"Christian" Colleges and Academic Esteem

This morning's New York Times features a story about continuing tensions between Southern Baptist state conventions and the colleges they support. The article focuses in on the recent agreement between Georgetown College in Kentucky and the Kentucky Baptist Convention (KBC) to part ways. As the Times reports, the separation was shepherded through the process by Georgetown president Bill Crouch and my friend and colleague Hershael York, then the president of the KBC.

While the article highlights Baptist struggles over this issue, the same article could be written, with different details, about virtually any segment of American Christianity. Should (small o) orthodox Christians fund and promote a "progressive" university, whose faculty oppose the most significant things the conservative churchgoers believe? Does a confessional Christian identity mean the end of academic integrity?

The article ends with what, I think, are two very revealing quotes that indicate why, at least in this case, the university and the churches were looking to two different audiences. Georgetown's provost says the college was seeking a Phi Betta Kappa chapter, a chapter they didn't believe they could achieve with a close relationship to the state convention. "Phi Beta Kappa is the gold standard," she said. The article closes with this: "It's good to go to a college that's religious, but it doesn't really matter to me," said John Sadlon, a sophomore. "What matters to me is getting my education."

HT: Jim Smith

Comments

[Stuart Koehl]

Historical perspective is always useful in cases such as this. Let us go back about 1700 years, to ancient Athens. The Athenian Academy was the foremost educational institution of its day--MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and the Sorbonne rolled into one. It was also an overtly pagan institution, whose curriculum was based almost exclusively on the classic Greek philosophers, poets, playwrites and rhetoricians--an awkward thing in an overtly Christian empire.

Nonethless, it was to the Academy that the parents of men such as Basil the Great and Gregory of Nanziansus sent their sons. They wanted them to have all the knowledge a man would need in a position of leadership, whether it was secular or ecclesiastical. They were not particularly worried that their sons would imbibe too deeply at the springs of pagan knowledge, for they were confident in the Christian formation they had given them in the home. Thus, Basil was able to rub his shoulders with some of the leading pagan philosophers of his day--including a young member of the Imperial Family named Julianus--and come away with his wits sharpened through debate on the merits of Christianity over paganism. Not for them the challenge of Tertullian, "What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?"--they managed a synthesis of Christianity and classical culture that enriched both (See Jaroslav Pelikan's "Christianity and Classical Culture" for an analysis of how the Cappodocian Fathers used pagan philosphical terminology and categories without being seduced by them, in order to resolve the pressing theological issues of their day).

I think the problem is not the secular university per se, but that we, as parents, generally fail to armor our children against the blandishments and temptations that these institutions offer. We have not equipped them to push back against the arguments and the culture of the intellectual establishment, largely because we are not ourselves prepared to do so. Thus, our reflexive response is not engagement, but withdrawal--we either look for alternative institutions which will shelter our children from the world (even at the expense of a first-rate education) or we turn our backs on education altogether. Neither approach is satisfactory, for neither prepares our children to deal with the world as it is. They are not taught to be as innocent as babes and cunning as serpents, and thus are easy meat when they hit the pavement.

We, as parents, must take more responsibility for the moral and spiritual shaping of our children. We must become more conversant in our faith, and be able to confront alternative sources of authority in our children's lives. If we do this, we can send our children anywhere, confident in the strength of their faith founded in knowledge and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

If Gregory Nanzianzen and Basil the Great could go through the Academy unscathed, I fail to see why our children cannot deal with the Ivy Leagues. And unless we, as Christians, make the long march through those institutions (as the radical humanists did from the 1960s to the present day), I fail to see how we can hope to recapture the culture whatsoever.

[GL]

I think the problem is not the secular university per se, but that we, as parents, generally fail to armor our children against the blandishments and temptations that these institutions offer. We have not equipped them to push back against the arguments and the culture of the intellectual establishment, largely because we are not ourselves prepared to do so. . . .  They are not taught to be as innocent as babes and cunning as serpents, and thus are easy meat when they hit the pavement.

We, as parents, must take more responsibility for the moral and spiritual shaping of our children.  We must become more conversant in our faith, and be able to confront alternative sources of authority in our children's lives.

I couldn't agree more.  We must teach our children what we believe and why we believe it.  In many cases, sadly, that means we must first learn ourselves what Christians have always believed and why we have believed it.  Young people entering college without that preparation are very exposed to the arguments of secularists and as parents it is one of our primary responsibilities to prepare them.

[Christopher Culver]

One might wonder if a problem here are the mandatory attendence and mandatory on-campus living policies for lowerclassmen found at most American universities. A student right out of high school is forced to live in a dorm environment and mingle with classmates who might be a corrupting influence. It's a pressure cooker of kids gone wild. Compare this to universities abroad, where you can take rooms well away from the university and the only place you have to see other students is when you take the exams at the end of the semester.

