Faculty Matters – A Lot!
Ralph Enlow
What to do? My plate is overflowing. What to do?
As an educational leader, you are confronted with a variety of competing priorities. To be sure, failure to ensure that student enrollment and donor support revenue streams are flowing might render other priorities irrelevant. Poor results in those realms will inevitably ensure there will soon be no institution to lead. Focus upon these priorities largely determines whether the institution will survive but does little to determine what institution will survive.
The big three
Effective organizational leadership, according to Antony Bell (Great Leadership, 2011), revolves around three central priorities (he labels them CAS):
Creating and clarifying direction
Aligning the organization and its resources in that direction
Selling and promoting the message of the direction
Align this!
I intend to dwell on a particular aspect of the “alignment” priority above—the critical need to ensure that your faculty are selected, retained, developed, and rewarded in full alignment with your institution’s Christian educational mission and values. Here’s my central thesis:
I believe an educational institution’s missional success ultimately depends, not on its executive leadership, but on its faculty.
Every aspect of institutional resources and operations can be humming along, yet the institution can fail to accomplish its mission if the composition and disposition of its faculty is misaligned with its mission. When that happens, game over, no matter whether you are flush with students and donors.
Tilt
Here is another ominous secret: When it comes to faculty mission alignment, external forces and peer benchmarks are likely to exert subtle and inexorable pressure to skew that alignment. After all, you have accreditation standards to meet and an academic pecking order to mind. What looks like a race to the top can easily become a race to the bottom—equating faculty credentials with faculty qualifications. The finish line of that race may be the graveyard for your mission. Tilt!
Credentials ≠ qualifications
Focus upon academic credentials as the sine qua non of faculty qualification is simply wrongheaded. In practice, preoccupation with faculty credentials leads to the conclusion that, (a) credentials and qualifications are synonymous; and (b) superior academic credentials constitute superior faculty qualifications. Nothing could be further from the truth. Academic credentials alone should never be regarded as sufficient faculty qualifications, particularly in institutions of Christ-centered education.
What set of criteria, then, should Christian educational leaders employ in selecting, retaining, and promoting faculty? Allow me to offer the following suggestions:
Faculty Credentials: A Place to Start, But Not the End
Surprise! A mere two paragraphs previously—scroll back up there if you like—I boldly asserted that an educational institution’s missional success ultimately depends, not on its executive leadership, but on its faculty. I cautioned, moreover, that academic credentials alone should never be regarded as sufficient faculty qualifications, particularly in institutions of Christ-centered education.
So, what criteria do I commend for mission-aligned faculty selection, retention, development, and reward? You may be surprised to learn I start with credentials.
Credentials and credibility
Minimum academic credentials (i.e., earned degree at least one level above the students’ instructional/degree level) must be adhered to if we are serious about asserting to the public that our educational programs and credentials are academically on a par with peer institutions. Failure to uphold these minimums undermines our legitimacy claims. We cannot set aside basic higher educational standards and claim with any credibility that our education is postsecondary (or commensurate with whatever educational level on which we are working).
The danger occurs when we consciously or unconsciously use educational degree levels as the primary (or even exclusive) basis for judging the relative merits of current or prospective faculty members. Educational credentials should be regarded as the threshold, not the totality of faculty qualification. Minimum credentials admit a prospective faculty member into consideration, but they are only marginally valuable in making comparisons in terms of mission fit. Once instructors meet threshold academic credential requirements, other more consequential qualifications should take precedence.
Moving beyond eligibility to excellence
In other words, credentials are a place to start but not an exclusive or even primary place from which to substantiate faculty mission alignment. Adequate credentials place prospects in your pool, but from there, their relative strength is of only secondary importance. So, what other criteria should we rely on to guide us toward mission alignment? Glad you asked.
Least first, but then …
My list of faculty selection criteria starts least first. Credentials are an important first consideration, but they are of lower importance than other considerations. So what criterion is highest in importance? You have probably anticipated this: Character—or, I prefer to say—contagious character is of preeminent importance.
Memorize Luke 6:40
Do you believe the Bible? Then put your belief into practice in terms of faculty selection. You don’t get a pass on this criterion just because you purport to be engaged in Christian education of the highest quality.
