Spring Trustee Meeting Report Looks Promising

In case you missed OBU's press release from Graduation Day, it looks like the Spring trustee meeting went very well:

During their spring meeting on the Shawnee campus May 17, the OBU Board of Trustees approved the expansion of the OBU Graduate School, a change in OBU’s fiscal year and faculty promotions and contracts.

According to the report, the board took up a number of routine business items.  Particularly noteworthy is the effort to expand OBU's graduate programs.  In addition to enhancing a school's profile and providing needed training for the professions, master's degree programs can be real cash cows for universities.

Of course we would be concerned if OBU lost focus on its bread-and-butter, which is its rigorous liberal arts curriculum for undergraduates.  At this point, we find little evidence for that.  We will be monitoring the use of adjuncts, which, if it increases, would be a sign that resources are being diverted away from OBU's core programs.

We also see little evidence of unusually high faculty turnover, one concern raised in the 2011 alumni petition.  From what we can tell, OBU continues to attract promising candidates.  With an over-supply of wannabe professors and a shortage nationwide of tenure-track faculty positions, OBU should have the cream of the crop.  So far, we've heard no complaints of bizarre interventions by you-know-who in the selection of the four new faculty contracts the trustees approved.

As late as last fall, some faculty had feared that the administration would use the tenure process as a weapon against insufficiently fundamentalist professors.  That fear proved unfounded in the winter.  Once again, we celebrate that a small but deserving crop of professors was granted Senior Faculty Status in spite of not being fundamentalists.  Any large-scale effort to remake the faculty in the image of the post-Takeover SBC remains a distant dream in the Provost's Office and not something we have to worry about (except in the College of Theology and Ministry, obviously).

Though I have learned a lot of sad things as I've delved into the world of Baptist higher education over the past 18 months, OBU's 32-member board has been one of the bright spots.  Unlike some Baptist-affiliated institutions where the trustees do the bidding of a few powerful fundamentalists, OBU's board has proven itself to be a surprisingly independent voice.  Quite the progressive group, they even ended the antiquated ban on dancing!  OBU's trustees -- or at least a majority of them -- have the university's best interests at heart.

I still maintain that the ideal situation would be an independent, self-perpetuating board like almost all private colleges (Christian or otherwise) have.  But that is simply not going to happen any time soon.  Given the legal and institutional framework that exists, I'd say things couldn't be much better.  All of that could change in a matter of about 2 years, though, if the BGCO ever decided it wanted to foment a fundamentalist takeover at OBU.  It's happened elsewhere, and it could happen here.

But I have come a long way in my views on this subject.  In spite of the fact that the board is ultimately controlled by the BGCO, I trust our trustees.  I trust that they do not want to see OBU's reputation suffer.  I trust that some of them intervened when faculty anger peaked in the fall of 2011 and when Provost Stan Norman needed to be reined in.  I trust that they are not happy that OBU has fallen from #109 to #390 in the Forbes rankings.

Being a trustee of a Christian college is an act of service.  It does not have many perks like, say, serving on certain corporate boards of directors.  These are clergy and lay volunteers who have full-time jobs and families.  They sacrifice some of their evenings and weekends to read reports, consult with administrative leaders and with one another, and to do their best to make a solid future for OBU.

Eighteen months ago, I assumed that a lot of them were fundamentalist yes-men.  A year later, I speculated that the BGCO could be a partner in saving OBU from a fundamentalist future.  I assumed the worst.  I'm happy to say that I was wrong.

Thanks, trustees, for your service. God bless OBU!

Congratulations, Class of 2013!

To the Class of 2013:

On Friday, OBU conferred degrees on 255 graduates in its annual spring commencement ceremony in Raley Chapel.  We wish to add our voices to the chorus of congratulations you are receiving from friends and family members.  Well done!

When your class entered in 2009, things were very different.  OBU was at the pinnacle of its national recognition for excellence, peaking at #109 in the Forbes college rankings.  Declining enrollment was a challenge, but it was being competently addressed by internal committees and outside consultants.  Difficult choices had been made in terms of budget cuts, but OBU's commitment to its core strength -- its rigorous Christian liberal arts curriculum -- was as strong as ever.

In 2009, the ideological gamesmanship in hiring had not started, no moderate professors were being forced out of the School of Christian Service, and OBU was in the upper echelon of evangelical colleges in America.  In comparison to other Baptist-affiliated colleges, to schools that have ended their affiliation with Baptist state conventions, and to non-Baptist evangelical colleges, OBU was absolutely outstanding.

