FTE "On Call" Blog

Trace Haythorn

Former President, The Fund for Theological Education

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August 25, 2009

College Rankings

They’re back! Every year about this time as a new recruitment season begins, U.S. News and World Reports presents their latest rankings of U.S. colleges and universities. And while I understand the timing as it relates to the admissions cycle, I also have to wonder how many new students take time to look and see how the school they’ve just moved into and written checks to and completed a schedule for ranks among others. How many hearts will rise? How many will sink? And how many minds will waste time coming up with rational defenses for why their school sits where it does in this educational poll of polls?

It didn’t take long for denominational news services to jump on the story. One group proudly boasts two schools in the top fifty. Of course, we could look at how many of the top fifty were founded by denominations but have long since gone their own way (note the top two in particular). I cannot help but wonder how different the educational experience on those campuses would be today if they maintained a closer relationship with their denominational parents. Indeed, how different would our nation or world be if such influence were still present?

This is not the sad bemoaning of a mainline pastor as he assesses the seemingly endless decline of our institutional structures. This is, rather, the voice of one committed to helping young people explore deeply the questions that matter most in their lives, the questions that matter most to our world and the universe. It is precisely during this stage of life that such questions are the most rich, and the answers that young people try out are often engaged most passionately. Of course there are mistakes. Of course there are new directions explored and taken. And of course, love and hope and wonder and fear will dance together in ways that will lead to amazing insight, impulsive action, life-changing events, and all-night conversations.

So I wonder just how many schools on the list of the top 100 foster and environment where such wonder can be nurtured? In his recent book How We Decide, Jonah Lester cites research that shows that young people who are congratulated on their hard work will tend to take better academic risks and will ask deeper questions about life in general than those young people who are told how wonderful they are (for the latter group has too much at stake to risk their “wonderful” status). What if schools were ranked similarly, for their willingness to engage in the really hard, messy questions of life? What if the rankings reflected the kinds of efforts schools made to address questions like peace, climate change, hunger, poverty, and justice? What if these became the categories upon which we ranked our schools? How would they fare?

Of course, many institutions are committed to such values, and of course, these values are contentious within themselves. But I wonder how higher education might learn from elementary education. My children have both experienced “expeditionary learning,” where a theme guided the content in all subjects, and young people were encouraged to make connections within and across disciplines. Some schools already engage in such practices, but they are often more difficult to position in relation to their peers as their approach doesn’t lend itself as conveniently to U.S. News’ criteria.

I’m particularly interested in what theological education might look like if we took such a step. Rather than teaching in what have been essentially disciplinary silos (with occasional opportunities for co-teaching), what if we organized seminary curricula around central themes that an institution deemed most critical for the church and the world today? Imagine the possibilities!