2012 Forbes Data (Part 3): More Comparisons

When the 2012 Forbes colleges rankings came out last month, we noted that OBU declined from #299 to #390.  Later, we compiled some data on state convention-affiliated colleges that OBU considers peer institutions.  OBU's decline stood in stark contrast to other Southern Baptist colleges that are holding steady and even increasing their reputations and profiles.

We want to make a few points.  First, OBU's decline was NOT inevitable.  Conscious decisions were made that adversely affected OBU's performance on the metrics that Forbes uses to compile its rankings.  Second, there is nothing about being distinctively Baptist that impedes our ability to stand out among Christian and secular institutions.  Some other Baptist schools are doing just fine.  Third, many intentionally Christ-centered (to use the CCCU's definition) institutions rank exceptionally well, as OBU did before the current administration came to power.  And fourth, it should come as no surprise that schools that have severed ties with Baptist state conventions excel in the rankings.  The charts below illustrate these latter two points.

As recently as 2009, OBU was undisputedly one of the finest Christian colleges in the United States.  A lot of our detractors try to argue, "Well, who cares about rankings? We're being faithful to the gospel."  There are so many things wrong with that argument.  First, fidelity to the gospel does not require unethical and unprecedented H.R. practices.  Were OBU Presidents Raley, Scales, Cothen, Tanner, Hall, Agee, and Brister and their academic officers being unfaithful to the gospel when they abided by Faculty Handbook provisions and sought and valued faculty search committee input in hiring decisions?  Of course not!  Are schools like Union and Ouachita, not to mention Wheaton, Gordon, and Calvin unfaithful to the gospel because they are not precipitously declining in national rankings?  There is no inherent conflict between Christian identity and excellence.  

With the formerly Baptist schools, the situation is more complicated.  On the one hand, there's absolutely no chance that Wake Forest, Furman, and Richmond would have become some of the best colleges in America if fundamentalists were still meddling in their affairs.  But you could argue that those schools' Christian (and Baptist) identities are less explicit now.  Still, I'd rather OBU take the path of William Jewell College or Stetson than end up like some of the Georgia Baptist Convention colleges that are on the brink of losing their accreditation.  For a long time (the Agee years), OBU was able to keep fundamentalists out, attain excellence, and survive without the OBU-BGCO relationship breaking down.

But those days are over.  The battle lines are clearly drawn.  Fundamentalists don't share power very well.  All they know is total control.  And they don't mind wrecking institutions along the way.  So as long as OBU has meddlers in Thurmond (or the Baptist Building), we need to be constantly vigilant.

2012 Forbes Data (Part 2): OBU's Decline in Context

Earlier this week, I reported that OBU had fallen to #390 in the Forbes college rankings.  While Forbes (methodology here) has improved on U.S. News & World Report (which dominated the college rankings game for many years), I would be the first to admit that these rankings are imperfect and it is impossible to perfectly quantify the experience/quality/outcome these magazines are trying to rank.

Still, these rankings are enough to reveal all kinds of problems with the current direction of OBU and in Baptist higher education across the board.

First, the ugly picture:

The defenders of OBU's new fundamentalist regime really can't argue with this.  The best they can do is say, "Hey, the rankings go from 1 to 650!  By only showing 100 to 400 on the y axis, Jacob is making the slope of the line look worse than it actually is."

Fair enough.  But is this really any better?

When you consider that the 400s and 500s are populated by schools like Oral Roberts and Liberty, this shouldn't make you feel any better.  This is a stunning decline.

How are other Baptist schools faring?  I wondered the same thing.  The chart below shows OBU's decline in bold along with the rankings of several other state convention-affiliated schools.  Some of these peers are relatively fundamentalist, while others are relatively moderate.  But it's clear that OBU's decline is unique, even among Baptist peers:

Samford dipped but is doing alright and Baylor is on a clear upward trajectory.  Ouachita and Union are holding their own.  Southwest Baptist University has never been ranked.  (For what it's worth, Southwest Baptist is also the school from which David Whitlock came to OBU.  Coming to OBU was a huge professional leap and the opportunity of a lifetime for Whitlock, as I'm sure he would be the first to acknowledge.)