Yet somewhere in Thurmond Hall (and maybe in the Baptist Building in Oklahoma City), a handful of people didn't think OBU was doing well at all.  Ask yourself: What was so wrong with OBU in 2009 and what makes them think it is so much better today in spite of its decline?  Class of 2013, this is what they did to OBU during your four years:

When you were freshmen and sophomores, members of the classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012 stood up.  Some of you stood with them.  Others did not know what the fuss was all about.  Maybe you weren't in departments where professors were terminated without cause or faculty morale was noticeably low.  At least a handful of you courageously spoke your minds and stood up for academic freedom and ethical administration at OBU.

Fortunately, things have been better at OBU since about the spring semester of your junior year.  Yet many alumni feel that a watchdog is still necessary.  This is especially true in light of the many other Baptist colleges across the country where administrators are squandering their institutions' reputations, effectiveness, and even risking accreditation in the name of fundamentalism.

Though they obviously got off to an unfortunate start, we trust that President Whitlock and Provost Norman want the best for OBU.  We believe that they have learned something from their mistakes, even though -- to our knowledge -- they have refused to acknowledge them to anyone.  And we know that OBU still has great trustees, alumni, and a network of Oklahoma Baptists who will insist on excellence and who will not tolerate ideologically-motivated games that disrupt professors' careers, denigrate academic quality, and devalue graduates' diplomas.

Our prayer is that things will continue to get better on Bison Hill.  But do not be deceived: a degree from OBU is probably worth a little less in grad school admissions, in the job market, and in terms of any objective assessment of rigor and quality than it was in 2009.

We trust you had an amazing experience at OBU.  Most of us did, which is why we feel so passionately about these issues.  But in spite of all the positives, you have been done a disservice, and your investment has been devalued.  For what?  So that a handful of OBU administrators can boast about their fundamentalist credentials to elites in the Southern Baptist Convention.

We find that unacceptable, and we welcome you to join our movement and stand up for academic freedom and ethical administration at OBU -- our alma mater and yours.

Congratulations and best wishes!  We send our prayers for God's abiding presence and guidance along your journey.

-Jacob Lupfer
OBU Class of '02
Silver Spring, Maryland

"You're Fired!" Are Students Routinely Fired from Campus Jobs for Disagreeing w/ the "New" OBU?

We've heard two very disappointing stories this week from students who were fired from their on-campus jobs for expressing disagreement with administrators at the "new" OBU.

Is this what it's come down to?  So they're under orders to purge certain departments... I get it.  But do they really need to fire students who are working part-time at minimum wage jobs to help put themselves through college?

The Questionable Faculty Dismissals
Until recently, we had only heard of three questionable firings on Bison Hill (in recent years).  People had concerns (many privately and some publicly), but only three had lost their jobs over it.  The first was a well loved and pretty conservative philosophy professor who had the audacity to believe that maybe, just maybe, the earth wasn't created in 6 24-hour days 6,000 years ago. All administrators will say, aside from "We can't comment on personnel matters," is that student demand for philosophy classes was declining.  The truth is that they want to replace philosophy, an ancient and core discipline in the liberal arts, with "apologetics" -- itself a legitimate branch of Christian theology that, in evangelical circles, has sadly become a Sunday-school like line of reasoning popularized by insecure, defensive fundamentalists.

Next out the door was another religion professor.  This one had tenure, but that apparently was insufficient to overcome the strikes against him.  First of all, he was a moderate in an academic division they are trying to turn fundamentalist (either of their own volition or under orders from the BGCO).  Second, as Faculty Council Chair, he stood up against the unethical actions taken against his ousted colleague the previous year.  And third, he was just too nice a guy to play hardball (get a 7-figure settlement, sue the university, drag it through an embarrassing public spectacle, etc).

The Questionable Student Worker Dismissals
There was a close call in 2010.  President Whitlock went ballistic when a 21-year old student committed the unpardonable offense of writing an honest, thoughtful letter to the editor of The Bison in October 2010.  But even then, the student did not lose his campus job.

Though infrequent and relatively small in scale, student protests have been effective.  "The Norm," an underground newspaper published twice in 2011, was particularly insightful in connecting the dots between the ever-rightward drift of the BGCO and the unprecedented changes at OBU.

So, even in the very rare instances when students did protest against the unprecedented policy and personnel changes, at least their on-campus jobs were safe.  But that apparently is no longer the case.  In recent days I've heard from two students who can trace their disagreements with the "new" OBU directly to their being terminated from campus jobs.

