Why Not a Christian College on a University Campus?

Every Christian faculty member on a state university campus is well aware of the number of students who, coming from backgrounds in which the fundamentals of the Christian faith have been stressed, yet find themselves quite at sea in the swirling currents of intellectual give-and-take on the campus. They cannot distinguish between fact and opinion, between problems peculiar to the Christian and problems for which nobody has a ready answer. I have on my desk at the moment the papers of such a young student. He has come from an obviously Christian home and has now discovered the wider world of the mind. Caught between conflicting currents, he is drawn toward psychology, sociology, and philosophy. But he is improperly equipped and is even foundering in his academic progress by neglecting his mathematics, English, and history for these other new enticements. No doubt there is stormy concern back home about this young man’s faith while all this is going on.

The coin has another side. When I was a young seminary student, I was appalled to hear an area secretary of the Sudan Interior Mission say that the mission would no longer accept as candidates those graduates of Bible schools and other Christian institutions who had not taken some of their work on a secular campus. I have since learned firsthand that there is such a thing as intellectual give-and-take on the mission field and that Europeans, Americans, and Russians are exporting psychology, sociology, philosophy, political theory, and above all a tough-minded practical atheism, right along with their dollars, direction, and detergent.

Many pastors at home know this situation well also. They find their congregations very much caught up in a world whose convoluted stresses and strains produce many complex concerns that must be cleared away before the pastor can get to the underlying issues of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And although academicians are supposed to reside in ivory towers, we all are aware of the stress of intellectual confrontation with systems of thought that are no closer to evangelical Christianity today than they were when Christ stood below Pilate at the steps of the Praetorium.

Why not devise a plan in which evangelical students could receive their training right in the midst of that distillation of the world—its drives, its problems, and its proposed solutions—that is the modern university? Certainly higher education has recently undergone some changes that lend support to the suggestion. One Christian university is imaginable; indeed, it is more than that, in view of the need for dedicated and able Christians in positions of leadership. But how can we think of providing the plants, facilities, libraries, teachers, salaries, and retirement plans necessary to meet the competition when we must think of a large number of Christian institutions?

One of the new breezes in Academia is decentralization, which is picking up speed on many state university campuses. Michigan State has residential units that include classrooms and faculty offices. The Santa Cruz campus of the University of California is designed wholly along this line. The University of Michigan seems ready to bet some $14 million on the idea. And there are many others. Perhaps the eagerness of university administrators to have a separately financed, adequately designed and administered college on or near the campus may outrun that of many evangelicals to provide it. What could the university lose with an adjunct that provided housing, scholarship support, special counseling, and good students?

I propose, therefore, that a separately administered college be established on or near a major university. It should have a residence hall housing some 500 to 700 students. (This number is suggested in view of building and maintenance costs.) The college should offer facilities for instruction and counseling, recreation, and dining.

The essence of the program should be special counseling for academic performance and for the special interests and problems of Christian young people. There would also be certain courses for these students, who would be regularly enrolled in the university and pursue their major studies there. These two might be combined as follows:

1. First year. First semester: one hour per week of counseling. This weekly meeting of the student and a staff member could deal with adequate performance in university courses, with direct help for problems; with the student’s theological outlook and related questions that arise in connection with his studies; and with the student’s long-run purposes in acquiring a college education. Information about possible majors and their relation to Christian service, and the challenge of Christian service in relation to pastoral work, missions, secular careers, personal testimony—all this should be thoroughly aired in individual sessions with a person of faculty status and mature insight. The second semester could be given over to tutorial sessions, an hour per week, for which the student would prepare papers on topics related to his major interests and their involvement with his obligations as a Christian. After written criticism of the papers, each should be redone and then form the basis for a formal meeting with the tutor. These sessions should be academically impeccable as well as theologically sound. They should be a great help with the student’s other work on campus, since they would demand integration of specific areas of study with each other and with the student’s developing world-view. They would also provide explicit help with what is usually a great problem for university students: getting sufficient instruction and practice in written and oral communication.

2. Second year. A three-credit course, both semesters, on the history of evangelical Christianity. Presumably, university credit could be secured for this course, if there were adequate staffing and sufficiently cordial relations with whatever is present on campus in the way of a religion department.

