Faith, Faculty, and the Value of a Christian College Education: An Empirical Case

In an era of continued public questioning of the value of a college degree, given rising costs and concerns about employment preparation, Christian higher education is marketed both as a wise investment and as contributing to the common good (CCCU, 2019). Thus, the collection of articles that comprise this issue of Christian Higher Education: An International Journal of Research, Theory, and Practice is timely in that they highlight some of the notable outcomes of a Christian college education. These outcomes represent the promises institutions make to their students as to what will be learned or accomplished as a result of students’ investment of time and energy toward a degree. All of these articles are empirical research studies conducted within the member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (2019). Most are multi-institutional studies, and two of the articles compare CCCU student results to those of students from other faith-based or nonsectarian institutions.

In the first article, Jennifer L. Carter used longitudinal data from over 13,000 college students who completed the College Student Beliefs and Values Survey in both their first and third years, almost three thousand of whom were CCCU students. Her focus was the level of religious struggle among CCCU students in their third year. Compared to third-year students at Catholic, other religious, and nonsectarian institutions, students in CCCU member institutions reported significantly higher levels of religious struggle. They also reported the greatest increase in religious struggle, having entered their first year of college with the lowest levels of religious struggle. These struggles were primarily related to the dissonance experienced with their family belief systems, as well as the prior beliefs they held before coming to college. As Carter notes, this finding is not necessarily negative, as “struggle is the precursor to growth … and without struggle, students are unlikely to develop personally owned beliefs” (Carter, this issue, p. 168). Carter interprets these findings by viewing the Christian college experience as an opportunity for students to be challenged and supported as they struggle toward a sense of purpose. This approach to student development, Carter advocates, can “set apart evangelical institutions as having a distinct impact on students that meets the needs of a global society” (p. 169).

In the second article, the focus shifts to online learning and its outcomes within a single Christian university. Authors Charlotte S. Lang, Gwetheldene Holzmann, Hallett Hullinger, Mary Lou Miller, and Timothy D. Norton note that the study arose from concerns regarding the extent to which online students have the same faith integration experiences and outcomes as students in face-to-face classrooms. Thus, faculty had carefully crafted what the higher education outcomes literature calls an authentic assessment experience for students who were taking the same general education courses, but in online or face-to-face format. Authentic assessment experiences occur when students generate an intellectual product that is meaningful and worthwhile, rather than simply a multiple-choice test. These learning products were uploaded into e-portfolios and then assessed with a rubric that faculty had designed to correlate with the key missional aspects of the curriculum, in order to assess the degree to which students were meeting mission-related learning outcomes within the course. Using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) approach with over 1,800 undergraduates over a two-year period, Lang et al. were able to demonstrate that students in both course formats achieved the same mission-related learning outcomes. Most notably, the faith integration outcomes were not significantly different between the two groups. This finding has the potential to offer reassurance to Christian colleges and universities that are considering more online offerings, given that concern about faith integration is one of the challenges often faced in making this move.

The third article, by Cameron Armstrong Conn and Young K. Kim, focuses on the outcomes of social agency and civic awareness—outcomes that are critical for Christian higher education to make the case that it is contributing to the public good and producing global citizens. Civic awareness was assessed as (a) understanding of global issues, (b) understanding of the problems facing their community, and (c) understanding of social problems facing the United States. Social agency was assessed as the level of importance students placed on (a) participating in a community action program, (b) helping to promote racial understanding, (c) becoming a community leader, (d) influencing social values, (e) helping others who are in difficulty, and (f) keeping up to date with political affairs. Conn and Kim drew from survey data representing the responses of over 13,000 students, comparing those at Baptist institutions to students at other CCCU institutions, Catholic institutions, and nonsectarian institutions. Their findings indicated that students at both Baptist and CCCU institutions experienced the greatest gains in their social agency from their first year to their fourth year, with students at Baptist institutions scoring higher than students from other CCCU institutions. However, students from Catholic institutions had the highest levels of social agency in both their first year and fourth year. Likewise, gains in civic awareness were significantly higher among students at Baptist institutions, and those gains were not only significantly higher than students in other CCCU institutions, but were also the highest scores among the fourth-year students in the study. Students at other CCCU institutions had the lowest levels of civic awareness in their fourth year. However, student–faculty interaction, volunteerism, and engagement with diversity were predictors of the gains in both social agency and civic awareness among CCCU students. These findings provide a potential blueprint for increasing the levels of social agency and civic awareness in students, a task that is vital to the mission of Christian higher education.

The final article, by Perry L. Glanzer, Theodore F. Cockle, Britney Graber, Elijah Jeong, and Jessica A. Robinson, presents the findings of an empirical study of almost two thousand CCCU faculty, in contrast to the other articles that focused on students. The outcomes studied were faculty theological beliefs, religious behaviors, and church attendance patterns, comparing those at nondenominational institutions to faculty at denominationally affiliated institutions. Their results demonstrated that faculty at nondenominational institutions did not significantly differ in their theological beliefs from their denominational counterparts; where there were minor differences, they were in the direction of greater conservatism among the nondenominational institutions. The hypothesis of these scholars is that nondenominational institutions do not have the built-in accountability of a denomination and thus must create the “fences” that are a natural part of the denominational identification. As a result, there is often less latitude of beliefs on nondenominational campuses and more concern about adherence to faith statements or position statements that have been carefully worked out over the years.

Collectively, these empirical results provide significant grist for the mill of public consumption. On the one hand, the higher levels of religious struggle among CCCU students in their third year (Carter, this issue) may be interpreted by parents as a concern when they send their children off to Christian colleges. Yet most psychologists and theologians would suggest otherwise, recognizing that spiritual struggle is a part of, and indeed is necessary for, spiritual growth—and where better to work through the struggle than on a Christian campus, where faculty stand ready to assist the student? As Glanzer et al. (this issue) found, these faculty tend to adhere to traditional evangelical theological beliefs, whether the institutions are affiliated with a denomination or not. While enrolled in Christian colleges—whether in online courses or face-to-face (Lang et al., this issue)—these students are likely to experience significant gains in their social agency and, to a lesser extent, their civic awareness as a result of their interaction with faculty and their engagement with a diverse community on and off campus (Conn & Kim, this issue). The challenge remains for Christian higher education to navigate the demands of a global society while maintaining its mission. Too often, those outcomes are placed in opposition, when the gospel of Christ is to “proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). When Christian higher education fulfills its mission in this light, students are well equipped for the global environment they are preparing to enter.

Laurie A. Schreiner
Co-Editor-in-Chief
Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, California, USA
[email protected]