Higher education

Review: Race on Campus

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race on campus

Race on Campus, Julie J. Park. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2018.

Summary: Addresses myths and misconceptions around issues of race on college campus using research data.

Race continues to be an issue on campus as well as in our larger society. It is popular to note how students of color may be found sitting together in the college cafeteria and self-segregate into ethnic-specific organizations. Some object to using race in admissions processes and argue that the same ends might be achieved by class-based admissions alone. Of course, affirmative action is argued back and forth, and the case has been made for students with high test scores who were turned down for admissions including those from Asian-American backgrounds. Recognizing some of the inequities in college tests, proposals have been made to remedy with offering universal test prep. Some have recommended that affirmative action programs at some of the nations elite schools “mismatch” students of color and set them up for failure, when they may have excelled at a lower tier university.

These are the issues Julie J. Park, an associate professor of education at the University of Maryland, addresses in Race on Campus. Her approach is to come up with data-driven insights from peer-reviewed research to explore if what is being proposed or observed is actually the case. Often times, she argues, the data reveals a very different story, and that cognitive bias is actually a big issue in discussions where data belies what is contended. Here is a sampling of some of her findings:

  • The self-segregation of students of color in cafeterias and organizations reflect only an hour or two a day of a student’s life, and that students in ethnic specific organizations actually have more interactions with those of other ethnicity. Times with one’s own ethnic minority re-energizes students for engagement across ethnic boundaries. She also observes that most of us don’t notice that all the white students are also sitting together, or the instances where students are crossing boundaries.
  • Where self-segregation is a greater issue is in Greek life on campuses, as well as in religious organizations. Especially in the Greek system, self-segregation leads to fewer interactions with non-White students. This is less the case in religious organizations, but most students in self-segregating religious groups will have fewer close friends of another ethnicity.
  • Studies show that admissions processes that are both race- and class-conscious result in far more diverse classes than class-conscious approaches alone. She observes the wealth gap between median household wealth of Black and White families ($7,113 versus $111,146) and that this supports that we need to focus on race to get to class diversity because of disparities in wealth.
  • Asian-American students actually benefit from affirmative action, both by not being discriminated against, and in being part of more diverse student bodies. The discussion here goes beyond the test scores to the variety of factors in a student’s profile that are considered in admissions and student success. She deconstructs the “140 points” myth (that Asian-American students need to score 140 points higher on the SAT to be competitive with other students for admission).
  • There are all kinds of problems with admissions tests and the test-prep programs touted to bring big score increases. The actual overall gains, from test to test using test prep are minimal. Furthermore, there are inequities both in educational backgrounds that cannot be made up for with a test prep course, and inequities of access to the best test prep programs that make tests like the SAT an unreliable measure of how a student will perform.
  • The problem with the “problem of mismatch” is that under-represented minority students admitted to elite schools on the whole do about as well, and in some cases, better than majority students. Here, Park takes apart a study by Sander and Taylor that has been invoked for encouraging students to go to “slower-track” institutions.

This is a winsomely written book addressing a tough subject. I especially appreciate the epistemic humility of Park, who in the course of her research discovers some of her own cognitive biases, and has the courage to admit them. I also appreciate an academic citing academic research who writes accessibly for a wide audience. In the Introduction, she says,

“Who should read this book? Everyone! If you’re a graduate student, academic, policy-maker, educator, everyday citizen–come on in. One of my key goals is to highlight empirical studies on race in a way that is more accessible than the original peer-reviewed journal articles, which are primarily read by academics. Don’t get me wrong, academic journals are riveting reading, but it can be tedious to comb through study after study, so I’ve done that work for you. I’ve also done my best to write this book in a conversational tone to make it accessible to a wide range of readers” (p. 6).

I believe she succeeds on both counts. The work is meticulously researched with 32 pages of end notes in a book that comes in at under 200 pages. Park keeps it accessible, citing key statistics within the text without bar charts and graphs (which I know will disappoint some). The tone remains conversational, and Park avoids the “detached researcher” voice that often result in accurate but sterile works.

This work is important for its conclusions as well–that we are tempted to adopt policy proposals driven by cognitive bias rather than data, that we need more robust measures of merit than test scores that recognize different ways excellence manifests in students across race and class, and that racism and racial inequalities continue to need to be addressed on campus. The book challenged some of my own cognitive biases around issues like self-segregation.  This is an important book for anyone connected to higher education who aspire to seeing campuses as diverse as our population, that prepare students to lead in a diverse society.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Coddling of the American Mind

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The Coddling of the American Mind

The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. New York: Penguin Press, 2018.

Summary: Discusses three bad ideas that result in a culture of “safetyism” in higher education, chronicles the consequences of these bad ideas, traces factors that led to the embrace of these ideas, and how we might choose a wiser way.

  1. The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.
  2. The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings.
  3. The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt contend that these three bad ideas constitute a well-intentioned but toxic basis for a campus culture of “safetyism.” They argue that these ideas contradict ancient wisdom, psychological research on well-being, and are harmful to the individuals and communities who embrace this mindset. Lukianoff, the president of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and Haidt, a social psychologist perhaps best known for his recent work, The Righteous Mind, began to notice, from 2013 on, an increasing trend of concern on university campuses about “triggering material,” efforts to disinvite, or obstruct controversial speakers by heckling or even violence, coupled with reports of increasing levels of anxiety and fears about safety.

