WHAT HATH BUSINESS TO DO WITH A LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION?

In a recent number of Christianity Today it was announced that Ken Blanchard, business guru and author of The One Minute Manager and The One Minute Apology has now become one of the saviors of Grand Canyon College, Phoenix, AZ. (hereafter, GCC)

In the report he is quoted as saying that as part of the reorganization of GCC on a for-profit basis, “The bad news is the university will no longer be run for the benefit of the faculty. The good news is you'll be getting paid, and paid well.” The evangelicals have been running their religion like a business since the early 18th century, so Blanchard’s comments should not come as a great shock to anyone, but the worrisome thing is that this sort of attitude (and its reception among evangelicals) may forebode evil for non-profit religious schools elsewhere in the world.

Education Downloaded?

One of the evil ideas propounded in the article is the oxymoron “online education.” As proof of the success of GCC’s reorganization, they tout their growing number of online students. They also point to growth in their on-campus enrollment. Considered proportionately, the growth of online students, however, far outpaced the growth in number of traditional, on-campus students. As disturbing as it might be to those of us who still think that a flesh and blood professor is superior to Gnostic, disembodied, video-streaming lecturers, online education is a natural step for Jacksonian, democratic, lowest-common-denominator evangelicals. After all, they reduced the Protestant liturgies to the sawdust trail and from there things have only become worse (have you ever heard “Shine, Jesus Shine?”). This strategy is but one more validation of Mark Noll’s indictment of evangelical the mind.

Just because Americans will pay for a service, even a poor one, does that mean a school should offer it? Does “distance education” really educate? According to an issue of the Chronicles of Higher Education of a few years ago, secular schools seem to be abandoning “distance ed” at the very moment evangelicals are embracing it, precisely because it does not work as an pedagogical strategy.

Bow-Ties Bad, Power Ties Good

Of course, what is best for the students does not seem to be the primary interest of Blanchard et al. For them, education is a product to be marketed and in market economies, the market rules. If the market demands user-friendly, electronically packaged, high-speed “education” then that is what market driven schools must provide.

Further, Blanchard’s shot across the bow of the GCC faculty certainly lets them know where they stand in this brave new academic world. Faculty at GCC are now highly paid clerks working in cost and time efficient cubicles, but if production quotas lag, watch out. It is as if Blanchard and GCC have said, there is not one square inch over which the market has not said, “This is mine.”

It’s the Bishop

GCC is not the only institution trying a market-driven approach to education. It is occurring at some level in many evangelical schools and in some Presbyterian schools. At least two Presbyterian seminaries now offer degrees by distance education (accrediting agencies that are supposed to be the watchdogs for academic integrity bear considerable blame for approving such schemes). Another perhaps less obvious response to the evangelical marketplace is the rise of seminaries created as the educational arm of the local mega church. On the surface, a close working relation between church and school would seem to be ideal, and it does have some features that commend it. Students do not have to move away from the local congregation and most agree that pastoral training should occur in close relation to congregations.

On closer inspection, however, there are serious liabilities. First, it is not at all clear that the local church has the vocation to provide a specialized liberal arts education to anyone, let alone ministers. The basic vocation of a Presbyterian congregation is to minister Word and Sacrament and discipline. A congregation does well to manage those tasks. Second, few local churches have the necessary equipment to offer a serious liberal arts education. Church libraries and busy local pastors are no replacement for real libraries and real scholars. Would you go to a dentist trained by his local dentist or by a few local dentists who did a little teaching on the side?

What Blanchard and other market-driven evangelicals might want to know is that Christian educators tried this approach before, between 3^rd and 12^th centuries. In the post-Apostolic world, Christian education began with catechetical schools that were associated with a local congregation and supervised by a bishop. Those catechetical schools typically featured one teacher (e.g., Origen in Alexandria!) and attracted pupils from the region.

With the centralization of ecclesiastical authority in the papacy and in regional dioceses, cathedrals became regional centers of ecclesiastical leadership and cathedral schools replaced catechetical schools. These schools also typically featured one teacher (e.g., Anselm of Canterbury) who attracted students from across Europe.

Both the catechetical and cathedral schools suffered from serious structural problems. It was impossible, even in the middle ages, for one teacher to be omni-competent. In response to the problems inherent in the cathedral school model, scholars began to congregate around monasteries located in Paris and Oxford. A few scholars attracted more and over the next two centuries, two of Europe’s greatest universities were born. Surrounded by other teachers, scholars began to specialize in theology or the arts. From the 12^th century, Europe’s great universities produced some of the West’s most important theological and humanist literature for the next five centuries.

Messy Presbyterianism

Part of what Blanchard is selling is a paradigm shift in Christian education away from a sort of Presbyterian model to an Episcopalian model. In the latter, decisions are made by one person, ostensibly for the benefit of the entire institution. The Bishop (i.e., the administrator) makes the decisions and authority flows from God to the Bishop to the people. It is more efficient with time and, perhaps, with money, but is efficiency the highest good? I think not. Remember, Hitler made the trains run on time, but many of them were carrying Jews to concentration camps. The modern history of Presbyterian education should make us wary about educational efficiency and market demands. Were these not two of the chief forces behind the reorganization of Princeton Seminary in 1929?

Blanchard (like all efficiency experts since the early 20^th century) decries the Presbyterian model, but those who value learning should not discard quickly its virtues. In the Episcopalian model, the bishop decides what should be learned, but bishops have rarely been learned. The university saved education from the bishops. In the Presbyterian model, it is teachers, those who have actually given some thought and attention to the substance and form of education, who decide what students should know, what is to be taught and how.

If we asked the faculty at GCC, they might take issue with Blanchard’s claim that, heretofore, GCC existed “for the benefit of the faculty.” Blanchard’s evocation of populist American sentiment against tenured University professors is a classic example of the red herring. Can anyone argue that the ascendancy of the efficiency expert has been good for education? Once great universities are steadily reduced to glorified vo-tech schools. The rise of storefront “universities” may mean raises for busy professionals, but because a mouse finishes a maze does not mean he is educated. The Presbyterian model is not efficient, but at least it did create the conditions for genuine learning, which is what schools are supposed to do.