[Bill R]

The Puritans too highly valued the best education available. Virtually all of the prominent Puritans preachers of the 17th century were educated at Oxford and Cambridge. John Owen was Dean of Oxford, and Cambridge and Puritanism were nearly synonymous in that era. Indeed our Ivy League was developed by Puritans: Jonathan Edwards was the first President of Princeton.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>ne might wonder if a problem here are the mandatory attendence and mandatory on-campus living policies for lowerclassmen found at most American universities. A student right out of high school is forced to live in a dorm environment and mingle with classmates who might be a corrupting influence. It's a pressure cooker of kids gone wild. Compare this to universities abroad, where you can take rooms well away from the university and the only place you have to see other students is when you take the exams at the end of the semester.<<<

I would say a more fundamental problem is the belief that everybody need a college education to be successful. This is just so much bull, and the net result is too many people going to college who have no business being there. To accommodate this great increase in demand, colleges have seriously diluted admissions standards and course content. I would say that kids getting an undergraduate degree today are only as well educated as high school graduates of fifty years ago (especially in "core curriculum" subjects.

Unfortunately, stuff flows downhill, so the quality of secondary education has declined precipitously as well. Businesses therefore have no confidence in the value of a high school diploma as an indication of basic competency, even for jobs that require no special academic skills (e.g., bank teller). A college diploma is not needed to do the tasks involved, but it is considered, a best, indicative of ability to be trained. This is true of myriad jobs even in the technical fields, resulting in what I consider a mindless credentialism--it isn't what you can do, it's the paper that counts. Whether the diploma is worth the paper on which it is written in irrelevant.

If we had a more rational educational system in this country, one which provided a really solid primary and secondary educatiion to children, then colleges could be far more selective in their admissions and far more rigorous in their curriculum. Smaller student bodies of more serious students would quickly put a damper on the most eggregious behavioral excesses (many of which have been exaggerated, in any case).

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Jonathan Edwards was the first President of Princeton.<<<

I am sure God has forgiven Dr. Edwards and does not hold him responsible for Peter SInger.

[David Gray]

>The Puritans too highly valued the best education available.

Do you mean "too" as "also" or as "in excess"?

The old saying was Cambridge produced the martyrs and Oxford burned them...

[GL]

I would say a more fundamental problem is the belief that everybody need a college education to be successful. This is just so much bull, and the net result is too many people going to college who have no business being there.

Again, Stuart, I couldn't agree with you more.  One of my brothers-in-law who is in now in his late-30s has only a high school education.  He is very smart and bought his own business right out of high school from the man for whom he worked during high school.  He now owns the business, his house and everything else he has free of all debt and has a very nice income.  While he is very smart, however, he has no interest in the things about which college was originally intended.  It would have been a misuse of his time and talent to pursue a college education.

Unfortunately, if one does not own one's own business, having a college degree has become nearly indispensible to getting a job that pays well at all.  Why?  Simple economics: supply and demand.  There are now so many people with college degrees that employers can hire them on the cheap (supply has risen relative to demand, reducing the market value of the supply); of two otherwise equally qualified candidates, why not take the better educated.  Thus, in encouraging nearly everyone to go to college so that "you can make more money," we have reduced the economic value of a college education for everyone and for those who really did not need the education, delayed their earning income and starting families for at least four more years and, in a growing number of cases, encouraged them to take on debt to boot.  It is really irrational, but it is hard to see how we can break out of the cycle.

[Echo]

JOHN SADLON:

"It's good to go to a college that's religious, but it doesn't really matter to me... What matters to me is getting my education."

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER:

"... we may go through school after school and college after college and emerge more of a fool than the meanest farm labourer, who knows ... from the lore handed down from his fathers, when it is likely to rain, when to sow and reap, and what to give his cattle when they are ailing.

All that education can do in any case is to teach us to make good use of what we are; if we are nothing to begin with, no amount of education can do us any good."

----------------

DAVID GRAY:

"Do you mean 'too' as 'also' or as "in excess"?

The old saying was Cambridge produced the martyrs and Oxford burned them..."

C.S. LEWIS (THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH):

"... there had been a bicker between the College and the troopers in the heart of Bragdon, and the fabulously learned and saintly Richard Crowe had been killed by a musket ball...