There seemed to be an increasing perception by university administrators that students were “fragile” and needed protection and “safe spaces.” They noted the priority given to feelings, and that the response to anything that evokes negative emotions is not to consider how one ought think about the external cause, but to simply remove whatever offends or causes stress–be it course material or offensive speakers, or perceived “microaggressions.” (Although I wonder whether two white men can fully take on board what it is like to experience frequent microaggressions because of one’s race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, or disability.) They also noted the framing of the world in terms of a toxic form of identity politics, focused on common enemies rather than common humanity–us versus them, good versus evil.

After delineating the contours and problems with these “three great untruths,” the authors chronicle a number of incidents in the last five years that they believe result from these often well-intentioned but bad ideas. They chronicle violent outcomes to this thinking at Berkeley after Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to speak with no disciplinary action by the university, and at Middlebury College when controversial scholar Charles Murray attempted to speak and a hosting faculty member suffered a concussion and whiplash requiring six months of physical therapy, in attempts to disrupt the event. Perhaps not as well publicized were the “witch hunts,” often against liberal faculty like Erika Christakis at Yale, who objected to an administration’s paternalistic instructions about offensive Halloween costumes, suggesting that students might be mature enough to set their own norms. Students called her out as a racist, for creating an unsafe space, and sought her firing. She ultimately resigned. On many campuses, faculty feel they are walking on egg shells, often choosing to avoid anything controversial for fear that it may evoke complaints, or a witch hunt.

The authors identify six contributing factors to this culture of safetyism, devoting a chapter to each:

  • Rising political polarization, with campuses shifting leftward and increasingly distrusted by those on the right.
  • An increase in adolescent anxiety and depression beginning in 2011, significantly correlating to smartphone usage. This group began arriving on campus in 2013.
  • Paranoid parenting resulting in far less unsupervised play and greater fears of abduction (even though crime rates for this crime have dropped).
  • The decline of free play and the rise of emphasis on test preparation.
  • The growth of a bureaucracy of safetyism at universities, driven by federal mandates, risks of lawsuits, and a consumerist mentality, in which students are the consumers.
  • The quest for justice, evoked by events between 2012 and 2018 that sometimes focuses on “equal outcomes social justice” in which any demographic disparity is assumed to be the result of discrimination, and alternative explanations are themselves considered discriminatory.

The authors observe that many of these factors arise from good intentions taken to extremes and are careful to distinguish between legitimate forms of concern (like protecting physical safety) and more extreme forms of safetyism.

They conclude with three chapters on wising up, with applications to children, to universities, and to the wider society. They argue for preparing kids for the road rather than the road for the kids. They propose that our worst enemies cannot harm us as much as our emotional reasoning. And they encourage the recognition that “the line dividing good and evil goes through the heart of every human being,” and that we ought be watchful for any institution that promotes a common enemy rather than common humanity narrative. They commend the Chicago Statement (including a version of it in an appendix) that promotes free speech, academic freedom and free inquiry and sanctioning efforts to suppress speech.

The authors, particularly Greg Lukianoff, who benefited personally from this approach, advocate for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that improves mental health and coping skills through recognizing cognitive distortions and maladaptive behaviors, and challenging and changing these. Essentially, they would contend that their “three bad ideas” are both cognitive distortions and lead to maladaptive behaviors good neither for the person, nor the university, nor society. Hence, it should be understood that CBT is integral to their critique and recommendations.

Working in a collegiate setting, I’ve seen many of the conditions the authors describe. Most faculty I know readily resonate with the feeling that they walk on egg shells, even while being deeply committed to academic freedom and challenging students thinking. I’ve seen the growing sensitivity to microaggressions. I’ve witnessed the surprise when I’ve suggested that being offended is a choice–that no one can offend us unless we let them, and that there are other options. I have been concerned that universities often seem to be echo chambers for the progressive end of our political discourse, blind to the very practices they excoriate on the right.

Given the character of our wider society, it seems the last thing universities should be doing is engaging in the kinds of “coddling” Lukianoff and Haidt describe. If we are to have any hope, it will take resilient, anti-fragile people who will engage and keep engaging differing and even off-putting ideas. Most of all, in a climate of us versus them, we need people able to follow the Pauli Murray principle: “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them.” Here’s to drawing larger circles!

Review: Consent on Campus

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consent on campus

Consent on Campus: A Manifesto, Donna Freitas. New York: Oxford University Press, (forthcoming, August 1) 2018.

Summary: An argument that current approaches to consent education as an approach to combating sexual assault on campus are inadequate both in the time devoted to deal with the complexities of sexuality, and the absence of campus leadership, faculty, presidents, and other university leaders, from the discussions.

Much has been made in recent years of the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, with statistics indicating between 20 and 25 percent of women will be subject to assault, and smaller numbers of men, during their collegiate years. Colleges and universities, under pressure from the federal government and Title IX enforcement, have stepped up their efforts at “Consent Education” with programs like “Sex Signals” and “Partying with Consent.” These programs, often part of an hour long session in new student orientation, allow campuses to check the box that they have exercised due diligence in consent education. The other side is Title IX enforcement when a student or other member of the university community files a sexual assault complaint, with mandatory reporting requirements when university officials learn of a sexual assault, opaque investigative processes, neglect of due process for the accused, and pressures on the accuser, depending on who the perpetrator might be.

