Changing Partnerships in Christian Higher Education

The Christian college is not an independent institution. It is in partnership with the church, the alumni, accrediting agencies, the business community, and government at federal, state, and local levels. In the past, it might have assumed that these partnerships were clear and unchanging. A review of the twentieth-century history of the Christian college, however, shows that these partnerships have shifted in strength. As the partners have gained or lost influence, the change has influenced both the identity and the exposure of the institution. While the speed and the scope of changing partners varies from one institution to the next, the trend is toward an expanded identity and increased exposure for the Christian college.

The Church Era

In the first third of the century, the church was not only the senior partner with the Christian college—it was almost the sole partner. Whether the college was related to one church or interdenominational, its identity tended to duplicate the identity of the church. Students and faculty of the college came from the church. This guaranteed an output of graduates to serve the church and perpetuate its purpose. The school’s quality was judged more by religious than by academic standards, and the curriculum focused upon the study of religion and its application in the Christian ministry. In this era, the identity of the Christian college was narrow and clear.

Its exposure was equally limited. The separation between Christian and secular higher education was drawn along a line of spiritual warfare. Relationships between the college and the larger community were resisted, and administrators who fostered them were suspect. Thus, the range of exposure was as narrow as the individual’s foray into enemy territory for evangelistic purposes.

The college depended upon the church for economic support, of course, and most of it came through free-will offerings and church pledges raised by gospel teams that preached, prayed, and played for local congregations. Accountability in this era could be summed up in the question often asked by contributing church members: “Is the college still spiritual?” This question sums up the restricted identity and the limited exposure of the Christian college when the church was almost its exclusive partner.

The Alumni Era

In the church era, the alumni of the college and the members of the church were often the same people. But economic pressure and academic demands forced the Christian college to grow. Church-related colleges began to reach outside the denomination, and interdenominational colleges sought a national base. Because Christian colleges are poor places for proselyting, this move expanded both the identity and the exposure for the institutions. The identity started to shift from the church to the college itself. Institutional reputation became more important than denominational connections. Students with different backgrounds had to have an educational vehicle that would take them across church lines or into non-ministerial professions without penalty. The Christian college had to stand on its own, and in this era such schools as Wheaton, Baylor, Davidson, Gordon, and Seattle Pacific became more than their denominational or interdenominational connections.

As the Christian college expanded its identity, it increased its exposure. The new standard for output was loyal alumni rather than loyal church members, and exposure took on a different meaning. In the church era, exposure tended to be limited to church members with an evangelistic purpose. Now, exposure meant alumni at work in expanded service professions, such as education.

The alumni era introduced a new source of financing for the Christian college. Alumni associations and chapters were organized to maintain the line of loyalty with the college and to raise money. College presidents, alumni secretaries, and selected faculty members made up the “gospel teams” for alumni meetings, bearing a message that was essentially the same except for a new academic emphasis. Nostalgia was the content for communication. As church members had been told what they wanted to hear, the alumni were told what they wanted to remember.

The Accreditation Era

As the line of changing identity moved on, new partners came into positions of strength. At the close of World War II, the Christian colleges were besieged with veterans who brought maturity, motivation, and money to the campus. This was directly reflected in the identity of the college. Tuition was increased. Professional and vocational programs were expanded. Social regulations were modified for the new generation. The climate of learning shifted from declarations to questions. The output of the institution was judged by its academic standing and its dollar value. In its postwar response, the Christian college stepped into the open arena of competition in American higher education.

The veterans were just the first ripple of the tidal wave of students to hit the Christian college in the 1950s. Parallel with this movement was the “quality revolution” in higher education that gave accrediting agencies powerful authority over both public and private institutions.

The accreditation era produced major changes in the identity and the exposure of the Christian college. Accrediting teams called attention to the platitudes in college catalogues, questioned faculty quality, criticized inadequate facilities. Time and time again they cited insufficient financial support. To keep up with the competition, the Christian college had no choice but to shift the focus of identity from institutional loyalty to academic quality. Institutional purposes were clarified. General education and academic majors were strengthened. Faculty qualifications and salaries were upgraded. The concrete never set on presidential building empires. All this was done under the pressure of limited financial support from the traditional sources—the church and alumni. Therefore, the cost of quality was charged back to the student in tuition and fee increases.

The accreditation era widened the scope of institutional exposure. Emphasis upon quality exposed the Christian college to the scrutiny of the academic community. Presidents began to attend educational meetings, and faculty members began to participate in scholarly societies. The output of the college was judged by transferability, professional credentials, and admission into graduate programs. Within a generation, the academic community had become a senior partner with the Christian college through its accrediting agencies.

The Business Era

When the Christian college made a commitment to academic quality in the accreditation era, it again moved beyond the limits of its available resources. The churches had other priorities, and the alumni were in low-paying service professions. Tuition increases were limited by constituencies of middle-class families with multiple obligations.

The next natural move was to the larger community that the Christian college had either ignored or tried to evangelize in past eras. To appeal to this community, and particularly the business sector, the Christian college expanded its identity again. Suddenly, it was a full partner with the community. Evidence was gathered to show the college’s educational, financial, and cultural contributions to the community. The values of the private college were matched with the values of free enterprise. Business administration and related programs gained status in the curriculum. College representatives joined service clubs, raised funds for community projects, and participated in civic affairs. Community leaders were put on the board of trustees. Then, after the cultivation period, professional fund-raising counsel was called in to conduct a development campaign in the community. The Christian college had stepped into the public arena.

