Bethel Focus                                                                                      A Magazine for Alumni & Friends of Bethel University

How I Developed A Passion for Christian Higher Education

by Jay Barnes In 1969 I graduated from a Christian liberal arts college. To celebrate the occasion, I purchased a class ring with a black onyx stone. It was not the color of my birth month. It was a symbol of the gloominess and darkness of my college years. I left college sarcastic, bitter, and unhappy, certain that I would never find my way to such a place again.

How did I go from being an unhappy graduate to a passionate believer in the mission of Christian higher education? What transpired to transform an aspiring high school mathematics teacher into a college provost? Let me tell you my story!

College life was not easy in the late 1960s. The free speech movement had blossomed at Berkeley. The Vietnam war was heating up, as was the anti-war movement. The mandatory ROTC program for males in that Christian liberal arts college did not make things easier. Beyond what was happening nationally on college and university campuses, I was dealing with my own challenges. I had been a "big fish" in a "small pond" in high school. Like many students, the level of academic, athletic, and social competition in college shocked me. My parents lived down the road from my college dorm, so it was too easy to remain attached to home rather than put down roots in college. While many positive things Spring 2003 Focus certainly were happening, they were clearer in retrospect. What I saw then was limited friendships, limited success, limited possibilities after college, and a limited God.

Away from the evangelical subculture

Upon graduation, I was accepted into a master of arts program in counseling at a major state university. In addition to deferring my military service, it provided a perspective on my Christian college experience. It was my first meaningful separation from the evangelical subculture and from my home. I was in a place where I could ask questions about my faith without someone I knew looking over my shoulder. It was also a place to see if my Christian liberal arts undergraduate education had prepared me for graduate work in a secular state university setting.

As part of my experience, I was offered a residence director position in a freshman men's residence. Although the year was politically tumultuous (classes were cancelled for the last three weeks of the year because of student strikes over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and subsequent killings at Kent State and Jackson State Universities), my growth was rapid. I came to see my undergraduate experience in a completely different light. The time as a residence director planted a seed of interest that eventually bloomed into more than 20 years in college student development work.

A personal case study

Looking back, I can now see and describe what was happening in my life. After years of studying developmental theory, I saw myself as acase study! Intellectually and ethically, I was changing from a stage in life where I saw things in black and white terms to a stage in life where I could see multiple perspectives and shades of gray. Eventually, I found a place on which I could build a foundation of values and commitments in a complex and challenging world. Morally, I was moving from a stage where my view of right and wrong was determined by the thinking of others or by carefully defined "laws" to a stage of life where my morality was more principle driven and chosen on the basis of reflective examination.

Personally, I was becoming more competent in key areas of life, moving from dependency toward a sense of interdependence. My personal identity, which had been defined primarily in terms of achievement and family connection, began to inch toward a sense of worth based on God's redemptive work in me. I was starting to make stronger links between what I believed and how I behaved, a process that is still underway. I could see the role that required courses in philosophy and theology had in expanding my thinking. Experiential courses, like student teaching, had a great impact on me, as did out-of-class experiences in chapel, service projects, and participating in intercollegiate athletics. For me, the personal mentoring by the wrestling coach and the chaplain were particularly important.

A call to Christian higher ed

Something else was happening, too. I was developing a sense of call to and passion for Christian higher education. I wanted to make college better for someone else than it had been for me. Then four years of teaching high school cinched it; I applied to a doctoral program in college student personnel work. That program, coupled with the opportunity to work four years as a residence director at the college of the black onyx ring, took me to 15 years as vice president for student development at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.

Those years at Messiah College were rich ones for our family and for my vision of what could be done for students. I saw the value of a strong institutional commitment to student life in addition to a strong commitment to academics. I also had the chance to be part of evaluation visits on several other campuses. This gave me a chance to see what was working well and what could be made better.