Donna Freitas, who has been studying student sexuality and the hookup culture on campus for the past ten years since publication of Sex and the Soul, believes these institutional responses to be utterly inadequate. She begins with a preface directed to all university presidents, and it is her hope that they all read this book. Their personal engagement, and not simply written statements, is vital in communicating that campus leadership prioritize thoughtful, honest discussion of sexuality on campus.

She surveys the landscape of campus efforts to deal with sexual assault. She offers a helpful explanation of how Title IX works, the “Dear Colleagues…” letter in 2011 that has triggered the growth of Title IX offices, reporting, and enforcement, and the failure of a campus-wide approach to address the sexual culture on campus that is implicit in Title IX proceedings. She also describes the thin efforts at consent education that fails to deal with the complexities of what “yes” means. Particularly, this is problematic with the party culture of campus and the complications alcohol bring to consent for both male and female students.

It goes deeper though and perhaps one of the most important part of Freitas’ book is the exploration of the inherited “scripts” that shape student behavior, often pressuring them to act in ways that are far from sexually free. Women have to project an air of indifference toward men, that sex doesn’t really matter that much, to avoid any sense of appearing “needy” or “clinging.” Men face pressures to perform sexually, even when they don’t want to. Their masculinity is at stake. Hookups are defined as over when the man “comes” (no real consideration of the woman’s experience). Women also face pressures around body image and various forms of “slut shaming.” All of this, in combination with the presence of alcohol, undermines any real giving and receiving of consent, as well as destroying any sense of sex as something deeply intimate, powerful and empowering for both partners. These inherited scripts are problematic, and often supported by a prevailing assumption on campus that “everyone is doing it” that doesn’t support those who wish to abstain, or wait for a different kind of relationship.

Freitas advocates for a concerted, widely owned effort to re-write these scripts, shared between students, student life personnel and faculty and university leadership. She observes that students often have high ideals of social justice and human dignity, but have never been able to connect those ideals to their sexual and partying behavior with each other. Freitas argues that any sexual encounter is an ethical act. She suggests using campus mission statements, which often are intended but rarely applied as expressing the ideals to which the community aspires. She contends that both existing scripts need to be codified, and critically examined, and that alternative, “interruptive” scripts need to be enacted. She sites the example of Columbia student, Emma Sulkowicz, an assault survivor who raised campus awareness by carrying her mattress with her wherever she went, which became a senior thesis, “Carry That Weight.” Most of all, she pleads that discussions of sexuality not be confined to large, one hour orientation sessions led by over-burdened student life personnel, but be integrated into classroom discussions. She challenges the value of intellectual detachment, proposing that where course content is relevant, that discussion on how this bears on students personal lives and behavior is appropriate and needed and that faculty and university leaders actively engage what happens after the classroom hours as well as during them.

I found much to be commended in this “manifesto” that “named the elephant” lurking on every campus. I appreciated her contention that what is needed are not trigger warnings but honest, even painful discussion (while never forcing students to share personal experiences they are not ready for). I appreciated her descriptions of Title IX and existing consent education efforts and their inadequacy. This needs to be honestly faced, and she helps us do that. I was glad for her contention that student beliefs and choices not to engage in the campus hookup culture need to be affirmed for whatever reasons, including religious belief, that they embrace these choices.

At the same time, she writes dismissively of  “values voters” and conservative “one size fits all” ethics in a way that seems to suggest that this is the only alternative currently on offer to hookup culture or her own “script rewriting efforts.” The truth is many campus religious communities are having thoughtful discussions of the kind she writes about that go beyond “what not to do and who not to do it with” to explore the meaning of sexuality, the significance of our gender and identity, how we deal with desire and respect and honor others. She leaves this group out as potential allies, despite their influence with a significant percentage of students on many campuses.

Finally, in urging greater faculty involvement, I wonder whether she reckons with the institutional support necessary for such conversations, from training of what is and is not legal and appropriate in classroom discussions, access to counseling when discussions raise unresolved issues for faculty who also have sexual lives and histories, and good linkages between faculty and student services personnel who might follow up with students in need of further counsel.

This “wake up call” comes as another cohort of students is preparing to arrive on campus. The matters she raises are urgent. Will this next cohort face the same depersonalizing sexual scripts that have prevailed and receive the same thin gruel of consent training? Will both men and women feel strong pressure to conform to the gender stereotypes that prevail in campus sexual culture? And will 20 to 25 percent of these women conclude their college experience not only with a degree but a sexual assault? Much of the answer depends, in Freitas’ view, on whether university leaders, faculty, student life personnel and students come together to disrupt that culture. Her book is probably one of the best playbooks I’ve seen for doing just that.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Freitas’ earlier book, The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy was reviewed at Bob on Books on November 24, 2013.

Review: Speak Freely

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Speak Freely

Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech, Keith E. Whittington. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.

Summary: A case for the vigorous defense of free speech as essential to fulfilling the mission of the university in the face of both institutional and outside attempts to suppress objectionable speech.

“Free speech on college campuses is perhaps under as great
a threat today as it has been in quite some time. We are not,
of course, on the verge of returning to the rigid conformity of
a century ago, but we are in danger of giving up on the hard won
freedoms of critical inquiry that have been wrested from
figures of authority over the course of a century.“

So contends Keith E. Whittington in this rallying cry to defend free speech on university campuses. Whittington discusses the challenges to free speech arising from free-floating forms of calls for “trigger warnings and safe spaces,” the cries to ban “hate speech” from public discourse, protests whose purpose is not dissenting from the speech of others but obstructing it, restraints or bans on student groups and outside speakers advocating objectionable ideas, and attacks on the academic and speech freedom of faculty.