This new identity brought some surprises in exposure. Profit-minded businessmen applied the stand of specific returns on their investment. They asked how many alumni were hired in their firms. They asked about vocational and professional curricula that produced employees for their industry, about financial reports and management procedures, about restrictive social regulations. This new level of accountability produced mixed results. Many Christian colleges became members in state associations seeking operating funds from business and industry. Development campaigns for capital gifts, however, put the Christian college in competition with the gift demands in the entire community. Some highly successful campaigns were conducted, but they could not be repeated every year. It is doubtful that the results of the business era were equal to the magnitude of changes that this period introduced in the identity and the exposure of the Christian college.

The Government Era

Although governmental partnership in Christian higher education goes back to the official charters of the institutions, the state became a major partner through the student and building loan programs of the fifties and the omnibus higher-education legislation of the sixties. These legislative acts were essential to the continued development of Christian colleges as recognized academic institutions. But with the new era came a new identity. Christian colleges were now projected as serving “in the public interest” and as an integral part of the system of American higher education.

This new identity is still being developed. Yet it seems safe to say that the government era will give the Christian college its most severe test in both identity and exposure. It may imply a broader base of student enrollments. It could give the curriculum a public-service thrust. It will certainly require a redefinition of the purpose of the Christian college when “service in the public interest” is added to the traditional statements about “Christian service,” “institutional loyalty,” “academic quality,” and “community participation.”

The government era may also revolutionize the scope of exposure for the Christian college. “Public accountability” is a term that goes hand in hand with “the public interest.” Whether it is an audit on student loan fund collections, a check on compliance with the Civil Rights Act, an accounting of operating efficiency, or a report on quality control, exposure for the Christian college now means a new and untested level of responsibility. The 1970s promise to bring the philosophical, legal, educational, and economic issues of the new partnership into sharp relief.

A Perspective On Changing Partnerships

This survey of changing partnerships in Christian higher education has been oversimplified. Individual institutions will find themselves at various points on the continuum, and most will find their partnerships a mixture of many influences. Yet in one way or another every Christian college can identify with the problems of changing partners. The situation must be viewed realistically if Christian higher education is to prepare a purposeful response to the pressures and the promises of new partnerships in the next decade. The following observations may provide some guidelines for the response.

1. As the Christian college expands its identity, it also expands its exposure. Exposure is a factor that is not always considered in institutional planning. A restatement of purpose, a change in curriculum, or a revision of social standards will not only change the identity; it will also open or close the range of exposure. Long-range planning must weigh the changes in identity with the implications for exposure.

2. Each era in the history of the Christian college has put increased stress upon the identity of the institution. Many Christian colleges are already facing an identity crisis. In the future, the crisis will spread as the governmental era enlarges the questions of “the public interest” and “public accountability.” Alan Pifer of the Carnegie Foundation has predicted that the distinction between private and public institutions will be only an anachronism in the future. Yet those who are committed to Christian higher education believe that the Christian college of the future will stand or fall upon the sharp edges of its individual identity.

3. The catalyst for changing partnerships in Christian higher education is economic, but the impact is institutional. Economic factors have played so large a role in the development of Christian higher education that either death or defection might have been predicted long ago. The sequence of changing partners suggests that inadequate support at one level has forced the Christian college into new partnerships for support. If the current economic trends continue, the sequence suggests a bleak future for the Christian college without direct federal and state assistance. The question is not of categorically accepting or rejecting this aid, but of projecting the identity and evaluating the exposure of the “state-assisted Christian college.”

4. The Christian college will have to accept a balance of partnerships in order to survive. Only in the rarest of cases can the Christian college survive with a single partner in the future. Even denominational colleges that receive substantial support from their constituencies need to expand their resources for the years ahead. Therefore, rather than limiting the partners or moving back to an earlier stage of development, the Christian college must take the opportunity to explore a new level of independence and interdependence through the diversity of resources.

5. To accomplish a balance of partnerships, each public must be educated to understand the contemporary role of the Christian college. The church must be educated to know that the Christian college has more than one partner and that it can accomplish its mission without being a carbon copy of the church. The alumni must understand the generation gap that exists between the nostalgic thirties and the explosive seventies. Accrediting agencies must recognize that quality is determined by ends as well as by means. The business community must learn to support the Christian college for its contribution to the general welfare as well as to a specific motive. Government must recognize that a college can serve the public interest without losing its own distinctiveness.

6. The Christian college must redefine its essential purpose within the context of changing partners. The purpose of the Christian college now includes “Christian service,” “institutional loyalty,” “academic quality,” “community participation,” and “service in the public interest.” In the past, the senior partners in each era have dictated the emphasis. Perhaps the Christian college is just entering an era of balanced partnerships when it can communicate its identity to a larger base and maintain that identity under greater exposure. If so, then it is incumbent upon the leaders of Christian higher education to blend the diverse purposes of changing partnerships into a new identity for the seventies. A review of the history of the Christian college during the first two-thirds of the century suggests that there is no alternative.

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