I hope there aren't others, but maybe now they will come forward, too.

The message is pretty clear.  If you disagree with us, well, shut up and smile anyway.  We don't want unhappy workers.  Maybe this works in business and the church.  But a Christian liberal arts college isn't a business.  And it isn't the church.  Freedom of thought, belief, and expression is a cherished value.  Freedom is bigger than the person exercising it.  You can try to "win" by stamping out an individual or two.  But you can't really stop freedom from being exercised in a university.  And the harder you try, the worse it makes you look.  Until you squelch all freedom of expression and you cease being a university at all.  Is this really where you want to take OBU?

New administrators: Play your ideological games with faculty if you feel you must.  But please, don't make students victims any more than they already are.  God knows students have suffered enough these past few years: seeing beloved professors cast aside inexplicably; experiencing the effects of all-time low faculty morale (I trust it's getting better, but still...); seeing their $100,000 investment lose value before their eyes as OBU has plummeted from #109 to #390 in the Forbes college rankings.

The BGCO and the upper echelon of administrators are hoping you won't notice or care.

We hope you will.

Pray for OBU.  It may look good on the outside, with a football program and gleaming new buildings.  But all is not well.

Multiple Storms Brewing on Bison Hill

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Our run of good fortune/divine blessing may be ending.

Regarding academic freedom and respecting the institution's norms and heritage, the past year has been pretty great at OBU compared to the 3 years before that.  Last April, Provost Stan Norman finally underwent a performance evaluation that included faculty input.  (And notice how quiet he's been since then...)  Last spring, most departments were allowed to hire their candidates of choice for faculty positions.  As far as we know, the candidates did not face the provost's fundamentalist litmus test questions that previous years' job candidates reported facing.  There were no ideologically-motivated firings last summer.  The new trustee leadership seems as great as the last.  This winter, a well-respected professor was granted senior faculty status --- a victory, given that some faculty feared that the administration may use the tenure decision as a weapon.

But the news has not been all good.  OBU continues to fall in the Forbes rankings, losing ground to Southern Baptist peers and to other evangelical colleges.  And we were disappointed that the usual faculty search procedures were once again ignored in the College of Theology and Ministry, this time so that a young-earth creationist could be brought in from Southwestern Seminary.

Two current developments:

College of Fine Arts
As we began to see encouraging signs last spring, I thought it best not to open yet another line of criticism against the administration.  But there was widespread student and faculty anger about goings-on in the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts.  Last week, I explained why I neglected to bring these issues up last year and began writing about some of those concerns.  It looks like there may be some developments to report soon, so I'm holding off on finishing the "Fine Arts Fiasco" series.  The Angell College of Fine Arts has a hard-earned reputation for excellence, and it's heartening to see people standing against unasked-for changes that threaten to degrade the College's quality and reputation.

Alumni Respond to Christopher Yuan Sermon
A group of several dozen alumni wrote an open letter to the OBU community in response to "ex gay" evangelist Christopher Yuan's April 3 chapel sermon.  The letter can be found here.  Note that Save OBU has not and will not endorse any outside issues or causes.  I suspect our supporters hold a wide diversity of opinions about human sexuality and the place of homosexual persons in the life and ministry of the Church.  We remain committed to two issues and two issues only: 1) Preserving academic freedom at OBU and 2) Insisting that the institution's norms and heritage be honored.

A recent poll indicates that 51% of white evangelicals aged 18-34 support same sex marriage rights.  Given those numbers, it follows that a significant number of students were troubled by Yuan's message.  I figure a campus-wide conversation is underway about how OBU should treat the gay and lesbian members of its own campus community.  The alumni letter speaks to that issue.


I hope all is well with each of you,
-Jacob

P.S. I have been very busy with work lately, and have not been able to devote much time to Save OBU.  I have family in town this weekend as my bride and I celebrate our daughter's first birthday.  I'll try to keep you updated on OBU happenings as I'm able.

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.

Labor Day 2012: Is OBU a Good Place to Work?

We've already discussed at length the many problems OBU faculty have faced as a result of the new regime.  And we continue to provide context and comparative information about OBU's generally declining performance in the various college ranking publications.