His fundamental contention is that freedom of speech is essential to the mission of the university, which he defines as “producing and disseminating knowledge.” Freedom of inquiry, rigorous discourse, disagreement and persuasion are all aspects of this process, and the protections of freedom of speech are essential for universities to flourish in this mission. A common element to both the mission of the university and a rigorous defense of free speech is a commitment to truth-seeking.

Having stated this contention, he surveys the development of a tradition of free speech over the last several centuries, both in its political expression tracing back to Jefferson and the refusal to permit authorities to define and censor “bad” speech and the philosophical tradition of John Stuart Mill upholding freedom of thought and conscience. He then considers the challenges to this freedom of speech, already noted above, including a number of recent instances in the last decade, notably the efforts to suppress Charles Murray from speaking at Middlebury College, and the injury to the faculty moderator that ensued. He also calls attention to the banning of religious groups who do not permit students to lead who do not share their beliefs, thus excluding the views of these groups from the public square.

In this last instance, I would have liked to seem a stronger recognition of how protecting the freedom of people with a particular viewpoint to associate is essential to sustaining their freedom to advocate that viewpoint, whether in line or at variance with the university orthodoxy. I would have liked a clearer connection to be drawn between the institutional forms of suppression of free speech that occur in universities, and efforts by students or outside groups to do the same, to which those same university leaders often object. In many instances, students are using the means at their disposal to restrict certain forms of speech, mirroring the more “refined” ways institutions suppress objectionable speech through policies, procedures, and pressures. Students are often simply doing what they have been taught.

Nevertheless, the author’s contention is crucial that all forms of speech, short of speech that is directly threatening harm or incites violence, ought to be protected, and channeled toward real deliberation and persuasion. I saw an instance of this recently where a university president, under pressure to dis-invite a speaker who made some impolitic statements, refused to do so and invited students to engage the speaker with their questions about his statement, and also to set up other university-supported discussions countering the speaker’s viewpoint. The president used this instance as a “teachable moment” of what it meant to live up to the school’s “Code of Love and Honor” that includes these affirmations:

I respect…
the dignity, rights, and property of others and their right to hold and express disparate beliefs.

I defend…
the freedom of inquiry that is the heart of learning.

This, for me was an example of the personal and institutional backbone necessary to sustain the speech freedom Whittington, I think rightly, believes vital to the mission of our colleges and universities. Whittington notes that this may be costly, when controversial speakers make appearances. Equally, his book seems to me to be a cry for colleges and universities to examine their own culture, and how institutional efforts to censor objectionable or unpopular points of view undermine the very mission of higher education. If colleges and universities indeed believe that inquiry, rigorous discourse, persuasion through logical and reasoned discourse, and appeals to evidence are the stuff of truth-seeking, not just in higher education, but in a liberal democracy; then they should not only defend those who seek to “speak freely” but eschew any efforts to substitute institutional power plays for the deliberative truth-seeking that is supposedly at the heart of its mission.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: American Academic Cultures

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American Academic Cultures

American Academic Cultures, Paul H. Mattingly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary: Traces the history and development of higher education in the United States as a succession of seven “generational cultures,” using examples of prominent institutions representing the emergence of each culture.

How did higher education in the United States achieve its present status, whether one considers this desirable or otherwise? Was there a golden age in American higher education, and if so, exactly when was that? These and other questions are much discussed in higher education circles and the topic of numerous historical explorations of higher education in America. Most trace the development from colleges closely tied to the church through the rise of research universities and public, land-grant institutions, down to the present day of our complex multiversities. Most works simply trace a linear development. What is distinctive in Paul Mattingly’s work is the proposal that this development might be understood as a succession of seven overlapping “generational academic cultures” which he discusses in the course of the fifteen “essays” that comprise the book. In each of these, he elaborates the character of these cultures through highlighting examples of prominent institutions, cultural trends, and key figures that represent a particular academic culture.

The seven generational academic cultures he identifies are (the date ranges are my approximations):

  1. Evangelical (1636-1800): These colleges were church-related institutions (Harvard, Yale, etc) that focused on the intersection of piety and intellect and whose character was profoundly shaped by the Great Awakening.
  2. Jeffersonian (1750-1830): As denominational colleges spread southward, Jefferson and the patrician hierarchy of Virginia sought to check the strong denominational indoctrination and paternalistic control through a publicly supported university that expressed the mores and values of the region. The University of Virginia was the educational, and even architectural expression of the ideal of “Mr. Jefferson’s University.”
  3. Republican/non-denominational (1800-1860): The growth of a post-Revolutionary republic and the need to educate business and civic leaders brought an emphasis on “moral character over “true belief,” resulting in even denominational schools broadening their curriculum to accommodate these needs. (I wonder if 2 and 3 are aspects of a single academic culture)
  4. Industrially-driven post-graduate/professional organization (1860-1910): The Civil War marked a watershed in higher education as war-related research and scientific and technological advances resulted in an increasing emphasis on post-graduate research on the European model, and post-graduate professional education. It led to the rise of the land-grant universities propelling both agricultural and engineering and science education, and Charles William Eliot’s efforts to turn Harvard into a “generic” university.
  5. A Progressive (urban-driven) pragmatism with a substantial liberal arts/teaching countercurrent (1880-1930): The rise of American cities and Progressive reforms led to the growth of urban universities that addressed issues of education, health, safety, and labor. This was the period of figures like Thorstein Veblen in sociology and John Dewey in philosophy and education. This period was epitomized by William Rainey Harper’s University of Chicago that fused liberal education with these pragmatic concerns, all within a Gothic architecture harking back to Europe’s great universities.
  6. An internationally-minded academic discourse (1890-1950): The emergence of research-oriented institutions like John’s Hopkins and its impact on the university landscape led to increasing ties with European scholars. The rise of Nazism resulted in a mass immigration of many of those scholars to the United States, where their presence transformed the discourse in fields from psychology to physics.
  7. The current corporate multiversity (1940-present): The ultimate expression of the development of pragmatism, where academic departments and interdisciplinary research vastly expanded in respond to federal research funding. Clark Kerr’s University of California–Berkeley is the epitome of this pragmatic university, organized not around an educational ideology but around the driving forces of research monies and market forces.