The picture above presents a different narrative about what was going on in 2008 and 2009 than what we usually hear.  We were in an enrollment crisis!  We had to make tough financial decisions!  Maybe so.  But for all the hand wringing, it turns out that OBU was actually in much better shape at the end of the Brister presidency and during the Parrish interim than it is today.  Remember, as opposed to U.S. News, Forbes is trying to measure quality and outcomes, not just reputation.  One can only wonder how much better off we'd be if Whitlock, Norman, and McClellan had never come to Bison Hill.  Or if President Whitlock had made it clear from the beginning that he would not abide a fundamentalist takeover instead of letting it happen with his blessing.

I don't know exactly how Whitlock can undo the damage his hatchet men have already done.  But I'm afraid it will take more than a capital campaign, a football team, and a few new degree programs.  He could start by apologizing for past missteps (why is that so hard for people to do?), urging his friend the provost (who long ago lost the faculty's confidence, if he ever actually had it) to find another job, and doing more to address faculty concerns about past and present problems than having an occasional lunch with a few faculty leaders.  Some search committees have been able to bring top-rate junior professors to OBU.  But in other departments (Theology and Ministry being the most egregious but perhaps not the only example), the process is a joke and the administrators bring in whoever they want without even consulting relevant faculty colleagues.  Speaking of jokes, the bookstore restricts access to all books not produced by Tree of Life's approved list of fundamentalist publishing houses.  The list of books you can't find in OBU's bookstore is mind-boggling.

Anyway, back to the rankings.

Later in the week, I'll speak specifically to how OBU is faring with respect to other evangelical colleges, as well as institutions that were formerly affiliated with Baptist state conventions.  Also, if I have time, I might build a data set that includes the Forbes rankings of every CCCU institution.  I have a feeling that doing so might provide a compelling visualization of the fact that maintaining a Christian identity does not have to mean sacrificing quality.  It might also help reveal the fact that Christian institutions that are controlled by fundamentalists are destined for mediocrity (if not outright ruin), while those run by moderates (or at least people who are sensitive to the importance of rigor, quality, and ethical/professional standards) can continue to achieve excellence.

More on all that later in the week.  Please keep your friends, classmates, and interested colleagues informed about the work we are doing here at Save OBU.

From the Archives: OBU's Peers Series

When we first started the blog, we thought the experiences of formerly Baptist schools like Stetson, Furman, Wake Forest, and William Jewell would be instructive.  But given the parameters of the BGCO's legal ownership of OBU, it turns out that we're more interested in comparing notes with other state convention-run colleges.

Last month, we posed the question: What schools are OBU's peers?  We looked at nondenominational evangelical colleges, BGCT colleges, and nearby Baptist schools controlled by post-Takeover state conventions.  The best parallel seemed to be Union University in Jackson, TN.  Union is older and larger, but shares much in common with OBU.  Given that Union's president, Dr. David Dockery, is a noted leader in Baptist higher education, we are especially keen to know how Union handles its joint obligations to faculty and students (who need academic freedom and open inquiry) and a fundamentalist-controlled state convention (which prizes doctrinal conformity and absolute control).

Without futher ado, please review our posts in the OBU's Peers series:
Intro: Who's In the Same Boat?
OBU's Peers: Nondenominational Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Nearby Baptist Colleges (Ouachita and Southwest Baptist)?
OBU's Peers: Texas Baptist Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Union University?

OBU's Peers: Nearby SBC Schools?

OBU's Peers Series:
Intro: Who's In the Same Boat?
OBU's Peers: Nondenominational Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Nearby Baptist Colleges (Ouachita and Southwest Baptist)?
OBU's Peers: Texas Baptist Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Union University?

We continue our search for colleges that face similar challenges in meeting the needs of faculty and students whose experiences depend on academic freedom and outside forces that seek to impose policy and personnel constraints in the name of "doctrinal accountability."  In yesterday's post, we explored some of the many advantages nondenominational Christian colleges enjoy as a consequence of being untethered to the politics, shifting ideologies, and various intrusions of denominational bodies.

Among Baptist colleges still controlled by state conventions, OBU is one of the better ones.  And, to its credit, the BGCO has not been nearly as meddlesome as some other conventions have been.  Unlike in Georgia, where the state convention blatantly imposed fundamentalism on its colleges, OBU's recent problems with academic freedom originated with one renegade administrator.  Whether he invented this mandate for himself or was following orders is not entirely clear.  In any case, he is on a much shorter leash now due to sustained activism from people like you.

Anyway, today's post is less an investigation and more of a question.  With respect to academic freedom, outside interference, and relations with Baptist state conventions, how are nearby schools faring?