OBU is rightly proud of its performance in the U.S. News rankings, which continually point to OBU as one of the best regional baccalaureate colleges in the Western United States, not to mention a "best value" university.  And OBU had been doing quite well in the new Forbes rankings, which began in 2008, though we have slid badly under President Whitlock's tenure:

Instead of bringing attention to the continuing decline (from #299 to #390 in the past year, down from a high of #109 in 2009), OBU's P.R. shop wisely decided to sieze on being named a Princeton Review "Best of the West" college for the umpteenth year in a row.  What they don't say is that being on the "Best of the West" list is a lot more like a participation ribbon than a blue ribbon.  There are some pretty unimpressive schools on that list, and our inclusion doesn't really mean a thing.  Also unreported is the fact that students' "glaring" complaint was a "severe lack" of communication between administration and students:

Anyway, in honor of Labor Day, I'd like to point out a list that OBU didn't make but should aspire to.  The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released its 2012 list of "Best Colleges to Work For."  I don't really know whether OBU is a great place to work.  I suspect opinions vary.  But there's no reason OBU can't aspire to this kind of recognition.  A number of Christian colleges made the list (whether you measure Christian identity by confession, affiliation, or the almighty CCCU, the final arbiter of which institutions are "intentionally Christ-centered" (hint: the colleges that pay CCCU dues tend to make the cut in the CCCU's eyes).

The only Baptist-affiliated colleges to make the list were Baylor, Hardin-Simmons, and Howard Payne.  All three are affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas -- the state convention that SBC fundamentalists love to hate.  No other state convention-controlled Baptists schools were recognized.  In our neighborhood, both Oklahoma City University and the University of Central Oklahoma made the list, which was based on performance across 12 categories.

A brief look at some of the categories make it all too clear why OBU is nowhere near being recognized as a great college to work for: Collaborative Governance, Diversity, Confidence in Senior Leadership (hahahaha), Tenure Clarity and Process.  (Look for the tenure process to become Provost Norman's favorite way to weed out whatever moderates may have snuck through the hiring process.  It the debacle surrounding one professor's dismissal, the administration showed complete disregard for rules governing the tenure process.)

Now, this is not to say that I am suggesting OBU employees do not or should not love their jobs and the university very much.  It has been my experience and observation that they are the most devoted and faithful teachers I have ever seen.  But the university does not have the right to take them for granted.  It's not right for them to say, "Well, historically we always ask for faculty input and weigh it heavily in hiring decisions, but this time, we've already found our man so we're not going to bother" or "Well, these people are mostly moderate Baptists, but we're going to constantly make them listen to speeches and sermons by men who loathe moderate Baptists" or "These people have mortgages and their spouses have jobs in the community, so we know they're stuck here no matter how much we try to remake the institution in our own image," etc.

As we celebrate labor, let's make sure we're racing toward the top, not the bottom.

New Hires at OBU and Elsewhere

Happy new academic year!  You might have come expecting analysis of the Princeton Review report that noted a "glaring complaint" from students: "Lack of communication" from administration.  (Looks like students are unhappy with administrators' answers to questions like "Why are our favorite religion professors disappearing?")  You might also be expecting a continuation of our series on the 2012 Forbes rankings (in which OBU has declined from #109 to #390 during Rev. Dr. David Whitlock's tenure as president).  These posts will be coming soon.

Today we're looking at some items related to new faculty and the search/hire process at Baptist universities.

OBU Announces New Faculty

One of our initial concerns was widespread faculty anger that search committee recommendations based on achievement and promise for future success were being overruled by administrators who prefer to hire based on adherence to fundamentalist dogma.  We received encouraging news in April from sources who predicted that the English department would be able to fill its vacancies without undue pressure from administrators who would impose doctrinal/social/political litmus tests (link to MS Word document) in hiring, which past OBU job candidates faced.

Credit where credit is due: We have received no reports that any of these searches (three in languages, two in teacher education) were tainted by fundamentalist meddling.  Given the outsized impact OBU faculty have on their students, and especially considering the fact that the two English hires are replacing retiring legends, these new Humanities and Social Sciences colleagues have large shoes to fill.  We wish them the best.

Likewise, we were pleased to see three new hires in the Hurley College of Science and Mathematics.  As a person who studied religion, I'm particularly sensitive to the kinds of litmus tests new Bible, theology, and ministry faculty face with Mark McClellan as dean and Stan Norman as provost.  But let's not forget that science faculty could be the next targets.

There was an announcement about new faculty in nursing and fine arts as well.

In the coming weeks, we'll have more to say on the new Hobbs College hire and the process (or lack thereof) used to select him.

