The Future of Baptist Higher Education

Chapter Seven: Religious Identity, Academic Reputation, and Attracting the Best Faculty and Students

113 Chapter Seven Religious Identity, Academic Reputation, and Attracting the Best Faculty and Students Larry Lyon About five years ago The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a conference of scholars and senior administrators at Harvard discussing “The Future of Religious Colleges.”1 The irony of the meeting’s being at Harvard is readily apparent. Having been founded by Puritan Christians in 1636 and soon given the motto Christo et Ecclesiae, Harvard experienced a gradual transformation over the next two and a half centuries. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the Calvinists had been ousted from control of the university and had been replaced by Unitarians. And by the end of the nineteenth century , President Charles Eliot had transformed Harvard from a religious college into a prestigious secular university. This shift in ideological allegiances at schools such as Harvard suggests to some that today’s religious colleges or universities are on the horns of a dilemma: either they maintain a distinctive religious identity or they move toward a strong academic reputation. The purpose of this essay, then, is to assess empirically the often-assumed dilemma that national universities cannot attain (1) a reputation for academic excellence , (2) a nationally known faculty, and (3) an academically strong student body if they maintain their religious identity. While some of the history and the projections apply to all religious schools, the focus is primarily on national universities such as Baylor because these schools should experience the dilemma more acutely than the preponderance of Baptist colleges and universities across the United States today. An Apparent Dilemma George Marsden, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, expressed the dilemma in the following stark and provocative way: SchmelVita Future.indd 113 SchmelVita Future.indd 113 4/11/2006 1:20:33 PM 4/11/2006 1:20:33 PM 114 Religious Identity, Academic Reputation Since almost all the most highly regarded schools in America, from Harvard , to Amherst, to Chicago, to Duke, started out as traditionally religious schools, but eventually abandoned their original faith, is it not inevitable that the same will eventually happen to a Wheaton, Calvin, a Baylor, or a Notre Dame—at least if they hope to be recognized among America’s academic elite?2 The histories of the leading institutions of American higher education reflect this trajectory, suggesting that if religious colleges and universities aspire to be prestigious national universities, then the religious identity of such institutions must diminish. Alternatively, if they remain faithful to those religious convictions that called them into being, then they must accept academic mediocrity and dwell in the backwaters of academic culture. A major sociological study of higher education—The Academic Revolution , by Christopher Jencks and David Riesman—concurs with the historical studies mentioned above, but adds an important distinction between local colleges and national universities. Jencks and Riesman note a correlation between the localism of colleges and the special interests they represent, such as serving a specific region, a single gender, or relying on a sectarian religious identity for their mission.3 National universities, conversely, represent more broadly national interests such as quality academics and the capacity to prepare students for prestigious occupations. Jencks and Riesman predict that a truly national university “must be de facto non-sectarian to acquire [a high academic reputation], given the prejudices of able faculty and students” and that the religious institution “that wants to compete in this market is unlikely to have much success unless it reinterprets its denominational commitments in largely secular terms or else gives them the flavor of snob appeal rather than piety.”4 In a related work, Riesman compares American higher education to a snake, where the middle and the end are constantly trying to follow the head.5 With this evocative metaphor, Riesman identifies the major national universities as the head of the snake, while religious colleges and universities —at best in the middle, but more likely to be near the end of the tail—try to keep up by following the secular standards embedded in the new academic culture. Should religious universities aspire to move toward the head of the snake, then the religious identity of such institutions must diminish. Alternatively , if they remain faithful to the religious convictions that called them into being, then they must accept academic mediocrity and remain at the tail. Must Baptist Schools Secularize? Although the conference at Harvard acknowledged the perception of a dilemma, one of the purposes of the meeting was...