The work concludes with a chapter on challenging pragmatism, and indeed, it seems the author has landed on the critical question that this survey raises. Mattingly traces an evolution of higher education from institutions shaped around cultures centered on ideas to ones shaped by increasingly pragmatic concerns. The question this raises is whether our system of higher education exists for anything more than serving the research and vocational training needs of the country?

Mattingly contends that throughout this history, faculty have had a shaping role in the successive cultures of higher education, and believes this will be so in the future. I have to admit to being more dubious about both parts of his proposal. I think his survey actually demonstrates the predominant influence of cultural forces outside the university that shaped successive academic cultures. The culture-shapers he singles out inside higher education are primarily university presidents, and it seems that the prominent ones were those who got on the leading edge of broader cultural changes and led their institutional response to these changes. Furthermore, the corporatization of universities with more power flowing to administration and the adjunctification of the faculty suggests to me an even more diminished influence. I think the author is engaging in some wishful thinking at this point unless a concerted and focused movement of resistance and reform by noted scholars and tenured faculty arises.

The other criticism of this work is that it focuses primarily on elite institutions. While noting democratizing trends in higher education (with some attention on the development of the California State system as an example) relatively little attention is given to the diverse landscape of contemporary higher education from community colleges to the continued existence of liberal arts schools, urban universities (not the University of Chicago but the Wayne States (Detroit) of the university world, as well as the state systems, the comprehensive public universities, and the elite research universities. There is no mention of online education nor the rise of for-profit institutions. Perhaps considerations of space preclude this but it all seems an expression of the extension of both republican values (small “r”) and pragmatic concerns that the author so helpfully highlights.

These criticisms aside, the model of generational academic cultures as a way of understanding the history of American higher education seems quite helpful. It helps account for the very different ethos one finds in the collegiate settings of 1750, 1850, 1950, and today. As I noted, it also highlights the interplay of broader and academic cultural forces. Furthermore, the overlapping nature of these cultures underscores that the transition from one culture to another was never without tensions, throwbacks, and contention around the question of why a college or university exists. Furthermore, any meaningful conversation about the future(s) of higher education cannot exist apart from understanding where we are and how we got here, or a consideration of the cultural forces shaping the discussion. Mattingly’s well-researched and organized work seems to me required reading for any who care about such matters.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: A Grander Story

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A Grander Story

A Grander Story, Rick Hove and Heather Holleman. Orlando: Cru Press, 2017.

Summary: An invitation to professors and graduate students who are Christians to live for the grand vision of God’s story in their life in higher education, including narratives of six professors, and practical recommendations.

Very simply, this book nails it in casting a vision for Christians called to academia. The writers, associated with a sister ministry to the one I work with set out a vision of lives nobly lived as part of God’s great story. I found myself saying “Amen” on almost every page and thinking of groups of grad students and faculty who would be helped by reading and discussing this book.

The opening four chapters of the book articulate the grander story, the story of God’s redemptive purposes in the world and the grand person of Christ at the heart of the story. Then they turn to discuss the grander being and grander doing that faculty captivated by this vision might experience. It begins with being a different kind of person under a new leader. It extends into all that faculty do in teaching, research, relationships, and service. They invite faculty to consider the metanarratives of their disciplines and the distinctive contributions Christian thought might make in the research questions they explore. This life is also marked by the different ways they engage disagreements and how they serve others.

The second part of the book consists of six narratives by faculty working in different fields: Ken Elzinga in economics, Susan Siaw in psychology, Walter Bradley in mechanical engineering, Phil Bishop in exercise physiology, John Walkup in electrical engineering, and Heather Holleman in English. Their accounts describe their academic work, their relationships with students and how they have had opportunities to witness to Christ with students and peers, opportunities in missions, and participation in faculty groups on their campuses. Heather Holleman’s account was especially striking to me in its narrative of how she intentionally arrives early and prays for each of the students who will be in the seats of her classroom.

The final two chapters summarize these accounts in “best practices” and a concluding chapter that articulates the authors longings for higher education and Christian presence in this arena. The book also includes two appendices dealing with legal questions. Many professors are obeying laws that don’t exist and not availing themselves of the freedoms they have. At the same time, there are appropriate cautions of being aware of policies about use of university emails and facilities.