Shorter Begins Filling a Bazillion Vacancies

At Shorter University in Rome, GA (about which we've blogged here before), the situation could not be more different.  Shorter is filling dozens of vacancies due to the mass exodus of faculty this year in protest of the university's "lifestyle statement."  The devastation there is the work of Dr. Don Dowless, the puppet president installed to appease the increasingly fundamentalist Georgia Baptist Convention.  I'll let our friends at Save Our Shorter explain the new hires.  Short version: A lot of adjuncts and part-timers got promoted, at least one lesser fundamentalist college faculty got raided, and several handfuls of desperate and/or fundamentalist junior professors signed on.  The accrediting body will let the lifestyle statement slide.  But it might not smile on such an amateurish faculty.

Looking at Shorter and other Baptist schools helps us remember two sobering and related facts:

1. Things could get worse.
2. They probably will.

Yet as some Baptist schools begin their year with elaborate ceremonies where new faculty are forced to sign creedal statements, we can take comfort in the fact that OBU is still a place where students are free to learn and teachers are free to teach.  But we are mindful of the recent problems and the threat of future encroachments.

Best wishes to everyone on Bison Hill for a great 2012-13 academic year!

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.

2012 Forbes Rankings (Part 1): OBU Falls off a Cliff

This is one post I definitely did not want to write.  But given the events of the past few years, no one will be surprised at the embarrassing news I am reporting.  The annual Forbes rankings of America's top colleges came out last week.  OBU's precipitous decline is not only continuing, it is accelerating.  As recently as 2009, Forbes ranked OBU #109 on its list of top colleges, just behind Wheaton, Duke, Cornell, and Georgetown and ahead of Carson-Newman (TN), Bates (ME), Wake Forest, and Southern Methodist, not to mention literally every other Southern Baptist-affiliated college in the United States.

In the Whitlock-Norman era, OBU has gone from elite to embarrassment, at least as far as these rankings are concerned.  In 2010, OBU slid to #233.  By 2011, we were down to #299.  This year, we're all the way down to #390.  At the rate we're going, we won't have to worry about the slide in another 2 or 3 years because -- like the other Baptist colleges the fundamentalists have destroyed -- we simply won't be ranked at all.

I waited until this week to draw attention to this disappointing news because I was curious how the OBU P.R. shop would try to spin it.  In past years, there were gleeful press releases gushing with pride and joy about OBU faring relatively well in the Forbes rankings, which emerged in 2008 as an alternative to U.S. News, which had been publishing college rankings for years that relied more on reputation than actual outcomes.  If you want to see a sampling of past OBU press releases boasting of our placement in the Forbes Top Colleges rankings, click here.

At this point, it looks like there will be no attempt to spin this embarrassing news.  As a good friend of mine often says, "You can't polish a turd."  And OBU's devastating decline is definitely a stinker.  So much for being the "top college in Oklahoma," or even the highest rated private college.  Now we have been eclipsed by the University of Tulsa, OU, and OSU.  We're barely ahead of crazy-ass Oral Roberts University.

In January, I wrote a short blog post about the rankings decline from 2009 to 2011.  My original fears ring even more true in light of the 2012 rankings:

Friends, sliding wholesale into fundamentalism has its costs in terms of academic respectability.  At this rate, we will soon struggle to attract the best and brightest students and faculty.  And once word gets out that professors are being fired for ideological reasons and that philosophy (a core discipline in the liberal arts) is being gutted in favor of Christian apologetics, the decline is only going to get worse.  In a few short years, OBU is devolving from one of the most desirable small liberal arts colleges in America (religious or otherwise) to just another fundamentalist Bible academy.

I hope OBU does not have to slide even further before people start to realize that the BGCO's fundamentalist stranglehold on OBU has grave consequences for students, faculty, and alumni.  Not only is the current trend robbing students of the balanced, moderate Christian liberal arts education that made OBU great.  It is also devaluing their expensive and hard-earned diplomas.  Unless we demand that OBU return to its proud liberal arts heritage, I'm afraid this trend will continue.

Later in the week, I'll be presenting some data showing that a robust commitment to a Christian identity does not have to involve an institution's descent into fundamentalism.  Other Christian colleges -- Baptist and otherwise -- including a number of CCCU members, have managed to maintain reputations for excellence and thwart state conventions' plans to strip their colleges of academic freedom, respectability, and integrity.  But in Oklahoma, this devastating decline is only gaining steam.

Until then, I think it's well past time for us to let OBU administrators and trustees know that we are concerned.  We've been saying that Rev. Dr. Whitlock and Rev. Dr. Norman owe apologies to the professors they wrongfully dismissed.  But now it's clear that the new fundamentalists are doing serious damage to OBU.  They owe everyone in Bison Nation an apology.  This fate could have easily been avoided.  The sad thing is, they're not sorry.  And I don't think they even care.

