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dissertation entitled

A DELICATE BALANCE: FAITH, STATUS, AND MARKETING AT A

MENNONITE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE

presented by

Daniel Koop Liechty

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph . D . degree in Educational Administrat ion

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A DELICATE BALANCE: FAITH, STATUS, AND MARKETING AT A
MENNONITE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE

By

Daniel Koop Liechty

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Educational Administration

2000

 

 

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ABSTRACT

A DELICATE BALANCE: FAITH, STATUS, AND MARKETING AT A
MENNONITE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE

By

Daniel Koop Liechty

This is a study of Goshen College, a small, Mennonite liberal arts
college. More specifically, this is a study of the college's relationship with its
supporting denomination, the Mennonite Church, and the work of the college’s
new president. The researcher surveyed and interviewed the teaching and
administrative faculty at Goshen College concerning their attitudes toward the
relationship between the college and the denomination. According to the
academic literature on the subject, the consensus view is that market pressures
have forced church colleges to disengage their denominational ties, but this is
not the case for Goshen College. The college president and others on campus
are convinced that the path to financial and enrollment stability is through
staying connected to the Mennonite Church, not through cutting ties.

Secularization theorists typically treat supporting churches as static
entities. This study demonstrates a different pattern because many on the
Goshen College campus believe that parts of the Mennonite Church are, in fact,
“secularizing” while educators on campus are trying to preserve their religious
tradition. This perceived shift in the church comes at time of institutional
change for the college. The president is attempting to make the college more

prestigious in order to appeal to a Mennonite market increasingly interested in

status, while at the same time seeking to make connections with other religious
markets that may be sympathetic to the mission of the college. The result is a
conflict that has at stake the future of the relationship between Goshen College
and the Mennonite Church. The future of this case will be an indicator of the

viability of college/denominational associations.

Copyright by
Daniel Koop Liechty
2000

To Jill, Emma and Elsie

I would not have done it without you.

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ACKNOWLEDMENTS

Until I took Dr. David Labaree’s Social Analysis of Educational Policy
course in the spring of 1998, l was not sure that I would ever finish this degree.
The course was fascinating, but more importantly, Dr. Labaree took me under
his wing and showed me the kind of support, personally, educationally and
financially, about which a graduate student can only dream. He has been
prompt in his feedback, honest and accurate in his criticism, and always
encouraging. His ability to guide me in an area of education that is not really
his own is astounding and speaks volumes regarding his abilities as an
educational scholar and teacher. Each of my other committee members was
chosen because of my positive experiences in their classrooms. Dr. Stephen
Kaagan taught me lessons about integrity and honesty in leadership. Dr.
Steven Weiland provided an outstanding learning experience in his Seminar in
Adult Learning course, and Dr. Douglas Campbell gave me a solid foundation
in qualitative methodology. Each of them graciously agreed to serve on my
committee and I appreciate the feedback and support they have offered me
over the years.

This research would not have been possible except for the willingness of
those at Goshen College to participate. Keith Graber Miller gave me invaluable
advice and encouragement throughout the process. President Showalter was
very open with her thoughts, gracious in her support, and generous with her

precious time. All of those who agreed to be interviewed gave me their time

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and showed great trust and vulnerability time and again. I appreciated their
openness and generosity while meeting with me, and regardless of their
varying viewpoints, I was struck by a common strong commitment to Goshen
College. Finally, there are many on campus who helped in smaller ways with
information, advice, criticism, or by returning the survey. Those who I must
acknowledge are: Rich Gerig, Galen Graber, Howard Kauffman, Stan Miller,
Melba Nunemaker, John D. Roth, Michael Sherer and Joe Springer.

I am thankful to my family for their support and willingness to walk
through this experience with me. My wife, Jill Koop Liechty, was supportive of
me and my ideas through thick and thin. I truly could not have done this
degree without her help. She has been my toughest critic, a tireless proof-
reader and wonderful mother to our two young girls, and I thank her for
affording me this opportunity. When my oldest daughter, Emma, was asked in
a playgroup whether or not she had a swing-set in her backyard and she
responded “I don’t have a backyard," l was struck by the sacrifices that were
made by my family for this degree. While we have lived on a shoestring these
past eight years, I am grateful that graduate school offered me the flexibility to
spend time with my family that life in “the real world” couldn't have, and
provided our family the chance to live in Cherry Lane, where we were able to
live amongst so many wonderful friends from all over the world. My daughters,
Emma and Elsie, will likely not remember much about these years, but I hope
that they will begin to understand the value that education can play in enriching

one's life and the lives of others with whom you have contact.

vii

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Many thanks go to my parents and Jill’s parents. Russel and Marjorie
Liechty gave their lives to Mennonite education and showed me that working for
a church institution is much more than just a job. It truly is a mission. They
instilled a love for learning and a love for the church that have served me well.
Without their example, I would not be at this place today. I also need to thank
Jill’s parents, Henry and Sheila Koop, for the emotional and financial support
they showed us throughout this process. We could always count on a treat for
the girls, some groceries and a bag of diapers when Grandma and Grandpa
Koop visited. Their love and interest in our family helped make our time here
less harrowing.

We have been very lucky and thankful to have a supportive local faith
community. We have gained a great deal of support and encouragement from
our Mennonite Fellowship here at Michigan State. John and (“Mama”) Rose
Snyder, in particular, have been wonderful friends and valuable mentors for us
these past eight years, providing support in ways that made graduate school
much easier.

I have also been fortunate to have several very positive graduate
assistantship experiences. From my years in Residence Life at Holmes Hall, to
my research assistantships in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, my work
has provided invaluable lessons and opportunities to practice what I have been
learning in the classroom. I need to thank my bosses, Drs. Shirley Johnson,
Margot Kurtz and Margaret Aguwa of the Department of Family and Community

Medicine for their support, wise advice, and caring interest in getting not just

viii

me, but my family through this degree. My other bosses in the College of
Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Development Program, Karen Busch and Sandro
Pinheiro, have also been wonderful friends, colleagues and fellow students. I
have been blessed to have more than just a job in graduate school.

Finally, one of the most gratifying experiences of graduate school has
been the friendships that have been made throughout the process. We have
made many wonderful friends who will always be a reminder to us of the
positive nature of a graduate school experience. Chris and Sarah Theule
Lubienski were always good for a game of walleyball or cards, but more often
as sounding boards and as spiritual, and ethical challengers to us. They are
living proof that you don’t need to be “ethnically Mennonite” to be faithful
Anabaptists and that people who love their pets are also sure to be great
parents. We are pleased to belong to the same profession and church as
these two fine people. Lance, Beth, Vada and Jimmy Lewis have also been an
integral part of our graduate school years. Lance and I started together in the
Higher Education doctoral program and we found that while we come from very
different backgrounds, we have much in common. Our families have become
“attached at the hip” and we will always remember the good times we have
shared together, their great generosity, good conversation and the sharing of
the ups and downs of parenting and “dissertating” together.

I'm sure there are others who I have forgotten to thank and I apologize
for that. Graduate school has been a fantastic experience, in large part

because of the people mentioned above, and many who were not.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES xiii

LIST OF FIGURES xiv
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC AND THE RESEARCHER 1

Introduction to the Topic 1

The Cultural Context 5

Introduction to the Researcher 7

The “Outside-Insider" 10

How My Thinking has Changed Through the Research Process ----------- 12
CHAPTER 2

THE INSTITUTION 19

A Brief History of Goshen College 19

Goshen College Today 21

Enrollment 22

Doctoral Degree Production 25

Financial Standing 26

Anabaptist History 29

The Reformation 30

The Anabaptist Vision 32

German, Dutch and Austrian Anabaptists 33

The Schleitheim Articles 34

1. Baptism 35

2. Excommunication 35

3. Breaking of Bread 35

4. Separation from the World 35

5. Shepherds in the Church 35

6. The Sword 36

7. The Oath 36

Loss of Leadership 37

The Taking of Munster 38

Menno Simons 4O

Persecution Slows 4O

Splits and Emigration 41

The Supremacy of the New Testament 42

Study Service Term 43
CHAPTER 3

THE RESEARCH PROCESS 47

Introduction 47

Phase One: The Questionnaire 47

 

Use of E-mail for a Survey 50

 

52

 

Phase Two: The Interviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phase Three: Documents 52

A Short Note on Quoting Respondents (Confidentiality Concerns) ----- 53

The Political Nature of (This) Social Research 53

Faculty Response 57
CHAPTER 4

THE SECULARIZATION OF CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE

MENNONITE CHURCH 60

Introduction 60

The Secularization of Christian Higher Education 60

The Maintenance of a Strong Church/College Relationship 70

1. Active Part of the Denomination 7O

2. Balancing Faith and Learning 71

3. Strong Representation in All Components 71

4. Relationship Proclaimed Openly 72

5. Students Committed to Church Mission of School 72

6. Teaching as Key to Relationship 72

7. Curriculum Crucial to Relationship 72

8. Type of Interaction on Campus Important 73

9. Careful Funding Patterns Developed 73

10. Teach how to Learn and Live 73

11. Important Service Mission Outside of Church Relationship---— 73

The “Secularization” of the Mennonite Church 75

Conclusion 81
CHAPTER 5

THE COLLEGE'S FIT WITH CONSENSUS SECULARIZAITON MODELS ------ 84

Background 84

Burtchaell's Stages: An Analytical Framework 85

Stage One: Intellectual Stagnation 86

Stage Two: Raising Academic Standards 101

Conclusion 115

Stage Three: Estrangement 115

Stage Four: Shifting Loyalties 117

Stage Five: Disenfranchisement 121

Stage Six: Shifting Identifiers 126

Redekop Revisited 127

The College Response to a Shifting Church 135

Stage Seven: Christianity is "Softened" 144

Stage Eight: Marginalization of Religious Studies 155

Stage Nine: Acquiescence to Secularization 159

Conclusion 166

 

xi

CHAPTER 6

THE COMPLEXITIES OF LEADERSHIP IN A RELGIOUS INSTITUTION ----- 170

 

Introduction

 

President Showalter as a Leader

 

The Symbolic Nature of Academic Prestige

 

Colleges as Organized Anarchies

 

Leadership in a Religious/Political Context

 

Followers 'Have 3 Say'

 

Listening is Key

 

Show Me Your Leaders

 

True Leadership is a Call to Service

 

Leaders are People Too

 

Organizational Life can be Ugly

CHAPTER 7

 

FAITH, STATUS AND MARKETING

APPENDIX A
QUESTIONNAIRE COVER LETTER

 

APPENDIX B

 

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

 

Second Cover Letter

 

Demographics
Faculty Attitudes About the College/Church Relationship

 

 

Communalism and Traditionalism

 

Maintenance of a Strong Church/College Relationship

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

xii

170
171
180
185
192
193
194
196
197
199
200

203

212

214
215
215
219
223
224

229

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 3.1
RESPONSE RATES BY MAILING AND CATEGORY OF FACULTY -------------- 49

TABLE 5.1
TWO MAIN REASONS FACULTY MEMBER CHOSE TO WORK AT GC ------ 120

xiii

LIST OF FIGURES

 

 

 

 

FIGURE 2.1
FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT (FTE) ENROLLMENT NUMBERS 1980-99 ----------- 22
FIGURE 2.2
FRESHMAN GRADE POINT AVERAGES (GPA) 1988-99 23
FIGURE 2.3
FRESHMAN SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TEST (SAT) AVERAGES 1988-99 ----- 24
FIGURE 2.4
ANNUAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO GOSHEN COLLEGE 1989-99 27
FIGURE 2.5
GOSHEN COLLEGE ENDOWMENT 1989-99 28
FIGURE 6.1
RULES FOR LEADERSHIP IN AN ORGANIZED ANARCHY 188
FIGURE 6.2

 

LEADERSHIP SKILLS FOR A CHARISMATIC LEADER 190

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC
AND THE RESEARCHER

 

Introduction to the Topic

This is a study about a relationship between a college and its supporting
denomination. It is a study about an institution's efforts to improve its academic
status while remaining faithful to its religious heritage. It is a study of a church
that is perceived to be in flux. It is a study about the role of religion and
religious institutions in a market society. Finally, it is a study about a new
college president and her attempts to find a delicate balance between these
complex concerns. The president is Dr. Shirley H. Showalter, the institution is
Goshen College, the religious denomination is Mennonite, and the society is
the US.

In 1995, the Mennonite Board of Education, the governing body for the
Mennonite Church colleges in the US.1 commissioned a study of pastor and
lay-leader views towards the colleges out of a concern for the future of the
relationship between the church and colleges. The results of this study, the
Gideon Project, suggest that from the perspective of the church, the
relationship is not as healthy as it could be. There is concern about the spiritual

health of the campuses, and the way that the Mennonite colleges approach

 

‘ There are 28 Mennonite post-secondary educational institutions in North America (Sawatsky,
1997). This research focuses on one of these colleges, Goshen College. The Mennonite
Church denomination has three colleges. These are: Eastern Mennonite University in
Harrisonburg, Virginia, Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana and Hesston College in Hesston,
Kansas. Hesston College is the lone junior college amongst these colleges. The other two
are accredited, bachelor degree granting institutions.

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political/social issues (Wiese, 19963). As Wiese notes, “Managing the reality,
or perception, that the colleges are out of step with lifestyle and spiritual
expectations of the church may be the key to increasing support” (15).

This message from the church came at a time of transition for Goshen
College. In the spring of 1997, Goshen College inaugurated its 14’“ president,
Dr. Shirley H. Showalter. President Showalter began her presidency as some
indications of denominational support were waning, and the college had started
to consider looking proactively outside the church for students. This research
is, in part, a case study of President Showalter’s attempt to affect cultural
change. The notion that leaders (particularly college presidents) can effect
cultural change was investigated by Neumann (1995). She studied the
transition of a new college president into his role as leader and shaper of
organizational culture. She found in her case-study that a leader can change
the organizational culture in ways that dramatically affect life for organizational
participants. Neumann warns, however, that change should not be viewed as
positive simply because it is taking place. It can be either for the good or to the
detriment of the organization. She also notes that the perspectives of more
than those attempting to make the changes should be considered in future
research. Neumann posits that those who are not in leadership roles may have
differing views about the change that is occurring. For this reason, this
research, in part, focuses on the impact of President Showalter’s leadership as
perceived by past and present teaching and administrative faculty at Goshen

College. However, it is not a leadership study. It is, in part, a study of a leader.

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The results of this research will not be generalizable to some grand leadership
theory. Rather, they demonstrate how a leader in a specific context and role
attempts to negotiate matters of faith and status in a market setting.

The Mennonite Church is a denomination that has maintained a
relatively strong connection with its colleges. There is some concern though,
both in the church and on the campuses, that the relationship is not as strong
as it should be. The colleges depend on the church for support in the form of
students, financial support and theological direction. The church depends on
the colleges to provide an educated, committed group of future denominational
members and leaders, and as an arm of outreach to the broader world. As
Kauffman and Driedger (1991 ) found in their study of the Mennonites in North
America, those who graduate from Mennonite Colleges are more likely to
actively participate at all levels of church and denominational life, and through
participation in the myriad of denominational service organizations.

The Mennonite Church and its colleges are at a crossroads. Will they
work together to understand and stabilize their relationship? Or, will they follow
the path that so many other denominations and colleges have traveled before
and grow apart? The consensus in the secularization literature is that market
pressures make denominational affiliation very difficult to maintain (Cohen,
1998; Brubacher and Rudy, 1997; Hofstadter, 1996; Kingsley, 1992;
Springsted, 1988; Jencks and Riesman, 1968; and Rudolph, 1962). It is also
theorized that this process of secularization has happened in the past with the

unwitting approval of the college faculty themselves (Burtchaell, 1991a, 1991 b).

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This would indicate that for those colleges that are still holding on to a
relationship with their denomination, knowledge of historical patterns and better
data about the relationship could help to stave off the unwanted effects of
secularization. It is also clear that better understanding of the potential of
markets (both secular and religious) will be crucial. Many small denominational
colleges which have dropped their denominational ties because of market
pressure have not survived. As we will see, this may have as much to do with
the nature of denominational change as it does with market pressure.

In 1987, Bontrager conducted a higher education market analysis of the
Mennonite Church. Bontrager’s (1987) most salient finding in relation to this
research is that a “more desirable ‘atmosphere’" is one of the factors most
commonly given for attendance by Mennonite students at non-Mennonite
colleges and universities (174). This rather nebulous concept of “atmosphere”
is having an impact on college choice. Wiese (1996a) found similar concerns
among his respondents. Even lay-leaders and pastors from the most
supportive Mennonite Churches mention that “Christian lifestyle on campus”
and “spiritual atmosphere on campus” are common concerns. President
Showalter participated in the Gideon Project consultations. In my dissertation
proposal, I wrote, “President Showalter has the difficult challenge of trying to
keep Goshen College aligned with denominational values” (Liechty, 1998, 3). I
have found, in the process of conducting this research, that this is only part of
the story. As I will explain below, the faculty are equally concerned with

keeping the church aligned along traditional denominational values.

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The Cultural Context

While this is a study of a particular religious denomination and an
institution within it, neither of these bodies are shielded from the larger cultural
milieu which surrounds them. North American cultural tensions significantly
impact life in the denomination and on campus. Bell (1992) notes that “the
culture of the United States today Is permissive in its ethos (especially on moral
and sexual issues) and modernist in its willingness to accept new and
innovative and trendy expressions in the arts and literature” (79-80, emphasis
in original). He further says, “politically, the Left (along with part of the Right)
has become isolationist, and its attention has turned not only to domestic
problems but, more, to the debates about the issues of feminism and gender
and about multiculturalism in the schools. Not only politically but intellectually
the world has become centripetal” (Bell, 91).

These cultural trends can certainly be seen in full force on the Goshen
College campus and are debated within the denomination. What becomes less
clear, however, is whether this mirroring of North American cultural debates
comes from outside pressure or longstanding denominational values. For
example, most Mennonites and their Anabaptist2 ancestors traditionally held an
unwavering pacifistic stance. Mennonites have been wildly unpopular during
times of war when the nation has rallied around its troops, and Mennonites

petitioned for, and received conscientious objector status. Of course this

 

2 For a discussion of Anabaptist Theology and History, see Chapter Two.

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changed somewhat during the Vietnam War when it was more widely
acceptable to not support the war effort. But again in the early 19905,
Mennonites found themselves uncomfortably opposing a popular war in Iraq.
This Mennonite peace stance also encapsulates concern for social justice.
Therefore, concern for the issues that Bell raises about gender and racial
equality are part of Anabaptist belief as practiced on Mennonite college
campuses. Certainly, Goshen College gets some of its cues about current
issues from the culture around it, but Anabaptism as it is practiced on campus,
has built into it liberal responses to most issues. As will be reiterated in
Chapter Five, Goshen College, as a Mennonite institution, fits easily and
naturally into these broader cultural discussions. As one teaching faculty
member notes:

There’s been a whole lot in the popular culture that makes being

Mennonite attractive in ways that it wasn’t before. Now it’s pretty

attractive to live a simple life, be in favor of pacifism, protect the

earth...it's the whole Birkenstock sandal thing. It’s become a very
attractive way of life and in a sense we’ve lost our identity

because of it... in a kind of modern way we cannot define

ourselves over and against common culture.

Goshen College not only interacts with American popular and intellectual
culture, it must also negotiate North American higher education markets.
President Showalter has many of the same constraints placed upon her that a
president at any enrollment-driven college would have. However, she also has
the added commitment of staying in relationship with a religious body. She has

pragmatic institutional concerns to consider and an unstable religious

denomination with which to relate. It is clear that the cultural context and higher

education market in which the college must survive impacts the shape and
direction of life on campus.
Introduction to the Researcher

My interest in the relationship between church and college began many
years ago, or perhaps it was begun for me by parents who instilled in me a love
of education and the Mennonite Church. Several months after I was born, my
father returned to Goshen College from graduate school to become the Dean of
Students. I grew up one block from the college, attended College Mennonite
Church, was baptized into the Mennonite Church denomination as an adult,
graduated from Goshen College, worked as a research assistant for a Goshen
professor and went on to become Assistant Director of Admissions. In giving
my history with the church and college, I must explain how these affiliations
affect the way I view the relationship between the two. I absolutely believe that
the college gathers great strength from its Anabaptist roots and passes them on
to its students. Further, I believe that the church and college are in a symbiotic
relationship that is extremely crucial to each. The college is a place where the
church can be confident that its Anabaptist roots are secure. In return, the
college typically has found elements of the church which are extremely
supportive of it, both in sending their young people and in their financial
suppon.

This relationship of inter-dependence is explained well when viewing the
church/college relationship from an ecological perspective. When we view

organizations from this perspective, “It becomes necessary to understand that

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organizations and their environments are engaged in a pattern of co-creation,
where each produces the other” (Morgan, 1986, 69). As I began to read the
literature on church/college relations, I found this ecological perspective
imbedded in much of the writing. Murphy (1991), in his study of presidents at
Catholic universities, found that there was a clear pattern of co—creation.
As spokespersons and disseminators, [presidents] shared their values
with alums and the general public. As monitors they listened for
feedback from the general public and organizational members...ln each
case, the presidents were listening for and receiving feedback on their

values. Values were shared in both directions. In that sense presidents
and organizational members became co—creators of the vision (193).

This pattern of co-creation is also posited in the work of Trotter (1987)
who discusses not only “church-related colleges” but also “college-related
churches.” I believe that the pattern of co-creation also extends beyond the
church/college relationship. Thus, Goshen College and the Mennonite Church
not only impact one another, they are impacted by their members' interactions
with the world around them. Goshen, with its emphasis on service,
international education and cross-cultural understanding, serves our society in
a small, but important way by graduating many students who are both critical
thinkers and have interests beyond their own.

I noted above that I served as Assistant Director of Admissions at
Goshen. As such, I was balanced on the edge of the church/college
relationship. I was aware, often painfully, of the views of some in the
denomination towards the college. Many on campus are quite unconcerned

about the negative image that some in the church have about the college.

 

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Having to intercede between the college and the church made me aware of the
need to be more accommodating to the church in the interest of institutional
survival. At that time, I came to believe that if Goshen wanted to garner more
support from the church, then it had to be open to more factions of the
denomination than had traditionally supported it. In many ways, I had lost sight
of the Anabaptist roots of the college and was more interested in the pragmatic
issue of seeing the place survive.

These glimpses into my history with the institution are given so that the
reader can see from where my interest In this topic came, and how my
experiences have shaped my thinking. I offer these details (and the institutional
ones in the following chapter) because as Becker (1998) writes, they are:

much more important than mere background, not just local

color thrown in to give off a little verisimilitude. They are the

environing conditions under which the things we studied [and the

way we studied them] - the relationships we uncovered, the

general social processes whose discovery we want to brag about

— exist (54, emphasis in original).

While this project has its roots in my upbringing, it began in earnest
during my first year as a doctoral student. In Dr. Anna Neumann’s
Administration and Governance in Higher Education class, I chose to study the
history of the generic church/college relationship and investigate how it might
relate to my own educational history. Further, I was encouraged to think early
in my doctoral program about what topic I might want to study for my

dissertation. I immediately knew that I wanted to study Mennonite Church

member attitudes towards the Mennonite Colleges in the US. To my surprise,

 

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and horror, In the Fall of 1995, as I was reading the denominational magazine
of the Mennonite Church, The Gospel Herald, I read about a research project
(the aforementioned Gideon Project) that was already undenlvay, studying this
very topic. I immediately inquired about whether or not I could attend the
research consultations that were going to be held in Chicago in the Spring of
1996. I did attend, and the consultations were interesting and helpful to me as I
wrote my paper for Dr. Neumann’s class. However, the consultations left me
with the nagging question of where to go with my dissertation research. The
initial research was appropriately focused on the attitudes of the church
members and leaders toward the Mennonite colleges. However, the notion that
a better understanding of the institutions themselves was needed to fully
understand the relationship, was not addressed. I saw this as an opportunity,
and immediately shifted to my current research topic.

The “Outside-Insider”

My understanding of social research, following numerous qualitative and
quantitative research methods and teaching and learning courses, is that it is a
somewhat subjective endeavor. Thus, I do not want the reader to forget that
there is a person with a history, ideas and opinions writing. As Morgan, Frost
and Pondy (1983) note,

Whenever a social scientist studies the social world, he or she

does so upon the basis of assumptions which, though often

implicit and taken for granted, shape the kind of questions which
are asked, and define the mode of investigation adopted (17).

10

 

 

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Someone reading this research project may wonder how a researcher who has
ties such as I do with the institutions (church and college) being studied will
control his or her biases. I think that one of the most effective ways to do this is
to be up-front and honest about my history with the institution and the church.
My “insider” status gave me access to the site, an insider’s understanding of
the issues, and an obligation to share my story.

When I met with President Showalter in the summer of 1999, we
discussed the research process, and my desire to express multiple opinions,
particularly those which appeared to be minority opinions. She voiced concern
that in my attempt to be “fair” to one point of view (a minority one), I might
short-change another (the majority view). This challenge, as well as the
concern from some that I am a subjective insider, are hurdles that I will do my
utmost to overcome. In my proposal, I wrote,

I come to this topic from a life-long commitment to the Mennonite

Church and Mennonite Higher Education. In general, my wish is

for Goshen College to be seen in a positive light, yet I want this

research to be an honest assessment of institutional health. It will

not benefit me, or the college, to write a rosy report on the

wonderful work of their new president while the relationship with

its constituency is falling apart. I, along with those at Goshen,

want to have a clearer understanding about how they are doing in
their relationship with the denomination (Liechty, 1998, 4).