3. Third year. A three-credit course, again for both semesters, that in my view ought to be the most significant single offering of the program. It would concern the relation between evangelical theology and the modern world. It ought to take up in turn the issues of the modern world and the evangelical view on those issues. Although it would be directed by one man, the course should include a wide range of visiting lecturers who could present their own special interests within this framework. The course might well use lectures plus structured discussion, individual research, and writing.

4. Fourth year. A three-credit proseminar for two semesters on the general subject of Christianity and the student’s own field of major interest. The course could begin with the student’s survey of his field, its major problems, and its recent developments. This could be followed by a paper on the relation of Christianity to that field and then another on the student’s ideas on how to present a Christian testimony within that field.

At the same time students would also be fulfilling the university’s requirements for a major field of study. They should be encouraged, and indeed helped, to participate in the regular honors program of the university. Every effort should be made to secure exemplary academic performance from the students and also to take advantage of any competitive situation that might develop with other living units and student-interest units on campus. This is an area in which much imagination could be exercised.

Along with this essentially academic program, for most of which regular university credit should be sought, there ought to be a careful consideration of the other sides of college life. This should begin with the counseling program, formally established during the student’s first year and continued during the rest of his stay. Efforts to bridge the gap between classroom instruction and personal counseling should be a matter of primary concern to the college staff. As much as possible, the distinction between the actual classroom situation and informal discussion of the issues raised in all courses should be erased. Staff members who have worked with students in the initial counseling and tutorial program should remain active in their contact with the advanced work of those students and in considering the issues that arise from this work.

Categories Of Admission

In the selection of students for the college, the admision standards of the university to which the college is attached would clearly have to prevail. This is so, not only because the college students must be accepted by the rest of the campus, but also because the added interests of the college could then demonstrate to all the strength of the college idea. Moreover, at any university the registrar has the discretionary power to admit marginal students; therefore the college would have enough leeway to provide itself with the student population that would best fit its aims.

I suggest three categories of admissions: Scholarship I, Scholarship II, and Regular Admission.

Scholarship I should be a group of students, building up to thirty or so, who receive full-support scholarships. They should be selected from a group having combined SAT scores above 1300 and ranking in the top 5 per cent of their high school graduating classes. A 3.8 gradepoint average should be required for maintaining this scholarship. Scholarship II should be a living-expense scholarship group, numbering some fifty students, for whom the requirement would be combined SAT scores of 1200 and a high school graduating rank in the top 15 per cent. For both groups, other factors, such as precise high school program, outside activities, and evidence of creativity should be considered also. The rest of the students, those in Regular Admission, should have a Verbal SAT score above 450 and be from the top 50 per cent of their graduating classes.

All entering students should be able to subscribe to a doctrinal statement stressing a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, his Lordship, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the student’s intention to devote his life to Christian service, whatever his vocation might be. A question of strategy arises at this point. Arguments for having a limited number of uncommitted students not only are very persuasive but also have been proven valid in many places, most notably in Roman Catholic schools. But all students should agree to participate fully in the program of the college and to abide by its rules.

Choosing The Staff

The problem of staffing the college is most crucial. The director should have the rank of full professor at the university to which the college is attached. The college would pay half his salary for the time he devoted to administering and teaching at the college. In my opinion it would be best to choose a person already established at the university, to forestall possible suspicion about the college’s programs and facilitate acceptance of the courses it offers.

In many ways the choice of a director will determine the success or failure of the college. He should be a thoroughly grounded Christian, able and producing in his own field of study and fully convinced of the value of the college. He should also be capable and imaginative as an administrator and have personal access to all divisions of the university. The director must function at the discretion of a college board of trustees and answer to them. As trustees I suggest two faculty members of the university, at least two nationally known persons with expertise in Christian education, and several other persons from various fields of Christian service and business.

The director should be assisted by seven persons with full faculty qualifications. Hopefully, at least some of them would have part-time appointments in various departments of the university. There should be a historian to give the course on the history of evangelical Christianity, and a person with theological training and reputation to give the course on modern theology. The other assistants should represent science, social science, and the humanities. Ideally one of them would have special language competence.

