OBU's Peers: Nondenominational Colleges?

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?

This week, we're looking for OBU's sister schools that have had to negotiate the balance between "doctrinal accountability" and academic freedom.  Yesterday, we pointed out that neither the Furman/Stetson model nor the Brewton-Parker/Truett-McConnell model fits OBU's situation very well.  The former are no longer intentionally Baptist/evangelical and the latter are so fundamentalist that if we ever became like them, we would not be a legitimate liberal arts university so none of this would even matter.

Today, we look outside Baptist life for signs of flourishing (or trouble) among non-denominational Christian universities.  Forbes Magazine, in whose rankings OBU has plummeted in the past two years, gives us a starting place by listing the Top Ten Christian colleges in the U.S.  For the moment, we'll overlook the highly problematic fact that Forbes equates "Christian" with membership in the Council for Conservative Christian Colleges and Universities.  (According to the CCCU's accounting and blatant right-wing bias, only 116 of the hundreds of Christian colleges are actually Christian.)

Let's take a quick look at the top 10:

#59. Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) - Nondenominational

#81. Westmont college (Santa Barbara, CA) - Nondenominational

#134. George Fox University (Newberg, OR) - Quaker

#142. Pepperdine University (Malibu, CA) - Churches of Christ

#160. Gordon College (Wenham, MA) - Nondenominational

#179. Covenant College (Lookout Mountain, GA) - Presbyterian (PCA)

#209. Whitworth University (Spokane, WA) - Presbyterian (PCUSA)

#213. Houghton College (Houghton, NY) - Wesleyan Church

**#233. Oklahoma Baptist University (Shawnee, OK) - Southern Baptist

#235. College of the Ozarks (Point Lookout, MO) - Nondenominational

**In 2009, we were #109 on this list, literally just a few places behind Duke, Cornell, and Georgetown.

The astute observer will quickly note that none of these schools is Catholic and only one is from a mainline Protestant tradition (PCUSA, one of the denominations whose members Dr. Norman would like to exclude from consideration for faculty positions at OBU).  But again, putting the CCCU's blatant and ignorant biases aside, let's assume for the sake of discussion that this is a representative (though not exhaustive) list of some of the better evangelical Christian colleges in the U.S.

Opponents of BGCO separation have said that without the convention to "hold OBU accountable," that the university would inevitably drift off into secularism.  That's ridiculous!  Four of these ten colleges have managed to retain their "intentionally Christ-centered" ethos without a denomination to keep the secularists out.  Never mind the fact that 30 years ago, many of the top Christian colleges in the U.S. were Baptist and today hardly any of them are.  If anything, affiliation with a Baptist state convention since the early 1990s degrades the academic quality of an institution over time.

While Baptists schools have left their conventions or regressed into fundamentalism, evangelical schools from other denominations (and those without a denomination) have flourished, a point we highlighted in our recent discussion of the "Evangelical Renaissance" in academe.

Does anyone really think the trustees or faculty at Wheaton, Gordon, or Biola -- even though no one is obsessing about their church affiliation or doctrinal purity -- are about to let those schools' religious character erode?  The mere suggestion is completely stupid.  These colleges may not have a dedicated funding stream from a denomination, but it hasn't stopped them from being excellent.  If anything, their options for hiring, recruiting students, and soliciting donors are greatly expanded without the burden of the denominational attachment.  Given that that OBU gets less than 5% of its annual operating budget from the BGCO (down from 25% 30 years ago), it's reasonable to at least ask the question of whether we would be better off without the affiliation.

Sure, administrators at Wheaton and Gordon are giving up a measure of control by welcoming trustees from a variety of Protestant denominational families.  The BGCO thinks it is doing OBU a favor and somehow protecting it from corruption by selecting its trustees, who in turn elect the president and sign off on many of his(/her -- ha!) decisions.  But the truth is, even though we have some great trustees, we are hurting OBU in the long run by excluding men and women whose gifts and expertise would be a great asset to OBU governance, even if they are not clergy and laity in BGCO congregations.  These excellent nondenominational schools assemble their boards from across the country, because they want to have a national reach.  It's an idea OBU should consider.

