Not familiar with the tragic and ongoing saga at Cornerstone University? Get up to speed here.
In a conversation with Paul Davis, the President of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, troubled Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño called opposition to his leadership a “smear campaign.” Moreno-Riaño claims that the vote of no confidence near the start of his presidency in October 2021 was the result of faculty “shenanigans.” He claims to have discovered that “there had been some plans to do a number of things that were very unkind to me.” Forty-two faculty voted no confidence, six voted confidence, and fourteen abstained.
Watch:
Moreno-Riaño does not mention the issues raised by faculty and senior staff in Fall 2021. These included concerns about his published statements about politics and nationalism, his opposition to diversity initiatives, his editing of a Higher Learning Commission accreditation document after it had already been approved by the relevant faculty committee, and several problematic interpersonal interactions with staff. Instead, he expresses certainty that God has been on his side during his tenure. He even likens himself to Jesus who suffered in silence rather than making a response to his detractors. His mission, he explains, has been to ensure “that there is no mission drift – real or perceived” at the institution.
After listening to the interview, one former faculty member commented:
No actions are perfect. I am sure that a few judgments or statements made during the vote of no confidence in October 2021 were intemperate or based on partial information. But there was no smear campaign. Instead, faculty and senior staff – including many who had faithfully served the institution for decades – raised professional and mission-centric concerns about the ideology and leadership of the President, and about the vision of the Board. I think that events of the past three years – rightward political drift, capitulation to the market as the arbiter of the University’s mission, stifling of dissent, the removal of tenure, the dramatic firing of senior faculty, and the manipulation of language and image – have more than vindicated the vote. There is now a wide constituency, including pastors of conservative evangelical churches, who are aware of the range of problems to which faculty tried to draw attention in October 2021.
Again, get up to speed with Gerson Moreno-Riaño’s antics here.
Recently a pastor and Cornerstone alumnus published a “pastoral letter” to the administration and board. Read it here.
His comments in his Fox essay:
“Colleges and universities must develop and implement moral skills educational outcomes for their general education curriculum and all academic majors that prepare all students to discern and affirm what is true, beautiful and good.”
For Moreno-Riano and others like him, the market and not the Humanities holds the key to the true, beautiful and good. A bizarre notion indeed! I find it difficult to imagine how the market could ever be the path toward “moral skills.” Note the term. Skills, not thinking,not convictions. This flies in the face of everything the Scripture says about where morality begins – from the Fall to the Gospel the target has always been our hearts, not our “skills.” And this from a Christian University. I am appalled at how so many are selling out to the market as the solution to the problems confronting Christian higher education. The salt is fast losing its savour. We all know what that means.
Moreno-Riano is in office solely thanks to hyper-conservative trustees who want to downgrade humanities and adopt a vocational direction for the university. Until the Board changes, he will be empowered to continue on the path he has defined.