Each of these persons must be fully acceptable to the university as a regular faculty member even though he may not hold an appointment there. Every effort should be made to open the full resources of the university to these persons’ particular interests in teaching and research. As they acquire partial obligations to the university, their time should be replaced in the college so that there would still be the equivalent of at least 7½ full-time faculty members. Those who are particularly concerned with counseling and tutoring should have access to the university offices of counseling and guidance, for consultation and for integration of the college’s guidance procedures into the overall guidance system.

How Much Will It Cost?

Cost estimates have proven difficult, and the figures I mention should be taken with a grain of salt. A building that would house 700 students and provide recreational facilities, some classroom space, dining rooms, and administrative and faculty offices would probably cost about $4.5 million. I am told that this could be self-amortized and maintained over a forty-year period at an annual cost of $1,100 per student, including summer occupancy. Academic staff costs would come to approximately $75,000 per year, and supporting staff would add another $20,000. Thirty full-support scholarships would cost $60,000 per year, and fifty at half that would come to $50,000. Library acquisition could be managed for about $8,000 per year. Therefore, exclusive of building and development costs (which, it is hoped, could be met by the money students pay), the annual budget of the college would come close to $215,000 per year. I think that this is somewhat less than the average cost of maintaining a small college of 500–700 students. Keep in mind that these figures are only approximations.

However, the actual design of the college, its staff, and programs is not our problem at present. I have offered these suggestions only to give some concreteness to the basic proposal. Many variations suggest themselves. One proposal has come to me urging full academic dress for lectures and for a weekly dinner and other attempts to provide the general atmosphere of an Oxford college.

This proposal that I have outlined includes a number of ideas in current academic ferment. Those that are not original can be found in Axelrod, “New Patterns of Internal Organization,” in Emerging Patterns in American Higher Education. Tutorial instruction, counseling that is integrated with subject matter as well as performance problems, the structured integration of all the student’s course program, special attention to communication skills, proseminars for advanced students, the maintenance of close faculty-student identification—these are a good share of the problems and proposals with which educators are now grappling. By working these and other new ideas into its program, and by making it possible for teachers to give close attention to the plans and needs of individual students, the college might well find itself providing leadership in these areas to the university as a whole. In doing this it could take advantage of the fact that its students originally came together out of a common interest and, using the student support this could engender, could show the way to a combined faculty and student approach to mutual problems.

Moreover, the college (unlike most Christian schools—though there are some interesting exceptions to this) would have a way to use its own program as part of a concerted attempt at evangelical outreach. The students of the college could participate directly in the many dialogues of the whole campus and perhaps gain the opportunity to present Christ and the views of Christianity. And they would have ready-made programs to which to invite interested students.

AN UNREASONABLE FAT SIMILE

The cherubic thinker reclined in ease,

Double-chinned doctrine, quite obese—

No longer could, nor really would

Kneel on his dimpled, liturgical knees.

He summoned God to his corpulent side,

Said God was asleep or preoccupied—

Thus the catechism of jumboism

With its ultimatum: God has died!

The chubby green giant’s great offense

Was concept divorced from experience;

No exercise caused his demise—

A theology wanting viable sense.

WILLIAM J. SCHMIDT

At the same time, the college would be able to nourish and challenge its students and the security of their beliefs during the crucial period when they awaken to the life of the mind. By promoting gradual freedom from a carefully controlled and apologetically oriented counseling program, it would be set up to meet this need, which so often goes unmet.

Finally, and most important, the student in the college would meet his challenges during his undergraduate years instead of later, when he would have to face them without guidance and perhaps without fuel for reply. He would, as he is interested and able, participate in the raging, never-ending dialogue between faith and intellectualism. And he would come to see that for many people these questions are not entirely answerable but also that they do not need to be answered for everyone. Those students who could not maintain their association with the college on grounds of faith and intellect are likely the ones who could not maintain their Christian zeal when buffeted by the world, whenever that buffeting came.

The college, however, would provide a working situation in which to hammer out the practical, less philosophical aspects of Christianity’s answers to today’s problems in education. It could lead the student to more basic thought along these lines in his graduate career at an Institute of Advanced Christian Studies or elsewhere, or it could provide a good beginning for those who might decide to transfer and continue their work in a Christian university.

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