One of the reasons nondenominational colleges are eclipsing Baptist ones in Christian higher education is that the Wheatons and Gordons of the world are not distracted by and obsessed with appeasing fundamentalists.  Unfortunately, we are hindered in many ways by our unhelpful attachment to the BGCO.  I'm certainly grateful to the men and women who have supported OBU over the years.  And given how awful the situation is in other state conventions, I'm happy that the problems we've had seem to originate in the provost's office (which is an easy fix) rather than the BGCO Nominating Committee (which would be a sign of major, perhaps intractable, problems).

But looking at Southern Baptist life broadly, its degradation of educational institutions over the past 20-25 years does not bode well for the future of OBU as long as it is in the BGCO's hands.  Because while other, dare I say better, Christian colleges are forging ahead, secure in the knowledge that they have Christian faculty and governing bodies committed to a Christian ethos, that is not enough at OBU.  Our hires now have to hold the right social views (or be the right gender).  And the narrow circle of people of people the BGCO deems fit to be OBU trustees and the narrowing circle of people Provost Norman deems fit to teach at OBU will eventually limit our pool of prospective students and donors, as well.  I wonder how many OBU trustees would be opposed to having a few non-Baptists or non-Oklahomans who love OBU and are passionate about Christian higher education on the Board.  I bet not many, but they don't get to make that choice, unfortunately.

As much as some people might like to believe otherwise, these fine nondenominational colleges are not really our peers in any meaningful ways.  Though OBU and Wheaton are comparably selective in admissions, OBU's 75th percentile SAT score is about the same as Wheaton's 25th percentile.  Aside from the doctrinal rigidity and appeasement the BGCO expects from OBU (in return for a proportionally dwindling annual subsidy), the relationship imposes a set of constraints on the university that limits our reach and our profile.  Without such constraints, nondenominational colleges and seminaries have left Baptist ones in the dust.  Even so, we welcome their support in our efforts to rejoin the top echelon of Christian colleges in America.

A Future Bison?

On April 18 at 11:23 p.m. in Washington, D.C., my beautiful bride, Cara, gave birth to our fist child, a perfect baby girl named Amelia.  Though it's not relevant to Save OBU, please allow a point of personal privilege for a proud daddy:

Having started the Save OBU blog in the 5th month of Cara's pregnancy, I want to thank her for indulging my passion for helping protect OBU's heritage.  It's still not entirely clear to me why I've devoted so much time to this, but Cara has tolerated my activism with grace and good humor.  Most of the time.  My initial commitment of 6 weeks has stretched into the spring months, and I'd like to remain involved at least until we have an advisory committee in place and formally reach out to OBU trustees.

I also want to thank Veronica specifically for her fine series on Baptist freedoms that ran on the blog over the past six days, and generally for joining me as a Contributing Editor to the blog and providing so much leadership and vision for our movement.

On last fall's alumni petition, I stated rather dramatically and hyperbolically that I'd never let my child anywhere near OBU, given the current crackdown.  (I was the 216th signature.)  But since that time, I've grown nostalgic for Bison Hill.  I would love for my daughter to attend a small liberal arts college with a residential campus.  The truth is, there are a lot of people who no longer recommend OBU to young people in their spheres of influence.  I've received literally dozens of emails to this effect since Save OBU's inception.  Our association with the BGCO raises significant and legitimate doubts about OBU's commitment to academic freedom, integrity, and rigor.  The recent negative changes confirm the suspicions that a non-trivial number of OBU friends and alumni have had ever since the Takeover.  Already, we have OBU parents concerned that maybe their children should transfer.  At some Baptist colleges, students are transferring by the hundreds.  Other colleges are so obsessed with appeasing state convention fundamentalists that they no longer even pretend to be legitimate academic institutions, to the extent of throwing away their accreditation.

But setting aside the issue of transfers for a moment, think of how many bright and capable young students are not being encouraged to go to OBU.  This is a real shame, and the only way to change that dynamic is to make sure that OBU is a place where academic freedom and open inquiry thrive, not a place where they are actively eroded (at worst) or merely tolerated (at best).

Save OBU's argument -- that independence from the BGCO is the only necessary and sufficient safeguard against fundamentalist encroachment at OBU -- would be much easier if we were, like Shorter University, in the throes of an all-out assault.  But the truth is, while there are some aspects of OBU's management and governance we don't like, things have stabilized on Bison Hill after a year of widespread protests.  Our constant vigilance is what will deny BGCO elites of their long-elusive dream: remaking Oklahoma's only Baptist university in their own post-Takeover image.