I share this to show that I do care about the future of the church/college
relationship. However, I am not trying “save” it, but understand it. This
research process has been extremely enlightening. I must admit that I have

been surprised by the diversity and intensity of faculty opinion. I found that the

11

 

 

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faculty’s stories drastically changed the way I think about the relationship
between college and church.
How My Thinking Has Changed Through The Research Process

This research process has indeed been one of discovery for me. As I re-
read my proposal, I realize that the story I expected to find never fully
materialized. The process of secularization that l was worried might be
occurring at Goshen does not, in fact, appear to be happening. There is some
disenfranchisement by the college’s supporting denomination, but this has little
or nothing to do with the impact of secularization (in the sense that Goshen is
becoming less Anabaptist). I observed conflict between Goshen College and
the Mennonite church when I attended and worked there and I interpreted it as
Goshen’s pulling away from its supporting denomination. However, it is the
perception of many on the campus, and of various other researchers, that
sections of the church are pulling away from the Mennonite/Anabaptist values
upon which the denomination and the college are based. In my dissertation
proposal, I wrote of research about the Mennonite church conducted by Fred
Kniss. Kniss (1997) notes that the relationship between the Mennonite Church
and its colleges is complicated by long-standing internal conflicts within the
denomination.

Kniss (1997) outlined the historical struggle between two paradigms that
delineate the outer boundaries of the Mennonite Church. One end of the
continuum emphasizes the importance of traditionalism, which Kniss defines as

“stressing traditional moral and spiritual values, the importance of family,

12

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biblical and communal authority and the denial of individual interests in favor of
the collectivity” (6). The other end of the spectrum stresses communalism,
which “has entailed a concern for egalitarianism, social justice, pacifism,
stewardship of the environment, mutual aid, and a focus on religious
congregations as primary communities for their members” (6). Kniss posits that
this conflict has served to divide the denomination for centuries, and as the
church in North America has become more open to its social environment, the
conflict has taken on the American political cultures of the right (traditionalism)
and the left (communalism). Further, he argues that “with respect to
Mennonites’ position in the world, traditionalism supports a sectarian, separatist
stance, while communalism supports a more activist, socially progressive
stance” (6). These two positions are concurrently theological and political and
play themselves out in how the church interacts within its own ranks and how it
presents itself to the world. _

I found that many of the Goshen faculty were not comfortable dividing
the church up this way. When asked if they were more communalist or
traditionalist, many answered, “a combination of both.” I believe that Kniss
conveys an interesting phenomenon, but it does not fit the thinking at Goshen
about how the church is splitting. Perhaps a definition of this conflict which
would be more comfortable to those at Goshen is given by Kauffman and
Driedger (1991).

Kauffman and Driedger (1991), who studied all North American

Mennonite groups, did not find that Mennonites can be easily placed on a

13

 

conservative-liberal continuum. Rather, “the tensions among Mennonites are
more between two theologies — the original Anabaptist heritage and the recent
[more mainstream] fundamentalism. Thus we found an internal dialectic
between Anabaptism and fundamentalism, two theologies that are contrasting,
if not polar” (Kauffman 8. Driedger, 253). Kauffman and Driedger describe
Anabaptist Mennonites as supportive of “peacemaking, in-group identity,
communalism, service to others, and less evidence of individualism” (254).
Fundamentalist Mennonites, on the other hand, demonstrated much stronger
general orthodoxy beliefs, were more likely to believe women should be
submissive, were less likely to support helping others with use of welfare, were
less educated and less open to others of different races.

Green (2000) provides a very concise description of the debate between
the categorizations posited by Kauffman and Driedger (1991). In an article
calling for future Mennonite Church leaders to be able to bridge the gap
between Anabaptists and evangelical-fundamentalists, Green writes:

The 20‘“ century has seen a debate between the social gospel

movement that began after World War I and the evangelical-

fundamentalist movement that came into its own after World War

II. Sides divided over whether the church’s mandate was

primarily to evangelize or to respond with compassion to a

suffering humanity (5).

In the Mennonite Church, this debate has been extremely divisive.

Harold Bender3 provided a defining speech that gave support and drive to the

social gospel movement in the Mennonite Church. Those who took a more

 

3 For a discussion of Harold Bender’s “Anabaptist Vision," see Chapter Two.

14

 

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evangelical-fundamentalist approach found sustenance and leadership outside
the denomination. In many cases this connection outside the denomination
has weakened their sense of affiliation with it. As we will see, this “pulling
away” from the denomination is of great concern for many leaders in Mennonite
institutions which rely heavily on denominational support.

The Gideon Project, which was the research precursor to my study,
divided the Mennonite Church denomination up in a different way than did
Kauffman and Driedger (1991) and Green (2000), but found results that well
match their categorizations. Michael Wiese, the researcher, classified
congregations by their level of participation in Mennonite higher education.
This participation was measured by congregational enrollment of students in
Mennonite colleges, financial giving to these institutions, and the availability of
a congregational student aid program for students wanting to attend a
Mennonite college. There are roughly 1,100 congregations in the
denomination, and of this number he dropped over half because their market
potential (number of youth in attendance) was too small to merit consideration.
As he notes, “The researcher wanted to ensure the study measured a
congregation’s desire to support, not ability to support” (Wiese, 19963, 2).
Wiese categorized the remaining 540 congregations into “participative, neutral
and non-participative” categories. Twenty-six point seven percent are
participative, 35.0 percent are neutral and the remaining 38.3 percent are

categorized as non-participative. Interestingly, and not surprisingly, those in

15

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the participative group appear to be a lot like Kauffman and Driedger’s (1991)
Anabaptist Mennonites. Wiese found that

Lay-leaders in the participative congregations are more likely

[than those in non-participative congregations] to discuss the

importance of living and teaching peace, justice, and service.

They are also more likely to stress the importance of academic

quality in traditional liberal arts terms. Lay-leaders in the

participative congregations are also likely to share concern about

the Bible and evangelism, but the language is much more likely to
include the idea of pacifism and social justice (7).

Wiese also posits that, like Kauffman and Driedger, those who attend
participative congregations were significantly more likely to say that
membership in the denomination is very important to them. Further, and again
not surprisingly, those who attend Mennonite colleges are more likely to
support Mennonite higher education and be involved in participative
congregations. Taken together, these research projects leave us with a picture
of a church that is significantly split along Anabaptist-fundamentalist lines. This
split will have a major impact on the various Mennonite institutions that want to
serve the denomination. Is it possible to serve both Anabaptist Mennonites and
fundamentalist Mennonites in good conscience?

Many of the faculty at Goshen believe that the college has remained a
stable institution in support of Anabaptist values, while the Church is shifting
away from these beliefs. While I will not be able to show conclusively with this
dissertation that the church is becoming less Anabaptist, anecdotal and
research evidence abounds that this is indeed the case. Kauffman and

Driedger (1991), in their follow-up study of all North American Mennonite

16

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groups, found a statistically significant but modest drop in belief in basic
Anabaptist tenets between 1972 and 1989. They also note a socioeconomic
gap in the church falling along Anabaptist Mennonites and fundamentalist
Mennonites lines:
In 1989, Mennonites exhibited the influence of both Anabaptism
and fundamentalism, each having its strong adherents...The
Anabaptist Mennonites are, on average, more urban, better
educated, and they occupy higher status, while fundamentalist
Mennonites are more rural, less educated, and occupy lower

status. Theological pluralism is very much a part of the
Mennonite mosaic (Kauffman & Driedger, 271 ).

The above description of Anabaptist Mennonites, who are most likely to
be supportive of Goshen College, helps explain the role that socioeconomic
status plays on the changing relationship between the college and the church.
It is not simply the fundamentalist Mennonites who are pulling away from the
church colleges. An increasingly educated, increasingly urban constituency
has educational prestige aspirations that may not be met by Goshen College, a
relatively obscure college in rural Indiana. So, while part of the denomination is
moving away from Goshen based on religious difference, support in the most
participative sector is waning because of status issues. This creates a delicate
institutional problem. How does an organization respond when its constituency
is pulling away for a myriad of reasons, each of which is mostly out of its
control?

Conducting this research has been a significant learning process for me.
For the second time in my life, I have been shaped and molded by my

interactions with the faculty at Goshen. I now see the church/college

17

relationship in a new and exciting way. This change will be extensively
developed in later chapters. However, in the chapters which immediately
follow, I will offer a basic history and profile of Goshen College, a brief history of
Anabaptism/Mennonitism, an outline of this research process, and a survey of

the process of secularization of higher education.

18

 

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CHAPTER 2: THE INSTITUTION

 

A Brief History of Goshen College

Goshen College lies on the type of fertile land that my agrarian
Mennonite ancestors would have cherished. It is located in northern Indiana,
not far from the Michigan border, in a part of the state that local meteorologists
like to call “Michiana.” The city of Goshen (pop. 30,000) is a small, but thriving
community with industry revolving around the construction of recreational
vehicles. It lies about two and a half hours southeast of Chicago, and is more
impacted by this relationship than by the one with the state capital,
Indianapolis, which is four hours south.

Goshen College was founded in 1894. It was founded in neighboring
Elkhart, Indiana, in large part from the efforts of the charismatic Mennonite
pastor and leader, John S. Coffman (Miller, 1994). It began as the Elkhart
Institute of Science, Industry, and the Arts and later moved to Goshen when
lobbying by Goshen businessmen and a loan from the city swayed the
lnstitute’s Committee on Location away from sites in Elkhart and out of state
(Miller):

On June 2, 1903, some 150 faculty, students, and visitors in

festive spirits rode interurban cars from Elkhart to Goshen. In a

wheat field situated at the foot of an unpaved, undeveloped

Eighth Street, they joined another 150 people to break ground for

the new college building that would become the Administration
Building (Miller, 33).

19

Mennonites have not always been convinced that education is
appropriate for Christian life. Sawatsky (1997) notes that this “anti-
intellectualism results when the life of the mind and an educated leadership are
considered unnecessary, are not highly regarded and may even be suspect”
(198). However, he went on to write that there is also a belief in the church that
“everyone needs to be educated to use their gifts fully in service of God and the
community” (Sawatsky, 198). Suspicion of education has certainly played a
role in Goshen’s history. In 1923, the college was closed for one year by the
church. Schlabach (1997) writes:

Powerful church leaders (as well as many ordinary Mennonites)

had lost confidence in the college over issues of overexpansion,

financial mismanagement, and, not least, fear of theological and

cultural modernism. It was the time when Protestant

fundamentalism’s first wave was cresting. Once again, larger

national and Protestant moods were affecting Mennonites —

although with Mennonites the quarrels were as often about

cultural matters, such as attire, as about doctrine (205).

After this forcible closure, a great many faculty and administrators left the
college and some even left the denomination. The college did open again in
1924, primarily with a new faculty and administration. The college struggled
financially and in terms of enrollment, but remained afloat for the next few
decades and made enough academic strides to be accredited by the North
Central Association in 1941.

World War II shaped the college community tremendously, as it did all of

American society. As conscientious objectors, many faculty and students

(former and future) chose to do alternative service in the Civilian Public Service

20

(CPS). CPS workers were dispersed throughout the US. in “a labyrinth that
included forestry and other camps, agricultural extension assignments, mental
hospital work, guinea-pig roles for medical research, and more” (Schlabach,
1997, 209). After the war, many Mennonites spent time reconstructing war-torn
Europe. This wartime service and international experience had a significant
impact on the campus. Schlabach writes that “by the 19503 so many faculty
members and spouses had done postwar relief service abroad that such
experience seemed commonplace; by 1970, half of Goshen’s faculty had
served abroad (and not in military service)” (210).

Goshen College continued on a path of expansion for several decades
after World War II. In 1968, Goshen pioneered an innovative international
study and service program. Called the Study Service Term (SST), it was
developed to take advantage of the faculty’s international experience and
served as a testament to denominational values. What follows is an
examination of Goshen College today and a look back at institutional
enrollment and charitable contribution trends.

Goshen College Today

Today, Goshen College is a college that is attempting to clarify its
identity, and is an institution wondering how it should relate to its supporting
denomination, the Mennonite Church. This is, in fact, the subject of this
dissertation. The following graphs give the reader an idea about institutional
health as indicated by student enrollment, academic achievement and

charitable donations to the college. These, of course, are not the only, nor

21

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necessarily the best indicators of institutional health, but they are the most
quantifiable. The news is certainly not bad. However, as with all enrollment
driven institutions, there is always a wariness, even in financially stable times.

Enrollment

 

Figure 2.1: Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)
Enrollment Numbers 1980-99

1250 ,-_

1200

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1100

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FTE

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950

900

 

 

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80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

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Goshen’s enrollment has followed national patterns. After World War II,
enrollment skyrocketed, more than doubling between 1940 and 1953 from 365
students to 825 (Miller, 1994). The enrollment continued to increase into the
19705. Miller writes, however, that

In the fall of 1971, enrollment at Goshen had dropped by 45

students, and featured the first decrease in freshman students

22

since 1967. College officials were confronted with the rather
abrupt reversal of a pattern of steady growth that had begun two
decades earlier following World War II. To the long-range
planners who in 1962 had projected an enrollment of 1457
students by 1972, the figure of 1167 in 1971 must have been hard
to accept (Miller, 257).

 

Figure 2.2: Freshman Grade Point Averages (GPA) 1988-99

 

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Enrollment remained steady at around 1200 students throughout the 19705.

However, as Figure 2.1 shows, the full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment

numbers since 1980 have fluctuated wildly. While Goshen is still well below its

target enrollment of 1200 FTE students, the current enrollment patterns (as

seen in Figure 2.1) are encouraging to those on campus, especially considering

23

that a large Senior class graduated in the Spring of 1999. There is indeed

reason to be guardedly optimistic with regards to current enrollment, but never

complacent.

 

SAT Score '

 

1170

1160

1150

1140

1130

1120

1110

1100

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1080

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Figure 2.3: Freshman Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Averages
1988-99

 

 

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Year

 

Enrollment is but one indicator of institutional health. Any college with

aspirations of jumping from the fourth to third quartile in the US News and

World Report’s National Liberal Arts College rankings will hope that the quality

of its incoming students is improving as measured by grade point averages and

24

 

 

standardized test scores. To this end, Goshen carefully charts its progress on
these measures. Figure 2.2 could either be seen as a chart documenting grade
inflation, or as a hopeful sign for those who have more elitist goals for the
college. Taken with the data in Figure 2.3, this information does indeed look
hopeful, as the increase in GPAs does correspond with increases in the SAT
scores for incoming freshmen over the past ten years.
Doctoral Degree Production

Another indicator of institutional, academic health is the number of
graduates who are admitted into graduate school, and more importantly, finish
degrees. Goshen is proud of the acceptance rate of its students into
professional programs, especially Medicine, but the college is also successful
in graduating students who complete nonprofessional doctorate degrees. In
the Fall of 1998, Goshen released a press bulletin announcing the results of
research on the number of doctoral degrees attained by graduates of various
Baccalaureate institutions (Miller, 1998). This study was conducted by
researchers at Franklin and Marshall College. Goshen College was ranked in
the top sixth of all liberal arts colleges in America and third in Indiana in the last
decade, according to the "Baccalaureate Origins of Doctoral Recipients"
survey.

In the survey, GC ranked 75th out of more than 500 schools as the
undergraduate college of students who went on to receive doctoral degrees in
all nonprofessional programs between 1986 and 1995. With 137 graduates

receiving doctorates in these years, Goshen College trails only DePauw

25

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University (226) and Earlham College (224) among Indiana schools. The
researchers also found that from 1920 to 1995, GC produced 539 PhD.
recipients. From 1920 to 1995, GC is fifth among schools in Indiana and first
among schools in the Council of Mennonite Colleges (Miller, 1998).

These numbers and rankings are impressive for a school of Goshen’s
size and name recognition, but they are even more impressive when it is
observed that the survey does not take enrollment size into account. An
adjustment for enrollment size would place GC considerably higher in the
rankings. For example, though the college has produced about 60 percent of
the number of doctorates as DePauw, GC’s 1997-98 enrollment was less than
40 percent of DePauw’s (Miller, 1998). So, Goshen’s academic profile, both in
terms of past performance and current trends seems to be impressive.
Certainly, a key component in improving the academic program at Goshen, as
elsewhere, will have to do with the college’s ability to raise funds for student
support and endowment growth.

Financial Standing

Goshen College’s record in attracting gifts and increasing its endowment
is particularly impressive for an institution of its size. In 1970, when Goshen’s
new President, J Lawrence Burkholder, took office, Goshen’s endowment stood
at a minuscule $500,000. One of his goals, along with Director of
Development, Daniel E Kauffman, was to increase the endowment (Miller,

1994).

26

Figure 2.4 shows the annual contributions to Goshen for the past 11
years. Charitable donations have clearly been a major factor in the increasing
stability of Goshen’s finances over the past decade, but the college also takes

great pride in its fiscal responsibility and affordability.

 

Figure 2.4: Annual Contributions to Goshen
College 1989-99

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Year

 

 

 

The following paragraphs were written in a 1999 Goshen College Alumni
Bulletin:

For the 60th consecutive year, current revenues have met or
exceeded expenses at Goshen College, President Shirley H.
Showalter announced to the school’s Board of Overseers in its
recent meetings on the campus. Final audited financial reports
indicate GC ended the 1998-99 fiscal year in the best financial
strength in the school’s history. The college finished the year with
a 20.7 percent increase in net assets, growing to $123.8 million
from $102.5 million a year ago. James L. Histand, GC’s vice
president for finance, reported that the market value of
endowment funds increased 10.4 percent from $76.1 million to

27

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$84 million. During the 1998-99 fiscal year, the college received

$22.4 million in unrestricted revenues against $19.7 million in

expenses. In addition, restricted revenues were $18.6 million,

much of which came in the form of contributions for a music

center (Miller, 1999, 31).

The 1990s have been particularly fruitful for the college, with a major
1993 bequest from an heir of the Smucker Jam and Jelly Company founders.
Goshen has also done well in garnering educational grants from the
Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment. Goshen, as is so common at small
colleges, has not had to use the majority of these contributions to maintain day-

to-day operations. A considerable portion of them have gone to increase the

endowment and improve facilities.

 

 

 

 

Figure 2.5: Goshen College Endowment
1989-99
90
80
70
g 60
E 50
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8 30
20
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0; ____fl-*-z__hz_mz-w+_i M__ _ _
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Year

 

 

 

The college, bolstered by strong giving, modest increases in enrollment, and a
strong economy has been able to enlarge its endowment in an impressive

manner. Figure 2.5 shows how the endowment has grown in the past ten years

28

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from approximately $10 million to $84 million at the end of the 1999 business
yeah

As these charts show, there is reason to be guardedly optimistic about
the future of Goshen College, but as we will see, there are still concerns about
institutional identity that will not be corrected by a larger endowment. Next, it is
important to understand the history of the church which supports it.
Anabaptist History

On December 12, 1983, l was baptized into the Mennonite church at the
age of 18. I followed a long line of my ancestors on both my mother and
father’s sides who believed that baptism should be an adult decision. The
origin of the term Anabaptists (which means “re-baptizers”) comes from those
who in centuries past were baptized as infants and again as adults. On my
baptism day, my parents prepared a special dinner, and I was given a large,
heavy present. Inside the wrapping paper, I found a book entitled the MM
Mirror by Theileman van Braght. This seventeenth century book details in both
gruesome text and drawings, the stories of the first Christians martyrs to the
Anabaptist martyrs in the post-reformation era. This book was given to me as a
reminder of the severe sacrifices made by my Anabaptist fore-bearers. Of the
thousands of stories told in the book, the one that is most often held up to
young Mennonites as the example of true Christian love is the story of Dirk
Willems, a Dutch Anabaptist. I could recount the story from memory, however,

van Braght’s (1982) words are more powerful:

29

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Concerning [Willem’s] apprehension, it is stated by trustworthy
persons, that when he fled he was hotly pursued by a thief-
catcher, and as there had been some frost, said Dirk Willems ran
before over the ice, getting across with considerable peril. The
thief-catcher following him broke through. Dirk Willems, perceiving
that the former was in danger of his life, quickly returned and
aided him in getting out, and thus saved his life. The thief-catcher
wanted to let him go, but the burgomaster, very sternly called him
to consider his oath, and thus he was again seized by the thief-
catcher, and, at said place, after severe imprisonment and great
trials proceeding from the deceitful papists, put to death at a
lingering fire by these bloodthirsty, ravening wolves, enduring it
with great steadfastness, and confirming the genuine faith of the
truth with his death and blood, as an instructive example to all
pious Christians of this time, and to the everlasting disgrace of the
tyrannous papists1 (741 ).

As a child, I was very aware of the sacrifice that had been made by my
Anabaptist ancestors, and I often thought about how I or my family would
respond if we were persecuted for our faith. I came to believe that although it is
impossible to know how one would react, I would do my best to respond to
those who persecuted me with the love that Christ demonstrated in his life.
The Reformation

The Anabaptism (re-baptism) movement began as an offshoot of Martin
Luther’s reformation efforts.

As a result of Luther’s call for biblical reform, some people

became convinced that Christian baptism was one area where

‘human invention’ had prevailed. Some became convinced that

baptism was meant to be an adult expression of faith, and that the

New Testament supported this understanding (Snyder, 1997, 2,
emphasis in original).

 

‘ I should note here that I am not comfortable with anti-Papist language in the above account.

30

 

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Today, this idea that baptism should be an adult decision, seems like a matter
that theologians might be interested in debating. However, in the early 1500s
there was little debate. Rather, as a result of a fourth century Roman ruling,
and the sixth century codification of Roman law, Anabaptism became a heresy
punishable by death (Snyder).

Snyder (1997) points out that the term Anabaptist is a bit of a misnomer
because it means “re-baptizer.” While those Anabaptists in the sixteenth
century who were baptized as infants in the Catholic or Protestant Churches
were re-baptized, they soon forsook the practice of infant baptism, and so their
adult baptisms were, in fact, their first. It is known that early Anabaptists,
including prominent leader Conrad Grebel, refused to have their children
baptized.

Yoder (1967a) notes that Anabaptist groups were forced to take Baptism
as their central issue because it was chosen by Ulrich Zwingli, a student of
Luther and a fellow Protestant reformer, as an idea on which the state church
would not negotiate. “Baptism had not been [the Anabaptists] first concern,
and it was not the central one, but it was the point at which the line had been
drawn by Zwingli” (Yoder, 33). As we will see below, the various Anabaptist
groups in Europe at this time differed in a great many ways. However, their
beliefs about adult baptism were a common bond, and the bond that still links
Anabaptist groups today.

Direct historical descendants of the sixteenth century Anabaptists

are present-day Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, and some groups
of Brethren, such as the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren

31

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in Christ; the present-day Baptist denominations also can claim

significant historical roots in the Anabaptist movement of the

sixteenth century (Snyder, 1997, 4).

The Anabaptist Vision

In 1943, Harold Bender, then dean of Goshen College and president of
the American Society of Church History, gave a speech entitled the “Anabaptist
Vision” to society members.

It’s main ideas were that the Mennonites’ religious forebears, the

Anabaptists, had taken the lead in modern church-state

separation; that they had carried the Protestant Reformation on to

its logical conclusion; and that the essence of Anabaptism lay in

three principles: believer’s church [adult baptism], practical

discipleship, and pacifistic love in human relations (Schlabach,

1997,209)
Further, it was Bender’s belief that the true Anabaptist movement originated in
Zurich in 1525 and had little to do with other Anabaptist groups of the time (who
will be described in the next section). This Swiss movement, Bender believed,
then spread throughout Europe. Bender’s Anabaptist Vision has been highly
influential in the Mennonite Church denomination, which has historic roots in
the Swiss Anabaptist movements, and is the denomination that supports
Goshen College. Snyder (1997) argues that Bender’s dismissal of other, less
palatable Anabaptist groups was mistaken. While their stories do not mesh
with twentieth century Anabaptist ideals, as the sixteenth century Swiss
Anabaptist movement seems to do, Snyder outlined two other documented
sixteenth century Anabaptist groups in Europe. The first group was in Southern

Germany and Austria and the second was in Northern Germany and Holland.

The South German/Austrian movement started simultaneously with the Swiss

32

movement, and the North German/Dutch movement sprang from the
missionary work of Melchior Hoffman, who was baptized as an adult in
Strasbourg in 1530.
German, Dutch and Austrian Anabaptists

Anabaptism took different forms in the various regions of Eur0pe. The
German, Dutch and Austrian Anabaptists were heavily linked to the bloody
Peasant Wars of 1524-26. Yoder (1967b) notes that

Since Anabaptism was opposed to the legal requirement of the

tithe and to the support of ministers through compulsory taxation,

there were those who saw in the [Anabaptist] movement the

possibility of economic relief and even revolutionary social effects

favoring the peasants even though this was not the motivation of

the Anabaptist leaders themselves (39).
This is not to suggest that the link between the Anabaptists and the peasants
was simply coincidental. It is certain that some Anabaptists were actively
involved in the peasant movement. While it is clear that Anabaptists were not
uniformly pacifist, early Swiss Anabaptist leaders “were personally committed to
a nonresistant (pacifist) position. On this the documentation leaves no room for
doubt” (Snyder, 1997, 109). Snyder writes that “in the farewell hymn he wrote
just before being drowned in the Limmat, Felix Mantz [a central Swiss
Anabaptist leader] insisted that the true servants of Christ do no hate or
murder” (109). Some of the reforms that the peasants were demanding later
became Anabaptist positions, but the use of force was not an acceptable

method of persuasion for many Anabaptists.

The peasants” demand that local communities elect their own
pastors, that those pastors be supported economically by the

33

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communities they served, and that they be morally accountable to

those communities (and subject to the discipline of those

communities) were all demands made repeatedly by the peasants
that were carried forward in Anabaptism, but not within mainline

Protestantism (Snyder, 77).

Snyder further argues that “the yearning for reform arose not only from
dissatisfaction with the clergy and the institutional church, but also from a
substratum of fervent lay piety, spirituality and practice. In a very real way,
reform happened because the church had succeeded too well” (29).

