Three Problematic Metaphors in Christian Higher Education

A selection from the governance chapter of the Fearless Christian University book project.

Looking at Christian Higher Education writ large, there have been efforts to manage governance tensions, but they have not worked. Far too often, the separation between administrators and trustees on the one hand and faculty and students on the other have fallen into a top-down system of managing outliers.

Maintenance of control is central to these efforts at managing faculty. As I stated above, most trustees and cabinet officers don’t have a background in academics. This makes them see faculty as a political block to be managed at best and a group to be overriden at worst.

In my experience, this arises from a series of mistaken metaphors[1] about the nature of the Christian liberal arts university. One of the most significant of these is that of seeing the university as something like a church. In that image, the president is like the pastor, the trustees are like the elders, and the faculty and staff are like the church members, and students are short-term attenders.

Given the preponderance of ministers and requirement of religious individuals on the board of trustees, this is not surprising. It’s not uncommon to have the president see himself as a minister to the community. Looking at the university through this metaphoric lens, it is not surprising to see institutions making decisions with little employee input, relying instead on what they believe is best for the institution (or perhaps even God’s direction). Operating from this perspective drew institutions like Cedarville University or Bryan College to rewrite their doctrinal statements and require faculty to sign annually or leave.[2]

A second key metaphor inhibiting a full partnership between administration, trustees, and faculty is that of the factory. In this image, the university produces graduates of character who will shape the future society. We saw earlier that this was the most common phrase in mission statements.

From this perspective, the administration becomes management and trustees the shareholders. Faculty members (and those senior level student program people) are the means of production, taking students from their initial state as freshmen and helping to turn them into the desired image of a Christian University graduate. Faculty members’ key responsibility is to teach their classes (and maybe do a little writing on the side).

Maintaining the quality of the means of production is done by ongoing scrutiny of faculty to make sure they don’t vary from the desired qualities. In this light, one can understand how Gordon College, in the aftermath of the LGBTQ+ issues discussed in the previous chapter, tried to argue that a faculty member should be considered a minister and thereby not able to take action under human resources law.[3] The case was appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which denied to take up the case.

The third metaphor operating in Christian Universities is that of a store. The trustees are the owners and the administrators are the managers. The faculty become the salesclerks, providing the student/customers with what they desire. Probably every faculty member has heard a frustrated student claim, “I pay your salary!” Of course, student tuition falls well short of covering expenses of instruction.

The customer-is-always-right mentality of the store metaphor makes administrators very quick to respond to complaints and even the fear of complaints. In my years as department chair and chief academic officer, I often stood between the president and an individual faculty member or department. The president had been contacted by a parent or the pastor of a parent complaining about a particular instructor. Because somebody had complained (especially if they were an “important” somebody), there was an assumption that action should be taken. I usually wanted more information as to what actually happened, followed up with the department chair, and mostly tried to diffuse the situation. But not all academic leaders follow the same pathway.

Such a mentality helps explain what causes faculty members to lose their jobs for introducing race as a central theme in a writing class.[4] It encourages institutions to take steps to limit flyers outside faculty offices or pronouns in email signatures.[5] In these latter cases, the administration denied having any particular purpose of limiting LGBTQ+ advocacy, claiming that a generic policy “just happened” in the aftermath of concerns. Fear of the complaint is what causes a gay faculty member to stay in the closet for years, except for a few trusted friends.[6]

In all three of these metaphors, faculty members are relatively powerless about affairs of the institution, limited to extraordinary freedom about what happens in the classroom. They receive little information, almost always glowing about the next year’s enrollment and budgetary strength. Then they learn in an early faculty meeting of the year that the numbers didn’t materialize, and benefits will be reduced. They are introduced to new structures and new administrative hires, with very limited, if any, input. They are told that the trustees have mandated new programs or delivery mechanisms (as if the administration were not involved). As Brian Rosenberg and I remember as young professors, the message is, “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”[7]

What options are then available to Christian University faculty? One option is using faculty meetings to raise concerns but those are not structured for that kind of accountability. They could complain to the local press, but that usually wind up in responses from a university communications specialist and the isolation of the whistleblowing faculty member. They could file a complaint with their accrediting body, but it is very rare for those entities to involve themselves in internal disputes.