Students become like their teachers (Luke 6:40). … Godliness is more caught than taught. … Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Such clichés are not less true because they are exceedingly familiar.
If we believe Luke 6:40, we cannot be surprised that a brilliant scholar and dynamic teacher who is nevertheless an irascible and insufferable curmudgeon will engender the same attributes in your highest potential students. If you long for graduates who display the beauty of Christ’s humility and the joy of Christ’s sacrificial servanthood, choose your faculty accordingly—and take a pass on some who might otherwise richly embroider your institution’s academic reputation. Character matters more than anything else in faculty selection. Blamelessness is a key biblical leadership quality and must unapologetically trump other considerations for faculty selection. Impressive academic credentials absent impeccable character must never be permitted to qualify faculty candidates for employment by institutions of truly Christian education.
Contagious, not benign
But true godliness of character should never be blameless but benign. It should be contagious. As you consider potential faculty, prioritize qualified candidates who have a track record of spiritual infectiousness. Look for faculty who will be magnets, drawing students toward Christ and contagiously modeling what it means to live all of life on mission with Him. The appropriate faculty standard is not merely commendable but contagious character.
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Faculty Matters – Continued …
I have been insisting that your highest leadership priority in order to prevent mission drift is faculty selection. To phrase it conversely, the shortest and surest path to mission drift goes through your faculty. As Jim Collins puts it in Good to Great, you need to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.
Credentials ≠ competence
Thus far in considering the mission-critical matter of faculty selection, I have proposed two important criteria: credentials (first in sequence but least in importance), and contagious character. A third criterion is competence.
You may be thinking that a faculty member’s competence is validated by strong credentials. And you could well be tragically wrong. Just as credentials and qualifications are not synonymous, neither are credentials and competence synonymous. As much as this assertion is true for faculty selection, it may especially be the case when it comes to faculty retention and promotion.
Competency can never be static
We all have observed instructors who possess enviable credentials and admirable character while at the same time possessing inferior command of and currency in their teaching discipline(s). In far too many cases, institutions hire, retain and promote faculty members who have failed to keep abreast of the latest research findings, professional dialogue, and methodological advances within the discipline. Syllabi have not been updated for years; learning resource lists lack recent electronic and print sources.
Toleration of these conditions represents a betrayal of mission fidelity and offends the excellence that should accompany our biblical and Christian sensibilities. Longevity is admirable, but faculty members must be learners first and teachers second. Growth is essential to true educational competence.
Biblical integration: an essential meta-competency
Not only must faculty members exhibit competence and currency in command of their academic or professional disciplines, but they must exhibit the same in terms of biblical integration. In far too many cases, authentic Christ-followers are virtual pagans when it comes to meaningful integration of biblical truth with the critical assumptions, methodological orthodoxies, seminal ideas, and key research findings in the discipline. I plan to take up the matter of biblical integration in a subsequent post but, for now, I simply insist that facility in biblical integration is an indispensable aspect of faculty competence.
We dare not settle for well-credentialed faculty members whose competence is relatively poor or diminishing. Mission fidelity is enhanced when competence is explicit among our criteria for faculty selection, retention, and promotion. I recommend your list of faculty criteria contains a few more qualities—coming up in future posts.
Fun for film but bad for faculty
Playing the part of the Captain, a cruel and sinister prison warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke, Strother Martin uttered one of classic cinema’s most memorable lines: what we have here is failure to communicate. An amusing characterization that makes for a good movie script will never do when it comes to your faculty.
Thus far, my list of critical faculty selection criteria has included credentials (first but, in many ways, least important), contagious character, and competence in terms of a comprehensive and current grasp of their teaching discipline(s). Permit me now to propose a fourth criterion. Communication.
Beyond competence
You may be inclined to assume that high communication skill is an aspect of competence, but I think this attribute is worthy of discrete consideration. How many brilliant, yet boring scholars have you encountered over the course of your own academic odyssey?
Just because you survived it does not mean you are justified in subjecting your students to it. You must insist that your faculty members excel in communication. Superior qualifications in other areas do not offset an instructor’s shortcomings as a communicator and facilitator of learning.