This lay piety took on some unusual and more radical ideas in the
groups outside of Switzerland. It is clear that these non-Swiss groups were
guided by leaders who held strong apocalyptic views. As Snyder (1997) writes,

There were sixteenth century baptizers who were peace-loving,

evangelical people who willingly submitted to torture and a

martyr’s death as a witness to their faith. But there were also

sixteenth century baptizers who were a bit wacky, by any

standard. There were Anabaptists who took two or more wives

because ‘God told them to,’ as well as some who tried to establish
the New Jerusalem of the end times by force of arms (9).

This belief that they were living in end times, as we will see later, became a
problem for Anabaptists when their predicted dates came and went without
event
The Schleitheim Articles
I was not told the stories of Anabaptist polygamy and apocalypticism as
a child. Instead, the more heroic martyr stories were emphasized. Felix Mantz,
like many of the early Anabaptist Martyrs, was highly educated, and part of the

Catholic Church hierarchy of the time, prior to his conversion to Anabaptism.

34

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Another early Swiss Anabaptist leader, Michael Sattler, had been a Benedictine
Prior. His monastery was taken over by the peasants during the war and while
it is not clear how he came to join the Anabaptist ranks, “it is certain that by the
summer of 1526, Michael Sattler had committed himself fully to the Anabaptist
cause and began to preach, teach and baptize in the same Swiss villages
where the peasants had earlier taken up arms” (Snyder, 1997, 113). Sattler
was intimately involved in a meeting of Anabaptists on February 24, 1527, in
the Swiss village of Schleitheim. Out of this meeting was produced articles of
Swiss Anabaptist belief. The Schleitheim document had seven articles which
became the glue that cemented Swiss Anabaptist life. The Schleitheim articles
(Baergen, 1981, 24) are as follows:

1. Baptism: Only they who genuinely repent of their sins and
who want to begin a new life in the Lord Jesus will be baptized
at their own request.

2. Excommunication: If a brother or a sister has fallen into error
and sin and does not improve after admonition by the elders of
the congregation, he or she will be expelled from the
congregation according to the command of Christ (Matthew
18).

3. Breaking of Bread: All who wish to break bread in
remembrance of Christ’s body, and all who wish to drink from
a cup in remembrance of Christ’s blood are united by baptism
into one body, namely God’s congregation, of which Christ is
the Head.

4. Separation from the World: The Christians must remain
separate from all evil and sin which Satan has planted in the
world. The commandment of the Lord is to be separated from
the evil one. The Christian is to remain separate from all
which have not been united with God.

5. Shepherds in the Church: The shepherds of the church shall
be men of good reputation. They shall admonish, teach, and
help everybody to lead a good life. They are elected by the

35

congregation; should anyone of them be driven away, thrown
into prison, or killed, a new minister shall immediately be
elected to take his place.

6. The Sword: The worldly government may use the sword; the
perfect congregation of Christ uses the ban
[excommunication], which does not inflict bodily suffering on
anybody. Christ suffered and gave us an example which we
are to follow. The Christian should, moreover, take no part in
the worldly regime, for the laws of the worldly government are
of the flesh, whereas Christ’s government in of the spirit, and
the weapons of the world are of the flesh while the weapons of
the Christian are of the spirit, in order to overcome the world
and Satan.

7. The Oath: Christ who taught the perfect law, forbade his
disciples the oath. From His example we learn that all
swearing of oaths is forbidden. Your speech should be yea,
yea and nay, nay; what is more than that comes of evil.

The early Swiss Anabaptist movement had suffered great losses. Many
of its most prominent and gifted leaders had either died, had been executed or
had been banished from their homelands by their persecutors. Yoder (1967b)
notes that to some, the spiritual liberty of the Anabaptist movement “meant the
freedom to fanaticism and Iicentiousness, to others [it meant] the freedom to
continue in the state church with its sacraments, civil oaths, and the wearing of
arms” (41 ). The movement was in need of an event or leader that would
consolidate its groups and beliefs.

The Schleitheim meeting saved the Anabaptist movement in at

least two ways. The very fact that this meeting took place

successfully and was able to define the position against both

conforrnist and fanatics made of Anabaptism an organized body

able to meet its problems and survive instead of degenerating into

a mere flurry of radical enthusiasm. On the level of doctrine, the

position defined here was simple, Biblical, complete, and

consistent enough that a simple Christian could understand it,
testify to it and suffer for it (Yoder, 42).

36

The Schleitheim articles still guide life for a great many Mennonites. I
find them compelling and am surprised that while they were never discussed in
my family life, these were the implicit tenets upon which I was raised. My wife’s
Mennonite cousin, who recently became a US. citizen, while not persecuted,
had to tediously negotiate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service so she would not have to agree to bear arms or swear an oath. After a
fair amount of hardship and inconvenience she was begrudgingly granted these
wishes. For Sattler, negotiation was not an option. He was arrested in Austria
and tried on nine charges, including his intention to overthrow the Roman
Catholic Church and the civil order. “When he was given the possibility of
hiring an attorney to aid in his defense, he declined on the ground that this was
not a legal matter but simply a defense of the faith which he, as a believer,
must always be ready and willing to do himself” (Yoder, 1967b, 43). This
defense did not go well and Sattler

was sentenced to a horrible death: he was to have part of his

tongue cut off, be forged to a cart, have his flesh ripped from him

eight times with red hot tongs, following which he was to be

burned at the stake. This was carried out on May 20, 1527. His

wife Margareta, who had been arrested with him, was drowned

two days later after refusing to recant (Snyder, 1997, 118).

Loss of Leadership

Authorities throughout Europe were very diligent and effective in

arresting and persecuting the Anabaptists. Many of the early Anabaptist

leaders, who were the most capable and educated, were killed. This resulted in

a great deal of divergence in Anabaptist thought and practice amongst those

37

who remained. Snyder argues, however, that while the persecution had an
obvious dampening effect, it also had the unintended consequence of lending
credence to the movement.

Anabaptist martyrs often used the occasion of their executions to

proclaim their faith to the crowds assembled to watch the

spectacle, and to exhort both spectators and their captors to

repentance. Steadfastness in the face of torture, and a public,

oral witness in the face of imminent and horrible death were

powerful instruments of communication at the popular level.

Rather than discrediting the movement, public executions only

served to lend it credence. Authorities soon began silencing

Anabaptist martyrs with gags, tongue screws, and other means to

prevent their public witness (Snyder, 1997,184).

Persecution created an underground religion that took hold in more rural,
less regulated areas and caused a great deal of migration to areas where
authorities were more sympathetic to the reforms. My own ancestors migrated
to the Alsace region of France, and then in the nineteenth century to the United
States. As Snyder (1997) writes, “the relatively simple story of Anabaptist
origins, then, very soon becomes a very complicated story of Anabaptist
migrations. One may say that after ‘genesis’ came ‘exodus”’ (189).

The Taking of Munster

One of the more embarrassing episodes in early Anabaptist history
occurred in the northern German city of Munster. This is a part of Anabaptist
history from which Bender tried to disassociate twentieth century Anabaptist
belief. In the city of Munster, there was a political struggle between

Anabaptists, Lutherans, and Catholics. The Anabaptists eventually won control

of the city on February 24, 1534, and it was immediately set under siege by the

38

 

former Catholic Bishop. On that same day, Jan Matthijs, a Dutch Anabaptist
leader and apocalyptic believer, entered the town. Three days later, all non-
Anabaptists were either forced to accept re-baptism or be expelled from town.

Matthijs preached that the second coming would be on Easter of 1534.
When this did not happen, he left the city believing God would protect him, only
to be killed by the besieging army. With the death of Matthijs, Jan van Leiden,
a 24 year old Anabaptist, took over control of the city.

In July of 1534 he married Matthijs’ widow Divara, and began

instituting other changes in the city’s organization, primarily along

Old Testament lines. By the end of that month he had instituted

polygamy within the city. . .There was some resistance on the part

of women who were not willing to participate in the arrangement,

and some resistors were put to death. Jan van Leiden himself

eventually took sixteen ‘concubines’ as well as his “leading wife,’

Divara (Snyder, 1997, 219).

Ultimately, a prophet in the city proclaimed van Leiden the “new David” and
Munster “the new Jerusalem.” A year after the Anabaptist takeover of Munster,
the Bishop had called for a full blockade and widespread starvation was
occurring inside the city walls.

Finally in June of 1535, the city fell and most of the inhabitants were
killed. Jan van Leiden was captured, paraded around the countryside, tortured
and then executed. His remains and those of two other Anabaptist leaders
were hung in cages from the tower of the St. Lamberti Church.

The Munsterite movement had aroused the hopes of many

among the common people in northwestern Germany and the

Netherlands. Now they were not only disappointed at its failure,

but even more at the bad name it gave to Anabaptists

everywhere. Because of Munster they were all now labeled as
visionaries and revolutionaries. It was one of those times in

39

history when persecution drove people to extreme action, and

extreme action convinced the persecutors that they were right and

justified even more severe measures against them (Keeney,

1967a,78)

Menno Simons

Menno Simons, after whom the Mennonites are named, was a Dutch
Catholic priest. He was deeply moved by the violence, perpetrated both by and
against the Anabaptists. It is believed that this violence may have claimed the
life of his brother, Peter. Menno was a slow convert to Anabaptism, but when
he finally did join, he became a tireless missionary and was bounty hunted for
most of his missionary years.

To lead the fledgling Anabaptist group through this spiritual

wilderness became the lot of Menno Simons; to sift truth from

half-truth, oppose error with clear teaching, encourage the

persecuted, correct the misguided and build the young church

while himself being hunted as a heretic, was to be his life...lt was

Menno’s leadership which saved the Dutch Anabaptist movement

from fanaticism and possible disintegration (Keeney, 1967a, 81-

2).
Menno was never caught, and he died a natural death in 1561. His followers
became the predominant group in North German and Dutch Anabaptism. They
eventually made contact with Swiss Anabaptists. By the 15503, interaction
between the Dutch and Swiss Anabaptists was commonplace, and meetings
were taking place between the groups to debate differences. It was during this
time that a group of Swiss Anabaptists decided to follow Menno Simons.

Persecution Slows

In the period following the beginning of the reformation, the persecution

of Anabaptists slowed, and Anabaptists migrated to areas of greater toleration.

40

In Holland, Anabaptists or Mennonites, as they were now called, soon became
prominent citizens and were known for their abilities in medicine, engineering in
draining swamps and agriculture. It is also known that many significant Dutch
artists of this time either were Mennonite, or had significant connections to
them, including Rembrandt. Life soon became very comfortable for them.

All this progress in material and cultural ways was not pure gain.
A century or more after Mennonites suffered deeply for their faith,
they were tolerated and many were wealthy. Many no longer
believed deeply in the things for which their fathers had died.
Ease and luxury had done what persecution could not do (Keeney
1967b,101)

This story was common throughout Europe, although many groups remained
faithful to their sixteenth century Anabaptist roots.
Splits and Emigration
Mennonite groups were often tolerated because of their agricultural
abilities, but they still moved when it became apparent that their religious
freedoms would be threatened. Crous (1967) offers the following synopsis of
the lives of Mennonites in Europe from 1648 to 1815:

(1) Dispersion continues, but toleration is gradually achieved in
most places; (2) general economic prosperity which makes them
attractive to governments, but stirs envy in the hearts of their
neighbors; (3) in the major cities some Mennonites achieve civic
prominence and are honored as leading citizens; (4) there is a
general numerical decline among them which, if it had continued,
would have made them extinct in Europe today; (5) numerous
outside influences help to shape their religious life in addition to
their economic environment, notably Pietism, Quakerism, and
rationalism; (6) prominent leaders arise from time to time who,
through their writing and active participation in the life of the
congregations, give new vision to their people; (7) some of these
leaders, and some of the outside movements, brought divisions
into the life of the congregations, but by 1815 the impact of

41

tolerance and enlightenment was making it possible for most of

the Mennonites to overcome their earlier schisms; (8) some of this

new unity must also be attributed to the influence of Pietism

among them, which had led to a recovery of Bible study, prayer,

and a sense of mission among them (125).
One of the splits that occurred among the Anabaptist groups in the Alsace
region of France was between the followers of Jacob Ammann and the
followers of Menno Simons, the Mennonites. The Amish, as Ammann’s
followers were called, believed, among other things, that the Mennonites had
become too lax in their discipline, both personal and corporate (Crous). The
Mennonites and Amish lived together in Europe and many from both groups
eventually emigrated to the United States. Also emigrating to the US. were
“thirteen families [who] followed the invitation of William Penn, and settled in
Pennsylvania in 1683 to become the first group of German settlers in America”
(Crous, 119). Of those Mennonites and Amish who moved to the North
America, some united to form one denomination called the Old Mennonite
Church, and is today simply called the Mennonite Church.

The Supremacy of the New Testament

Today, there are many different Mennonite groups, each with their own
histories and unique beliefs. It is beyond the scope of this project to discuss
them in detail. What was taken from my ancestors in Europe and brought to
this project, is an understanding of the world that is expressed in the
Schleitheim articles. Further, I have been given the belief that there can be no

higher calling in life than to attempt to follow Christ’s example. Anabaptists

believe that the Old Testament had been usurped by the New. “When Jesus

42

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came, the old order was replaced by a new one. The old is no longer
authoritative because the new covenant in Christ is of a different nature than
the old covenant made with Abraham” (Klassen, 1967, 70). Snyder ( 1997)
notes that

Agreement had crystallized by the end of the sixteenth century in

the Anabaptist traditions that survived, but it was a consensus

about biblical and ethical norms that emerged only at the end of a

sometimes bloody and often chaotic period of history. In point of

fact, consensus on the sword and oath was achieved only after

apocalyptic prophecy had spectacularly failed, and Spiritualist

Anabaptists had departed or been banned (305).
It had not been an easy struggle, but Anabaptism had survived years of turmoil
to become a more or less stable religious tradition.
Study Service Term

If I were to ask a faculty member at Goshen what college program or
activity most embodies its Mennonite/Anabaptist values, it would almost
certainly be the Study Service Term (SST). In the SST program, all students
are required to participate in a college term of international study. For most
(well over half), this means living with a native host family, and studying and
serving in a developing country. For me, it meant six weeks studying Haitian
culture and language in Port-au-Prince, followed by six weeks of service work.
My service assignment involved teaching English and working on a community
pig farm in a remote Haitian village. Very few life experiences have changed
my perspective of the world and my place in it as much as this one did.

SST, which is an extension of the college’s historic international

outreach, perhaps best exemplifies how Goshen’s motto “Culture for Service" is

43

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taught. President Showalter (1999a), in a chapter she is completing for a book

entitled Education as Transformation, writes,

 

One cannot understand either Goshen College or SST without

understanding some of the distinctive elements of Mennonite

theology: peace, service, community, nonconformity and

discipleship. Mennonites have emphasized orthopraxy over

orthodoxy. Therefore, when they began their first colleges over a

century ago, they embraced applied learning from the beginning,

choosing the motto ‘Culture for Service.’ While mottoes

connecting the liberal arts with noble social purposes were very

characteristic of higher education in the last century, they sound

quaint to most academic ears today. However, because Goshen’s

ties to its church remained strong, the connection between

applied learning, a spiritual base and social good also persisted.

President Showalter, who has twice lead SST groups, uses examples of
SST life and learning throughout her speeches. Of the more than 50
addresses and articles of hers that l have access to, more than one-third have
quotations about SST. It should be recognized, however, that her presidential
tenure did overlap with a large celebration of 30th anniversary of the program.
Further, it is not just President Showalter who makes this connection between
Anabaptist/Mennonite ideals and SST. Schlabach (1997) calls SST “the most
thorough application of Goshen’s core values to formal curricula,” but he further
notes that “it seems fair to say that SST resulted more from the kind of church
that sponsored the college than from the college itself” (211). He outlines the
connections that Susan Fisher Miller, Goshen's most recent college historian,
made between campus culture, Anabaptist values and SST. Some of these

connections included

The early ‘Culture for Service’ idea and motto, World War II and
postwar service, including service abroad; a council of Mennonite

44

college presidents’ sponsorship of summer seminars abroad,
some led by Goshen faculty members (beginning in 1963, a time
of Peace Corp and other service idealism in national life); a milieu
of expanding enrollments and general affluence; on campus, the
work of a “Future of the College Committee’ which President Paul
Mininger and Provost Henry Weaver, Jr. were challenging to
dream new dreams; and not least, a visit in 1965 of a North
Central Association accreditation team whose members asked
why Goshen was not using its faculty’s extensive international
experience more effectively for its students’ education (211).

Goshen is rightfully proud of this program which has sent more than
6,000 North American students to developing countries since 1968.: It is, in
great part, why Goshen receives the academic recognition that it does.
Goshen is the only Mennonite-related college in the US. to be on the US.
News and World Report’s "National Liberal Arts” list. Much more could be
written about SST and much more will be said in subsequent chapters. The
important pedagogical impact of the program is well expressed by a story that
President Showalter told in a sermon in September of 1998. The story has to
do with a student whom she and her husband, Stuart, were leading in their
Ivory Coast group in the summer of 1993. She notes,

Well, we were in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast where we had been
working with the Mennonite Board of Missions to help set up
service assignments for students, and [the students] had finished
their six weeks [of service]. They came back from all parts of the
country, from these villages, and they come in public
transportation along with the chickens and the goats and
everything else that’s piled in those buses. If you’ve been abroad,
you know some of these experiences. And then we gather. The
hugs, the greetings that they give to each other are unbelievable.
There is a feeling there, after they’ve been through this
experience, of bonding that they couldn’t have had, I think, any
other way. The day that we sat in the unit house and listened to
each other’s stories, there was one particular young woman who
was crying most of the time. And the reason she was crying was

45

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that the day before, when she had left her village—a very, very
isolated village—the entire village had left with her. And they had
walked a mile and a half to the bus station with her, carrying her
luggage on their heads. She was so moved by this form of
hospitality and this outpouring of love for her, that she couldn’t
participate in the joy and the celebration until we tried to help her
understand that in addition to what they gave her, she gave
something back to them. She was so humbled by what they gave
her that she was afraid and feeling guilty that she had not given
enough of herself to them. We had to sit and talk about what it
means to give and to serve, and how reciprocal this relationship
can and should be, and how deep it can go if what you have
learned and what you have given has been so profound that
people would stop everything else in order to say good-bye to you
in such a powerfully symbolic way.

This story and many other SST stories, show how education can be
transformative. As President Showalter goes on to say, “I believe that young
woman is still thinking about that day, and I believe she will think about it not
just today and tomorrow but until she dies. It was a vision to her of what human
love can be across cultures.” This kind of lesson is part of a truly Mennonite,

Goshen education.

46

CHAPTER 3: THE RESEARCH PROCESS

 

Introduction

This research was conducted in three phases. The first phase was a
survey administered to all current and retired Goshen College teaching and
administrative faculty members (including giving adjunct faculty a chance to
participate). The second phase consisted of personal interviews with various
teaching and administrative faculty members. The final phase occurred
concurrent to the first two phases with the collection of written documents and
speeches by the president and various faculty members. The process for each
phase will be described below. I defended my proposal in the late Fall of 1998,
and had approval to conduct the research from the University Committee on
Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) by mid-January, 1999.
Phase One: The Questionnaire

The questionnaire included three sections of Likert-type questions (see
Appendix B). The first section dealt with faculty members’ views about the
church/college relationship. These questions were based on questions
developed for a study of 18 church-related colleges and universities. This
research was funded by the Lilly Endowment for the study of religion in higher
education. I received the questionnaire and permission to use the instrument
from Dr. Mark Granquist (1995a, 1995b), a professor of religion at St. Olaf
College in Northfield, Minnesota. The second section included questions about

the respondents’ views regarding Communalism vs. Traditionalism and their

47

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understandings of the college’s position on this continuum. Finally, the third
section of questions were based on the common themes in the literature on the
topic of the maintenance of a strong church/college relationship.

As soon as I had my proposal approved, I began to finalize the details at
Goshen for conducting this survey. I had erroneously believed that because I
had tacit approval from the Goshen College president and the Strategic
Planning Committee to conduct this research that everything would go
smoothly. I found, however, that I had unwittingly stepped into a political battle-
zone involving the misuse and overuse of the campus e-mail system. I planned
to conduct my survey by means of an e-mail to all faculty. Because of various
miscommunications and misunderstandings, I was initially denied access to
faculty e-mail addresses. This was, however, remedied after several phone
calls and clarification as to why and how the e-mail system was to be utilized.

In February of 1999, I was ready to e-mail my questionnaire. I had
received the needed e-mail addresses, my cover letter was approved by
various concerned parties at Goshen, and l was ready to begin the research.
On February 17‘“, I sent out the cover-letter via e-mail (see Appendix A)
introducing myself and my research to the faculty. The following day, l e-
mailed the survey and an abbreviated cover letter (see Appendix B). The
responses began coming back in a matter of hours. I developed a thank-you e-
mail which was personalized and sent to all respondents. Following are the

response rates by e-mailing and category of faculty member. It should be

48

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recognized that because some retired faculty members did not have e-mail

addresses, I mailed hard-copies of the survey to 16 of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 3.1: Response Rates by Mailing and Category of Faculty
Mailing N E-Mailed N Returned Percentag__e_
First Mailing 205 72 35.1
Second Mailing 133 21 15.8
Third Mailing 112 29 25.9
Total for all Mailings 205 122 59.5
Faculty Category
Current Administrative Faculty 71 35 49.3
Current Teaching Faculty 91 54 59.3
Retired Faculty 43 33 76.7
All Administrative Faculty 84 45 53.5
All Teaching Faculty 121 77 63.6
Total for all Faculty 205 122 59.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Table 3.1 shows, the response rates for administrative faculty were
considerably lower than the rates for the teaching faculty. I believe this can be
explained, in part, because some of the questions may have appeared to be
more about teaching issues and administrators, therefore, may not have
believed the questions applied to their work at the college. I had two
administrative faculty members e-mail and ask if they were supposed to answer
the survey. In subsequent e-mails, l reiterated to the potential respondents that
all faculty (teaching and administrative) were encouraged to respond.

However, I am certain I still lost some respondents this way. The reason the
retired faculty are over-represented can be explained by noting that their
population is disproportionately full of teaching faculty (30 of 43 retired faculty

were professors). One could conclude that in the “good old days” there were

49

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fewer administrators, or perhaps administrators die young. I still need to take
into account some bias associated with higher relative numbers of retired
faculty members, but I believe it is explained in large part by the higher
response rate for teaching faculty, in general.

I sent out the survey three times in roughly two week intervals. As Table
3.1 shows, the heaviest response was from the first mailing and the middle
mailing had the lowest response. The last mailing picked up a bit as I made
sure the respondents knew it would be the last one. In doing so, I picked up a
few self-proclaimed procrastinators.

Use of E-mail for a Survey

Prior to beginning this survey, I believed that an e-mail survey would be
the best method for my research. Some of these reasons were: convenience
and speed for the respondent when answering the questionnaire, speed of
response returns (I was receiving responses after only several hours), and
respondents had the opportunity to type their answers, rather than hand-writing
open-ended questions. Further, the cost of conducting the research was low
(no copying or mailing expenses), the questionnaire was easy to administer (I
could conduct the survey from my office in E. Lansing), and the data was easy
to enter (I did not have to type in respondent’s written answers or decipher their
handwriting). l encouraged respondents to add any concerns or messages of
clarification to any question. On average, I received over 20 written responses

to each Likert-type question, and a total of over 1000 written responses. I do

50

not believe that I would have received so much feedback had I used a pen and
paper survey.

Having said all of this, the most obvious drawback to this method is
anonymity. l was aware of this concern and I know that I lost some responses
because of it. However, I am pleased with the overall response rate of 59.5
percent. This method would not be possible for many studies, because not all
researchers have access to e-mail addresses for most of their population
members. Furthermore, I realize that because of the anonymity concern, this
method will not be appropriate for all research. However, because I was asking
numerous demographic questions to a small population, I was not concerned
about using an anonymous method. In most instances, with the information
from two or three demographic questions, I could have easily figured out the
respondent’s identity. This would not have changed even if I had used an
“anonymous” pen and paper method. For those who expressed concern
regarding anonymity, I replied with a personal e-mail explaining the stringent
confidentiality procedure I had in place. In most cases, this seemed to quell
.any fears that were expressed. I would conclude by saying that l was
extremely satisfied with this method of data collection. It would certainly not be
the right one for every survey situation, but it provided me with rich data that I
had not anticipated when writing my proposal. As a result of this additional
data, the second phase of interviewing was made significantly easier and

shorter.

51

Phase I

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Phase Two: The Interviews

The interviewing phase consisted of eleven interviews ranging in time
from 45 minutes to 2 1/2 hours. Subjects were selected based on the answers
given on the questionnaire and suggested informants from other interviewees.
A representative sample of opinions and faculty types were chosen for the
interviews. Of the eleven interviews, five were with women, ten were with
Mennonites (although two of them were not raised Mennonite, and thus bring
an acknowledged “outsider” view to their answers) and six were teaching
faculty (several with some administrative responsibilities). I did not use a set
protocol for these interviews. Instead, I used their own responses to the
survey, and themes from the questionnaire, in general, as topics for discussion.
This kept the interviews very focused. I stopped interviewing when I realized
that I was not receiving any significantly new data. With this interview data,
along with the rich written data collected in the survey, l was ready to conclude
the interviewing phase of the project.
Phase Three: Documents

Various types of documents were collected from numerous sources to
supplement the research data collected in the first two phases. I was given
access to institutional data concerning enrollment and endowment, and other
financial reports. I was also made aware of faculty members who have written
material relevant to this research. Finally, President Showalter granted me

permission to have written copies all of the speeches given and public writing

52

produced by her, since she was nominated for the presidency. This included
more than 50 documents.

While every neophyte researcher is concerned that he/she will conclude
his/her research and end up with insufficient amounts of data, I garnered more
data than can easily be digested in one research project. One could safely say
that with 122 questionnaires, over 1000 written responses, hours of interview
data, dozens of written documents and institutional data, I was awash with
information.

