Integrating Faith and Academic Administration

This summer I will take on the responsibility of chair of the Department of Computer Science at Calvin University. This part-time administrative role comes with many responsibilities: guiding the hiring and reappointment of faculty, scheduling classes, ensuring academic quality, managing budgets, and generally keeping the “trains running on time” in the department. To be sure, this role was not one I wanted or sought but rather was thrust upon me by circumstances in our department and the retirement of the current chair. My reluctance to take the role made me even more qualified in the eyes of my colleagues; in the words of Plato: “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.”

Throughout my time in Christian higher education, I have appreciated the emphasis on the integration of faith and learning. However, after serving at three different Christian universities, I have never heard any talk on faith and administration, even though administration is listed as one of the gifts given to the church (1 Cor. 12:28, ESV). Many Christian universities require faculty to write “faith integration” papers showing how the Christian faith informs their academic disciplines. Perhaps the same should be required for full-time academic administrators: a paper articulating how to integrate faith with the exercise of administrative duties. I think such a requirement could raise the bar in terms of thinking more rigorously and intentionally about what it means to be a faithful administrator and what biblical principles and norms ought to guide decision-making.

Let me suggest a few topics that might appear in such a paper on “faith and administration”: understanding the distinctness of the sphere of education, the need for Christian character and virtues, and the practical wisdom to operationalize the overall mission of a Christian university.

Understanding the integration of faith and administration begins by understanding the nature of the sphere of education: the school is not a business (although it must face fiscal realities), it is not a church (although it should encourage spiritual formation), and it is not a family (although it should care for its staff and faculty).¹ Theologian Albert Wolters writes that educators need to “develop an intuitive sense for the distinctive structure of a school” and “to run it like a business” is to do “violence” to “the nature of an educational institution.”²

The sphere of Christian higher education should be focused on the Christian academic formation of its students as well as disseminating works that give witness to Christ-animated research, writing, and artistic expression. Academic presidents (under the direction of trustees) are ultimately responsible for this mission and are called to operationalize it through their policies and decisions.³ Likewise, provosts and deans are called to work this mission out in their academic divisions and schools. Our classes are brimming with lectures about how our students are to act as agents of shalom, justice, and flourishing, but what we teach will only be plausible if the same principles are exercised in the day-to-day operation of our institutions. To ignore this leads to institutional hypocrisy. An example of this dissonance can be as pedestrian as emphasizing environmental stewardship in the classroom while ignoring recycling on campus, perpetuating waste in the cafeteria, and spraying harmful pesticides on the Commons Lawn.

An administrator should show evidence of mature Christian character and virtues like honesty, humility, courage, prudence, compassion, wisdom, and, when appropriate, a little humor. Administrators should avoid the pitfalls of pride, vainglory, apathy, and being overbearing.⁴ When appropriate, a godly administrator should be able to apologize and acknowledge mistakes. Ideally, an academic administrator should not be ambitious or self-serving, but rather a servant who is willing to set aside their own ambitions to help others thrive. I have been nervous of younger faculty who vie for academic leadership at an early stage of their career; ordinarily, academic leadership is enhanced by the wisdom that often comes with years.⁵ Administrators should not cling to power but serve for a season and discern when to willingly step aside when that season is done. Academic chairs and deans should preferably serve for a term, or perhaps two at most, and return to working under the rules they helped forge.

James W. Frick, a former vice president at Notre Dame, is said to have remarked, “Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” One of the duties of an academic administrator is to plan and manage a budget in such a way that it advances the mission of the institution. A budget is one way to gauge the relative priorities of an institution: What portions of the budget are spent on academics and directly advancing the faith-based mission? In fact, elevating any good thing—like building projects, prestige, athletics, diversity, or technology—above being faithful to Christ in the sphere of education, can result in mission drift at best, and idolatry at worst. We should avoid the temptation to sell our institutional birthright for a mess of porridge (or even a big donation). What will it profit an institution if it gains a whole global campus but forfeits the soul of its mission?⁶

The quote attributed to Frick in the previous paragraph suggests priorities can be discerned by the budget alone, but that itself is reductionistic. Frankly, administrators who are fixated only on spreadsheets are a danger to the mission of an institution because the mission encompasses far more than what can be captured by the budget. Christian higher education is a many-splendored thing, and not everything that counts can be counted. Many missional considerations are hard to quantify; hence, decision-making should be data-informed rather than data-driven. This is where the virtue of wisdom is essential.

Apparently, even lowly department chairs are crucial to the mission of an institution. Robert Benne writes in Quality with Soul that department chairs are “often overlooked but exceedingly important” and must be “committed to the religious ethos and vision of the college.” Benne observes that in some schools, the chair becomes “the weak link between the public vision of the school and the ground-level activities that sustain it, particularly faculty hiring.”⁷ Ideally, the department chair ensures the “ground-level activities” in the department align with the larger mission, and the chair should be the chief cheerleader and recruiter for faculty who advance that mission.

It is easy to grumble and criticize academic administrators. University faculty often assume that their terminal degrees in obscure fields make them experts in everything, including administration. We are urged to pray for “all those who are in authority” (1 Tim. 2:1–2), and I think this includes academic leaders, too. I confess that often my readiness to critique has exceeded my inclination to pray.

These are a few things that go through my mind as I take on the low-profile yet crucial role of department chair. Over the years, I have been blessed to work under several godly leaders who have embodied what marks a good academic administrator: one who keenly understands the sphere of education and its Christian mission and who puts aside their own scholarly ambitions to virtuously serve others with joy, fostering the conditions in which students, staff, and faculty can flourish in their academic callings.

1. The notion of “spheres” was introduced by the Dutch theologian and statesman, Abraham Kuyper. To learn more about “spheres”, see Richard Mouw, Abraham Kuyper: A short and Personal Introduction, Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 23-27.
2. Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, Eerdmans, 2005, p. 26.
3. For more discussion of this, see Perry Glanzer, Christian Higher Education: An Empirical Guide, Abilene Christian University Press, 2023.
4. See Rebecca DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, Brazos Press, 2020.
5. Although there are exceptions, like Timothy, who Paul counsels not to “let anyone look down on you because you are young” (1 Tim. 4:12).
6. For stories of schools that have lost their religious identity, see James Burtchaell, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches, Eerdmans, 1998.
7. Robert Benne, Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions, Eerdmans, 2001, p. 190.