... the story is that his last words had been, 'Marry, Sirs, if Merlin who was the Devil's son was as true a King's man as ever ate bread, is it not a shame that you, being but the sons of bitches, must be rebels and regicides?' "

MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY:

"grin: to draw back the lips so as to show the teeth, especially in amusement..."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It is really irrational, but it is hard to see how we can break out of the cycle.<<<

The cycle will break itself. Already the economy is transforming the modes and loci of employment, with large companies much less important than they were. Most job creation is coming out of startup and venture companies, which care less about credentials and more about demonstraed ability, creativity, and risk acceptance. Also, more people are becoming self-employed, either running their own businesses, or acting a free agents/consultants. A comparison of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' payroll survey of employment (which measures the number of people for whom taxes are withheld) with the household survey (which polls households for employment information) has, for the last eight or nine years, consistently shown that the payroll survey is missing almost half the jobs in the country.

With the new modalities of employment have come new avenues for acquiring job skills. Internships, volunteer service, and apprenticeships offer young people a way into the job market absent a college degree. In fact, it has been my own experience that people who have spent a few years working in such a position are much better employees than degreed people hired right out of college. The former have more initiative, and after a couple of years, some real skills and an understanding of their jobs. On the other hand, the college kids don't know what they don't know, have a chip on their shoulders, and seem to think they are entitled to a cushy position and a fat salary.

Admittedly, I am biased about this. I think I was one of the pioneers of this approach back in the late 1970s, when I took a couple of years off from Georgetown after my junior year, because I realized that when I got out I would be eighteen and have no idea of what I wanted to do or could do. So I took on a range of jobs, learned how to work (something college doesn't teach you), and made connections with some interesting people who appreciated my mastery of history and military affairs. I began doing military analysis for a number of government agencies under contract, made enough to go back and finish my bachelors, and then decided to make my own career path. I've been at it for thirty years now, and it has been emotionally and financially rewarding. It has also given me the flexibility to adapt my work schedule to my family's needs (more so as I gained experience and commanded a higher rate, which allowed me to work less for the amount of money we thought we needed.

Admittedly, not everyone can do this sort of thing, but companies are discovering that it is better to have a kid with a high school diploma who really understands cars, electical systems, computers, and whatnot, than to pick up an overeducated college grad whose head is stuffed with theoretical nonsense and a bad attitude.

[firinnteine]

Technical observation: although Jonathan Edwards was (very briefly, before dying of the immunization he took, if I remember correctly, to prove that it was safe) president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), he was not its first president.

(And you're all quite right that even a good college education doesn't really train you to have a job -- I've got a great college education and almost no job-skills except writing, editing, basic computer abilities, and a willingness to learn -- which seems to be enough, if you're not expecting too improbable a salary.)

[Gene Godbold]

Firinnteine,
If only all college graduates could write and edit, the world would be a better place. (Sigh... :-)

[firinnteine]

I had a significantly better-than-usual college education. (Still, read books by someone educated less than a century ago at Oxford or Cambridge -- Dorothy Sayers mysteries, for instance. I can't understand Homer in the original Greek, and my Latin is rusty, and that's after college rather than before; so as far as I'm concerned there are still serious deficiencies even in the better aberrations of the modern system....)

[Christopher]

Stuart and GL,

I would disagree with in the sense that the problem IS the "secular university, per se". The problem is in the definition of "secular". Today's academy is not merely secular, but militantly secular in that it is actively hostile to anything other than a militantly naturalist (i.e. neo-Epicurean) philosophy in all subjects, and in the general culture of the academy. In other words, they are indoctrinating, not educating. This of course is against a "classically liberal" education that took seriously differing philosophies. For all the talk of "keeping an open mind" and "tolerance", today's academy are about the least tolerant places in our society.

This of course does not negate the obvious responsibility of the family, etc. However, as a place for a person to receive an "education", it excludes all but the best and brightest for only they can see through the insidious propaganda and thus reach a point where they can gain from the experience.

This of course goes back to Mr. Moore's original questions. I of course answer the first with a negative and the second with a positive. Such a university however is scarcely to be found in America today. Perhaps that school in Michigan that does not accept federal $, or maybe some of our smaller liberal arts colleges are still in fact "liberal". The modern academy however is no longer "liberal" or even "secular" by any reasonable definition of the term...

[Kyle]

I'd be much more interested in seeing religious institutions finance individual students than private universities. It would be a better direction of their resources.

[Lawrence B]

Wednesday July 26, 2006 I was priviliged to receive a Roman Catholic education from Kindergarten through my B.A. degree. Mine was a Thomist inculcation. My instructors - including members of the clergy and religous orders - aimed at getting me educated. Of course the curriculum was a Roman Catholic point fo view. At the end of 16 years of this learning enterprise I believe that I attained what the institution was aiming at; to wit, a better version of myself./lb-30-

[Douglas]

Colleges and universities would have a much different character if college education were not subsidized by the government. Student aid has greatly distorted both academe and the job market.

Of course, to rectify this distortion would be to deny a central tenet of the modern progressivist faith: that all people are capable and therefore deserving of post-secondary (and, a fortiori, secondary) education.