A Short Note on Quoting Respondents (Confidentiality Concerns)

l have been very concerned with and intentional about maintaining the
confidentiality of the interviewees and the respondents of the survey. For this
reason, I have not always used identifiers for respondents, or I have changed
the identifiers to protect their identities. Having said this, I cannot protect
individual respondents from the quotes they gave me. In a few cases, their
own words may possibly give their identities away, but I will not. My hope is
that readers will understand that what is of interest here is what has been said,
not who said it. Quotes were chosen because they represent a group of
respondents, not because one individual said them. Varied identifiers were
used for each respondent in order to confuse readers, and in almost no case is
the identifier relevant to the message of the quote.

The Political Nature of (This) Social Research
Social research can often be a very political endeavor. When one

includes religion in the research mix, it may become highly emotionally

53

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charged. I went into this process a bit naively. What follows are some of the
research issues that arose throughout the data collection process.

In February of 1999, I sent out my first round of surveys via e-mail.
Within five minutes, I had my first problem. One teaching faculty member wrote
me, “Dan, I would think that your survey would be more valid if replies were
anonymous. E-mail is very convenient, but it is not anonymous.” I wrote back
assurances that while it was not anonymous, strict confidentiality would be
maintained. Further, I explained to him and others that anonymity would have
been difficult because of the size of the population, and the type of
demographic questions which I asked. While he did not end up returning the
survey, I received few additional complaints or concerns about anonymity.
Several who were concerned later returned the survey, after I discussed my
confidentiality procedures with them. Having said this, I do believe that my
response rate was probably hurt by not having an anonymous method.

After weathering this initial anonymity storm, a more challenging one
arrived in the form of an e-mail between two faculty members that was not
meant for me to see. A lesson one of these faculty members Ieamed was to
make sure you know who you are sending your e-mail to before you hit the
“send” button. This research began out of an interest of mine. I am grateful
that l have been allowed to study a topic about which I have some passion.
However, like all topics about which we may have strong feelings, other
participants may have as much or more passion for them. The latter is the

case in the message of this wayward e-mail. I found a faculty member who

54

AC

Di

feels as deeply about Goshen as I do. She did not approve of what she
believed was a politically motivated survey intended to garner propaganda for a
portion of GC administrators and teachers who have different ideas about the
church/college relationship than she does. She wrote,

Amazing! He will end up with unreliable statistics, but folks at GC

will have the ammunition they need. For example, the 'out of

synch with Mennonite Church’ question. He hasn’t even defined

the Mennonite Church's position on anything so how can you

measure an attitude when one of the variables is completely an

unknown? It’s about as meaningful as asking, 'are we out of

synch with the NBA?’ The inherent assumption in the question is

that being in 'synch’ is a desirable? That leading the church by

being in tension is not desirable?
At first, I was not sure how to respond to this e-mail. I was offended and hurt
by the tone of it (the more personally offensive parts are not included above),
and I felt horribly misunderstood. My initial response was not constructive, so
eventually it hit the trash bin. I then wavered on whether or not I should
respond at all, and finally decided that something good could come out of some
dialogue with this person. I wrote her an e-mail message encouraging her to
respond to the survey, stressing that all of the questions could be disagreed
with or challenged. I let her know that I had encouraged respondents to write
notes of concern and clarification after any of their answers. She declined to fill
out the survey, but she did express both concern about and support for the
research in the end. She wrote in a subsequent e-mail: “My frustration is not
with you, that [is] for sure! My frustration is with parts of the campus that

always 'skew' everything their way and many get shafted.” She went on to say

that “the voices at GC who so often claim to speak for the Mennonite Church

55

5!.
at

seem to be on serious shaky ground.” She further talked about how there was
a “silent majority” at Goshen who believe as she does that the college needs to
lead the church by “being in tension with” it. | asked her to encourage those
that she knows in the “silent majority” to complete the questionnaire. While I do
not know if she did this, I later heard from some who believed in this need for
“being in tension” with the church.

In the end, I received very little criticism regarding the research.
However, what I did receive, was often quite venomous. l encouraged
respondents who had concerns about the research to write directly to my
dissertation director, Dr. David Labaree. One respondent decided, after
receiving the survey for the third time, that he must express his concerns about
the nature of my research. He wrote via e-mail to Dr. Labaree and carbon-
copied me:

I have received Dan Liechty's request to complete a research

survey in the pursuit of his doctoral degree. He suggested that

any of us who have comments or concerns should send them on

to you as his faculty advisor. Having now received several

reminders from Dan, I have decided to explain my failure to

complete the instrument and alert you to my reasons for not doing

so. I find the instrument to be vague, repetitive and generally,

poorly constructed. It is intrusive, opinionated and seems clearly

to be a very political document disguised so as to appear to be

scholarly. I cannot imagine what use these data could possibly

have in the field of academic scholarship. If this is a sample of

what your program accepts as doctoral research, I question the

value of this advanced degree. I will not be completing the
survey.

This is not the kind of response one hopes to receive regarding his/her

research, but in the end, I found it very helpful. I clearly had hit a nerve. It

56

seemed that this research was viewed by some as very political and
threatening. This retort forced me to ponder and take very seriously the
political nature of the research, and question my “agenda.” Certainly, I do not
have a benign attitude toward the topic, but I also have attempted to be as
open to criticism and difference of opinion as possible. This is why I believed it
imperative and ethical that I include my positions about the research topic in the
introduction.
Faculty Response

The process of conducting this research was often as enlightening as
the data that was produced. The final part of the questionnaire was an invitation
to add additional comments to the questionnaire. There were 26 written
responses to this open-ended question. Some respondents wanted to wish me
well, some wanted to express concerns about the survey, while others said
they were anxious to see the results. Some faculty members agreed with one
who thought the questions were “so absolutist that unqualified answers are
difficult” and another thought that “the kind of questions asked in this survey
simply contribute to a kind of navel-gazing that wastes time and drains energy
from the institution.” This second respondent went on to ask “what would
happen if GC broke its ties with the Mennonite Church and became more of an
Anabaptist institution than it already is?” Another respondent expressed a
common concern about anonymity, but he finally “decided that to be silent is no
way to help shape GC.” An other-than-Mennonite (OTM) respondent noted that

she was disconcerted because “some of the questions were directed to the

57

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interests and concerns of Mennonites exclusively. It made some of the
questions very difficult to answer since I don’t identify with the concerns that a
Mennonite would have with regard to Goshen and in connections with the
church and its constituencies.” Another administrative faculty member wrote
that she “marked ‘undecided’ many times in order to acknowledge the disparity
within the Mennonite church. Parts of it are hostile to CC and alienated from it,
but many people in the church who know GC well resonate with our mission
and with campus culture. The Gideon Project survey revealed that those who
know us best are also the ones who are most supportive.”

A new faculty member found the questions “disturbing.” He wrote, “I
think there is a healthy distance between the denomination and the college.
Academic freedom is vital to our integrity at a liberal arts college and what
makes Goshen so distinct from places that exercise ‘mind-control.’” Another
young administrative faculty member “felt in answering questions that the
wording of this instrument might lead the respondent to characterize GC as
having a rocky relationship with the denomination when in fact the respondent
believes that relationship to be very healthy.” A long-time administrative faculty
member thought that the questions “might be open to unfair use in developing
an agenda. I sense an underlying agenda that assumes GC to be too liberal
and not in-touch with the MC church. I do not agree.”

As is my prerogative, I will end on an upbeat note. One middle-career

teaching faculty member said well what numerous respondents expressed:

58

Despite my concerns [about the college], I have a tremendously
high sense of job satisfaction here. Thanks for helping to focus
these questions. I'll be very interested to hear about your results
and I hope that this might be a catalyst for more open, frank
conversation among the faculty about these important questions.

59

CHAPTER 4: THE SECULARIZATION OF CHRISTIAN HIGHER
EDUCATION AND THE MENNONITE CHURCH

 

Introduction

Sawatsky (1997) defines a secularized Mennonite college as one which
has “lost either [its] Christian or Mennonite soul” (194). He reiterates the
commonly held supposition that secularization occurs as institutions shift away
from church support and belief. As I have posited previously and will make a
case for in later chapters, it is the belief of many on Goshen’s campus that it is
not the college that is secularizing, but portions of the denomination that are
abandoning their Anabaptist roots. In this chapter, I will outline the history of
the secularization of higher education as analyzed by Christian and secular
authors, provide a prescription to battle the forces of secularization, and
discuss the “secularization” of the Mennonite Church.
The Secularization of Christian Higher Education

The history of higher education in the US. is, in fact, the history of
American Christian higher education. “The churches sponsored higher
education before there were any state-sponsored colleges or universities;
indeed before there were states” (Burtchaell, 1991a, 17). Cohen (1998) notes
that of the original nine colonial colleges, eight were related to denominations.

The combination of church influence blended with lay control

became the pattern. There was a link between the established

churches and the teaching of morality or the good life, and as new

churches formed, the colleges came along with them so that the
young could be instructed in proper conduct (Cohen, 17).

60

From this start, higher education in the US. has been on a path toward
secularization. There are still over 700 denominationally affiliated colleges and
universities in the US. (Stoltzfus, 1992), but the prognosis for these
church/college relationships is uncertain. Some are dogged by such negative
factors as poor location or meager financial resources, and many are on the
brink of losing their connections to their supporting denominations. In the July
30, 1999 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education, there was a story about
a struggling college, Sterling College, in rural Kansas (Van Der Werf, 1999).
This story focused on the problems Sterling College faces in their fight to
survive, and the solutions that their new president is attempting to put into
place. Of course, the president has developed new programs and instituted a
new capital campaign, but one of the more interesting goals is his desire to
more than double the number of students coming from the institution’s founding
denomination, the Presbyterian Church. Many formeriy denominationally
affiliated colleges are belatedly discovering that the relationship they
abandoned in favor of greater market appeal provided the kind of support which
is difficult to find elsewhere. In particular, this appears to be the case for the
many rural, regional colleges that have little to offer those from outside their
immediate surroundings.

Because secularization has occurred over the course of so many years
in so many institutions, there is no singular experience that can be pinpointed.
The original church colleges became secular universities (e.g. Harvard and

Yale), and states began to found their own public universities (e.g. University of

61

Virginia, Cornell) (Pattillo and Mackenzie, 1966). The process of secularization
does, however, take on identifiable historic patterns that can inform church-
related colleges and universities today about their own potential to secularize.

Carlin (1996) offers an interesting approach for looking at the process of
secularization of Catholic higher education using the Hegelian triadic model of
thesis-antithesis-synthesis. This model can be relevant for all church-related
colleges. Carlin’s “Thesis Stage” is characterized by the initial formation of
church-related colleges by the supporting denominations to meet the scholarly
needs of the faith community. The “Antithesis Stage” is represented by the
trend at an institution toward secularization that places its strongest emphasis
on scholarly achievement and pluralism. Carlin argues that the remaining
church-related schools, if they are to maintain their church-relatedness, must
attempt to achieve “a synthesis that combines the best features of the thesis
with the best of the antithesis while leaving aside the shortcomings of both”
(17). He believes that this synthesis has yet to be achieved.

Religion has played a significant role throughout the history of American
higher education. Hofstadter (1996) notes, however, that

The most significant trend in collegiate education during the

eighteenth century was the secularization of the colleges. By

opening up new fields for college study, both scientific and

practical, by rarifying the devotional atmosphere of the colleges,

and by introducing a note of skepticism and inquiry, the trend

toward secular learning inevitably did much to liberate college
work (185-6).

62

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This trend toward secularization continued into the next century, although it was
tempered by a revival movement and increased denominational support of
education.

Jencks and Riesman (1968) argue that, along with the impact of
ecumenicalism, the period between the American Revolution and Civil War saw
an increasing emphasis on rationalism which made strong relationships with
any denomination or dogma difficult. Brubacher and Rudy (1997) write,
however, that even during this period, there was some resistance to
secularization. In particular, the religious revival movement of the early
nineteenth century was particularly strong on college and university campuses
because there was still a strong contingent of clergymen on faculty. Brubacher
and Rudy write that

This outburst of orthodox religiosity was signalized on college

campuses by the development of evangelistic ‘revivals.’ As early

as 1801, Williams experienced such movement, and soon other

institutions were similariy affected. A good example of the

workings of the revivalistic spirit is afforded by Amherst College.

Here the faculty made the most energetic efforts to ‘save’ the

souls of each succeeding crop of freshmen. A desperate ‘now or

never’ attitude toward conversion prevailed. The professors,

nearty all of whom were evangelistic clergymen, felt this was the

last chance to convert the ‘unsaved’ among the students to

Christian truth and to steer into the clerical profession as many

among the ‘saved’ as could be interested (43).

The 18003 were more than just a time of revivalism. Hofstadter (1996)
posits that during this time the two most important factors

in determining that American education should be fragmented

were denominational sponsorship of colleges and local pride.

The multiplicity of colleges was a product of the multiplicity of
Protestant sects compounded by the desire of local bodies,

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religious or civic, to promote all kinds of enterprises that gratified
local pride or boosted local real-estate values (213-4).

He further argues that the proliferation of denominational colleges came out of
“a concerted effort on the part of the Protestant churches to expand their
influence and tighten their control over spiritual and intellectual life” (Hofstadter,
215)

Jencks & Riesman (1968) write that “many colleges were founded for
religious and pedagogical reasons which are now obscure or forgotten, but
most of them quickly dropped these commitments and Ieamed to base their
public appeal on the customs, concerns, or practical needs of one or more fairly
well-established subcultures” (3). Goshen College’s religious reasons for
existing are not obscure or forgotten, but there is increasingly significant market
pressure to attempt to appeal to a broader constituent base. This trend fits well
with Jencks and Riesman’s market approach to secularization. They argue that
the institutional differentiation that denominationalism provided gradually gave
way to ecumenical and market pressures. The colleges “eschewed religious
ties not because they opposed religion per se, which only a few did, but
because a tie with one denomination seemed to alienate families from others”
(Jencks & Riesman, 321 ). Cohen (1998) concurs when he argues that

One of the major inputs to secularization was the fact that few of

the colleges were controlled strictly by a single church group;

most were interdenominational or nondenominational, bringing

onto the institution’s board, faculty, and student body anyone who
could assist in keeping the institution afloat (86).

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The period following the Civil War was a time when denominational
influence continued to wane because denominational colleges were often
poorly supported. As Rudolph (1962) writes, “Denominationalism did spawn
the colleges of the college era; it often helped to keep the colleges provincial
and poor” (69, emphasis in original). Further, during this period, educators
were becoming increasingly professionalized and lay persons, rather than
clergymen, were more and more involved in teaching, leading and governing
institutions. Jencks and Riesman (1968) note that “the choice of a layman was
a way of disengaging the college from the sectarian feuds of its time, and this
often increased its popularity with the public, much of which was impatient with
what it regarded as clerical nit-picking” (325). Jencks and Riesman again
argue that the decreasing influence of denominations occurred as market
pressures made sectarianism untenable:

Colleges founded to preserve a particular kind of orthodoxy had a

much lower life expectancy than colleges whose founders

possessed a more expansive and more academic view of their

role. Yet natural selection was not the whole story. Unlike

organisms, colleges can change their gene pool in response to

external pressures and can thus direct their own evolution in ways

likely to ensure not only survival but comfort. Many Protestant

colleges have done just this, starting with sectarian ties that were

ill-adapted to market conditions and deciding (often

unconsciously) as time went on to play these ties down and in

some cases eventually eliminating them (Jencks and Riesman,

327)

Jencks and Riesman go on to describe the type of college that was most likely

to be successful after dropping sectarian ties. They argue that these

institutions were predominantly Anglo-Saxon, upper middle class, “national”

65

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and were either suburban or drew students from the suburbs. “Today, while
most leading private universities and colleges can trace their origins to some
Protestant denomination, very few can point to any significant current difference
between themselves and those private institutions that have always been non-
sectarian” (Jencks & Riesman, 327). This idea that institutional health has
come to institutions which have dropped their religious ties has lead many
colleges to attempt this process. In many cases, however, it is not possible to
replicate the success of these “leading” institutions simply because the colleges
are not in the proper market position described above. Not all colleges can be
predominantly Anglo-Saxon, upper middle class and suburban.

Rowan and Miskel (1999) argue that this desire to look like successful
institutions in a market is best understood by what they call “new
institutionalism.” New institutionalism “sees social actors of all sorts —
individuals, managers, interest groups, public agencies, and corporations — as
embedded in socially-organized environments that generate rules, regulations,
norms, and definitions of the situation that constrain and shape action” (Rowan
& Miskel, 359). They note that by being “imbedded in socially-organized
environments,” institutions are coerced into homogeneity. This coercion to
homogeneity is called isomorphism.

Rowan and Miskel (1999) describe three types of isomorphism. The first
is coercive isomorphism and occurs in situations “in which organizations in a
sector follow the formal rules and regulations laid down by the state and its

agencies and thereby end up with similar structures or procedures” (Rowan and

66

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Miskel, 366). The second type is normative isomorphism. Normative
isomorphism “is the process by which professions commonly impose order on
organizations. Here, professional codes are spread to organizations by
personnel who have been socialized and educated to follow professional
standards” (Rowan & Miskel, 366-7). The final type of isomorphism is mimetic.
“This type occurs as organizations mimic successful or prestigious
organizations in the field” (Rowan & Miskel, 367).

These types of isomorphism have all impacted higher education.
Sectarian schools can attempt to ignore the impulse toward isomorphism, but
as we will see in later chapters, there is great pressure to conform to standard
models of education. While most colleges attempting to drop sectarian ties
cannot mimic such things as location, they often hope that by trying to appear
more like prestigious institutions they can begin to attract the types of students
the prestigious colleges and universities enroll. Herbst (1997) posits that this
tendency toward isomorphism could be observed even in colonial times. When
founding the New Jersey College (later Princeton), the Presbyterians knew they
must be tolerant of religious difference to succeed. Further, their best chance
for success was to mimic already successful models. “In order to attract young
men of Presbyterian, Quaker, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, and
Anglican backgrounds, the curriculum had to compare favorably with those of
Harvard and Yale” (Herbst, 59).

Burtchaell (1991a) presents an evolutionary model for the secularization

of higher education. Much of what he posits is embedded in the literature

67

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above. However, he shows how one institution, Vanderbilt University, is a
mirror for a pattern of secularization which occurred at many other higher
education institutions. Burtchaell notes that there have been four distinct
periods of secularization in higher education. The first occurred in continental
Europe when universities were nationalized and then secularized during the
Enlightenment. The second period, of which Vanderbilt was a part, occurred in
the US. after the Civil War. Burtchaell writes that this was a period of “gradual
modifications called for by professing Christians rather than any sharp
discontinuity achieved by militant secularists” (22).

The third wave, which immediately followed, mirrored the Enlightenment
period in Europe. This was a time when the German model “with its emphasis
on technical and specialized scholarship” shaped higher education significantly
(Pattillo and Mackenzie, 1966, 199). Reuben (1996) argues that

The traditional account of the history of higher education

emphasizes a revolution in the late nineteenth century. According

to this historical model, true higher education did not exist in the

United States until the development of the modern university.

This narrative highlights the role of critics, who traveled to Europe,

studied at or visited universities abroad, particularly German

universities, and upon returning to the United States tried to make

their compatriots aware of the inadequacies of the American

college. By the 19703, these enlightened critics had grown

numerous and influential enough to take control of a few key

institutions (10).

Hofstadter (1996) writes that “as time went on, the tenets of Puritanism passed
gradually but easily into the tenets of the Enlightenment, divine providences

yielded to natural law, and theology rested more and more on teleology” (201 ).

Burtchaell notes that during this period, educators “discredited religious belief

68

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and practice as alien to valid scholarship, and insisted that religious belief be
allowed no status in higher education except as private and extracurricular”
(22). The final wave has occurred since World War II, and reflects the patterns
of the second wave. Well-meaning Christian educational leaders moved their
institutions toward accepted standards of academic excellence, which again
had a secularizing effect. Burtchaell argues that this last period has had the
largest impact on Catholic colleges and universities. The ripples of this
movement are those upon which the Mennonite colleges are also riding.

Burtchaell (1991a) offers nine stages of secularization through which he
believes a great many Protestant colleges have traversed. In the following
chapter, I will use these stages of secularization as a framework to explore
Goshen’s trek down the path of secularization. The stages Burtchaell describe
are embedded in the second and fourth periods of secularization outlined
above. They are not militant breaks from religious standards, rather they
evolve, often encouraged by well-meaning Christian educational leaders. While
some of these steps occurred concurrently at Vanderbilt, Burtchaell posits that
there are three stages through which they ran:

The first stage, enacted by Christians without any intention of

extinguishing or even compromising the Christian character of the

college or university, consisted in muting all overt claims of the

academic institution to be a functioning as a limb of a particular

church (Burtchaell, 29).
The second stage was characterized by great expansion, as academic

standards, funding and prestige were all on the rise. Burtchaell writes that at

this point, “the residual religious atmosphere was durable enough (even

69

somewhat more sophisticated) to reassure the reformers that the intellectual
gain had been without religious loss. Faith was mute but present” (29). In the
following generation, however, the faith of the church was replaced with faith in
rational empiricism. As Burtchaell notes,
The reformers had unwittingly deprived their institutions of any capacity
to retain their Christian identity when exposed to a secularist faculty in
the third generation. Ambitious but improvident leaders had suppressed
their schools’ Christian immune systems, and since the virus of
secularization would not seek out these now-defenseless institutions
until the professional personnel could be replaced by scholars
predominantly of no faith or a hostile faith or an intimidated faith, the
reformers had no way of understanding how much farther their actions
would carry beyond what they intended (29).
Burtchaell (1991 a, 1991b) ends with this as the last period of secularization.
Others (Marsden, 1992b; Hauerwas, 1991) further argue that the period of
secular pluralism that began to flourish in the 19603 has had an additional,
radical, albeit subtle, impact on church-related higher education.
The Maintenance of a Strong Church/College Relationship
Armed with the knowledge of the power of secularization, numerous
authors have outlined guidelines for maintaining a healthy college/church
relationship (Burtchaell, 1991b; Boyer, 1995; Meyer, 1995; Stoltzfus, 1992).
What follows is a composite of these guidelines. They offer a framework for

church-related colleges and college-related churches to use if they are serious

about the future of their relationship.

1. Active Part of the Denomination

The only way to have a truly Christian college is for it to remain an
intentionally active part of a denomination (Burtchaell, 1991 b;
Cunninggim, 1978). “There is a difference between a college

70

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supported by interested individuals and a college that is an
integral part of the mission of the church” (Meyer, 1995, 5).

2. Balancing Faith and Learning

The college will have to work constantly at balancing the antipathy
between church leaders and the intellectual elite so that faith and
learning have an equal presence on campus (Burtchaell, 1991b).
As a way of attaining this goal of cooperation and mutual
understanding, Meyer (1995) notes that school leaders must be
involved in denominational leadership. Denominational leaders
should also be encouraged to play an active role on the college
campuses. This could include speaking in chapels and teaching
classes but should also involve less formal interaction with
students, faculty and administrators. Lewis (1993) argues that
many church-related college faculty members have had great
success in writing for scholarly journals, but that these
accomplishments have not been translated into works that could
help inform the church. Faculty “need to spend some of their time
in educating the persons in the pew by furnishing readable
articles for the popular [church] journals" (Lewis, 4).

3. Strong Representation in All Components

In all components of the college (governance, faculty, staff and
students), there must be a strong representation of members of
the supporting church (Burtchaell, 1991b; Stoltzfus, 1992; Carlin,
1996; Cunninggim, 1978). “A significant number of both faculty
and students must, in fact, be faith believers and understand both
the history and the commitments of the institution as they
translate themselves into a way of life” (Boyer, 1995, 3). Meyer
(1995) notes that board members and staff leaders, as well as
faculty members, need to be carefully recruited to serve the
relationship between church and college. He cautions, however,
that “the best board and executive officer(s) in the world will not
be optimally effective if the organization’s staff members are not
chosen for their deep personal commitment to the mission and do
not themselves participate in the development and maintenance
of an organizational culture appropriate to the organization’s
mission” (Meyer, 1987, 16). Meyer(1995) posits that there has
not been enough emphasis on developing faculty teams that are
committed to the religious missions of their institutions.

71

4. Relationship Proclaimed Openly

The relationship between the school and church should be
proclaimed openly to those from outside the church who wish to
participate. The college or university must honestly and
unabashedly proclaim its values to all who will listen (Burtchaell,
1991b). Cunninggim (1978) postulates, however, that this must
be preceded by both the church and the college sincerely
understanding why they support each other.

5. Students Committed to Church Mission of School

Meyer (1995) notes that to keep a strong connection to the
church, a significant mass of students must be committed to the
church mission of the school. “In many areas the impact of
students on their peers is significantly greater than the impact of
faculty members on their students. Indeed in some of these
areas one can say that the principle faculty-administration
influence is in providing arrangements that attract the kind of
students needed to achieve the institution’s mission, and that from
that point on the chain reaction among the students themselves
takes over” (Meyer, 5). Marty (1978) calls for emphasis to be
placed on reviving student interest in denominational ties. He
argues that the students are the future of the church and that not
enough attention has been placed on denominational interests.

6. Teaching as Key to Relationship

Boyer (1995) argues that teaching is the tool that will ultimately
enhance the relationship between church and college. Without
dedicated teachers, willing to serve as Christian role-models and
mentors to students, the college cannot expect to maintain a
positive relationship with the church. Meyer (1992) believes that
church-related colleges must be proactive in their recruitment of
these faculty members. “Church schools must actively encourage
and call gifted prospects, walk with them in their preparation, and
employ them when they are available, not just advertise and fill
vacancies when the vacancies appear” (38).