Bethel: the whole package

When the job opening was announced at Bethel eight years ago, I felt that I'd discovered a college that was trying to put the whole package together for students in a very powerful way. The job announcement began, "The provost is the senior administrator of the academic, student development, and spiritual life programs of the college. It is his/her responsibility to ensure that the mission of the college is met through the integration of these programs in a mutually supportive and synergistic manner." I didn't know if Bethel wanted me, but I knew that I wanted to be at Bethel! This "three-legged stool" of intellectual development, personal development, and spiritual formation is the model on which I want to build for all of our students in every program here at Bethel. This educational model has good support from those who work with and do research on college students. Steve Garber, the author of The Fabric of Faithfulness, has worked with college students for many years at the American Studies Program in Washington, D.C. He observes that college graduates keep their faith and direction if three key ingredients are part of the fabric of their college years. Students must be challenged and enabled to develop "a worldview that can address the challenge of coherence and truth in a pluralist society…, find a mentor who incarnates that worldview…[and] live their lives among others whose common life is an embodiment of that worldview" (p. 21).

A strong sense of mission

Another piece of foundational research on college students is the "Involving Colleges" study done by George Kuh and others. This research suggests that the colleges that make the most impact are those that have a strong and pervasive sense of mission; join together academic and student life experiences; balance challenge and support of students; celebrate rituals and traditions; take advantage of their setting; and put budget dollars in the places that are mission critical. The National Study of Student Engagement, an instrument given to college students across the country, flows out of this study. Bethel compares well in this study and has results in this study as one of its benchmarks for measuring its impact on students (see p.6).

For those with a long history at Bethel, the words of founder John Alexis Edgren still ring true in these models! In the monograph, "Becoming Whole and Holy Persons," Bethel Philosophy Professor Stanley Anderson reminds us that Edgren built Bethel University on four foundational principles: the need for a personal relationship with Christ and call to serve Him; the need to gain as much knowledge as possible, with Bible knowledge being the most important; the need to know as much about culture as possible, while remembering that development of the spiritual life is most important; and the need for the relationship between teacher and pupil to be one of true friendship and helpfulness.

The right foundation

How do we live out these key principles in a challenging world? We must begin with the right foundation. If Bethel is not committed to the pursuit and practice of truth, this Christian learning community will never stand. We celebrate the fact that truth is revealed to us in God's Word and in God's world. Both must be studied within the community of believers if we are to engage the challenges of our time. We also must hire the right people. This is one of the most important things we do at Bethel. We look for people who are experts in their disciplines, who love to teach, who enjoy students, and who see their relationship with Christ as the key to everything else. As my friend and fellow educator Rich Butman says, we're looking for "confident, exuberant guides on an expedition of shared responsibility."

Bethel also must be willing to adapt its structure and programs to the changing world of higher education while at the same time keeping core commitments. In many ways, higher education is going through a period of change similar to the post World War II era, during which period Bethel became a four-year college. Today, for-profit schools, distance education, and other non-traditional approaches are booming. Graduate programs are the fastest growing sector of higher education.

Moving forward

Should Bethel advance its Christ-centered, educationally excellent, holistic model of education in this arena? Our trustees have given us a charge to move ahead with vigor, taking on the challenge of changing lives beyond the traditional student market. As we move forward, we must maintain our commitment to program quality, using a "best practices" definition of excellence for graduate and professional programs: We must maintain our commitment to being a learning community by building strong cohorts of mid-life adult learners whose life circumstances pull them beyond Bethel. We must not compromise our commitment to integrate Christian faith into every area of life, moving all toward Christian maturity. We must continue to develop a core of committed faculty for our graduate and professional programs just as we have such a core in our residential college. The challenge is huge, but the possibilities are exciting.

So, how did a student with a "black onyx ring" experience in college become a passionate believer in the seamless curriculum, the kind of Christian higher education that integrates a commitment to academics with concern for the personal development and spiritual life of students? It happened one step at a time. Guided by the Holy Spirit, I gradually began to develop the conviction of a worldview rooted in the person and work of Christ. Along the way, I was able to draw upon the wisdom of mentors who have lived out that worldview and have been accompanied by colleagues who are committed to it as well.

Today, that process of growth continues for me at Bethel. I can't imagine a better place to be! My passion and prayer is that Bethel will be that kind of place for each of our students, a place that trains the whole person through a seamless curriculum encompassing intellectual development, personal development, and spiritual formation.

Jay Barnes is an executive vice president of Bethel University and provost of the college.