Teaching, not talking
I hasten to add it is important to distinguish effective communication, and effective teaching, from giftedness in public speaking. E-ffect is more essential than a-ffect. Teaching involves talking, but it is not primarily about lecturing.
A person may be quite an effective facilitator of learning yet lacking to some degree in rhetorical skills. Effective teaching is evidenced by student engagement and learning. An excellent lecturer who avoids student contact is by no means better qualified than an excellent mentor who effectively engages students as fellow learners.
Insist on it, improve on it
Sadly, many well-credentialed, spiritually infectious, and professionally competent individuals either lack the gift of teaching or, more commonly, have neglected to devote themselves to mastering principles of teaching and learning. This is to some extent a remediable deficit, but one you cannot afford to ignore.
If you identify an otherwise highly desirable faculty candidate with a deficit in communication skills, make an investment in their professional development and insist upon measureable improvement. But remember this old adage, you can’t make up in training what you lack in selection. If the person’s track record reveals little aptitude and attitude toward improving communication, take a pass and keep looking.
Simply put, if your goal is to build your faculty’s effectiveness, not its collective resumé, you will need to include evidence of high capacity for communication in your faculty screening, assessment, retention and advancement.
Five faculty filters
To my list of critical faculty selection criteria that has thus far included credentials (first but, in many ways, least important), contagious character, competence (i.e., comprehensive and current grasp of teaching discipline), and communication, I add one more: compatibility.
The folly of a faculty misfit
I am an inveterate bargain hunter. I sometimes troll clearance racks looking for a gem of a pair of slacks at a price that is too hard to resist. Sometimes the price tag seems so scandalously irresistible I compromise on the comfort. But it never lasts. I’m embarrassed to admit how many items of clothing that have gone from my closet to charity over the years because I finally faced up to the fact that discomfort precluded me from wearing them much.
What does fit have to do with faculty? Everything. Faculty members should be selected and retained on the basis of their strong fit with a college community’s beliefs, values, and ethos. I doubt you will disagree, but I never cease to be astonished how easily we become enamored with the urgency of a vacancy or the glittering resume of a prospect such that we throw aside this essential consideration. No matter the urgency or allure, a faculty vacancy is far less damaging than a bad fit.
The power of the implicit curriculum
Faculty is a collective noun. Superior faculty members must be able to engage institutional colleagues and students in shared governance, educational collaboration, and conflict resolution. Your faculty culture and community comprises a powerful implicit curriculum relative to what your students will learn and what they will replicate in their future workplace, community life, and team leadership patterns.
Faculty credentials and capabilities, no matter how incandescent, cannot offset the damage that occurs when an institution’s “hidden curriculum” in spirituality and leadership is filled with dissonance. Make sure your faculty prospects truly fit. If you don’t, I assure you, life will become uncomfortable for you and many others.
Once more from the top …
Here is my central thesis:
I believe an educational institution’s missional success ultimately depends, not on its executive leadership, but on its faculty.
Neglect this priority at the peril of inevitable mission drift.
One more time, what criteria should guide your faculty selection process?
Credentials (your first filter but least important factor)
Contagious character
Competence
Communication
Compatibility
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Everybody talkin’ about heaven ain’t goin’ there …
A familiar Negro Spiritual observes, Everybody talkin’ ‘bout heaven ain’t goin’ there. The same sentiment applies to the subject of worldview integration. A great deal of lip service is paid in Christian education to “integration of faith and learning” or “Christian worldview formation.” But, to borrow the words of the familiar Spiritual: Everybody talkin’ about integration ain’t doin’ it.
And that gap between talk and walk constitutes a Christian education failure of the highest order. In fact, I believe that the faculty selection and development priority most critical and consequential relative to your claim to be an institution of distinctively Christ-centered education is biblical/theological worldview integration.
Commitment to “integration of faith and learning” represents an admirable sentiment. But it will remain just that—sentiment, not substance—unless faculty members acquire the requisite knowledge and develop proficiency in the intellectual pursuits that make true integration possible. Your faculty ain’t goin’ there unless you sustain the vision for it and provide the necessary encouragement and opportunities.