7. Curriculum Crucial to Relationship

The curriculum at a Christian college must be carefully developed
to be a coherent whole (Boyer, 1995; Carlin, 1996; Cunninggim,
1978). Boyer believes “that to organize our intellectual quest
exclusively within the intellectual boundaries that humanity has
created for its own connivance will, I think, do violence to a larger

72

truth of discovering the wholeness of God’s universe” (4). Meyer
( 1995) also calls for “an explicitly Christian curriculum and
extracurriculum” (5). Stoltzfus (1992) notes that “a distinctive
stance of the church college is the conviction that Biblical faith is
an intellectually valid way to integrate liberal Ieaming” (113).

8. Type of Interaction on Campus Important

The quality of language used between faculty, administrators and
students says a lot about the relationships inside and outside the
institution. “It’s not what the catalog says; it’s what the people say
that establishes for me the authenticity as to the nature of that
community and the focus of the intellectual inquiry of campus life”
(Boyer, 1995, 3). Words that attempt to define relationships and
belief must be chosen carefully.

9. Careful Funding Patterns Developed

Meyer (1995) posits that churches and colleges must work
together to develop funding patterns for their education
institutions. He also makes a call for careful stewardship in the
use of the church’s financial resources and personnel. The
church and the college need to work together to decide what
types and how much education should be provided. Cunninggim
(1978) argues that the college must then be able to count on the
aid of its supporting denomination in both tangible and intangible
ways. The church must provide financial assistance, send its
students and come to the college’s aid when outside pressures
threaten the institution.

10. Teach how to Learn and Live

Boyer (1995) believes that the final and ultimate test of a church-
related college “is the extent to which the institution teaches not
only how to Ieam but how to Iive” (4). Knowledge is valuable, but
its use with integrity is priceless. Students “should be inspired by
the human stories of Christian leaders from a variety of
professions who demonstrate how faith intersects with the life of
the world” (Stoltzfus, 1992, 113).

11. Important Service Mission Outside of Church
Relationship

Stoltzfus (1992) notes that the healthy church-related college has
a mission that is broader than simply to its supporting

73

denomination. It has received support from the local community,
the state and nation and should be willing to provide service to the
larger society. This will include educating professionals, serving
local needs and providing “informed Christian insight and analysis
[that] adds to the vital exchange of ideas in a pluralistic society”
(Stoltzfus, 113). Further, in service to the larger Church, Stoltzfus
posits that church-affiliated colleges must provide an ecumenically
sensitive education for students from all Christian backgrounds.
As I will outline later, however, this need to be ecumenically
hospitable must not be at the expense of losing unique
institutional identifiers.

These eleven ideas give us a framework to use in order to maintain or
even strengthen church/college relationships. History has provided us with
many examples of how the process of secularization has occurred. Discussing
the secularization of Catholic higher education, Carlin (1996) argues that
“When the Protestants de-Christianized their institutions, it was the result of
well intentioned blunders. If the Catholics de-Catholicize theirs, it will be the
result of gross negligence” (17). This may be true for many secularizing
institutions. However, as was noted several times before, the story of
secularization takes a curious turn when examining the relationship between
Goshen College and the Mennonite Church. Many faculty members reported
that they believe it is parts of the church which are moving away from the
values that have been the historical underpinnings of the denomination. To test
this faculty hypothesis, I took the collected data and attempted to fit it into
Burtchaell’s nine stages of secularization. What I discovered was a misfit
between the college and Burtchaell’s stages. Goshen does not appear to be

on the path of secularization which Burtchaell maps out. The following chapter

74

will use Burtchaell’s stages as a framework to present the research findings
and analyses. It should be made clear that this framework is used because it is
a thoughtful and comprehensive outline of the significant issues surrounding
the secularization process, although certainly not the only one.

The “Secularization” of the Mennonite Church

While conducting this research, I was surprised by the dearth of
longitudinal data regarding the Mennonite Church. Because the Gideon Project
was not a longitudinal study, it is challenging to understand if the nature of the
commitment to Anabaptist tenets in the denomination is actually changing.
However, Wiese (1996a) did find that those in congregations that have more
often supported Mennonite colleges were significantly more likely to support
traditional Anabaptist beliefs, particularly those beliefs concerning separation/
persecution from society, pacifism and a thorough church discipline. Many on
the faculty at Goshen College clearly believe that the church is being
increasingly influenced by outside forces, but there has been little more than
anecdotal evidence to support this hypothesis.

In 1998, Calvin Redekop, a Mennonite scholar, published a history of a
small Mennonite conference that separated from the larger Mennonite
denominations of North America. This denomination, the former Evangelical
Mennonite Brethren (EMB) Church, is located primarily in the prairie states and
provinces of the US. and Canada. Redekop’s book, entitled Laying

Anabaptism: From Evangelical Mennonite Brethren to Fellowship of Evangelical

 

Bible Churches tells a century-long story of religious assimilation into

 

75

mainstream North American evangelicalism/fundamentalism, and the
suppression and eventual severing of the denomination’s Anabaptist!
Mennonite roots.

The denomination was originally founded in part because of the concern
by several local leaders that the Mennonite church was becoming too liberal
and that there was not enough evangelical emphasis within the denomination.
This initial movement mixed traditional Anabaptist beliefs and piety with
contemporary evangelical practices. Redekop (1998) outlines the names that
the denomination has used throughout it’s existence. An early name used by
the denomination was the “Defenseless Mennonite Brethren.” This name gives
credence to Anabaptism’s traditional stance on pacifism. However, it was later
changed to the “Evangelical Mennonite Brethren” and finally to the current
“Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches.” A3 Paul Toews notes in the
forward of the book,

The terms Defense/e33 and Evangelical in the successive names

reveal the differing tugs of their changing and fragile identity. The

name adopted in 1987 — Fellowship of Evangelical Bible

Churches (FEBC) — suggests the triumph of one element of that

bifurcated identity (Redekop, 9, emphasis in original).

Redekop (1998) discusses how the decision to sever Anabaptist ties
was a slow one:

The commitment to traditional doctrines and practices, including

pacifism, was still strong, for the discussion of the name change

[to the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren] in 1937 included vigorous

debate about retaining the non-resistance stance and concern for
the human physical and social needs in the world (153).

76

Redekop (1998) posits that there are several key factors that led to the
transition from a “renewal movement to return to the ‘faith of the fathers’” (178)
to a denomination that “in a hundred years had gone full circle, now fully
rejecting its historical heritage and moving toward mainline North American
evangelicalism and fundamentalism” (178). First, the evangelical zeal of the
movement found sustenance outside the denomination. As Redekop argues,

The increasing availability and use of the radio in the 19303 and

19403 is well-known. Residents on the Midwestern frontier were

irreversibly affected by the power of radio to bring national and

even international culture into their humble and meager homes.

The radio was probably as influential in the introduction of

evangelicalism and fundamentalism in American homes and the

EMB family as any other factor (154).

This diet of evangelical radio fed the movement, and made the denomination’s
identity with the larger Mennonite church and its resources seem less
important. The leaders of the movement increasingly looked outside of the
Mennonite realm for direction and education. By the 19403, the revival
movement was in full swing in the prairies, and was heavily supported by the
EMB churches.

With training of the majority of spiritual leaders of most

denominations garnered in evangelical or fundamentalist non-

denominational schools, this form of revivalism began to influence

the EMB toward the form and content of the broader evangelical

revival movement (Redekop, 154).

Where the original leaders of the denomination would have had at least
rudimentary training in Anabaptist thought and belief, successive generations of

EMB leaders looked outside the Mennonite, and even the denominational

churches, for their theological training. Redekop (1998) studied the educational

77

background of the EMB leaders in the 19603 and found that none of them had
received training from a Mennonite college or seminary.

The evangelical and even fundamentalist training the second

generation of leaders was getting (after 1920) was thus injected

into the blood of the conference. Such a transfusion was feasible

because such thought was compatible with the strong evangelistic

and mission emphasis endemic in the [EMB conference] since its

early days (Redekop, 185).

To Redekop,

The conclusion is unavoidable: The traditional Anabaptist faith

heritage was intentionally neglected and forsaken. The chances

of any of the listed pastors ever taking a course in Mennonite

history and theology were slim. And the ‘memory’ of the

Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition was viewed almost entirely

through the prism of believing that ethnic and cultural traditions

were inimical to evangelism and outreach (Redekop, 162).

While the denomination grew, it was a disappointingly small group,
considering its century-long emphasis on evangelism. Redekop (1998) argues
that in part, this was a failure of the denomination to develop the institutional
apparatus necessary to support its evangelical goals. The denomination often
partnered with other denominations, including Mennonite ones, in education
and mission boards but never developed viable organizations of its own.
Eventually, as the EMB leaders continued to believe that the larger Mennonite
groups were theologically off-base and as these leaders were increasingly
influenced by the North American evangelical/fundamentalist movement, they
cut off ties with other Mennonite groups and agencies. As Redekop notes,

A major reason for the [EMB] movement’s encounter with

fundamentalism was the lack of a critical mass whereby enough

broad-based leadership and experience could have emerged to
provide a sense of history. There were never enough resources

78

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to build up conference-nurturing institutions, such as schools and

mission boards, which could have helped direct and unify the

movement ideologically and provide goals and directions

(Redekop, 1998, 189).

The denomination’s last institutional connection to the broader Mennonite
church was severed in 1969, when delegates to the EMB annual conference
voted 118-33 to sever ties with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a
prominent Mennonite service and relief agency. MCC was founded in the early
twentieth century as a cooperative service outreach of various Anabaptist
groups and is heavily supported by those at Goshen College. Today, it is still a
very important organization because it is one of only a few unifying Anabaptist
institutions. The EMB delegate decision to break off ties with MCC was “based
on theological questions and whether MCC was moving away from strong
evangelist emphasis to a more social action program” (Redekop, 159).

While Redekop (1998) hypothesizes now that the denomination’s
inability to grow stemmed from their divorce from their Anabaptist siblings and
an inability to develop a viable institutional framework, the EMB denominational
leaders were looking for other reasons to explain their failure to thrive. Rather
than examining their own beliefs and evangelical practices, they blamed their
Mennonite heritage and connections for their poor record in evangelism. In
order to correct this problem, in 1987, the denomination took the final step in
severing their Mennonite connections by dropping the word “Mennonite” from

their denominational name.

John R. Dick, [a prominent EMB leader], writing during the heat of
the battle regarding the severing of relationships with the

79

Mennonite tradition and the dropping of Mennonite from the
name, said that ‘the evangelical Mennonite Brethren Conference
has always manifested a zeal and burden to win the lost for
Christ. In all honesty we will want to admit that the name
Mennonite has at times been a barrier in our outreach. Changing
the name could make it easier to invite non-Mennonites to our
homes and church services. It could affect a merger with another
group of like faith, thereby enlarging the geographic scope and
membership of our present small number. And it could possibly
strengthen us sufficiently to establish our own Christian training
centers’ (Redekop, 190-1).

As Redekop notes,
The cause of the failure of evangelism was ostensibly the ethnic
restraints of traditional Mennonitism. Since the group did not
achieve growth objectives through evangelism, the need to find a
scapegoat arose. With no culprit in sight, self-hatred (rejecting
the Mennonite parentage) was a way out (191 ).
Of course, the evangelical efforts of the denomination were not without
their fruits, and some non-Mennonite families did join the church. Redekop
( 1998) argues that as new families joined the church,
Mennonite family traditions and solidarity had to be consciously
downplayed to help these new converts become integrated...
Thus, with the integration, or at least the attempt to integrate non-
traditional Mennonite family members in the religious community,
the interest in the Mennonite heritage and teachings naturally
became less important, even embarrassing. This was especially
true in relation to teachings on unique aspects of the Anabaptist-
Mennonite heritage, particularly nonconformity and nonresistance
(167).
In one-hundred years, a movement which began as a renewal effort had
taken a small group of Mennonites and made them indistinguishable from the
mainstream evangelical/fundamentalist movement in North America. For some

this is tragic, for others it is seen as sign of positive religious evolution. The

end to the story appears to be that although the denomination’s Mennonite

80

heritage was used as a scapegoat for their inability to bring new members to
the denomination, it seemed to be an unwarranted accusation. Today, without
their Mennonite affiliation, the denomination continues to struggle in their
evangelical efforts.
Conclusion

80 why tell this story? As I have mentioned previously, the literature on
the secularization of higher education almost exclusively treats the church as a
static, unchanging entity. This story clearly shows how evolving church beliefs
and practices can influence denominational institutions. While not a large
group, it clearly caused consternation and was consequential both inside and
outside the denomination when the EMB leaders severed ties with various
other Mennonite groups. MCC, the aforementioned Mennonite service agency,
sent a delegation of representatives to meet with denominational leaders when
the EMB dropped their ties with the organization. This EMB case has much to
offer in explaining how the faculty at Goshen College feel about their own,
much larger, supporting denomination. As Redekop (1998) notes,

The relatively unknown EMB story is not as insignificant as it may

appear. This is because it provides a remarkable example of one

movement’s experience which yields considerable insights into all

movements desiring religious reawakening or recovery. The

particulars of this movement offer analogies applicable to other

movements which may initially appear unique (13).

This story could be seen as a warning to the Mennonite denomination that

supports Goshen College. I will return to It in subsequent chapters in order to

81

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demonstrate the striking similarities between it and the story that the faculty at
Goshen College are telling about their own supporting denomination.

While conducting this research and listening to the faculty of Goshen
College talk about the various segments of church, the consideration that it is
the church that is “secularizing” became a distinct and surprising, yet more and
more convincing, viewpoint. However, I was not sure that “secularizing” was
the most accurate term because the faculty do not appear to believe that the
denomination is becoming less Christian, simply less Anabaptist. In reading
Redekop (1998), l was surprised to find that he concurs with the Goshen
College faculty in his description of the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren (EMB)
denomination. He notes that

An unacknowledged desire to become accepted and influential in

mainstream North American religion may have contributed to the

rejection of ethnic Mennonite tradition. Doctrine and beliefs,

however vaguely, were proclaimed as the issue. In reality,

however, and paradoxically enough, what tended to be justified

was a form of secularization: adoption of truly North American

individualistic religion (Redekop, 192-3, emphasis added).

Burtchaell (1991a), in his discussion of the process of secularization in
higher education, argues that “the reformers had unwittingly deprived their
institutions of any capacity to retain their Christian identity when exposed to a
secularist faculty in the third generation” (29). It is striking that Redekop (1998)
uses similar language in describing the EMB transition away from Anabaptism.
He writes, “There were no second-generation leaders who could provide the

theological basis for an informed debate regarding adherence to or rejection of

traditional Anabaptist-Mennonitism in favor of evangelicalism” (190). The

82

continuing relationship between Goshen College and parts of the Mennonite
Church mirrors Redekop’s story. Each side can take the moral high ground
and say “they’re secularizing, not us.” However, both sides will have to deal
with the negative outcomes of this in-fighting. Redekop’s story would suggest
that the EMBs were hurt by their separation from other Anabaptist groups. It is
also clear that Mennonite institutions, like MCC, took this loss of support very
seriously. Goshen College and the Mennonite Church each have much to lose
if they cannot continue a working relationship. In the following chapters, I will
explain how those on the Goshen College campus hope to continue in
relationship with their supporting denomination. It is still not clear how these

plans will be received by the denomination.

83

CHAPTER 5: THE COLLEGE’S FIT WITH CONSENSUS
SECULARIZATION MODELS

 

Background

Often, when studies of the secularization of higher education are
conducted, researchers treat the supporting denomination as a static unit, as
though religion is timeless, unchanging and uniform. This story is different in
that there is a strongly held belief on the Goshen College campus that the
“secularizing” which is occurring is not as much at the college as it is in the
Mennonite Church itself. This is not “secularization” in the typical sense that
the Church is becoming less Christian, rather, it is the opinion of many on
campus that parts of the Mennonite Church are being increasingly influenced
by mainstream Evangelical Christianity.

While this is a study about church/college relations, it is also a study of
leadership. Burtchaell (1991a) notes that leaders of secular colleges and
universities which were once Christian, have, in their attempts to become more
palatable to a broad market, “unwittingly deprived their institutions of any
capacity to retain their Christian identity when exposed to a secularist faculty in
the third generation” (29). Thus, who the governing boards of Christian
colleges hire to lead will have a huge impact on the future of the relationship
because they will in turn, be instrumental in hiring a church-friendly faculty.
When Goshen College’s Board of Overseers hired Dr. Shirley Showalter as

their 14‘” president, they made a clear statement about which direction they

84

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wanted the church/college relationship to go. They hired a person with strong
connections to the church, and an ability and willingness to talk openly about
her faith. We shall see that this Board of Overseers’ decision to hire someone
who is likely to see the church as the solution, and not the problem, was not an
unanimously popular one among faculty.
Burtchaell’s Stages: An Analytical Framework

In the previous chapter Burtchaell’s model of secularization was outlined.
Burtchaell, a former University of Notre Dame professor, posits that many
colleges and universities have traveled along similar paths of secularization. I
have gravitated toward this model, however, as my dissertation research has
progressed, l have become increasingly aware of the ways in which Goshen
College does not readily fit Burtchaell’s model of secularization. Thus, Goshen
College does not appear to be as threatened by secularization (traditionally
defined) as I had initially hypothesized. While I can say that l have observed
some of the characteristics of Burtchaell’s stages in the attitudes of some on
Goshen’s campus, this is a different story. It’s a story of a religious institution
whose supporting denomination is in flux and a leader who is trying to make her
institution fit within this changing environment. I use Burtchaell’s framework
because it is a very useful one on which to hang the various issues with which
Goshen College and the Mennonite Church are struggling. For this reason, it
should be viewed within this work as an analytical tool rather than as a superior

model.

85

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Stage One: Intellectual Stagnation

Burtchaell (1991 a) hypothesizes that in the first stage of secularization,
there is a period of intellectual stagnation that is often blamed on the
oppressive nature of the supporting denomination by those on secularizing
campuses. Burtchaell notes that this stagnation often causes conflict between
those in the churches and the institutions, when people at the colleges and
universities begin to ask questions that challenge theological assumptions.
There evolves a sort of “mini-Enlightenment” within the colleges. Finally,
Burtchaell posits that what the colleges have perceived as non-academic
responses from their supporting churches only causes more alienation.

While there is a sense from some faculty members that Goshen College
has, over the past decades, stagnated somewhat academically, there is little
discussion that this stagnation has anything to do with negative pressures from
the church. Even President Showalter acknowledges that there has been some
intellectual stagnation. When I met with her, she said ,

You have to understand that you’re coming to an institution that

had at one time been, probably the undisputed leader of Higher

Education in the Mennonite Church and whether or not people

inside knew it, we had basically lost that pedestal.

There is a sense that Goshen has rested on its laurels and other Mennonite
colleges have been more aggressive in developing their academic programs.

As we will see in the next stage, President Showalter is absolutely convinced

that this stagnation is not the result of the college’s relationship with the church.

86

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Another factor that influences this lack of blaming the church for the
college’s woes is that a huge portion of the faculty is Mennonite. Over 85
percent of the faculty grew up in Mennonite homes and nearly 90 percent
currently attend a Mennonite church. Faculty fairly unanimously express the
opinion that the college does not fit well theologically and socially with some
segments of the denomination. Because it is only part of the denomination with
which the college does not fit well, this stage of intellectual stagnation
promulgated by church oppression is not fully apparent at Goshen. Simply put,
those at the college rarely interact with the portions of the denomination that
would be most likely to object with the Anabaptist theological perspective that is
prevalent on campus. This is not to suggest that the college is perfectly in-step
with the larger part of the denomination. However, as we will see later, the
tension that does exist between college and church has not made the working
conditions so intolerable that serious consideration of severing ties with the
church is universally considered.

Numerous faculty members, when surveyed and interviewed, noted that
even though the college is strongly church-related, they found no restrictions on
their academic freedom. One long-time faculty member, who did not attend a
Mennonite college, wrote, “I have never had any kinds of academic freedom
questions or problems at this institution. I have been free to teach whatever I
want, however I wanted, and think that’s really rather exceptional.” This
sentiment was echoed by another faculty member who has had significant

experience outside of Mennonite higher education. She said,

87

 

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This [amount of academic freedom] feels great to me compared to

[an evangelical college]. Why? Because at [an evangelical

college] a professor couldn’t even discuss certain issues, and a

class couldn’t do certain things because [they] are much more

concerned about the image they present to the outer world.

Why? Because they feel like that’s their way of evangelizing,

that’s their way of carrying the message of Christ out. Which in a

sense means you have to have this perfect image... Goshen

College, I feel, is much more open to the idea that if you are going

to have 18-22 year-olds on a residential campus, they’re going to

do things that we’re not happy about. They’re here to Ieam and

grow. And as a faculty, we’re not going to be a perfect faculty. I

like that. But, of course, there’s still damage control...

In the survey portion of this research, the faculty were asked several
questions pertaining to academic freedom and their ability to explore and teach
ideas that might challenge traditional Christian/Mennonite beliefs (see Appendix
B, questions 18 and 19). When the faculty were asked if “GC should guarantee
its faculty the freedom to explore any idea or theory, even if the ideas question
some traditional Mennonite beliefs or practices,” the overwhelming majority
(78.3 percent) either agreed or strongly agreed. In a related but more
pedagogically focused question, faculty were asked if “GC should guarantee its
faculty the freedom to read and discuss anything in the classroom they believe
pertains to what they are teaching, even if the ideas question some traditional
Christian beliefs or practices.” Again there was significant support for this
statement. Seventy-six percent either agreed or strongly agreed with it.
However, faculty warned that care should be taken when such information is
presented to students. The written responses to both of these questions

followed three general themes; the necessity to have free and open dialogue,

caution in its application, and the importance in hiring faculty who will provide

88

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an environment that puts difficult questions into perspective within the
framework of Anabaptist Christian beliefs.

Those who were in most support of the necessity of academic freedom
argued two points. First, as one administrative faculty member argued,
allowing academic freedom is “the only way the church can continue to grow
and change,” while another wrote that “we should be one of the centers of
social and theological thought. That will mean pushing the edges.” This notion
of the college being a place where the church can grow and change or even be
pushed, was expressed by a number of faculty members. One middle-career
teaching faculty member stressed the historical role that the college has had in
shaping denominational belief. “Traditional Mennonite beliefs and practices are
fluid, not rigid, and they have changed in appropriate ways over the centuries --
because we’ve been allowed the freedom to explore.” A young administrator
noted that his “answer has some limits, but the idea of critical thinking and
examining tough issues is essential to a liberal arts education. The resolve not
to shy away from issues is one way that separates Goshen from other Menno
colleges and other Christian colleges, in general.”

A second, more inward approach to the importance of academic
freedom had to do with the positive impact of such questioning on the students
themselves as they prepare for life outside of Mennonite communities. As one
new faculty member wrote:

There are a multitude of forces in the broader culture that

challenge Christian beliefs and practices; we should look for ways
to engage our students in critical thought so they may think

89

through the implications of such challenges. Goshen College

should not act as a retreat from the world of such ideas; we are

not here to hide our students away or cloister them. We are here

to help guide them through their encounters with such forces.

While the great majority favored academic freedom, many also
expressed concern that academic freedom be used wisely. A retired
administrator strongly agreed that academic freedom is absolutely necessary,
but believed that faculty also “should state where they are as Christians on any
issues discussed and why.” This sentiment was echoed by a young teaching
faculty member who agreed with the statement but warned that “the faculty also
have the responsibility to read and discuss those topics which strengthen and
foster Christian beliefs or practices. This is why we have a private, Christian
institution.” A long-time teaching faculty member wrote that she “could not, with
integrity, teach at a school that did not guarantee [academic freedom].” She
went on to caution, however, that “of course, any ‘radical’ discussions must be
framed carefully for students, judgement used as to the maturity level of
student, and placed within the context of development of skills in critical
thinking.” Another teaching faculty member was undecided, because

everything depends here on the context and the intention of the

prof. I certainly have done this in the past, but at the same time I

don't think students were ever confused or uncertain as to where I

stood personally or as to the traditional teachings of the church on

the topic. Is the goal to ‘tear down’ or to ‘build up’?

Finally, when discussing the need for broad allowances for academic freedom

in the classroom, a long-time Goshen College professor asked simply, “Is this

[professor] prudent?”

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The final theme in relation to academic freedom simply had to do with
faculty hiring. Several faculty members expressed the notion that if hiring is
done carefully, concerns about academic freedom will not be an issue. As one
middle-career administrator noted, “GC should also work to recruit faculty who
are fundamentally committed to the Church and bring those questions out of a
sense of love for rather than disdain for the Church.” Or, as another teaching
faculty member wrote, “it's important to find faculty, in recruitment and hiring,
who ‘fit’ with Goshen College's Mennonite identity. Once that is done, we need
to trust our regular review processes, and trust the faculty members
themselves, to do appropriate monitoring.”

The debate on campus expressed by many respondents about whether
the college should lead or follow the church is, and always has been, a very
lively one. It is closely related to whether or not the faculty believe that there is
intellectual stagnation on campus. The overall sentiment of the faculty is both
that they should have and do have a significant amount of academic freedom.
However, as is the case in most Christian denominations, there have always
been issues within the Mennonite Church that serve to divide. While these
issues have not always been shared by most other denominations (for
example, should those in the military be allowed to join the church?), at the end
of the 20th century, a major divisive issue in the Mennonite Church is one that is
prevalent throughout many contemporary Christian denominations. This is the
question of whether or not homosexuals should be allowed membership in

Christian and, in this case, Mennonite churches. Most of the faculty at Goshen

91

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do not feel sufficiently suppressed by the denomination on this or other issues
that they would consider severing ties with the church. Rather, they are
concerned that if the church is becoming more conservative/fundamentalist,
they will have an increasingly difficult time meshing their Anabaptist beliefs with
the denomination.