If we succeed, OBU may once again be an attractive college option for my daughter, Amelia, and literally thousands of other young people.  Most of us had a fantastic experience at OBU.  But we can't in good conscience recommend OBU to our children, students, and friends if we harbor serious doubts about the experience they would have under the new regime.  Disillusioned friends and alumni represent a massive untapped reservoir of support, enthusiasm, and recruitment for OBU.  Since the Takeover, and especially in the past two years, trust has been broken.  I welcome any efforts by top OBU administrators to repent of their mistakes and begin the hard, slow work of repairing the broken relationship.  That laborious effort would bear fruit in time, and it is an honorable path to take.  But a wiser, quicker, more efficient, and, frankly, more authentically Baptist solution is to break free of BGCO control and be the rigorous yet faithful Christian liberal arts university we all knew and loved.

OBU Students/Parents Weighing Transfer

If the OBU administration was serious about the widespread concern, sadness, and anger its personnel and policy changes have caused in the past two years, it would, at a minimum, acknowledge mistakes in the forced dismissal debacles and appoint a chief academic officer the university community could actually trust to do the right thing.

Continuing to ignore student, faculty, and alumni concerns will have increasing consequences.  Consider this letter we received from an Oklahoma couple who graduated from OBU in the late '80s and whose child is a current underclassman at OBU:

I am concerned about the route the university is taking, to a point where we will make a decision as to whether she will return next fall. 

Our child has not been brought up in a conservative household and consequently holds rather liberal social values.  My husband and I thought OBU is a good place for her because of the lack of a partying atmosphere.  It was also very academic in nature, emphasizing the need to study and LEARN.  We both felt we had a good, well-rounded liberal arts education, and assumed she would receive the same. 

Her [subject area redacted] professor last semester had a decidedly socially conservative slant (which is fine) and led discussion accordingly (which is not).  My daughter felt intimidated if she spoke up with a different opinion.  She even felt her grade might be in jeopardy.  When I learned about your blog and Facebook page, I asked her about it.  She knew about it, but didn’t want to “like” the page for fear she would get in trouble (her words). 

I grew up in [name of BGCO church redacted], and my mother still attends there.  My mother is very concerned about her church’s direction now.  It has caused her and some of her friends, who have been lifelong members, a great deal of disappointment and disillusionment.

How many of these kinds of stories will OBU administrators have to hear before they start paying attention?  Or, should I say, how much revenue will they have to lose (knowing that the BGCO's subsidy accounts for an ever-decreasing proportion of OBU's annual operating budget)?

The concerned parent goes on to say that her mother's pastor, who is not a fundamentalist but who knows how to play nice with the Baptist Building boys, is under scrutiny from the BGCO for his church not sending many students to OBU.  We know the BGCO has a ton of pastors who advise youth in their congregations against OBU because they think it's too liberal.  But could it be the case that the BGCO also has pastors who can't in good conscience recommend OBU because it is becoming too fundamentalist?

Here at Save OBU, we struggled with how to advise prospective students.  Many of our supporters categorically refuse to recommend OBU to young people in their spheres of influence.  But as a community, we settled on a middle ground, providing relevant facts for prospective students in their families to consider while also highlighting the benefits of an OBU education.

As for prospective transfers, I can say (speaking only for myself) I hope this young woman and her parents can find enough confidence in OBU's direction to justify staying.  But I certainly understand their concerns.  And I fear that this situation will have to play out in many more students' lives before top leadership realizes they have a problem.

Friday, February 17: Be a Bison Day

Like many of us did a few years (or a few decades...) ago, hundreds of prospective OBU students will convene on Bison Hill tomorrow for the university's most significant event for high school students considering OBU.  Some will be seniors who are 100% sure they are going to OBU.  Others are testing the waters.  All will get to attend a class, eat in the cafeteria, tour the dorms, and get a feel for OBU's compulsory chapel.