Vigilance is Necessary.

Yesterday, I explained a bit of my personal reasoning for blogging: it is currently for me the best way that I can see to do the right thing.

Today, I want to continue in explanation of my own motivation. We have said it many times on this blog, but I really don't think it goes without saying. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of our keeping vigilance over our dear school.

Something that has struck me in almost all of the stories we have seen/heard about schools and other institutions suffering fallout from the fundamentalist takeover is the swiftness with which the changes occur.

I never thought about it until I started reading about it in other schools, but the downward spiral is truly just that. Devastation can come to a great university seemingly overnight. And it does not take long for that devastation to spiral out of control.

If you have not read the account given by former Shorter University trustee Larry Burgess, I suggest you do. Jacob highlighted some of the main points, but the tale is truly awe-inspiring... in the worst way. Several times when reading it my jaw just dropped. Literally.

Here's what is still so surprising to me: a small number of people who are only mildly affiliated with a school can lie and threaten their way into driving that school past unaccreditation straight into the ground.

Larry Burgess was continually surprised at the dirty-handed tactics used by the convention, but frankly, I was too. It shouldn't be surprising. I have seen and heard of it too many times. It is the same story told in different places and voices about those looking to guard "orthodoxy" and the incredible means they will pursue in order to find it.

It happens so fast.

And if no one is watching, it will happen right before our eyes.

Changes already happened quickly at OBU! In my short time there I saw one president leave, the approximately one year interim presidency, and the beginning of the current administration-- but before I left, one person had already been fired. It took less than two years. The current BGCO-friendly administration has been there for only 3 and a half years and already we have had enough things to fill nearly six months of blog. AND, that is with extreme faculty and student resistance.

That has not been the only swift change. In 2009, OBU ranked #109 in Forbes best colleges. Now, we have dropped to #299. In those two years, OBU has been surpassed by nearly 200 schools. That is an almost 200% drop.

When students and faculty are no longer respected in favor of catering to the fundamentalist Baptist elites, the good ones start figuring out that it's time to leave.

That could happen soon. And then we would have nothing. And when you read someone's testimony about how it happened so quickly, it would surprise you. But it shouldn't.

But if we can keep up vigilance, hopefully, we can stop the cycle.

OBU Plummets in Forbes College Rankings

Beginning in 2008, Forbes magazine joined U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and a few other national publications in the college ratings game.  Personally, I have never put a lot of stock in these ratings.  But these companies rake in hordes of cash every year when eager high school seniors and their parents stock up on the newly-published rankings guides.

To underscore just how important these publications are, let me share a brief personal story.  Being neither a Baptist nor an Oklahoman, I was an unlikely prospective student at Be a Bison Day.  But because I was young and in love, I was determined to follow my girlfriend to OBU.  My parents were concerned, to say the least.  After visiting the campus and hearing descriptions of the anti-social dorm visitation policy and compulsory chapel attendance, my parents thought OBU was pretty weird.  I'm pretty sure OBU's decent performance in the U.S. News rankings was the only thing that reassured them about my decision. Without those rankings, I doubt they would have let me go to OBU.

Even after my graduation in 2002, I would periodically glance at the rankings to see how OBU was doing.  U.S. News changed its categories a few times, from "Liberal Arts Colleges - West" to "Comprehensive Colleges - West" to the current category "Regional Colleges - West" (where we are currently #3 among some not very illustrious peer institutions).

I had not glanced at the Forbes rankings until today.  It was pretty depressing.

In 2009, we were #109.  In 2010, we fell to #233.  Last year, we fell to #299.

Friends, sliding wholesale into fundamentalism has its costs in terms of academic respectability.  At this rate, we will soon struggle to attract the best and brightest students and faculty.  And once word gets out that professors are being fired for ideological reasons and that philosophy (a core discipline in the liberal arts) is being gutted in favor of Christian apologetics, the decline is only going to get worse.  In a few short years, OBU is devolving from one of the most desirable small liberal arts colleges in America (religious or otherwise) to just another fundamentalist Bible academy.

I hope OBU does not have to slide even further before people start to realize that the BGCO's fundamentalist stranglehold on OBU has grave consequences for students, faculty, and alumni.  Not only is the current trend robbing students of the balanced, moderate Christian liberal arts education that made OBU great.  It is also devaluing their expensive and hard-earned diplomas.  Unless we demand that OBU return to its proud liberal arts heritage, I'm afraid this trend will continue.

Forbes's methodology is here.