As a student at Goshen, I had an attitude about the church, “the
constituency” as we called it, that was not terribly respectful. In fact, I was
always a bit happy, even proud, when the students or college ruffled some
constituent feathers. On the other hand, I was also quite indignant when I
believed “the constituents" stood in my way of believing or acting as I wanted.
The suppression of campus activity by “the constituency” has been a central
theme of the debate about the college’s response to the issue of
homosexuality. In the Fall of 1999, Jeremy Shenk, a Goshen College student,
wrote the following paragraph on the “Perspectives” page of The Goshen
College Record (the college student paper):

How shallow have we become here? We beg a conservative

Board of Overseers and constituency for money and try to prove

to them that they have raised little blind complacent children who

will happily become tithing churchgoers. People who don’t attend

or work here should have absolutely no input into what is going on

here. Forget our constituency. There are liberal religious people

out there who would be happy to support a truly unique university.

Then without a conservative Board of Overseers pressuring us,

we could quit labeling and dehumanizing people. How can we

truly call ourselves followers of a loving and accepting Christ and

deny homosexual students the right to have their own club? This

isn’t even just a moral issue but a civil rights issue. Is the Board

of Overseers willing to admit that it is a prejudiced group? (Shenk,
1999, 3, emphasis added).

92

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Shenk shows a significant and common amount of student, and
sometimes faculty, disdain for outside control of the institution. In the quote
above, he alludes to a decision by the Board of Overseers, which is made up
entirely of Mennonites, to put a limited time moratorium on the discussion of
official club status for Goshen College’s Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Gay
Association (LBGA). This decision was ostensibly made so that the college
could see how the debate in the church would progress before making such a
decision. The Board decision to postpone a decision on the LBGA club status,
which has been supported and enforced by the administration, has been a hot-
point for church/college and faculty/student relationships. The Board decision
would seem to support the point made by Burtchaell that the perceived
conservatism of the denomination serves to hinder relationships with and within
the college. I found faculty, not surprisingly, more tempered in their response
to the Board of Overseers’ position. However, many faculty members
expressed sadness that the college could not take a more bold stance on the
issue of accepting homosexual membership in the church. One administrative
faculty member said on this topic,

I’d like the college to have a creative edge, a prophetic edge. To

maintain. the freedom for intellectual pursuits and to be leading the

church in new thinking and new ways of doing things.
He went on to note that there are costs associated with being bold and

challenging the church. Unlike some others, he is less willing to sacrifice his

principles, even if the costs are substantial.

93

I think if [college is bold on this issue], it comes at the risk of being
seen as controversial, liberal, losing the constituency who doesn’t
like change. I think that’s the side of things though that I would
like to see this college to stay on and needs to stay on and
somehow still work at being in a partnership. Because I think to
take a stance of saying, ‘well we’re going to try to figure out that
the church would really want us to do’ and then try react to that all
the time. That can’t be the only way to operate for a college like
this because that would be too limiting. So I think there is
probably just this dynamic tension between wanting to carve out a
space where it’s right to study new things and to say new things
and to even say shocking things and that’s also the nature of what
young adults need, and most of our students are young adults.

However, he was aware of and willing to take into account how the church
might respond to this “dynamic tension” and how the college should put itself
forward to the church:

At the same time, [the college needs to] sincerely say the

relationship matters and we want to maintain it and we see

ourselves as serving the church by being this place of freethinking

and new learning. This is not different than what GC has done in

the past and some people in the church are not ready for that. I

wouldn’t answer one way for the church on that. In any human

group, you’ve got your people who can’t handle much change and

you’ve got your people who are open to new discovery and who

are energized and liberated by new things that happen. I think it

is more in the character of the gospel to be bringing new things

and creation.

I discovered a curious, but not surprising, phenomenon in conducting
this research. As I ventured away from the faculty members who frequently
interact with the constituency, to the faculty members who have minimal
contact with it, there were less concerns about how the church might respond
to the college’s actions and positions. This phenomenon was observed and

articulated best by people who have held numerous positions on campus, as

has the President herself. One faculty member noted that,

94

(I)

When the president told me that for five more years we will hold
our position on homosexuality and not state anything more than
we are, I was disappointed. I was hoping that we would be bold
and say something grand about inclusiveness. But that was
before I was in [this position] and the more I see the concern and
realize the costs, the potential costs, I think we certainly need to
be careful.

For those who do not have contact on a regular basis with the church, this

sentiment seems highly disingenuous. One faculty member, who has had a

significant amount of experience at other religious and secular institutions, was

amazed that some faculty members would suspend their beliefs in order to

keep the dialogue with the church alive. She said,

I’m just not used to where you’d have people in important, ranking
roles who feel like they can’t say what they really believe because
of what it would do. I say wow, ‘you can be in this kind of position
of power, of shaping the future of a place, but what you really
believe, what your real convictions are, can’t actually lead you in
certain kinds of leadership.’ And so that’s where I’d say, some of
the things that get attributed to Shirley‘, I don’t even know if I’d
attribute them to Shirley. My guess is on some of the things if you
got in a room with her and said, ‘Shirley, do you really believe
that?’ My guess is on some of the things she’d say, ‘no, that’s
really not my position.’ Then you’d have to ask, ‘but why in the
world [do you] put it in writing, in print, in speeches?’ My guess is
[she’d say] ‘because that’s what the church needs, what the board
wants.’

It is hard to know if this faculty member’s hypotheses are accurate, because

these are probably not questions President Showalter could publicly answer.

President Showalter is a leader of an institution which many times views itself

as a leader of its constituency. In this position, she must often be willing to

 

1 When talking about President Showalter l have used her title. Because many on campus
refer to one another using a first-name basis, many respondents will simply call her “Shirley".

95

make compromises with both her faculty and her constituents. The necessity
for President Showalter and others on campus who interact directly with the
college’s constituency to be willing to compromise is not surprising. As Kerr
and Gade (1986) write,

To college faculty members and students, ‘administration is,

though not a four-letter word, a dirty one. To his former

colleagues, a professor who becomes a dean or president is an

émigré or a tumcoat, a man who has renounced academic culture

and scholarly values in favor of power and materialism (46).

Gary Wills, in his 1994 book on leadership entitled Certain Trumpets,

 

posits that Abraham Lincoln had to compromise in many ways before he was
successful in freeing slaves:

Abraham Lincoln did not have the highest vision of human
equality in his day. Many abolitionists went farther than he did in
recognizing the moral claims of slaves to instant freedom and
something approaching a recognition of their human dignity.
Lincoln had limited political goals, and he was willing to
compromise even those. He knew that no one could be elected in
or from Illinois if he espoused full equality for blacks - so he
unequivocally renounced that position (Wills, 1994, 13).

Wills continues to discuss the realities of a political life and how patience and
compromise can lead to ultimately reaching one’s goals. He notes that prior to
election, Lincoln even pledged to continue to uphold the inferior status of
Blacks:

But for that pledge, Lincoln had no hope of winning office. The
followers were setting the terms of acceptance for their leader.
He could not issue calls they were unprepared to hear... His
leadership was a matter of mutually determinative activity, on the
part of the leader and the followers. Followers ‘have a say’ in
what they are being led to. A leader who neglects that fact soon
finds himself with no followers. To sound a trumpet does not
mean just trumpeting one’s own certitudes. It means sounding a

96

specific call to specific people capable of response (14, emphasis
in original).

As most people know, Lincoln later championed the rights of Blacks to full
citizenship in the United States. This was done, however, with a great deal of
compromise along the way, not to his ultimate goal, but to the changing
attitudes of the public. As Wills posits,

In order to know just how far he could go at any moment, Lincoln

had to understand the mix of motives in his fellow citizens, the

counterbalancing intensities with which the different positions

were held, and in what directions they were changing, moment by

moment. The leader needs to understand followers far more than

they need to understand him. This is the time-consuming aspect

of leadership. It explains why great thinkers and artists are rarely

the leaders of others (as opposed to influences on them) (16).
President Showalter is, in many ways, stuck in an analogous position except
that she speaks to a constituency for an institution made up of many different
people with widely varying opinions and interests. One administrator at
Goshen well explained the difficulty of being an institutional leader when he
said, “I would like to see a good relationship [with the church], but I don’t think it
can always be non-conflictual and that is why the person standing in the
middle, between the two, has a tough job.” If President Showalter
compromises, she is not only compromising her position, but that of others as
well. In fact, no matter what choices she makes, she is compromising
someone’s position. For, as one new teaching faculty member said, the

question of how the college responds to the issue of homosexuality is really the

question of

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‘What kind of Mennonites will we exclude if we say, in a sense,
who we really are?’ Because when I say who we really are, ‘Who
are we really?’ We have faculty members who are definitely
adamantly opposed to homosexuality. We have faculty members
who adamantly say the only Christ-like response is to embrace
our homosexual brothers and sisters, right? And we have a lot of
people in the middle. But I don’t think that’s ever represented.
Why not have a whole Bulletin? issue that says that very thing.
Both poles are here and then everything along the continuum.
Now are you comfortable sending your son or daughter here? I
think it has to do with what part of the Mennonite body we would
exclude in making an honest statement like that.

This issue of who she is talking to and who she is talking for is constantly on
President Showalter’s mind. When asked whether or not she believed the
college should be pushing the denomination to be more inclusive on the issue
of homosexuality she, like Lincoln, expressed awareness of the continuing and
changing nature of the debate in the constituency. President Showalter is
constantly weighing how the college can support or hinder this debate. She
said,

I believe we’re in a process of change as a denomination. The

question is ‘how do we change?’ and ‘how do we lead?’ I believe

we can be, by the very nature of being open to full dialogue on the

subject, a place where change is likely to occur and, in fact, that’s

the place where we are right now.
While some would agree that “full dialogue” is occurring on campus, others
would disagree. One teaching faculty member noted that “I can tell you for a

fact that several members of the Presidents Council don’t have the position on

homosexuality that John Roth, or sort of the party line, has.” This reference to

 

3 This faculty member is referring to the Goshen College Bulletin which is a magazine published
quarterly and sent to alumni and other interested constituents.

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most

John Roth, a Goshen College history professor, is a response to an article
which he wrote for a Mennonite church publication. In it, he took a thoughtfully
critical stance towards practicing homosexual participation in church life. Some
faculty members were supportive of this position, while others wondered why
only Roth’s position was expressed when others on campus would be in
disagreement with him. As a teaching faculty member said,

John Roth’s position was the position that was highlighted in

several different publications and in several different speaking

times. Don Blosser delivered a sermon at College Mennonite

Church which was very much in opposition to what John Roth had

preached. Why is somebody from the history department

representing the college on views of homosexuality when [many

other faculty members] really don’t have that position. What I’m

saying is, not that we have to have the party line out there but

clearly that was the calculated, public relations move. This was

done so we don’t look like liberals again.
While it may not be the case, it appeared to this faculty member that because
only John Roth’s position was put in the church paper, the article was a public
relations ploy. In a rebuttal to Roth, another faculty member, Keith Graber
Miller, challenged Roth’s position in a letter to the editor of the magazine. For
several faculty members this appeared to be a healthy debate and a positive
example of the kind of dialogue that is occurring on campus. One said that,

To have Keith Graber Miller and John D. Roth both have different

statements on the issue... now I don’t know how they felt about it,

but to me that was healthy. Here on this campus we are openly

disagreeing on this issue. Please do this in the church and not

just chop each other off. Those are role-models that I think we

can give to the church on the cutting-edge.

While this debate continues, President Showalter is the person who

most clearly bridges the college/church relationship. When asked if she

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believes the college should take a hard line stance on the issue of
homosexuality, in opposition to a major portion of the denomination, she noted
that,

By definition that would force [us] into almost a one-issue kind of
campus where so many of the other things we want to do couldn’t
happen because nobody would listen to us because they’d only
hear that we were violating the standard of the church. And, I’m
in favor of change and progressive thinking and certainly am
willing to go out in very clear and direct ways against violence
when it comes to the safety issue of homosexuality. There is a
fairly big area where we can be very well within both Purdue3 and
many other statements of the Mennonite Church about the
respect for every human being without necessarily adopting the
agenda of the gay rights movement.

While to some this may seem like a copout, President Showalter clearly hopes
that the college can model the willingness and ability to debate such issues in
an open and respectful way. Another faculty member who also deals directly
with people on the denomination level, shows how he believes President
Showalter’s compromising will eventually serve to push the church, or at least
parts of it, in the college’s direction:

I don’t in any way think [the college] position [on homosexuality] is
bad. I think this position is good and it is what I hold to. Now if I
go to Archbold Mennonite Church and say right up front ‘I think
gay people have a right to be members of the church, I want gay
people to feel welcome at Goshen College and to be able to find
partners there in the same way heterosexuals can,’ that would be
terrible, it would not be well received. But if I go and I talk about
what it means to be a tolerant community. What it means to be
loving and accepting, which is exactly this. To me that’s the
beginning steps that permit an environment in which a gay person

 

3 Purdue refers to a 1980’s Mennonite Church statement on homosexuality adopted at
denominational meetings at Purdue University.

100

could live his or her life openly. Again, it’s just ‘which audience
are you speaking to?’

This debate will continue to rage both in the church and on campus.
While some could see the church’s attempt through the Board of Overseers to
control the college’s ability to respond on this issue of homosexuality as
pressure toward intellectual stagnation, clearly the faculty response has not
been to simply discuss severing ties with the church. Instead, it is clear that
those on campus who have the closest contact with the denomination have
taken a stance that attempts to both lead and show respect to the parts of the
church that are not ready to be lead. There is a sense that just as Lincoln
needed to compromise on the issue of slavery, those at the college will need to
temper their positions if they hOpe to achieve their goals. In the process,
however, they are forced to better understand their stance by trying to
understand the church’s. As was noted in the first chapter, Murphy (1991), in
his study of presidents at Catholic universities, found that there was a clear
pattern of what he calls “co-creation” in the give-and-take between the
presidents and their constituencies. The question is, how long will a somewhat
impatient Goshen College faculty and student body accept this “co-creation”?

Stage Two: Raising Academic Standards

Burtchaell (1991a) notes that in many secularizing institutions, there are
presidents who are determined to raise the level of academic achievement in
their colleges or universities. They typically perceive the church to be narrow

and inward looking and, therefore, a deterrent to this goal. Many presidents, in

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an attempt to improve their academic standing, work at distancing their
institutions from church governance. Others (Cohen, 1998; Brubacher and
Rudy, 1997; Hofstadter, 1996; Jencks and Riesman, 1968; and Rudolph, 1962)
have also suggested that for pragmatic market reasons, denominational
affiliation is untenable for most church-related colleges. Secularizing was not
simply a quest for academic prestige for most colleges, it was a quest for warm
bodies to fill their classrooms. Many small colleges found that stressing
denominational ties was too alienating to potential students from outside the
denomination.

This is a significant point of difference between my research and the
consensus theories of secularization. Many on campus believe that institutional
survival depends, in part, on increasing the prestige of the college, both in the
perceptions of Mennonite church members, and broader society. As Kerr and
Gade (1986) write, “more prospective students now come from second-
generation college-attending families with many aspiring to enter prestigious
private institutions” (162—3). Goshen College is currently ranked in the National
Liberal Arts Category of the US News and World Report rankings. Most at
Goshen are proud to be listed as one of only 159 national liberal arts colleges.
What separates the situation at Goshen College from the consensus
secularization model is, that President Showalter is absolutely committed to
maintaining a strong church/college relationship. As she said in her inaugural

address,

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This connection to the church is the lifeblood of the College. We

continue today at Goshen College to discuss what it means to be

a Believer’s Church, to ask what Jesus would do or say on

serious ethical issues, and to seek peace in our way of living. To

the extent that this college inspires celebration, commitment, and

devotion to God, to Jesus, and to the church, we make our

mission visible. Sometimes we fail. But we keep on trying.

Education at Goshen College participates in what theologian

Vincent Harding calls the ’terrible and magnificent struggle for the

re-creation of [our church and society].’ Re-creation involves

suffering, but that suffering is ‘grounded and buoyed by hope,

courage, and unfathomable, amazing grace (Showalter, 1997a).
Clearly, this kind of statement is a signal on many levels that she hopes the
college and church stay in close relationship. What is even more unusual and
significant about this case when comparing it to Burtchaell’s framework for
secularization, is that President Showalter is convinced that the best, and
perhaps only, way for the college to raise its level of academic prestige is from
within the church.

The college has strengths, but without its Mennonite connection, it is, at
best, a regional college. Currently, Goshen College draws students from 36
states and 6 Canadian provinces, in large part because of its church
connections. Of the full-time students enrolled at Goshen in the Spring of 2000
who are not Mennonites, nearly 79 percent (274 out of 348) come from Indiana.
On the other hand, only 35 percent of the Mennonites students enrolled at the
same time come from Indiana. Clearly, it is Goshen’s Mennonite connection
that makes it a national college. Goshen also enrolls international students

from 38 different countries. While many of these international students are not

Mennonite, or even Christian, most come to Goshen because of their

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interactions with the Mennonite church. Of the 890 full-time students enrolled
in the fall of 1999, 62.5 percent come from Mennonite or related denominations,
29.3 percent came from other Christian traditions, 1.8 percent from non-
Christian religious backgrounds and 6.4 percent claimed no religious
preference. Finally, the most academically gifted of Goshen’s students are
primarily from within the church. As one administrator put it, “the academic
profile of our average Menno is higher than the average OTM [other-than-
Mennonite].” So, while Burtchaell posits that secularizing institutions have
historically seen their supporting denominations as a hindrance to achieving
their academic goals, President Showalter sees the Mennonite church as
Goshen’s hope for a brighter academic future. When we met, President
Showalter told me,

I believe we have to go toward the center of the Mennonite
Church to find the numbers of students we need to be a strong
institution... We will find the strongest students academically in
the Mennonite Church that we could possibly have. We will also
find more of the progressive to liberal students [in the church]
because [the progressive to liberal OTM student] will not come to
us in this region. As a regional college, the numbers of students
that those [more liberal professors] would like to teach, a type of
student they would want, which is the Eartham“ student, our best
bet for that is in the Mennonite Church. It is not in the region of
Indiana and we do not have a shot for the non-Mennonite national
market. We just don’t have a shot at that market. They won’t
come to us, they haven’t heard of us and to get to the stage
where they have heard of us is going to take some travel.

 

“ When people at Goshen compare themselves to other institutions, a common one is Earlham
College in Southeastern Indiana. It is a Quaker school with a strong national reputation,
selective admissions and a liberal student body.

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So, for very pragmatic, institutional reasons, and because of honest
religious convictions, President Showalter wants to take the college toward the
church. She is both committed to the mission of the college in relation to the
church and she believes that the path to institutional strength runs through the
church. This is in marked contrast to the theories of secularization and prestige
brought forward by Burtchaell (1991a) and others. Jencks and Riesman (1968)
argue that “colleges founded to preserve a particular kind of orthodoxy had a
much lower life expectancy than colleges whose founders possessed a more
expansive and more academic view of their role” (327). In Goshen’s case,
President Showalter believes that a more expansive and academic prestigious
college can be produced by embracing Anabaptist orthodoxy.

Part of President Showalter’s belief in the value of Goshen College
involves her membership in the Mennonite Church. Just as Redekop (1998)
notes that the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren denomination faltered, in part,
because of a lack of strong denominational institutions, President Showalter
understands the importance of a strong Goshen College for the health of the
Mennonite Church. In a 1997 sermon to the Berkey Avenue Mennonite Church
in Goshen, Indiana, President Showalter said,

Let me proclaim boldly today what God has given me as a yet

unfonned message through the experience of being a teacher, a

Mennonite, a mother, and a reader of the Word. It is a message

for our church about our schools from kindergarten to seminary.

The future of our church depends upon how well we will meet the
challenge of education in the new age (Showalter, 1997b).

105

President Showalter believes that there is a symbiotic relationship
between the college and the church. However, like those in Burtchaell’s study,
some on campus believe that the college is being hindered by its relationship
with the church. In the early 19903, when Goshen’s enrollment was declining,
the faculty were looking for a scapegoat. To those outside the department, the
initial and logical choice was that the admissions staff was incompetent, they
simply did not know how to sell the college. In discussing this perception,
President Showalter said,

Helping people understand what is realistic and right with regard

to any one of our jobs, especially those crucial ones for the

bottom line like admissions and development, is important without

getting too much information of an inappropriate type... The

interesting thing is, that in the years before I took this job, I heard

just tremendous criticism of admissions all over the place as

though they’re the problem. I knew that the admissions office can

help but they aren’t really the reason why students make college

choices. If you could somehow get that center to be healthy in

your institution in the same way we talked before about the

complexity of a healthy center [in the church], then all kinds of

admissions mistakes would be tolerable and that all kinds of

excellence in the admissions office wouldn’t make much of a

difference.

President Showalter believes that during this time of enrollment decline, some
of the faculty also hypothesized that the church was the problem. They
believed that the college should be much more aggressive in marketing itself
outside of the denomination. Just as Redekop ( 1998) shows how the
Evangelical Mennonite Brethren came to the conclusion that their Mennonite

connections and heritage were tying them down, some of the faculty believed

that if the college would only weaken its goal of a 65 percent Mennonite student

106

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body, it would be better off. Many faculty members looked to Bluffton College
in Ohio, a Mennonite college in a different Mennonite denomination, as an
example of how the college could improve its enrollment with non-Mennonites.
President Showalter told me,

The very fact that enrollment had declined and people were
thinking that ‘oh, we are being hindered and hampered by our
Mennoniteness’ as a solution, is part of the background you have
to understand here... Through the combination of our enrollment
decline and other people’s enrollment growth, the natural question
arose in that environment, ‘well, are we hindered or helped by our
Mennonite Iinkage?’... To jump to a diagnosis too quickly is a
mistake, I think. Until you really look at the components of
growth, in any particular time period, particularly the economics of
growth. [Bluffton’s] growth in the early 903 had to do as much
with a financial aid package that they put together and the fact
that they developed that package before other institutions of their
size. It's a game, it’s a moving target. To just make an
assumption that the only difference between us and [Bluffton] at
that time was that they were willing to go after non-Mennonite
students would have been a great over-simplification. And
sometimes it’s tempting to make over-simplifications when you
are feeling bad and you want a quick fix.

This is not to suggest that President Showalter is unaware of the constraints of
the Mennonite market. In fact, she often uses the metaphor below to describe
how small the pool of interested Mennonite students is. In a sermon at College
Mennonite Church, she said,

This week I was in a conversation at Goshen College about a
picture for the Mennonite church. And in it, [economics] professor
Del Good came up with a metaphor that he says helps him. It’s a
metaphor that again involves a stadium. And this time the
stadium is the University of Michigan stadium because it’s large
enough to hold the whole Mennonite church of North America. It
is a helpful image, isn’t it, to think about how small we are in one
sense. Yet, that’s a huge stadium, and if we were there, you’d
feel like you are in the middle of an enormous crowd of people...
Now if you think about how small a stadium of 100,000 is relative

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to the continent, you think about education’s role in that stadium,
and you think too small, here’s the way you would think. Out of
that group, there are 3,000 Mennonites who will graduate from
high school this year. Half of those Mennonites, 1,500, will go to
college. Of that half, about 30 percent will go to three Mennonite
colleges, and so, at most, that’s about 150 students out of that
whole vast array of 100,000 for each Mennonite college. Now, if
you’re thinking as a marketer, you would quickly draw the
conclusion that we’re talking about a very small niche, and one
easy conclusion to draw is that the only solution to this problem, if
you have to be a certain size, is to go outside the stadium. Now
we have gone outside the stadium in education, and we want to
do that. But maybe what we have to do is rethink what the
stadium looks like and where education should be in the stadium
(Showalter, 1998f).

Clearly, this is a call to stay within the church, “the stadium,” to find the
support necessary to maintain a strong college, raise the academic standard
and serve the church. It is also a recognition that the college needs to connect
in appropriate ways outside the stadium to achieve its academic and enrollment
goals. One professor expresses the long-held belief of some faculty members
that some of the other-than-Mennonite students the college has been
recruiting, are not a good fit with Goshen. “I know for years they were targeting
those non—denominational students because they didn’t have a church-affiliated
college to go to, but they were just the wrong fit.” One teaching faculty member
tells about her experience with some of these students:

This year, I‘ve had three students, they're students that really

belong at Cedarville or Grace College, and I pick those two

because they are very conservative, very evangelical institutions.

That's where those students really belong because they literally

[don't fit here]. Some students have transferred. I had one

student who just said 'this isn't a Christian college, I thought it

was, my parents were excited about it, it's not a Christian college
and I'm going to transfer.‘

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President Showalter agrees with this and notes that while she is going to stick
with the church, the college needs to be more effective at attracting compatible
students from within and outside of the denomination. As she said,

the Mennonite Church is the best market we can have. It

absolutely is, and I am convinced of it, from top to bottom. Now,

that doesn’t mean every Mennonite in the Mennonite Church is a

good market for us and there is a question about fit and we have

to be clear and we have to be truthful about who we are and then

let people themselves decide whether they can stretch their

definition of Christianity to mean that.
This means recruiting students who share Goshen’s Anabaptist perspective
both from Mennonite congregations and other established denominations which
are sympathetic to these Anabaptist ideals. There is clearly a new goal to
reach out to more compatible, other-than-Mennonite students. While it is too
early to see how effective this new policy will be, several faculty members have
already reported a better institutional fit with their new other-than-Mennonite
students. One teaching faculty member commented that,

[in] last year’s class [1998], we had a lot of students coming in

with a kind of a piety that really clashed. This year, just based

upon my twenty students, the students who aren’t Mennonite are

coming from Methodist and Catholic churches and are much more

comfortable. They are here because they are attracted by certain

elements of the Mennonite tradition, are curious about us. I have

a much more positive feel in my class.
While it is still early in her presidency, there is limited evidence in both
enrollment and academic trends (see Chapter 2) that the current strategies are
beginning to work.