But, whether you first set foot on Bison Hill in 2009 or 1959, you went to a very different Oklahoma Baptist University than the students who will enroll in 2012.  Since 2009, we know that

• Two professors were unethically forced out of their positions and denied rights guaranteed under the Faculty Handbook.  OBU's reputation has suffered, and the university is extremely lucky it avoided a lawsuit.
• A normal bookstore has been replaced by a fundamentalist one, constituting a de facto censorship of mainstream books.  (There are also plans afoot to use a textbook fee to force students to patronize this new bookstore rather than price-shopping and buying books online or elsewhere.  All students and parents need to raise holy hell if this insane policy is enacted.)
• Administrators have intervened in curriculum matters.
• The philosophy department has been gutted to accomodate Christian apologetics
• Faculty morale has sunk to an all-time low.
• When interviews are conducted to fill faculty vacancies, the administration has ignored search committee recommendations and hired people who the committees simply did not want, further exacerbating tensions.
• Protests from students, faculty, alumni, and retired faculty have not resulted in a single apology or policy reversal, signaling a dangerous deafness to stakeholders whose disillusionment is at an all-time high.  Even more alarming, these significant protests have been apparently viewed more as P.R. crises than as serious concerns from people whose affection for OBU will long outlast the tenure of any one president or administrator.

Here at Save OBU, we have not yet called for our supporters to advise prospective students against attending or withdraw their financial support (though untold hundreds if not thousands of alumni are already doing these things).  Instead, we settled on being a source of information for prospective students and their families.  They don't need us to urge a boycott.  But they do need to know the facts about what has been happening -- facts that OBU is keen to hide.  Our open letter to prospective students reviews the pros and cons of attending OBU at a time like this.

It is in all our interests that the brightest and most capable students continue to enroll at OBU.  But the OBU that earned a solid reputation for excellence in Christian higher education over the decades is increasingly not the OBU of today.  Administrators and backers laud OBU's great heritage even as they have sometimes worked to undermine it.

Sadly, OBU's owner/operator, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, has drifted far from the ideals of OBU's liberal arts tradition.  The BGCO is frankly no longer an honest partner in the task of higher education -- a task that requires academic freedom, open inquiry, and Baptist hallmarks like the priesthood of the believer, soul competency, and the liberty of the conscience.  Unfortunately, the Christian intellectual's conscience is no longer free in Southern Baptist life today.

Rather than set OBU free to continue the mission the BGCO abandoned as it became anti-intellectual and fundamentalist over the past 30 years, the BGCO is clinging ever more tightly to OBU.  Even as its annual subsidy continues to cover less and less of OBU's annual budget, the BGCO's influence in OBU personnel and policy decisions is stronger than ever, and that influence is taking a toll.

Quietly, there is a war brewing between the OBU that has always existed and the OBU the BGCO desires to create.  It's a battle that some OBU administrators would rather you not see, because they themselves are waging it.  It happens in small increments and over a long period of time.  It's often covert, under the radar, and off the front pages.  But prospective students should be warned: At the current rate, the quality of the faculty and the rigor of your academic program is certain to decline (along with OBU's reputation) during your college years unless we can reverse many of the negative changes described above.

If you decide to attend OBU, we urge you to join with the faculty, students, and alumni who are pressing hard to oppose administrative actions that are taking OBU in the wrong direction.  We are here for you, and we welcome your support.  Should you have any questions, you can contact us at SaveOBU@gmail.com

Student Saturday: Prospective Student Edition

Today was OBU's Winter Preview Day.  In the spirit of that event, Save OBU is pleased to offer some information and perspectives for prospective students and their families to consider.

We have had a lot of internal discussions about how best to approach this topic.  One the one hand, many of us are so angry about the recent disastrous changes at OBU that we are hesitant to recommend it to anyone.  On the other hand, some of us fear that if we actively drive the best and brightest students away from OBU, the dumbing down will move from the bookstore into the classrooms, and OBU's transformation into a fundamentalist Bible academy will only accelerate.

After consulting with many Save OBU supporters and OBU stakeholders, I am releasing our open letter to prospective students and their families.  While a full-scale boycott might be more dramatic and effective, there is enough disagreement in our ranks that we are instead going to provide some information and trust prospective students and their parents consider to it in their prayers, discussions, and deliberations about the once-in-a-lifetime, $100,000 investment they are considering.

