laboratory helping the church anticipate an emerging future rather than battling cultural adaptation.

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