For most college presidents, the goals of raising academic standards

and prestige would be broadly supported. President Showalter, however, is the

109

leader of an institution situated within a denomination that has historically been
suspicious of higher education and ambivalent regarding elitist goals. In a
chapter for a book that she co-authored with professor of Bible and religion,
Keith Graber Miller, celebrating the 150th anniversary of St. Olaf College in
Minnesota, Showalter and Graber Miller discuss this historic Anabaptist
suspicion of education:

While many 16th-century Anabaptists were highly educated, they

and others in the fledgling movement were martyred by the

thousands in the early years of sorting out how radically the

Church needed to be reformed. The loss of such leaders, and the

fact that the primary antagonism toward Anabaptists came not

from common folk but from other theologians and philosophers,

contributed toward a relatively anti-intellectual stream in our

tradition's middle centuries, a stream which still flows through

some Mennonite communities today (Graber Miller & Showalter,

1999).

Times have changed. While there still may be some anti-intellectualism
in the denomination, there is also considerable support for higher education
(although not necessarily Mennonite higher education), and the concern
regarding elitist goals, both in the college and the church, has waned over the
years. As one administrator noted,

One of the things I think about in the future of the church/college

[relationship] is that I think it is significant that some of the people

in my generation, who came to this college, are now having

children who they don’t want to come to Goshen College. They

want them to go to a more elite school. They want them to have

something with much more international recognition.

This support for academic elitism in the Mennonite Church, goes well

beyond the children of Goshen College alumni. As another faculty member

said,

110

At one point in Mennonite history if you were [a Mennonite] going

to go to college, where were you going to go? Either Eastern

Mennonite University (EMU) or here basically, maybe Bethel

[College in Kansas]. Now that’s not the case, there are a lot of

good Mennonite families that look and when they make their

decision, EMU or Goshen isn’t quite good enough, actually. ‘We

want our kid to have a better education.’

President Showalter is balancing on a very thin tightrope between the
traditional Mennonite ideals of humility, simplicity and egalitarianism, and the
reality that there is a considerable appetite for academic elitism in the
denomination. On one hand, she decries the increased credentialism and
individual goals of American higher education, while on the other she has been
a major catalyst for the development of an honors program aimed at meeting
the elitist desires of those in the church. In her opening address to the
freshmen and their parents in the Fall of 1999, she said,

Education, even higher education, is considered more than a

privilege. It is considered a right. Because it is widely available

and because so many people think they are purchasing a

credential rather than deepening a life, education is more and

more viewed as another commodity (Showalter, 1999b).

One could argue that adding an honors designation to a degree is simply
buying into the trend toward credentialism.

In the aforementioned chapter, co-authored with professor Keith Graber
Miller, she and Graber Miller write that they “desire to counter the prevailing
ethos of American individualism, educating our students to be increasingly out

of step with the attitudes and self-understandings commonly found in our

society” (Graber Miller & Showalter, 1999). The question that some on campus

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are asking is, how does President Showalter’s goal of improving the academic
profile of the college help achieve this ideal of “countering individualism?”

President Showalter is very aware that there is a group of Mennonites
whose children would fit well at Goshen, but would like an educational
institutional that will impart more prestige. She wants Goshen to become the
school they will look to for a quality educational reputation, with an Anabaptist
foundation. As she said, she hopes Goshen

...is able to break into the fears that drive parents into thinking

that they have to give their students experience only [in a

prestigious institution] in order to be well-prepared to win in the

economic game of the future. They will never admit that’s what

they want and it is exactly what is driving them. They worry that

their kid won’t get the benefit of the genes and the privilege. They

want to see the next generation move on up, to a higher level.

We can make the argument successfully to people who have had

experience with Anabaptist education that we have something

special to offer. But you have to make that specialness an ‘add-

on.’ You would have to be able to say that they’re willing to see a

lower cohort but there has to be some way of making sure that

their kid isn’t held back as everybody else tries to catch up.
President Showalter wants the college to become selective. In her opening
convocation address in the Fall of 1998, she outlined a 30-item wish-list for the
college. One of those wishes was that “we will soon have many more students
wanting to come here than we can admit” (Showalter, 1998a). Some worry that
this desire to be selective, to raise academic standards, and develop an honors
program, is sending students the wrong message about their individual goals.

There is a split in sentiment on this topic among faculty. Some praise

President Showalter’s efforts to raise academic standards and institutional

profile, while others worry about what the unexpected outcomes of success in

112

such an endeavor might bring. One teaching faculty member outlined the
argument well:

One of the things that is happening now is that there is a tension
on campus. This is expressed among some faculty and some in
the administration. Just as Shirley is reconnecting... the college
with congregations and with the church, maintaining a connection
and expressing it in different ways, we are also working very hard
at becoming a college of national reputation. Are those two things
in tension? Can you be both? I think that hasn’t worked itself out
yet. We have some faculty, especially newer faculty, newer other-
than-Mennonite faculty, who are calling us much more to move in
that direction, to have more interest in research and so on. Some
of that is very, very good and I’m supportive of some of that, but
how much does that pull us away from our rootedness? What
has gotten us the national recognition? We are very proud here
of all those listings and we keep trying to get more and more of
those rankings and we are just delighted when it happens. Which
of those is more important, [being prestigious or Mennonite]?
When push comes to shove, this comes down to some practical
decisions that you make in terms of how you recruit. Which
audiences you recruit from? When push comes to shove, do you
go more with that elite national reputation or do you go more with
reaching out to your Mennonite audience?

While this teaching faculty member outlined the debate and fell somewhere in
the middle of it, a long-time administrative faculty member expressed the view
that the college should be wary of traveling too far down the trail toward
prestige. As she noted,

The issue that I’m more concerned about related to enrollment
goals is ‘will Goshen try to become more elitist if we can?.’ I’m
concerned about what that might do for the relationship with
the church. Let’s say that enrollment turns around [to the point
where we] have a ‘turn away’ applicant pool. Where you really
have your pick. You’re not just out there for anything. And then
[President Showalter] will start talking about ‘and then we can get
a higher percentage of our students who fit.’ Part of what she
means by fit, a big part, is academic credentials. Well, if we’re in
a situation where we’re turning down a 0+ Mennonite for an A
Methodist and that’s sort of the logical outcome if I listen to what

113

she’s saying, that’s not where I’m at... What would we have to

give up to be like Grinnell or Carleton or whatever? My notion is

that one thing we have to give up is the intensity of our church

relationship.

This is not to suggest that there is not support on campus for President
Showalter’s academic agenda. Rather, many times it’s simply not easy to lead
a group of academicians. Just like the issue of homosexuality discussed in the
previous stage separates the faculty, it seems clear that President Showalter
may have to compromise some people’s (maybe even her own) beliefs or
ideals in small ways to meet the realities of a difficult market situation.

It should not be misconstrued, however, that she goes into this process
without an understanding of faculty sentiment. She is very pragmatic about the
need to improve the academic profile of the college to reach the kind of
talented and, more importantly, socially progressive students that will succeed
and fit in well at Goshen. However, when I interviewed her, she recognized
that there is not unanimity in faculty views on this issue, and further, there are
some constraints that an Anabaptist ideology puts on unfettered
elitism/selectivity. President Showalter believes that,

Strengthening our ties to the Mennonite Church will help us

achieve all of our enrollment goals much more quickly than any

other strategy we could employ. [However] that whole question of

‘where are we going to find the Earlham students?’ will still be

there. Earlham is one model, but Calvin College is another. We

need to have more varieties of models in our thinking. Calvin is

4,200 students and very, very strong academically, but their

cohort is a little different from the Earlham one. They haven’t

gone to absolute selectivity as their mode, and to me it’s actually

more Anabaptist to use the Calvin mode, even though they

wouldn’t see it as Anabaptist. They’re proud of the B- student
who comes into their institution and succeeds, in a place that is

114

full of stronger students. We really have ambivalence on this one.

There are a lot of faculty who really want the Earlham student

body, but many other faculty who feel that the wide-open door is

also who we are and should be (emphasis added).

Conclusion

Again, as outlined in Burtchaell’s first stage, President Showalter is stuck
in the middle of a very difficult situation. Can and should she attempt to raise
the prestige of the institution? And can, as she hopes, this best be done from
within the denomination? These first two stages show that the college
relationship with the church is a difficult one. In issues of religious orthodoxy
and academic excellence, the college is still heavily influenced by its continuing
relationship with the Mennonite church. What is becoming clearer is that
President Showalter is committed, for both strategic and personal religious
reasons, to solidifying the relationship with the denomination. The question that
will unfold in the next stages will be whether she can coax a sometimes
hesitant faculty and fluctuating church to join her in this endeavor?

Stage Three: Estrangement

As he outlines in the first two stages, Burtchaell found that for
secularizing institutions, the relationship between the institutions and the
churches became strained as the colleges looked outside the churches for
support. During Burtchaell’s theoretical third stage, estrangement comes at a
time when church support (in all forms) for the institutions cannot meet the

needs of the institution’s new academic ambitions. Concurrently, there has

been an infusion of funding from secular sources, which further draws the

115

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institutions’ allegiances away from their supporting churches. As Smylie (1978)
posits, the process of secularization has historically been expedited when, for
example, “the policies of the General Education Board (1903), The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1913), the Carnegie Corporation
(1911) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913), began to alter the relations
between churches and their schools” (146-146). Schools already leaning away
from their supporting denominations, become increasingly dependent on the
support of these secular foundations. In some cases, the process of separation
is accelerated because of the foundation’s mandate of non-sectarianism for
their much needed monetary support.

Once again, Goshen provides an alternative viewpoint to this scenario.
While it continues to be a challenge for the college to meet enrollment goals
with Mennonite students, and institutional health is still heavily linked to
enrollment, the church, alumni (who are predominantly Mennonite) and other
Mennonite donors have given generously to Goshen College. Goshen’s
endowment has expanded from $10 million to $84 million in the past decade
alone. Further, groundbreaking for a new $22 million music building was
conducted in the Spring of 2000, funded, in large part, by donors from within
the Mennonite church. It is also important to note that there has been
considerable support for the college from outside the church, both from
foundations and individual donors. This support has often come as an
affirmation of what Goshen does, not as enticement to secularize, as

Burtchaell’s model suggests.

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The financial and student support for Goshen as a Mennonite college
has historically been so abundant, that President Showalter does not have the
luxury or intention of looking for a new, more viable market. One older teaching
faculty member said that,

Shirley is very clear here in the casual things she says in the

snack shop, just pragmatically that we can’t forget the church if for

no other reason than here is this group of people who give a

substantial amount of support. It’s not like it used to be...for

many Mennonites and many Mennonite congregations there was

a time where if you went to college you went to a Mennonite

college. That is no longer true. Having said that, there is still far

more loyalty with our churches and our alums than if we were to

start over again and redefine with a new population of people who

would find Goshen attractive. We are sufficiently Mennonite in a

variety of cultural things, the historical linkages to the church and

to alums and so on. So [President Showalter] is very clear, we

will be Mennonite and that will be our prime constituency.

Clearly, it would be difficult for Goshen to remain financially viable, both
in terms of enrollment and donations, if it were not for its Mennonite
connections. Again, we see that Burtchaell’s model does not readily fit the
reality that Goshen experiences.

Stage Four: Shifting Loyalties

Before the fourth stage of secularization even begins, Burtchaell posits
that secularizing institutions are already reeling from perceptions of stagnation
resulting from their relationship with what they view as oppressive churches,
and an influx of secular support. In this fourth stage, it appears that the faculty
shift their allegiances away from their supporting churches, and even their own

institutions, to their respective academic associations. Meyer (1995) argues

that “the fragmentation of faculties by discipline in this century and the long-

117

TE

term impact of prevailing faculty recruitment practices have probably
contributed more to the distancing of church colleges from their churches than
any other single factor” (5). Burtchaell (1991a), in discussing the role of faculty
recruitment in the process of secularization, notes that, when hiring faculty who
did not have the churches’ or the institutions’ interests at heart,

Ambitious but improvident leaders had suppressed their schools’

Christian immune systems, and since the virus of secularization

would not seek out these now-defenseless institutions until the

professional personnel could be replaced by scholars

predominantly of no faith or a hostile faith or an intimidated faith,

the reformers had no way of understanding how much farther
their actions would carry beyond what they intended (29).

Most of Goshen’s faculty don’t fit this model of having “no faith or a
hostile faith or an intimidated faith.” Current faculty and administrators still
place a strong emphasis on attracting new faculty who are committed to their
Christian, mainly Mennonite, faith. However, it is also crucial for the quality of
the academic program that the faculty have significant connections with their
academic fields and associations. The key is not that these associations are
detrimental. Rather, it is when the associations become more important to the
scholar than their allegiance to the institution and its religious mission that
problems can arise. As Redekop (1998) shows with the case of the
Evangelical Mennonite Brethren denomination, it is difficult for a group to
maintain a distinct identity when its members’ allegiances are increasingly

focused on an outside group.

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The faculty at Goshen are dedicated to providing education within a
religious and denominational setting. This is well expressed by a teaching
faculty member who wrote,

I'm deeply convinced that the future of the Mennonite church will

continue to be shaped by the quality of leadership that is

generated, primarily at its church-related colleges. I want to be

part of the shaping of that leadership. I also want to teach at a

college where it is assumed that faith is not something

compartmentalized off into a little private corner of my personal

life; rather, faith is relevant to my discipline, to my teaching, to

everything I do.

Further, faculty often joke that they are not at Goshen for the monetary
rewards. As one faculty member said, “Most of us, I think would say we aren’t
here for the money. You would not come here for the money.” This relatively
low pay produces a faculty group that is predominantly committed to the
institution for reasons beyond money and prestige. In an open-ended question,
I asked the faculty, “What are the two main reasons you chose to work at CC?”
There were 201 written responses to this question.

As Table 5.1 shows, the responses pertaining to the college’s church
relationship and the mission of the college predominated. Of the 201
responses, 124 (or 61.6 percent) were in this category. The second most
common category of responses dealt with the positive attributes of the
institution, such as student and faculty quality, working atmosphere and others.
This category contained 22.4 percent of the responses. While some mentioned

professional reasons for their choosing to teach or work at Goshen, the top two

categories contained 84.1 percent of the responses. It is clear that the majority

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of Goshen's faculty value their academic and professional associations, but that
this does not overshadow their commitment to the religious mission of the

college.

 

Table 5.1: Two Main Reasons Faculty Member
Chose to Work at GC

Reason Count

Relationship with the Church and College Mission (Out of 201)

The college’s connections to the Mennonite Church
Belief in the college mission

Impact on Mennonite young people

Alumni loyalty - wanted to give something back
Mennonite/Christian faculty colleagues

A “call” from God

Presence of Christian/Anabaptist values

A place I can contribute/work has meaning
Academic freedom in a Mennonite setting

Shape the future of the church

Interested in learning about Mennonites

Was impressed by committed Mennonite administrators
Commitment to a larger purpose

Total

Institutional Attributes

Quality of the academics
Students (quality and type)
Students and faculty

A sense of community
Work setting/atmosphere
Liked the size and liberal arts
Travel opportunities

Good facilities

Unique academic program
Student-faculty interaction
Total

Availability of Position and Professional Goals

There was a position available when looking
Personal commitment to professional goals
Teachingfienhances clinical practice

Total

Other
Locafion
Asked to join faculty

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Stage Five: Disenfranchisement

In this stage, Burtchaell notes that colleges continue the evolution of
secularization by disenfranchising themselves from the church. Active faculty
participation in the supporting denomination is no longer seen as a requisite for
professional participation in the institution. Further, fewer and fewer governors,
administrators, faculty, and even students come from the supporting
denominations. When Goshen College faculty members were asked questions
pertaining to this stage, their responses were more impassioned than in the
fourth stage issues of professional and academic association affiliation.
Goshen does not require its faculty members to be Mennonite. However, in the
application process, prospective faculty members are questioned extensively
about their church attendance and their Christian pilgrimage. In addition,
details about Anabaptism and Goshen’s Anabaptist foundation are shared with
prospective faculty members. The following statement appears on the
Personnel Information Form that each applicant must complete:

Goshen College is a church-owned institution, supported by and

responsible to the Mennonite Church. Faculty members and

administrators are expected to be committed to a life of

discipleship following Jesus Christ in all aspects of life and to

have a sense of identity with and commitment to the church. Our

expression of faith is not a simple matter of words spoken at

appointed times, but of word and deed fitted into the context of

the routine of daily life and work. In a community where the

intellect is nurtured it is also important to develop a reflective faith

which can be expressed in campus discussion.

While some might find this statement intimidating, it should be noted that it is

clear that the college is not only looking for Mennonites. As was mentioned

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before, the faculty seem to be more divided about what the necessary strength
of their relationship with the church needs to be than they are about their
affiliations with the academic and professional associations. It is clear that
those at the college are still very much aware of how hiring practices can affect
the continuing relationship with the Mennonite Church. This topic of the
importance of faculty hiring will be dealt more fully in stage nine.

Again, this fifth stage of Burtchaell’s theory does not quite fit the current
thinking on Goshen’s campus. Goshen’s faculty and student body is primarily
Mennonite in composition. Of the roughly 900 full-time students enrolled in the
Spring of 2000 over 61 percent were Mennonite. The percentage of Mennonite
faculty is even higher, with nearly 90 percent currently attending a Mennonite/
Anabaptist-related Church. Further, a majority of faculty believe that the
college should remain strongly Mennonite in composition. The faculty were
asked if “in all components (governance, faculty, staff and students), there must
be a strong representation of members of the Mennonite Church (GC or MC5)?”
(see Appendix B, question 44). Nearly 80 percent of the faculty members who
responded either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, while the
remainder were evenly split between being undecided or disagreeing. There
were sixteen written responses to this question, and although it had widespread

support, numerous respondents qualified their answers noting that “a ‘critical

 

5 This is a reference to the impending merger of the General Conference (GC) Mennonite
Church and the Mennonite Church (MC) denominations. Currently, Goshen College faculty
and students come from both denominations (and other related Anabaptist denominations)
even though the college is owned and operated by the Mennonite Church (MC).

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mass"5 of Mennonite students would seem less important than with the other
groups.” Several respondents wrote that it is important for us to maintain this
strong representation “unless GC is not interested in remaining a church
college,” while another teaching faculty member agreed with the statement but
said that he “would define strong representation at 40% rather than the
currently mandated 60% [Mennonite students].”

When asked a question about faculty and student sympathy toward the
Mennonite history and commitments of the college there appeared to be more
agreement (see Appendix B, question 45). Over 87 percent agreed that “a
majority of both faculty and students must be sympathetic to Mennonite history
and the commitments of the college.” Six point seven percent were undecided
about the statement and 5.9 percent disagreed. This would suggest that while
Mennonite composition of the student body and faculty are important, the
faculty are more concerned that everyone who associates with college be
sympathetic to the Mennonite commitments of the institution. One of the most
common qualifications to this question, however, included the idea that it is
much more crucial that the faculty be sympathetic than the student body. One
of the few respondents who disagreed with the question, noted that “dictating
opinions is not Anabaptist. Again, the idea is to create an environment that will

be friendly to those values and offer them as a choice.”

 

5 Throughout the dissertation, respondents discuss this idea of “critical mass.” This is the
number or percentage of Mennonite students or faculty the college needs to maintain to
remain Mennonite. As this quote suggests, there is not consensus on this issue.

123

While there was wide-spread support for significant “Mennonite
composition” of the faculty and students, and a need to be sympathetic to the
Mennonite nature of the institution, there were some who were not so sure.
One Mennonite teaching faculty member expressed concern about the
alienation that some of her other-than-Mennonite faculty colleagues
experience. Another new teaching faculty member expressed a concern that
the desire to be so Mennonite is stagnating. He said,

This place is already a hotbed of [Mennonite] nepotism. Why
can’t we have the courage to make bridges to other people and
enhance our strength as an institution by creating dialogues with
those of other faiths who are sympathetic to our denomination?

This is an important question and one with which the college needs to
grapple. How can the college remain steadfastly in relationship with the
Mennonite Church and yet have the openness to explore and appreciate others
faith and cultural traditions? One teaching faculty member went beyond most
others in discussing his dismay over the Mennonite nature of the college. As
he wrote,

GC‘s biggest problem is too much ‘incest’...GC is not certain just
how Mennonite it should be/become...but it’s already too narrow
and insufficiently multicultural in its actual makeup to sustain a
true multicultural perspective...that would mean welcoming Islam,
Hindu, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. None of these would be truly
welcomed, but simply tolerated. There are entirely too many
white Christian males on the faculty here, and multiculturalism is
largely [given] lip-service. The teaching faculty should concern
itself with how to implement a true worldview that is both
accepting and compassionate in the “culture for service’ mission
of the college. Let the administration and the Mennonite church
worry about Mennonite issues. I'm more concerned about
institutional hypocrisy and making sure that students realize that
there is more to life than the narrow pettiness of Mennonite (and

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for that matter, Christian) issues. True acceptance of the ‘other’ is
more than simple tolerance and acknowledgment of rights to
exist. The struggle for justice, understanding, and mere survival
for the world's disadvantaged are more important to me than any
church, dogma, or my own insignificant life. When I see and
experience all the pettifoggery around me, I withdraw and ignore
such issues. The real shame is how such trivialities can squander
the potential of Goshen College. Sooner or later, one must
grapple with just what the mission is and who determines it (and
its relevance). The real question should consider whether
Goshen College has a mission to the world and sets its own
agenda, or if it allows someone else to set that agenda. Who is
the real GC constituency? Who should it be if we have a world
mission at Goshen College?

This is certainly a very strong indictment of the potential narrowness of mixing
religion with education and it should be carefully heeded and discussed. It
would not be a dominant faculty opinion. However this may be because, as the
respondent above believes, “there are entirely too many white Christian males
on the faculty here.” When I met with President Showalter, she addressed the
issue of pluralism and how Goshen should respond to it. She said,

The new kind of postmodern pluralism is actually an invitation

for... the pluralism to be the diversity among types rather than

every one of us being little microcosm of the larger world. [Not]

bringing every single type of diversity and pluralism to every

institution but rather the combination of the whole being diverse.

That option in post-modem society is actually one I think that is

beneficial to a place like Goshen that has maintained strong

church ties even through the loosening period of the late 20‘h
century.

In a chapter President Showalter is preparing for a book entitled Education as

 

Transformation: Reflections on Religious Diversity, Spirituality and Higher
Education, she again discusses this need for Goshen to be unique:

True diversity in the academy does not dictate uniformity. It
gathers up the many models, asking each to be as true to its

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tradition as possible while also engaging other voices both inside

and outside its community. The best contribution Goshen College

can make to American higher education is to be Mennonite to the

core. Increasingly, to do so is to be multicultural. It certainly does

not mean being exclusively Swiss-German American in ethnicity

and one or two generations removed from an agrarian subculture.

Goshen’s pluralism, however, though larger than it has been in

the past, will not be as broad as that of most campuses.

Clearly, this will be an issue that is debated as the college continues to discuss
what it means to be an Anabaptist college in a plural age. Some on campus
fear, however, that this post-modern understanding of pluralism described by
President Showalter above, simply Iegitimizes the practical inability of a small
liberal arts college in rural Indiana to be all-inclusive.

President Showalter believes that, if for no other reason than improving
its chances for survival, the college should/must remain in close relationship
with its supporting denomination, the Mennonite Church. This relationship is
not always an easy one. Those on campus are increasingly wondering, to what
kind of Mennonite Church is the college trying to relate? In the following stage,
the type of religious change that the faculty perceive in Mennonite Church will
be addressed.

Stage Six: Shifting Identifiers

In this sixth stage, Burtchaell (1991a) posits that the secularizing

colleges tend to shift from using denominational identifiers, to the use of

Christian, then to generic religious identifiers and finally, to secular ones. In the

case of Vanderbilt University, Burtchaell notes that the institutional relationship

126

 

with the Methodist Church was gradually redefined from “ownership” initially, to
“relationship” in the end (Burtchaell, 27).

In this way, Goshen clearly does not follow Burtchaell’s outline. Goshen
is owned by the Mennonite Church, and the faculty, who are mostly Mennonite,
remain committed to identifying with Mennonite/Anabaptist heritage. One
teaching faculty member expressed the following common sentiment among
respondents:

I do feel that we have a mandate to preserve a heritage and a

tradition, and try to keep it alive. This might sound arrogant, but

Jesus demands our heart, these are hard teachings and people

want to rewrite them and gloss over them to make things easier.

The peace tradition, the notion of the answerability and

responsibility for the consequences of your actions in your civic

and corporate, social life. I think that’s what we are teaching at

the college.

It is interesting to see how the Mennonite lessons this faculty member identified
and the college is teaching, are very similar to the ones that the active/
supportive churches in the Gideon Project valued. As Wiese (1996a) found,
those in supportive congregations are significantly more likely to espouse
traditional Anabaptist beliefs concerning separation/persecution from society,
pacifism and a thorough church discipline. It is not surprising then, that if many
faculty members at Goshen are trying to inculcate traditional Anabaptist ideals,
that some in the denomination will value Goshen less highly.

Redekop Revisited

While it seems apparent that those at the college still value the

institution’s religious heritage, many on campus doubt that parts of the church

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itself still do. Throughout the discussion of Burtchaell’s stages, the story of
Goshen’s relationship to the Mennonite Church has been compared to the story
that Redekop (1998) tells about the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren (EMB)
denomination. In this stage, the similarity between Redekop’s story and the
one that the Goshen College faculty are describing is striking. Redekop (1998)
posits that there are several key factors that led the EMB denomination away
from its Anabaptist heritage. First, he posits that the evangelical zeal of the
movement found sustenance outside the Anabaptist community, primarily in the
form of evangelical and fundamentalist radio programs. Many Goshen College
faculty members also believe segments of their supporting denomination have,
as one teaching faculty member wrote,

...imbibed too deeply in the streams of generic evangelicalism or
Protestantism through radio and television ministries. We should
be out of step with that portion of the church. Also, if peace and
justice and discipleship are at the core of our Anabaptist-
Mennonite spirituality, then we’re more in tune with the historic
church than many of our congregations. There is a deep sense of
committed, Mennonite, Christian spirituality on campus. We are
very much in line with other good, solid, Anabaptist-Mennonite
congregations across the church.