The book is designed to be read and discussed by graduate students and faculty. Short chapters with many personal examples that readers can identify with are very helpful. Each chapter ends with several discussion questions that could be discussed in a 45 minute luncheon meeting. I also think the book does a great job in casting a vision and offering hope for what can happen in colleges and universities for those in the church who might despair about the “godless university.” Anyone who reads this has to conclude that our colleges and universities and the people who work in them are part of the grander story God is writing.

Review: Restoring the Soul of the University

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restoring the soul

Restoring the Soul of the University, Perry L. Glanzer, Nathan F. Alleman and Todd C. Ream. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: Traces the history of the fragmentation of the modern university including its loss of soul, the impacts that this has on various facets of university of life, and the role theology can have in restoring that soul and healing that fragmentation.

One of the clearest conclusions in reading contemporary literature and analysis of higher education is that there is no clear idea of what a university is for. Or rather, there are multiple contested ideas from educating for citizenship, to provide the skills needed to work in today’s knowledge economy, to serving as a critical adjunct to that economy by working alongside government and industry to tailor curriculum to aid economic growth. Then there are the rare individuals who still insist that universities have something to do with helping young men and women explore life’s larger issues, life’s meaning and purpose, helping them live into what it means to be fully human and part of the human community.

The authors of this work, following Chancellor Clark Kerr’s description of the multiversity, propose that all of this is indicative of an institution that has lost its soul, that there is no shared animating purpose, no story that frames its sense of mission and its values. All the different constituencies that are competing to shape the university have fragmented and there is nothing to mediate between these fragmented identities.

The book consists of three parts. The first part traces the history of the university from its beginnings with Hugh of St. Victor and the University of Paris. The vision began with a vision of the academic castle with theology preeminent over the disciplines, in which learning occurred through both meditation upon and disputation around authoritative texts. Unfortunately, making theology preeminent tended to isolate theology from engagement with the other disciplines. This flaw widened as theology and philosophy became separate disciplines, increasingly not in conversation with each other. Then in the late 18th through the 19th centuries, European universities were increasingly controlled not by church, but by government. The beginnings of American universities seemed to hark back to the early vision. But after the Civil War, the European ideal of the research university and the rise of science took over. From a set curriculum, the elective plan proposed by Charles Eliot turned the university into an academic buffet of courses rather than a common curriculum. Universities became simply a collection of departments competing for students attentions leading to the secular multiversity of the present.

Part two explores the impacts of this fragmentation. First of all is the fragmentation of the life of a professor, torn between teaching, research, publishing pressures, and service, between one’s institution, and one’s subdiscipline. With no common story to give curricular coherence, curriculum increasingly is defined by majors with general requirements a faint echo of a once common curriculum. The competition for students leads to a rise of student services outside the purview of the faculty and a tension between curricular and co-curricular life. The growing size of universities, the expansion and sophistication of services, and government requirements add a new group of people to the mix, administrators. Lacking a significant narrative to bind the university together, athletics, and particularly football at many institutions serves as the multiversity’s new religion. The rise of new technologies and entrepreneurial figures has resulted in new delivery systems in online and for-profit education, challenging traditional models.

The last part of this work re-imagines what a university, particularly a Christian university, might look like if theology was granted a central and formative role in the life of the university. To begin with this assumes a willingness of theologians to open up their conversation to other academics and for academics in the other disciplines to be open to explore theological implications for the paradigms and practices of their disciplines. It means not penalizing theologians whose academic work reflects this interdisciplinary engagement rather than narrowly focus in their own theological sub-disciplines. Their vision goes far beyond a virtuous veneer to the standard practices of teaching, research and service. They write:

“Although we agree with the importance of practicing virtue in the academic calling, we contend that any approach to integrating virtue must not prioritize teaching over scholarship or service but should instead prioritize the role of the triune God and God’s theological story in defining, directing, and empowering the virtues that sustain excellence in these practices and help promote flourishing academic communities. We doubt broadly defined virtues on which we all agree can sufficiently reorient the academic vocation. After all, professors need a compelling identity and story that will motivate them to acquire certain virtues. Instead, Christians must think about virtues such as faith, hope, and love as well as other fruits of the Spirit, in the light of a theological narrative and realities that usually do not enter standard secular reasoning” (pp. 245-246).

The authors then explore how this reconsideration of theological narrative and reality shape academic disciplines, co-curricular life and academic leadership. The authors’ vision is that it may be possible, at least within Christian universities to recover the “soul” of the university in understanding how the Christian story informs all of life in the university.

In assessing this work, one must first acknowledge the valuable work the authors have done both in summarizing the history of the university, helping us understand how we have reached our present place, and the shape (or shapelessness) of the fragmentation that is the defining realities of our present-day universities, Christian, private, or public. They give us a valuable survey, which some will dispute in detail, but in broad outlines does much to inform someone wanting to understand higher education today.

For those working in the Christian college and university setting, what the authors assert should not be cause for much controversy, in principle. In fact, the forces that have shaped these schools as mirror images of the secular university are not insubstantial–whether we are talking about the shape of the theological guild, the disciplines, athletics (as the authors, two of whom are Baylor faculty well know), and the rising co-curricular bureaucracy. There is a need for a combination of humility and vision shared by university faculty and leaders from these various sectors if this is ever to have a chance of being realized. Perhaps it might grow from “test plots” where people with a larger vision come together.

