It’s Another Brave New World

Are universities ready?

One of my daughters is a first-year university student this fall. I wonder: Is she prepared for this new chapter of her life? Does she have what she needs? Have I done all I can for her? I also wonder if the university she is attending is prepared for her and her classmates. I am less concerned with the condition of her dorm room and more concerned about the education she will receive. Will it prepare her to flourish—to live and do well?

Flourishing is not easy in our age of discord, anger, and loneliness. There are wars far away and fighting close to home. On the political front, pompous shouting and nonsense dominate. One is hard pressed to see much civility, patience, or humility. Is the university prepared to help my daughter seek a life of meaning and purpose at such a time as this?

Christian colleges and universities, Protestant and Catholic alike, should offer a clear vision that pushes back against the corrosiveness of the present age. Instead, one finds “Christian” or “faith-based” all over the promotional materials. How deep does this language go? What if instead of reacting to the next crisis, schools with a faith identity reached into their spiritual and intellectual traditions to offer a more hopeful counternarrative to the present age? 

I recently completed fifteen years as director of Baylor University’s Institute for Faith and Learning (IFL). This work gives me some insight into this last question. IFL convenes faculty seminars and retreats for Baylor colleagues, leads student programs for emerging servant-leaders, and orchestrates an annual symposium on faith and culture that draws hundreds of participants from all over the world. I learned much from this work, but three things stand out.

First, a “big tent” view of the Christian faith provides a promising way to approach the most important questions we face right now. I am not suggesting an assimilation that dismisses all theological differences. And yet at every turn my colleagues and I found the most gain when pursuing our projects and programs in a way that welcomed a breadth of perspectives and approaches.

IFL’s annual symposium is a good example. Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Greek Orthodox, Pentecostals, Mennonites, and, yes, Baptists, all helped us better understand the topics we explored—the roots of social division; our response to global poverty; the challenges of modernity and secularization; technology and human flourishing, and many others.

Not all academic conferences are hospitable or encouraging. Often they can be meetings of competitors bent on turf protection, intellectual warfare, and self-promotion. IFL’s symposium, by contrast, has become a gathering place for people who agree and disagree with intellectual charity. These symposia also helped us realize that the challenges we all face require a common effort, and solutions are easier to find together.

Second, the language we use to describe what we are doing matters, because language powerfully shapes the imagination. The problem: Colleges and universities have adopted the vocabulary of the business world. 

Buzzwords in higher education today include “strategic,” “innovative,” and “transformational.” Schools are forging new “partnerships” that “leverage capacity.” Faculty are asked to teach students to “market” themselves while they “think outside the box.” Well-intentioned colleagues across campus refer to other colleagues or students as “customers.” Higher education is now often called an “industry.” Universities seem to be doing many impressive things, but does the language they use capture the heart of a learning community?

Perhaps there is nothing inherently wrong with using such words and catchphrases. Still, the ubiquitous language of the corporate world can warp the imagination of faculty, staff, administrators, and even students, leaving them unable to discern the true purposes of education. A good example is the tension between strategic and wise. Being strategic implies the ability to determine what is required to move successfully from A to B. No doubt this is important. But one who is only “strategic” never asks whether moving from A to B is a good thing, or whether it matters or not that one moves from A to B honestly and justly. The path to wisdom puts these considerations into focus.  

It is wisdom, not mere strategy, that is more precious than rubies. Colleges and universities, particularly those with a faith identity, should be mindful of using language in tune with the sacred nature of education, instead of trying to sound like everyone else.  

Finally, a faith-animated learning community cannot survive without cultivating its culture. The most gratifying work I did through IFL was with students, faculty, and staff, to develop practices of learning and teaching that would sustain them for the long run. Here are two examples.

For more than twenty years, IFL has convened a week-long retreat every summer primarily for new faculty members. Held in a remote location five hours away from campus, the retreat is an opportunity for colleagues who might never have encountered one another to learn about other faculty, Baylor’s history, and the university’s aspirations for the future. 

Firmly rooted in the theological exploration of vocation or calling, the retreat is not a jam-packed meeting that just happens to be held on the banks of a beautiful river. It is truly a retreat. Days begin and end with prayer and common worship; the afternoon is unscheduled so that new colleagues can hike, swim, play basketball, visit, read, and rest. Such unencumbered time is like turning on a water sprinkler in the middle of the desert.

Another formation program that IFL leads—the Crane Scholars Program—is for academically excellent undergraduates interested in the relationship between faith and reason. The centerpiece of the program is the mentorship provided by faculty leaders who open their homes to students: There is always a shared meal, time to visit, but most important, conversation about a significant essay, book, or film that allows students to explore important questions. I have repeatedly heard from former students that the depth of experience that they found and the friendships they forged were the most significant of their university experience.  

These efforts do not grab headlines like a new building on campus or a conference championship in sports. But they are the lifeblood of places trying to create a sustaining culture where both the hearts and minds of people might be oriented towards what matters most.  

Many years ago I was a high school football player in Texas. One of my coaches challenged me and my teammates not to look at the scoreboard during a game. “Don’t worry about the score,” he told us. “Block, tackle, try hard—do all you can. If you do that, the scoreboard takes care of itself.” That wisdom has shaped my time in the trenches of higher education.  

It is indeed a brave new world. Remaining faithful to our most basic charge and task seems better than embracing either stultifying pessimism or naïve optimism.  

Some might call that abiding hope, and that is my prayer for my daughter and her classmates. 

Darin Davis is clinical professor of moral philosophy in the Honors Program and principal investigator of the Soundings Project, both at Baylor University.  He was director of Baylor’s Institute for Faith and Learning from 2008-23.  He is the editor and co-author of Educating for Wisdom in the 21^st Century (2019).