Effectiveness for a Christian educational institution’s faculty members demands genuine proficiency in three areas: (a) proficiency in one’s academic/professional discipline; (b) proficiency in learning principles and teaching practices; and (c) proficiency in biblical/theological knowledge and integration. The typical beginning faculty member’s academic preparation focuses on only the first of those three and, in relatively rare cases, the second. In this post, I want to home in upon the third.
Lacking ingredients, lacking integration
Integration presupposes there are substantial and roughly equal subject area ingredients to integrate. When a person lacks substantive biblical/theological preparation, it follows that substantive and sound integration is unlikely to occur. No amount of wishing and improvising will allow you to produce a cake if you lack half of the essential ingredients.
The same goes for biblical worldview integration. If your faculty members possess only half the necessary ingredients, it is impossible to produce the desired outcome.
So, what should you do about this deficit of essential ingredients if you’re really serious about your claim that integration of faith and learning is among your chief educational distinctives? For starters, I recommend that you adopt as a standard faculty employment criterion that the academic preparation of each member of your faculty includes substantial formal biblical/theological study. I can almost hear your protest audibly right here from my laptop keyboard: That is an exceedingly high bar! Yes, it is, but so is the claim that you distinctively offer biblical worldview integration. Nevertheless, perhaps requiring all faculty hires to have engaged in formal biblical/theological studies is unrealistic and unreachable for you. For one thing, you have likely already hired faculty members that don’t meet this criterion.
Okay, so cling to the ideal but live in the real. Since it is likely that despite your highest intentions at least some of your faculty hires will lack formal academic preparation in biblical/theological studies, you should make it a priority to allocate the time and funding necessary for them to acquire it as soon as possible. At the institution in which I served for three decades, we paid the tuition for new faculty members who lacked formal biblical theological studies to earn at least a post-graduate certificate in Bible. They repaid the cost of our investment by the “forgiveness” of their debt for our investment over a three-year period.
Should you anticipate resistance? By all means. Telling an otherwise admirably and impeccably prepared scholar that their academic preparation is lacking is not for the faint of heart. You will have some convincing to do. But if you’re serious about integration you can and should make the case. A sincere, but largely superficial “Sunday School” level of biblical understanding, hermeneutical acumen, and theological scaffolding is simply inadequate to support meaningful integration. If faculty members refuse to submit to your insistence that they need further formal education, they cannot be a mission fit for any institution that purports to excel in integration of faith and learning. As harsh as it sounds, get the wrong people off the bus.
Key building blocks
What, then, are some key building blocks of biblical/theological worldview integration? This is a blog post, not a book. Here I can only offer some ideas that I hope will prime the pump of your thinking. Allow me simply to posit that true integration requires a faculty member to comprehend and critique biblically at least the following aspects of their scholarly or professional discipline:
Epistemology
What are the prevailing orthodoxies among scholars and practitioners related to this discipline as to what can be known?
What comprises appropriate means of testing and validating truth claims within this field of study?
To what extent do correspondence-empirical or constructivist truth claim commitments predominate?
Disciplinary belief core consensus
What key ideas, theories, vocabulary, definitions, conclusions are embraced by virtually the entire community of scholars and students of this discipline?
To what extent does each of these key elements correspond to or contradict biblical propositions?
Competing beliefs/theories
What are the major competing theories and beliefs (i.e., “schools of thought”) various segments of disciplinary scholars adhere to and advocate?
Theoretical foundations of key methodological approaches
What theoretical grounding underlies major methodologies of research and practice in this field?
How would you critique established and emerging methodologies biblically and theologically?
What methodological parameters and cautions are warranted on the basis of foundational biblical/theological commitments?
When a faculty member can provide cogent evidence of their grasp of each of the above and coherent and congruent biblical answers to each of the above, they are capable of contributing meaningfully to the promise you are making to your students and your other stakeholders. Until they can, I am duty bound to tell you, everybody talkin’ about integration ain’t doin’ it.
Ralph Enlow is the Board Chair for the International Alliance for Christian Education