Ouachita Baptist University (Arkadelphia, AR)
With immediate apologies to our Ouachita friends, we sometimes refer to your school as "the other OBU," as I'm sure you do to us.  (And yes, we're still jealous that you beat us to registering the domain www.obu.edu in the mid-1990s!)  From the outside, academic freedom seems to be alive and well at ("the other") OBU.  I'm sure Ouachita constituents will correct me if this impression is wrong.

Before assuming the presidency of Samford University, Dr. Andrew Westmoreland had a successful tenure at Ouachita.  Under his leadership, the university revamped its core curriculum, expanded its donor base, built new facilities, and affirmed its longstanding connection to the Arkansas Baptist State Convention:

Ouachita’s relationship with the churches of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention was strengthened. The annual consultation with the convention’s Nominating Committee continued to yield mutual agreement on trustee nominations. Regular reporting to the ABSC Annual Meeting, Executive Board committees, and associational annual meetings, along with frequent collaboration with Executive Board program leaders, resulted in enhanced understanding of the university’s mission and ongoing support for its operating budget.

Westmoreland's successor,  Rev. Dr. Rex Horne, had been a large church pastor and president of the state convention.  I don't know how the faculty and students felt about having a pastor rather than a higher education administrator assume the Ouachita presidency.  (There was some skepticism in Oklahoma Baptist University circles when Rev. Dr. Mark Brister was elected from a large church pulpit to the OBU presidency.)


But all indications are that the school is doing well.  For those more familiar with Oklahoma, Dr. Horne's election to the Ouachita presidency is analogous to someone like Rev. Dr. Hance Dilbeck being elected president of Oklahoma Baptist University.  Horne seems not to have too much difficulty bridging the gap between the convention's convictions and the university's aims.  I don't know whether Ouachita faculty are any more conservative or if the state convention in AR is any more liberal than what we find in Oklahoma, but I doubt either is true.


Job postings for Ouachita faculty vacancies give no indication that a Norman-style inquisition awaits applicants:

Faculty members are expected to share the institution’s commitment to both academic and Christian excellence.  The University is, however, dedicated to the principal of academic freedom.

Another positive sign is that Ouachita does not waste its time or money with the CCCU, a trade organization that believes there are only 116 "intentionally Christ centered" colleges in the U.S. -- coincidentally the same 116 that pay dues to the CCCU.  It would be wonderful to find out why Ouachita is not affiliated with this special interest group.

Southwest Baptist University (Bolivar, MO)
I suspect the situation at Southwest Baptist may be different than at Ouachita.  For starters, we already know that the Missouri Baptist Convention tried (unsuccessfully) to force itself on William Jewell College in Liberty, MO.  Neither of the two remaining Missouri Baptist colleges are even ranked by Forbes.  With all due respect to Hannibal-LaGrange University, we'll look at SBU because it's geographically closer and a more relevant peer to OBU, especially since we have shared administrators over the years and some OBU students probably consider SBU as well.

SBU President Pat Taylor seems to be doing the impossible difficult job of protecting academic freedom and keeping state convention elites happy.  Taylor was certainly well prepared to thread that needle, having served as chief academic officer at OBU under President Bob Agee for a decade before moving to SBU.  And we know that Taylor recommended David Whitlock, who had been a longtime administrator at SBU, for the OBU presidency.

As we've told the Southern Baptist world about OBU's recent brush with fundamentalist encroachment, I haven't heard anything about similar disturbances at SBU.  It certainly seems to be the case that Whitlock spent his time at OBU honing his considerable personal charisma and administrative skills rather than engaging in Baptist politics or waging institutional warfare.  One can only imagine the greatness he could achieve at OBU without having to rein in the provost or appease the state convention.

Incidentally, SBU is a member of the CCCU.  Its HR page gives no indication that any litmus test is required for hiring, other than commitment to the university's mission.

[EDIT: Okay, people are writing that SBU has a much more fundamentalist ethos than I knew existed there, especially with the rule book all students must sign.  Thanks for the clarification, folks.]

So, it looks like academic freedom is surviving at some of OBU's convention-controlled peer institutions.  Relatively laissez-faire conventions and determined, principled administrators create environments where open inquiry and the fearless search for truth can flourish.  Ouachita and SBU friends, thanks again for reading and please correct me where I'm wrong, either in the comments or on our Facebook page.  We welcome your support in our mission.