The one option that remains is a vote of no-confidence in the president, the administration, and/or the board. Since 2021, no-confidence votes have taken place at Seattle Pacific, North Park, Cornerstone, and Hardin-Simmons.[8]

A no-confidence vote can be seen as a cry for help on behalf of faculty. But is likely seen as insubordinate by administrators and trustees. Unless the trustees were already looking for reasons to replace the president, they are most likely to double-down on their support for the administration in the face of faculty insurrection. The no-confidence vote will simply justify their pre-existing belief that faculty members are troublemakers to be controlled.

All the above factors keep the Christian University in its fearful status quo. A new way of conceiving the relationships between the various segments of university life is necessary if the institution is to become Fearless and pursue the mission I’ve laid out in this book.

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[1] See Karen Swallow Prior, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Company, 2023).

[2] "Professors and students at Bryan College protest changes to statement of faith," 2023, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/06/professors-and-students-bryan-college-protest-changes-statement-faith; "The Justice Collective Documents Allegations That Cedarville University Violated the Higher Learning Commission Mandates | The Wartburg Watch 2022," 2023, https://thewartburgwatch.com/2020/04/27/the-justice-collective-documents-allegations-that-cedarville-university-violated-the-higher-learning-commission-mandate/.

[3] "Gordon College Settles with Professor It Said Was a Minister," updated December 16, 2022, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/scotus-ministerial-exception-college-gordon-deweese-boyd.html.

[4] Helen Huiskes, "In the Fight Over ‘Wokeness,’ Christian Colleges Feel Pressed to Pick a Side,"  (2023), https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-the-fight-over-wokeness-christian-colleges-feel-pressed-to-pick-a-side; "English professor in Florida says university terminated his contract after a complaint over his racial justice unit | CNN," @CNN, updated 2023-03-16, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/us/florida-professor-terminated-palm-beach-atlantic-university/index.html; Bob Smietana, "Taylor professor Julie Moore cited Jemar Tisby on her syllabus. Then she lost her job.," Religion News Service (May 3 2023). https://religionnews.com/2023/05/03/taylor-english-professor-julie-moore-cited-jemar-tisby-on-her-syllabus-then-she-lost-her-job/.

[5] Kathryn Post, "Seattle Pacific University targets LGBTQ displays with new policy, say critics,"  (2023-09-29 2023), https://religionnews.com/2023/09/29/seattle-pacific-university-targets-lgbtq-displays-with-new-policy-say-critics/; "They Put Their Pronouns in Their Email Signatures. Then the University Dismissed Them," updated April 26, 2023, 2023, https://www.chronicle.com/article/they-put-their-pronouns-in-their-email-signatures-then-the-university-dismissed-them.

[6] "The Hidden Life of a Christian-College Professor," updated June 30, 2022, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-hidden-life-of-a-christian-college-professor.

[7] Which is exceedingly difficult in a tight job market and with family established in local churches and schools.

[8] "Seattle Pacific University faculty votes ‘no confidence’ in leadership after board upholds discriminatory hiring policy," @seattletimes, updated 2021-04-26, 2021, https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/seattle-pacific-university-faculty-votes-no-confidence-in-school-leadership-after-board-upholds-discriminatory-hiring-policy/. "North Park Faculty Votes No Confidence in President," updated October 15, 2021, 2021, accessed October 25, 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/10/15/north-park-faculty-votes-no-confidence-president. "No-Confidence Vote at Cornerstone, Prior to Inauguration," 2021, accessed October 25, 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/10/25/no-confidence-vote-cornerstone-prior-inauguration. "Hardin-Simmons faculty overwhelmingly vote no confidence in president," @baptist_news, updated 2022-10-28, 2022, https://baptistnews.com/article/hardin-simmons-faculty-overwhelmingly-vote-no-confidence-in-president/.