What hope is there for secular, public universities? I cannot visualize an institutional transformation that “Christianizes” such places. But might it first of all be helpful for Christians within these “academic villages,” whether students, faculty, staff, or administrations to begin to think more rigorously about how the narrative of their faith ought to shape their daily life and presence in this place? Might there be significant value in private and, when appropriate, public conversations that reflect how theology might inform and enrich our inquiry and practice in every dimension of life? Might students, trying to connect the various “reality bites” of their lives find in the Christian story, the “liberating arts” (in the authors words) that bring coherence to both their studies and their lives? Might this collaboration of students, faculty, theologians, and ministry leaders cultivate a counter-cultural, lived story that in proximate ways witnesses to “the restored soul” that is the mark of the Christian story?

I cannot guess what difference this might lead to with these institutions. But Christians in these places must consider what story will shape how they live. The paucity or richness of the theological narrative that shapes these lives will determine whether they will be fragmented or will flourish. The case these writers make is one all of us working around the world of higher education will do well to heed.

 

Should We Let This Prisoner Out of the Academic Dungeon?

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Hope in a Prison of Despair, Evelyn De Morgan [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Just what prisoner are we talking about, you might ask. I would suggest this is no ordinary burglar, extortionist, or murderer. Nor are we talking about your ordinary academic criminals–the plagiarizer, the reactionary, the transgressor who forgets trigger warnings. Rather, we are speaking of one who once occupied an eminent place in the order of the academy. Some would contend that this one gave a kind of order or coherence to the academy. So much so that this one was spoken of as Queen of the Sciences. Her name was Theology and she has fallen from the pinnacle of the university to the dungeon. Many don’t even wish to acknowledge her existence.

The image of theology in the dungeon is one I am borrowing from Restoring the Soul of the University by Perry L. Glanzer, Nathan F. Alleman, and Todd C. Ream. The authors explore the fragmented character of modern universities and college, referred to by Clark Kerr as the “multiversity,” and contend that this is a consequence of the dethroning of theology from her place as Queen of the Sciences. With this dethroning, they claim the university has lost the unifying story of God at the center that connects the various disciplines as elements of a common story. Their project is a modest one, to bring theology out of the dungeon and make her at least a conversation partner with other scholars in the Christian higher education context. No ambition proposals to “reclaim the nation’s universities for God!” here.

I find myself wondering if the theologians have come to like the dungeon, and perhaps have even ceased to see it as one. They have their own students, publishers for their books, journals for their articles, canons of scholarship, and academic conferences to celebrate and give structure to it all. There are subdisciplines within the theological guild, and conversations in a particular jargon only the initiated readily grasp–perhaps.

I’ve spent my career working in collegiate ministry in public university settings. From many conversations, my sense is that while most don’t want theology to be a Queen, there is an openness to theology as a conversation partner–particularly if that can be a real dialogue. Might those concerned with the interpretation of biblical texts have much to share and much to learn from those whose work is interpreting other kinds of texts, whether historical or literary. Might those who really have looked at the origin stories of scripture with a careful scholarly eye be the best to engage with those considering scientific studies of origins? Might those in health care benefit greatly from the wisdom those working with issues of formation have about seasons of life–how might we both live and die well?

I think the great fear in academia would be some form of asserting authority or re-asserting control. I think this is a needless fear. What is the danger in mutual inquiry and learning? What is the danger in humble listening to and instructing one another? Might there be “lost learnings” on both sides from which all might profit? And if there are fears about this happening in the public setting (although I’ve found this possible even here), why not start with schools affiliated with theological seminaries?

Universities arose out of cathedral schools and the idea that there was a fundamental unity underlying all knowledge arose from the belief that all knowledge had a common source and origin in a Creator God. Not all will agree with this today by any means. But is the idea one that should be confined to an intellectual dungeon? Should there not be a chance to see whether the prisoner in the dungeon has a cogent and coherent story to tell? And if the prisoner is given the chance, will s/he emerge ready both to listen and to speak?

Christian Scholars Review

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CSR

Cover of the current issue of Christian Scholars Review

The most recent issue of the Christian Scholars Review (CSR) arrived in my mail the other day and it occurred to me that this might be a resource at least some who follow this blog might like to know of. For one thing, it may give you a clue as to where I hear about some of the books I review! The website for CSR describes its objective as follows:

“Established in 1970, Christian Scholar’s Review is a medium for communication among Christians who have been called to an academic vocation. Its primary objective is the publication of peer-reviewed scholarship and research, within and across the disciplines, that advances the integration of faith and learning and contributes to a broader and more unified understanding of the nature of creation, culture, and vocation and the responsibilities of those whom God has created. It also provides a forum for discussion of pedagogical and theoretical issues related to Christian higher education. It invites contributions from Christian scholars of all historic traditions, and from others sympathetic to the task of religiously-informed scholarship, that advance the work of Christian academic communities and enhance mutual understanding with other religious and academic communities. “

The Review does not focus on a particular academic discipline but publishes peer reviewed articles exploring how thoughtful Christian academics connect their faith to whatever it is they are studying. Some issues center around a theme, like the environment or nuclear weapons. Others have several articles on drawn on divergent themes. The current issue includes the following articles:

  • Stephen V. Monsma – What is an Evangelical? And Does It Matter? [Abstract]
  • Judith Anderson – Doers of the Word: Shakespeare, Macbeth, and the Epistle of James [Abstract]
  • Michael Kugler – The Faun Beneath the Lamppost: When Christian Scholars Talk About the Enlightenment [Abstract]

There are a steady stream of articles on Christian higher education because the editorial team and many of the contributors work in this context. In addition, you will find responses to articles in previous issues, kind of an ongoing scholarly conversation similar to many academic journals.

