Faculty Attitudes on Integrating Faith and Learning at Religious Colleges and Universities: A Research Note

Abstract

Reflecting the broader secularization debates, considerable research and disagreement exists over the degree to which religious higher education is distinct from its secular counterpart. One crucial and controversial way in which religious colleges and universities can differ from the secular academy is to integrate faith and learning by including faith-based perspectives in the core curriculum. Faculty surveys from six religious colleges and universities reveal a separatist camp and an integrationist camp. We use logistic regression to examine faculty positions on integrating faith and learning. Among the most powerful predictors of faculty attitudes are the type of institution (research university or liberal arts college) and the denomination of the faculty member (same as the denomination that sponsors the school or different). The nature of and prospects for religious colleges and universities has been intensely and widely discussed. Four of the most important works on the matter are George Marsden's The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Non-Belief (1994), Douglas Sloan's Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education (1994), Philip Gleason's Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (1995), and James Burtchaell's massive The Dying of the Light (1998). All four agree that over the course of the 20th century, American higher education became increasingly secular, with many church-related colleges and universities becoming largely indistinguishable from their nonreligious counterparts. The religious aims and practices (faith) became separated from the academic goals (learning), leading to a marginalization and even elimination of distinctive faithbased higher education. Taken together, the story these scholars tell is of first

Perception and Experience of Transformative Learning and Faculty Authenticity among North American Professors of Christian Education (NAPCE)

“…Christian educational goal appears to be oriented around the idea of transformation and Christ-centered growth when one browses through the mission statements of Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries in the United States (Woodrow, 2006, p. 323). However, many are raising concerns of Christian higher institutions losing their identity as Christ-centered institutions (Burtchaell, 1998;Fisher, 1995;Lyon, Beaty, Parker, & Mencken, 2005). Some are suggesting that there is very little difference between secular curriculum and that of Christian institutions (Fisher, 1995).…”

The Professionalization of Faculty at Religious Colleges and Universities

“…However, given the levels of support for integrating faith and learning, such conflict may be rare (cf. Lyon et al 2005). Our data indicate that faculty who integrate faith and learning are unlikely to view the faith‐based traditions of their institutions in opposition to their disciplinary calling, as evidenced by their willingness to incorporate religious tradition (faith) into important disciplinary areas such as teaching and research (learning).…”

“…2 2 See Lyon et al (2005) for research regarding the causes and distributions of attitudes on the integration of faith and learning, but our review of published scholarship found no empirical research on the consequences of adopting certain attitudes toward faith and learning. …”

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“…The survey explored the attitudes of faculty members toward six topics likely to be contentious at universities striving to be intentionally religious and academically successful: the institution's mission, the relationship between faith and learning, requiring religious practices, faculty hiring, academic freedom, and moral and civic education. In this article we only discuss the survey responses related to the topic of moral and civic education (for a discussion of faculty attitudes toward these other topics see Lyon et al 2002Lyon et al , 2005Ream et al 2004).…”