Faculty Development Conference explores effective teaching, research, writing, and faith integration
FORT WORTH -- The International Alliance for Christian Education’s fifth-annual Faculty Development Conference featured 21 speakers and 150 participants from institutions and organizations across the United States and as far away as Africa.
The conference, hosted at the Riley Center on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, featured six plenary sessions, a panel discussion and 12 breakout sessions from Wednesday, May 21 to Friday, May 23.
President David S. Dockery says faculty development has been a key goal for the organization since IACE’s inception in 2019.
“Our prayer is that new friendships will be started, that existing friendships will be enhanced, and that the distinctive missions of IACE campuses will be strengthened,” Dockery said.
The plenary sessions focused on academic research and writing, effective classroom teaching, academic freedom within a confessional campus context, essential campus conversations, faculty identity, and institutional mission and identity.
Matt Hall and Chris Leland of Biola University delivered a presentation titled, “Faith, Teaching and Learning.” Hall said a growing list of best practices for faculty can be burdensome, and often miss key points.
“I am not opposed to best practices, but skeptical of them especially when they are invoked like a blunt instrument,” Hall said. “We want faculty who love college students and are passionate about their disciplines, but above all else, love God with all their heart, strength, soul and mind.”
Thomas Kidd of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary addressed research, academic writing and publications.
He advised his audience to build a sustainable work life by focusing on important projects and declining smaller assignments that occupy time but have little overall significance.
For writers, he urged adopting a simple goal that many aspiring authors ignore: hit your deadlines.
“On full writing days, I want to hit 1000 words,” Kidd said. “Editors love people who hit deadlines. I hit my deadlines. I wouldn’t be able to do it without keeping track of my daily output.”
Leah Zuidema, vice president for academic affairs at Dordt University, addressed teaching effectiveness by urging faculty to make every moment count.
“Plan for students to do the heavy lifting,” Zuidema said. “Plan to spend time mentoring students. Plan to teach by giving great feedback as often as you can. Plan for students to have rhythms of work and rest.”
For the first time at this IACE event, academic freedom was addressed at length in a plenary session. Melinda Stephens, provost at Geneva College, asked the audience how familiar they were with their institution’s academic freedom policy. Only 10 percent could answer “very familiar.”
She urged faculty to become familiar with the policy but also to weigh academic freedom issues with the greater mission of the institution.
“We must never forfeit our institutional and confessional commitments and mission,” Stephens said.
The final plenary session Friday morning was dedicated to institutional mission and identity. Thomas Mach, vice president for academics at Cedarville University, put forth the argument for Christian institutions to remain anchored to their theological convictions.
“When defined as ‘Christian,’ there will be elements that are common among them all,” Mach said. “We should not shy away from elements, however, that make us distinct from one another for they demonstrate faithfulness to our understanding of the Word of God.”
Mark Eckel, executive director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, addressed Christian worldview in the classroom in light of an academic freedom that allows for examining a variety of viewpoints.
“We must stand for freedom. When you shut out points of view, that’s not right,” Eckel said. “But if we’re not training students to think biblically, we are leaving them open to be pummeled by the philosophies of the world.”
Breakout sessions focused on timely, urgent matters that impact faculty. One examined “Teaching, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence.”
For the first time, breakout sessions included a look at student life and spiritual formation, led by Bryan Carrier of Union University.
Other breakouts on Thursday morning examined enhancing institutional mission and honors programs.
Afternoon breakouts grouped faculty members by academic discipline: arts and music, Biblical, theological and philosophical studies, education, business and professional studies, spiritual formation, humanities, and healthcare, engineering and sciences.
Academic leaders at Dallas Theological Seminary led a panel discussion Thursday afternoon titled “A Faculty Development Case Study.”
Panelists traced the development of their faculty development, which they said started in a “just figure it out” phase and ended with an integrated plan that encompassed full onboarding and campus culture considerations.
They said building the entire program took 18 months and required buy-in across campus.
“We literally had 40 meetings with various divisions and people to put everything in place,” panelist Jennifer Pina said.
Plenary session five featured conversations with new faculty, academic leadership, and the work of student life offices.
In the academic leadership session, IACE board chair Ralph Enlow encouraged the emerging leaders to embrace five key priorities: Educational philosophy, Mission-fit faculty, Resource allocation and alignment, Curriculum, and Synergy with President and C-Suite.
He mentioned that planning efforts frequently lack focus.
“If you’re accumulating possibilities, you don’t have a plan,” Enlow said. “A plan eliminates possibilities.”
On the anniversary of the fifth faculty development conference, Dockery took time before the afternoon sessions Thursday to recount the positive IACE initiatives that started during previous Faculty Development Conferences.
He cited reading group sessions for three different faculty categories. A session led by Donny Mathis of North Greenville University was conducted Wednesday morning. The groups read books and articles together and consider how the information could benefit their campuses.
The IACE podcast started as a goal in a previous conference, as did the IACE academic journal and the new IACE video project which illuminates important discussions and issues in Christian higher education.
The group’s next meeting in January 2026 will mark the seventh annual IACE conference, which will begin January 27 with a pre-conference session that looks back on the 1976 Newsweek magazine cover story on evangelicalism. It declared 1976 “the year of the evangelical.” The pre-conference will examine the state of evangelicalism 50 years later.
At several points during the conference, Dockery recognized the sponsors who made the meeting possible.
The Platinum Sponsor of the conference is Impact 360 Institute; Bronze Sponsors are B&H Publishing Group and Crossway; The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, International Mission Board, and nxt-pg.com.
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Mark Kahler is director of communication for IACE