One of my favorite parts of the Review are the reviews! Each issue includes an extended review or two. I write very concise reviews for the blog context. It is always interesting to see reviewers do a more extended review of something I’ve covered more briefly. In the current issue (XLVI:4, Summer 2017), there is a review of Modern Art and the Life of a Culture (which I reviewed here on May 24, 2016). Like most people, I read reviews for one of two reasons, either to find books I would like to read, or to learn about books that I won’t have the time or interest to read. This is a good place to find reviews of longer works connecting faith and academic life.

Why do I subscribe to Christian Scholars Review? I work with academics and grad students in a variety of disciplines, and while I can never hope to understand any of those disciplines as well as they can, over the years I’ve come across a number of articles that helped me see how Christian faith might address important questions in their disciplines and pointed me to resources they might explore around those questions.

Who else might find this helpful? First and most obvious would be any faculty or grad student who cares about the connection of faith and their academic work. I would suggest that even the articles concerning disciplines other than their own may well suggest resources for questions they face. Also, the interdisciplinary character of this journal helps in the recovery of a sense of the unity of knowledge in the fragmented multiversity.

I don’t think academics are the only ones who will find value in this journal. Pastors, particularly those in university towns, may benefit in seeing how others connect theological principles and convictions to subjects ranging from history to engineering, from literature to education. Any thoughtful Christian who wants to think both broadly and deeply about the world might find these article length treatments more accessible than lengthy books.

You may find information about subscribing to the Review at the Subscribe/Back Issues page on their website. Students providing an ID can subscribe for $15 a year, others for $24 (four issues). You can also order back issues and the website includes an index with links to a table of contents going back to 1995.

Review: The Faculty Factor

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the-faculty-factor

The Faculty Factor, Martin J. Finkelstein, Valerie Martin Conley, and Jack H. Schuster. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.

Summary: A data-rich study of the profile, experience, and influence of university faculty in the turbulent and rapidly changing landscape of higher education institutions in the United States.

Every commentator on higher education will tell you that the higher education world is going through a season of dramatic change that puts pressures on faculty and administrators. Among these are economic pressures and the use of business models for academic planning, postponements of retirement of tenured faculty, technology changes affecting both content and delivery of education, a focus on STEM fields, and the increasing diversity of the general populace and the expectation of seeing this in the academic workforce.

This data rich study seeks to provide a quantitative basis for assessing changes in “the faculty factor”–their influence, the character of their work, their career paths including both entry and departure, and the demographic make up of the faculty. This book builds on an earlier work, The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers, by Schuster and Finkelstein and charts the impact of the Great Recession of 2008 on faculty.

The work is broken into five parts. The first is an overview of the history of faculty in America and some recent change dynamics and how these affect different contexts. The second focuses on career paths–entry, progress, and exit. The third looks at the nature of work and specialization, cultural changes, and compensation. Part four compares American faculty and their institutional influence with faculty around the world. Finally, part five sums up the changes that have taken place and recommendations for strengthening “the faculty factor.”

This is a massive and fine-grained analysis showing detailed experiences of faculty by types of institutions, gender and ethnicity, career and age stage, and academic discipline. It’s not possible to capture all the insights into change going on but several key findings are the following:

  • affiliation in terms of tenure or tenure track varies widely by type of institution, maintaining its greatest strength in the research context, and weakest at the associate degree level institutions. There is also wide variation by academic disciplines, with STEM faculty enjoying higher levels of tenure.
  • there are more diverse career pathways, and variation between men and women remains significant. As many have noted, there are many more remaining in adjunct or non-tenured contract positions.
  • functions of teaching, research, and service are becoming more highly specialized, whereas at one time they were all a part of any faculty person’s work life.
  • the faculty is more diverse, although this diversity is not always equally reflected in differing types of institutions, and in those holding tenure or tenure track positions.
  • one of the factors affecting career paths, shaped in part by the Recession as well as longevity and changes in employment law are the increasing number of aging tenured faculty who continue to work, and retire at later ages, often past 70.
  • faculty influence, especially beyond their own departments is greatly waning as increased managerialism by non-academic university leaders replaces faculty governance.

I would commend this for several groups of people. While it is a lengthy read, prospective graduate students contemplating academic careers would do well to understand current trends and how these may shape their career aspirations. Likewise, this would be worthwhile for graduate students considering their career path and what kind of institution they want to work in to weigh. Faculty, particularly those in their early careers can benefit from this analysis, especially if they care about university governance.

There is one final group for whom this is of value, and particularly they may find it helpful in distilling so much research into a single work, and that is university planners, boards of regents, and political leaders exercising oversight over research funding and higher education. What this study highlights for me, and should be considered by them, is that for many serving the educational mission of colleges and universities, these are increasingly unsustainable careers, and I would think, at some point, higher education may find itself critically short-handed, as people figure this out and pursue more remunerative careers.

The authors recognize that the “faculty factor” is the critical factor in American pre-eminence in higher education. Other countries are rapidly overtaking us and both governmental and institutional factors are weakening the influence of this key group. The question I’m left with after reading this book is, will we wake up in time and renew our efforts?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via a pre-publication e-galley through Edelweiss. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.