Dear Prospective OBU Students and Families,

As a diverse coalition of OBU students, staff, and alumni, we are grateful for your interest in Oklahoma Baptist University.  We're biased, of course, but over the years we have found OBU to be a great place to work, study, and live.  Our wellspring of affection for OBU is so deep, in fact, that we are grieving over recent changes -- some subtle, some dramatic -- that have deteriorated the quality and integrity of OBU's academic program.

This website lays our objections to some of the policy and personnel changes that are leading OBU away from its proud liberal arts tradition.  We invite you to explore the site and email us with any questions you may have.  Specifically, we are concerned about the following:

• Dismissing well-loved and highly effective faculty members without just cause, but rather for ideological reasons
• Remaking the faculty by replacing aging moderates almost exclusively with younger conservatives and fundamentalists who adhere to the ever-more extreme Southern Baptist party line
• Disregarding faculty norms, ignoring faculty search committee recommendations, and creating an unsustainably contentious and hostile dynamic between faculty and administrators
• Gutting curriculum areas like philosophy, a core discipline in the liberal arts which is being replaced by "Christian apologetics," a Sunday school-like field that spoon-feeds answers rather than engages tough questions
• Censoring academic materials by contracting with a fundamentalist bookstore, thus denying the OBU community access to mainstream boks in the natural and social sciences, history, literature, the arts, philosophy, and non-fundamentalist theology

The effects of these changes are inescapable, and they have had a deleterious effect on academic quality and campus morale.  A group of students produced a newsletter to protest these actions, but were essentially ignored.  One student who expressed his opinion in the student newspaper was actually brought into the president's office and verbally assaulted!  Last fall, hundreds of alumni signed a petition protesting the negative changes.  The Faculty Council has passed resolutions expressing opposition to administrators' violations of Faculty Handbook policies, but so far have been ignored.

With the weight of all these problems heavy on our hearts, we can offer only a qualified endorsement of OBU to prospective students at this time.  We wish this were not the case, as there are so many redeeming qualities about OBU, not least of which is a still-outstanding faculty compared to many peer institutions.  Even as OBU boasts expanding graduate programs, strong enrollment and even a new football team, it is struggling to maintain a robust commitment to what has long been its bread-and-butter: a rigorous, balanced, and moderate Christian liberal arts education.  OBU's reputation is suffering, too.  In only two years, it has dropped from #109 to #299 in the Forbes college rankings.  Other Baptist colleges that have been taken over by fundamentalists have experienced dramatic faculty morale problems and have even struggled to maintain accreditation.  OBU is still a long way from mass firings or being stripped of accreditation, but the sad truth is that all these recent changes have hurt our reputation.  Until we see a change in administrative leadership (at this point, we're seeking a change in direction more than a change in personnel), we believe OBU is on the wrong path.

Given the high cost of the investment you are considering, we feel an obligation to alert you to these issues.  The most academically talented students seeking a distinctively Christian higher education should also consider Wheaton, Calvin, William Jewell, and Whitworth.  Colleges operated by the Baptist General Convention of Texas are easy to get into (except Baylor) and have been generally free of the fundamentalist influences that have recently deteriorated OBU's academic program.  Oklahoma City University is, of course, more urban.  It is also not nearly as conservative.

Please continue to keep OBU under consideration.  In spite of the problems noted above, Bison Hill remains a truly special place.  Yes, it's true that it has a policy of forced chapel attendance and forbids men and women from socializing in each other's dormitories.  It is a very authoritarian institution and prizes conformity.  But you will find professors who genuinely care about your intellectual and spiritual growth.  You will find a community that truly nurtures your development as a person.  And, though Shawnee is a small city compared to some of your hometowns, you will be surprised how much fun you will have there with your new friends.  Should you decide to pursue medical, law, divinity, or other graduate degrees, you will find that OBU prepares you well.  Professors have a demonstrated commitment to individual students' success.  Even though two great professors were forced out and treated shamefully, literally dozens of amazing professors remain at OBU.

We suspect that OBU's admissions office will not bring any of these issues to your attention.  However, we do urge you to let the university know that you, too, are concerned about the issues raised here and that they weigh heavily on your decision.  In addition to alumni, Save OBU counts many, many current students and OBU parents among its strongest supporters.  Should you decide on OBU (and we hope you will), we are especially eager to welcome you into our movement.

Our Very Best Wishes,
Save OBU