She went on to describe the Mennonite congregation in which she grew up,
and told of the loss of its Anabaptist roots:

When I look at a congregation like my home congregation, it has
been so influenced by a series of interim ministers and other folks
who have come in and not had any kind of Mennonite education
of any sort or any education post high school. And then there are
the kind of influences people have working in the factories, as
they do in the town, and the kind of influences they get listening to
the Christian radio stations. You get some secular influences and
other Christian influences. I mean all those things have pulled
that congregation so far away from its Anabaptist! Mennonite

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roots that I see, even if you’re not talking about the college, if

you’re just talking about it moving away from its tradition of origin,

there is such a shift away from that tradition. It’s become a more

generic kind of evangelical, conservative, rural congregation

rather than one is rooted in a particular Anabaptist/Mennonite

tradition.

Another administrative faculty member concurred when he said,

I think fundamentalism has had a terrific impact on the Anabaptist

theology... l was thinking that we don’t emphasize the peace

position [as much] but I think that is a result of fundamentalism

that puts an emphasis on ‘outer signs’. We don’t want anyone

telling us how to dress but now we have this group [that tells us]

how to speak or how to praise or we have a different way of

determining who’s a Christian, who’s a follower.

These two and many other faculty members described a myriad of
influences, both secular and Christian, from outside of the denomination that
have chipped away at individual congregations’ Anabaptist rootedness. As
they lower their support for their denominational institutions, Redekop (1998)
would argue that they will become progressively more isolated and have less
understanding of what their Anabaptist heritage means. If they lose their
understanding of the value of their heritage, it may only be a generation or two
before they cannot even remember it.

As we are beginning to see, it is apparent that studies of secularization
which do not deal significantly with the fluctuating nature of the religious life
leave the story only half told. One administrative faculty member observed that
most studies on the secularization of higher education

...don‘t take into consideration the possibility that religious

traditions themselves can become secularized, or popularized, or

distanced from their historic origins -- so much so that their
academic institutions would be foolish to follow them into the

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secularized abyss. I'm thinking of things like popular Christian
radio and television shows, an over-emphasis on evangelicalism
and popular piety rather than discipleship, an acceptance of
military action as essential, an embracing of the Religious Right’s
agenda. All of these things bastardize our religious tradition. So
should we really be aligned with all of the values of the current
denomination? I'm not so sure of this -- I think we’re called to
represent the best of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition in a
modem/postmodern world, and that will sometimes pit us against
the church, or push us to the forefront of leadership in the church.

Another faculty member discussed how what she calls the “right-wing” has
influenced the denomination. This dissolution of the Anabaptist focus in
segments of the denomination,

...comes from the whole right wing infiltration of our
[denomination]. Like Dobson, he is a key person in this right-wing
group and [Dobson has] a whole plan about how [he’s]
approaching things and Mennonites love him. You know, he tells
us how to be.

Finally, a long-time administrator outlined the forces that he believes are
secularizing the denomination:

I do not feel that GC is moving from the church, but that many in
the church are moving toward two poles that both are antithetical
to Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition. The first and strongest is [the]
Reformed/American, conservative/evangelical nexus of church,
society and government -- that moves us into support for military,
government control of moral authority, etc. The second is [the]
materialistic secularism and personal success models of the
capitalist consumer society. GC has a challenge to speak against
both of these elements of white, Christian, American society that
are so opposite to [the] Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition.

As this person and others suggested, it is not only in congregational life that the
denomination is pulling away from its Anabaptist heritage. Several faculty

members related stories about other Mennonite institutions that are struggling

130

with their Mennonite identity. One administrative faculty member is dismayed
that,

At several Mennonite high schools there could be Bible teachers

who have a piety and, in some cases a theology, that has nothing

to do with historical Anabaptist or Mennonite thought. In fact,

there’s one who teaches a just-war theory. That that could be

allowed in a Mennonite high school is a sign that something is

going on.

He went on to complain about the biannual denominational youth convention,
where there was very little Mennonite representation among the speakers:

Another example of what I think of as a problem is the fact that

our youth conventions are so dependent on outside resources to

provide the feel good [Christianity]. That seems to be what the

youth buy into then too, and it is presented to them in the context

of the major church meeting of the year, and they go there every

other year and they have something that is not at all Mennonite

and it’s organized by Mennonites. They have outside speakers

who are all outside of what’s actually being discussed in the

church and that’s their socialization.

Redekop, who is the grandson of Aron Wall (the co-founder of the EMB
denomination), and a Goshen College graduate and former professor, grew up
in the EMB denomination. He credits, however, “fortunate circumstances” for
his attendance at Goshen College where “he was exposed more deeply to the
Anabaptist heritage” (267). He left the EMB denomination and joined the
Mennonite Church in 1954. An introduction to Anabaptism and the wider
Mennonite Church is a common and important theme in the Goshen College
student experience. This is especially true for those from the parts of the

church which were not as heavily influenced by Bender’s “Anabaptist Vision.”

President Showalter, in her inaugural address, said,

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For many alumni, Goshen College was a place where the

Mennonite Church became visible either for the first time or in a

new way. The college, says an alumnus who is now a professor

himself in a very different setting, made the Mennonite Church

itself visible, ‘enlivening’ it with real presence. That is what he

values most about his undergraduate experience (Showalter,

1997a)

This quote would suggest that a Mennonite education can be a critical
factor in the training of committed Anabaptist church leaders. Redekop (1998)
writes that while the original leaders of the EMB denomination would have had
at least a basic understanding of Anabaptist thought and belief, successive
generations of EMB leaders would not consider Mennonite institutions for their
theological training.

While most on the Goshen College campus, and some in the church,
believe that a Mennonite education is fundamental to the continuation of the
faith tradition, others either do not understand this or do not care if Anabaptism
continues. Several faculty members believe that many Mennonite churches
find little reason to support Mennonite education, or, at least, Mennonite higher
education. The teaching faculty member above, who was describing her home
church, noted that her congregation realizes that they are becoming less
Anabaptist and they start asking,

‘Why should we send our kids to a Mennonite school? What will

we get?’ They are having a debate in my home congregation for

instance, about ‘will we have a congregational student aid fund?’7

It's a huge fuss, I mean ‘we’re not just going to give money to the
Mennonite schools. Why shouldn’t we give our money if you go

 

7 The respondent is alluding to programs that many Mennonite congregations have instituted,
giving financial support to students who choose to attend a Mennonite college.

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to any Christian school?’ So if you go anywhere, from Bob Jones

to Goshen to wherever, you can get congregational aid money.

The same money anybody would get for going to a Mennonite

school because that would be too exclusive to just focus on

Mennonite education. ‘We don’t care enough about that.’
She said further that those in the her home church “wouldn’t even know or care
about what we were teaching. They wouldn’t know if we were off-base or on-
base or anything else in terms of Mennonite understandings.” This disregard
by some Mennonite congregations for their denominational institutional
structure does not bode well for the institutions or the congregations
themselves. Van Ham (1992) writes that “church and college must share a
sense of mutual dependence; a continuing relationship is warranted because
sufficient benefits accrue to each party” (76). Trotter (1987) discusses the
tendency of religious groups to devalue their denominational institutions. As he
writes,

The argument of ‘institutional disposability’ ultimately leads to a

church without institutions, save high places and priestly castes.

The churches need hospitals, homes, colleges, and schools to

exercise their mission in the world. Without instruments of

service, ‘service’ becomes a concept located in the traditional

speech of the church but not realized in its life (Trotter, 122-3).
Without these institutional arms, the denomination is nothing more than a group
of people who come together once a week. “It may not be beyond the realm of
possibility that the abandonment of public welfare, including education, on the

part of the churches of Europe has, in fact, added to the serious decline of

those churches in influence upon the society” (Trotter, 146). This corresponds

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with Redekop’s (1998) theory that the EMB's lack of institutional structure was
a major hindrance to its viability.

Trotter’s (1987) and Redekop’s (1998) messages are important to both
the college and to the parts of the denomination which have scapegoated their
“Mennoniteness” for the problems they are experiencing. As was mentioned
before, some at the college have, at times, not been sure if their connections to
the church were a help or a hindrance. Just as Redekop shows the
consequences of dropping these denominational connections for the EMBs,
those at Goshen who are inclined to travel this path would do well to heed his
warning.

Another concern for the EMBs revolved around the difficulty in making
those who joined from outside the Mennonite community feel welcome. This
has also been a very thorny issue for those on Goshen’s campus. The student
body and faculty have significant numbers of other-than-Mennonites members.
So how does the college maintain its unique Mennonite identity without being
exclusive? As Redekop (1998) cautions, there must be a balance, because to
be too open destroys the fabric that holds the community together.

In this study’s survey, Goshen faculty were asked if “GC should be
looking more proactively outside the Mennonite church for students?” (see
Appendix B, question 10). A clear majority either agreed or strongly agreed
(63.1 %) with this statement, but there was a significant amount of qualification
to these responses. One retired faculty member, who was undecided, noted

that if an increased effort to look outside the denomination for students is

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made, it should not be made “at the expense of losing our Mennonite identity.”
A common theme for those who agreed with the statement was that the college
should be looking outside the church, but

We must clarify our identity as Anabaptists as we reach out and

develop much clearer criteria in receiving outside students to be

sure they are a good match (including feeling comfortable) for GC.

We shouldn’t have to lower our academic or behavioral standards

in the process of being ‘ecumenically hospitable.’
This notion of “ecumenical hospitality” will continue to be a very difficult one for
the college and the church to sort out as they both expand their efforts to reach
out to those who are not “ethnic” Mennonites.

The College Response to a Shifting Church

It must be made clear that this denominational “pulling away” from
Anabaptist beliefs has been noticed in many of the Mennonite institutions.
Goshen’s teaching and administrative faculty, at all levels, discuss the ways
they have observed the church changing. This shift has motivated those at
Goshen who work most closely with the church to become more aware of the
type of language they use and the messages they send to the church. I had
planned to do a careful analysis of college publications to see how the
language has changed, but this task was simplified when several key
administrators unabashedly admitted that the message has changed. The
Gideon Project research and market research conducted by the consultant,

George Dehne, has led those at Goshen who are in close contact with the

church to believe they need to speak more clearly about the ways in which the

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institution is attempting to live up to its Anabaptist ideals. When asked if the
religious tone of campus publications had changed, one administrator said that

Goshen has always been [interested in service]. Yes, we are
trying to be more articulate about our reason for being, what is our
motivation for being [interested in service]. It’s not because we
are humanists, it's because of our understanding of Christian
faith. Yes, we're trying to be more explicit in terms of our
motivation for being this way. People always put you in that box
about social gospel versus whatever, but...we're trying to be more
articulate, more aggressive in communicating our motivation for
being this way. We're not backing away from the service
orientation, in my opinion. It's been a good exercise to try to
articulate this message to people off-campus who are producing
print materials for us.

Another administrative faculty member talked about the new message that is
being conveyed in the college’s admissions viewbook. He said,

the biggest emphasis is that we're trying to say we're a good

place, we're a spiritual place, we‘re a Christian place.

‘Uncommon’ is another theme. The writing is trying to take us to

the Bible, but not in a terrible way, because we still quote Henry

Thoreau right away in the front, and Margaret Mead.
This comment about the message being Biblical “but not in a terrible way” is an
indication that there is still some discomfort with using this type of language,
even with people who are inclined to believe it is a good idea. This
administrator went on to discuss the motivation for emphasizing religious
themes. He noted,

One of the things that we were criticized for is that we always

push the academics and we didn't emphasize who we are as a

faith community and so we are trying to do that. This came from

the Gideon Study and the Dehne work. They just encouraged us

just to be a little more forthright with the fact that we do have an

important community and spiritual aspect. I think we went through
a time when we didn't think it made much difference [if we talked

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about faith] and now we’re just really out there with everybody
else.

The mention of the research conducted by Dehne and the Gideon Project and
the need to be “out there with everybody else” does not sit well with some on
campus. One teaching faculty member discussed her dismay with the need to
have consultants from outside the denomination tell those at the college how to
talk to the church. As she said,

We got the Dehne report and we were told about those concerns

[in the church, that we aren’t spiritual enough], so what'd we do...

And see, I don't like crass... I know marketing is part of the world

of higher education now, but I don’t like it. Especially, when

Christianity is used as part of the marketing tool. Because, all of

a sudden, we were told that and the Goshen College Bulletin, the

second issue of that year after [we get the consultant’s report], the

whole thing highlighted the Christian aspect of our campus, the

spirituality, the ministry teams, all that. And that's so calculated.

And I can hear an administrator, because they have different

concerns than I do, say ’well, but are we saying anything there

that's not true?’ And my answer would be ’no you’re not and it

would be good to tell our constituency really who we are.’ Yeah,

but we would have never done this naturally. You needed a

consultant to tell you to do this, othenlvise why didn't we do it three

or four years ago?
As I have noted before, this professor is probably correct when she says that
“administrators have different concerns than [she does].” Wills (1994) notes
that, “it is commonplace in universities to believe that the faculty member who
takes an administrative post is ‘ruined’ for later scholarship. The shift in gears
toward ingratiation, persuasion, and negotiation is not easily reversed” (161 ).
Those who have to deal most directly with the constituency must be the most

judicious in their response to it. The president and many others on the Goshen

College campus are continually making compromises and building coalitions in

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their attempts to keep the institution viable. In a book on college presidency,
Sammartino (1954) wrote about the difficult nature of dealing with diverse
constituents:

The college president’s job is a difficult one for two reasons. First,
[they are] under constant pressure from the community, from the
faculty, from the students, and perhaps from the trustees.
Second, if [they are] conscientious about [their] job, [they] will be
thinking of [their] work twenty-four hours a day. (Sammartino, 10)

In a 1998 sermon, President Showalter talked about her apprehension in
accepting the call to the presidency:

As much as I was filled with joy that my community had
recognized something I had felt inside for a long time, a call to
leadership, I was also filled with fear. Not because I was the first
woman president after thirteen men. Not because I was the first
president after 8. C. Yoder in 1923 not to have seminary training.
What I feared most was being in the place where the belief
systems of the world and of the Mennonite Church were going to
criss-cross my body. I had seen two other presidents stand in
that gap. I knew that in a lot of ways, especially in our tradition, to
accept the keys to power was also to put oneself in the place of
suffering. The water was going to be deep. How would I keep
from drowning? (Showalter, 1998c).

One common way to keep from drowning is to seek help from consultants.
President Showalter discussed the institutional use of consultants and faculty
concern about using one. She said,

I think the really important thing is integrity and genuineness. Are
you ever saying anything in these messages that is not true, that
you don’t believe. Frankly, there wasn’t anything new in either
Gideon or Dehne, except in the case of Dehne there were a lot of
good, concrete suggestions of things to do that worked in other
places that I wouldn’t have thought of. In the case of Gideon
there was none of that. The value of most market research is to
give you confidence to go ahead and do what your own gut told
you to do in the first place. And I believe I would have done

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almost everything I’ve done without those marketing consultants.
I had a clear vision.

President Showalter and others expressed the idea that one of the valuable
aspects of hiring consultants is to give those at the college who make decisions
the confidence to do what they already thought they should do. Further, they
believe there is nothing disingenuous about the process if the messages that
are sent are honest. President Showalter believes the concern about using
consultants becomes one of where the credit (or blame) is placed for any given
idea or initiative. She said,

This is an ego thing. I don’t have to get worried about whether or
not this was my idea or a consultant’s idea. That is to get
involved in an argument that makes no sense and goes nowhere.
The only thing that I hear that I believe is important for me to
respond to is the question of, ‘is this real or is this make-believe?’
because some consultant said it. As long as they’re not saying
that [I’m insincere] then I’m not too worried because then it’s just
who gets the credit. One of the most wonderful things Mary
Eleanor Bender said to me about her father8 was a phrase of his
that has stuck with her that I picked up immediately too, is that,
‘you can accomplish many things in this world if you don’t care
who gets the credit.’ That’s the way I feel about this. I don’t have
to prove that I’m an original thinker.

Another administrative faculty member also said something very similar
about consultants. He pointed out how the issue has been confused in this
case because the consultants’ reports coincided with the beginning of a new
presidency. He pointed out that,

I've been around the block enough to know that 90-95 percent of

the ideas you hear from an outside consultant you knew. But
then the bottom line is, if, in fact, you knew it, you - meaning the

 

8 Mary Eleanor Bender is professor emerita of English. She is the daughter of the late Harold
Bender, who was a dean of Goshen College and the author of “The Anabaptist Vision.”

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institution - why didn't you do something with it? They do add an
element of outside, I mean when you make that kind of
investment, and when you spend all this time and money, then
you listen more carefully to their ideas even if they are the same
as the internal folks have, everyone is just kind of on red alert. In
my view, a consultant coming in doing research among your
people shouldn‘t find a whole batch of brand new things. To me,
it is sort of that larger thing of what are the circumstances through
which an institution decides to invest in that kind of activity, to
spend the time, and the effort, and the money and then they
obviously pay more attention to the information than if they would
if they had just done it informally, internally. I would never argue
that we didn't know 92 percent and I didn't expect that. So, for
those who would say well we knew all that stuff or it would have
felt better if we could have just done it ourselves, I think they need
to ask ‘why didn't we?’ and ‘what were the missing pieces?’ I
would say that there were kind of two things going on there
simultaneously. You might have picked up some of the same
sentiment even if we had had no Dehne, but they were just
thinking about a new administration. So, you had two dynamics
operating simultaneously both of which could produce the kind of
thing...because the new president comes in and has her own
notion of how she'd like to move and now here comes the
consultant. The college in a short period of time has had a double
whammy of that and so I can see where they would put all of that
together and wonder.

This “double whammy” makes it difficult to separate what of the college’s new

style of interaction with the church is because of the consultant’s suggestions or

the new president’s initiatives. President Showalter said she simply used the

consultant’s suggestions to bolster her own ideas. Even those respondents

who were most critical of President Showalter, recognized that the messages

the college is sending are not dishonest. Instead, they argued that the

messages do not give a complete picture of campus opinion. They believe they

are the messages of a select group, put out in a way that will be most palatable

to a conservative church:

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That seems manipulative, it seems marketing-driven. Goshen
College doesn't require a Christian commitment of its students,
we embrace the world. We say, 'come, you’re a Muslim from
India, come study with us, we want you to be a part of who we
are.’ So if we say that, why all of the sudden do we have to say
these other kinds of things that seems like institutionalized
Christianity, in other words, a manipulative Christianity. Let’s
make sure people remember we‘re okay. It seems to me that 3/4
of the faculty are anywhere from moderate to liberal in their
theological position, but I don’t feel like the documents are really
representing that [diversity].

This is a significant point, and one with which those at the college must grapple.
Who gets to decide how the college is portrayed is important in that it is a sign
of where much of the power lies in the institution. When discussing how the
campus is divided on the issue of how the college is presented, one teaching
faculty member said that,

If we ever had this notion of an idealized, happy community, it is

gone. We are very, very divided. It doesn’t always come out in

confrontation. I think, in general, we kind of get along, but those

are always there under the surface and if you push somebody’s

buttons you can get pushed back pretty hard.
It is not probable that everyone’s views on any given topic will be expressed
outside the campus. It is also clear, however, that the opinions which are being
expressed are genuine to segments of the college and, more importantly, since
she is the messenger, to President Showalter herself. One administrative
faculty member said,

The president has her own way of articulating her vision and her

motivation, what she wants for this place and she's clearly more -

what’s the right word - she's more articulate in that area than

some people have been. From where I sit, I don’t see her

motivation for that, it’s not some marketing thing, not some kind of
conniving, it's the real deal, in my opinion.

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When asked about why the language the college is using to talk to those
outside the institution has changed, an administrative faculty member

observed:

I think the biggest thing is the president. I think she is a great
communicator, and she is a genuine person and compassionate,
which is nice. She is open about her spirituality and she’s had
some personal spiritual experiences that she shares, a very
faithful life, and she shares that very openly and very well
whenever she goes out to the congregations. I think that's been
our biggest plus. And the college is openly saying ‘we want to be
Mennonite, we are going to remain Mennonite and we want you to
like us, respect us, maybe more than like.’ And I'm not saying
that before Shirley's presidency we didn’t feel that way, but maybe
we weren't quite as bold.

The market research that the college commissioned not only changed
the content of the message sent to the church, it also changed to whom that
message is sent. The college is less willing to spend time attempting to
connect with the parts of the church that the Gideon Project research identified
as inactive. An administrative faculty member noted,

I know that the consultant’s wisdom after the Gideon Report was

'know who hates you, know who loves you and you have this

great group in the middle that just isn't quite sure.‘ We have

tended in the past to work hard at those who hate us because we

don‘t want them to hate us, you know, we’re not the way they

perceive us so if we just tell them how we are, soon they'll see

who we are. And the consultant says ’no, they will never see who

you are because they don't want to. They're in a position that that

is the way it is.’ Now, maybe someday they'll come around but it

will be on their time and so to put a lot of money and time there is

not a good idea.

A teaching faculty member said that he believes it is actually counterproductive
to attempt to defend the institution. “The reality is, the more we try to defend

the college [to the church], the more people think they are right. If you have to

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defend the college, it is seen as tainted by guilt.” There is strong agreement
that the college is changing the way it presents itself, and to whom it is sending
its messages. One administrative faculty member expressed a common
sentiment among those faculty members who are comfortable with the

messages being sent:

Image is everything. We were never as bad as what the church
thought we were. New leadership has shed a better light on GC.
It is not that we are moving closer to the church, but that the
church is seeing us in a better light. We are also more concerned
about our relationship with the church. Not by compromising
ourselves and who we are, but by being open to dialogue.

This notion of marketing and even this respondent’s use of a popular soft drink
slogan, “Image is Everything,” would not sit well with some faculty members.
Another faculty member took a different stance on the issue of image:

I think one of the worst parts of human nature is worrying about
image as opposed to substance. Because if you have the
substance, you’ll have the image. In my mind, Christ would have
no desire to make sure our institution has a certain image. In my
notion of Christianity, He would be much more concerned with
what’s happening here in reality with individuals and how they are
relating with each other in community. And that’s not always
going to be pretty, just like in a family, and at times there are
going to be things that will look ugly to the outside world. But
guess what, that’s not your concern, [our] concern is healing and
living in Christian community.

This debate is bound to rage on as the college wrestles with the issue of how
and to whom to present itself. It is important to recognize that within this
ongoing debate, there is no indication that the faculty are attempting - as

Burtchaell’s model would suggest - to loosen their ties to the Mennonite

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Church. It is more likely that the loosening is occurring in other parts of the
denomination.
Stage Seven: Christianity is “Softened”

In this stage, Burtchaell (1991a) posits that in order to appeal to both
secular and church constituents, the Christianity espoused on the secularizing
campuses becomes little more than “generic qualities hardly distinguishable
from gentle manners or sound citizenship...so insubstantial that it could hardly
sustain any specificities or provoke any controversy” (28). Others concur with
Burtchaell’s theory that Christianity in America has often had its controversial
nature tamed to make it more palatable to an increasingly hostile faculty and
student body:

Liberal Protestants during the first half of the twentieth century

dealt with this problem [of pluralism] not by sharpening their

identity over against the culture, as did fundamentalists and

Catholic intellectuals, but rather by blurring their identities so that

there was little to distinguish them from other respectable

Americans. Hence, until the 19603 they could continue to control

America’s most distinguished academic institutions (Marsden

1992b, 31).

Several faculty members at Goshen College mentioned that it is increasingly
difficult for Mennonites, with their interest in peace and social justice, to
distinguish themselves from parts of popular American culture. One teaching
faculty member makes this point well,

There’s been a whole lot in the popular culture that makes being

Mennonite attractive in ways that it wasn’t before. Now, it’s pretty

attractive to live a simple life, be in favor of pacifism, protect the

earth...it’s the whole Birkenstock sandal thing. It’s become a very
attractive way of life and in a sense we’ve lost our identity

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because of it... in a kind of modern way we cannot define
ourselves over and against common culture.

This blurring of Anabaptist belief with portions of popular culture comes at a
time when some segments of the church have also blurred their Identities with
mainstream American evangelical Christianity. A long-time administrative
faculty member recognized the dual impact of secularization on the church and
the college:

I am not sure we are moving away from the church. If anything, a

significant segment of the church may be moving away from the

Mennonite tradition and understanding of faith, and are moving

towards a more fundamentalistic and pietistic expression of faith.

Our weakness may be in fewer faculty articulating and giving

leadership to our theological understandings and commitments.

We, like the larger church, are becoming increasingly secularized

and in that sense may be moving away from the traditional

church.

Dintaman (1995) argues that some Mennonites have dulled their faith, in part,
as a reaction to what he calls “stale leftover revivalist rhetoric” (3).

Just as many faculty and Redekop (1998) tell a story of a church that is
losing its Anabaptist roots, there are some in the Mennonite Church who are
critical of the impact of the Anabaptist Vision on the faith of the Mennonites.
Steven Dintaman, a former professor at Eastern Mennonite University in
Harrisonburg, Virginia and a Goshen College graduate, posits that Harold
Bender’s “Anabaptist Vision,” which has been highly influential to the religious
practices of many Mennonite groups, has had an unintended and not altogether

positive impact on the faith of these same Mennonites. Dintaman (1993)

argues that

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When H.S. Bender gave his Anabaptist Vision speech 50 years
ago this year, he did so against a horizon of assumed beliefs that
are not explicitly stated in the Vision. In particular, two unstated
assumptions lie behind Bender’s vision: ( 1) He held firmly to basic
evangelical doctrines about the being and work of God in Christ.
(2) He believed and repeatedly taught that the living out of the
vision was only possible through the indwelling presence of Christ
and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The next generation of ‘Anabaptist Vision’ theologians taught
passionately about Christian behavior and greatly deepened and
expanded the concept of discipleship. But they gave only
passing, non-passionate attention to the work of Christ and the
work of the Spirit in the inner transformation of the person. This
was often done to counterbalance the kind of Christianity which
says that Christian faith is merely assent to doctrine (as is
supposedly the case in Protestantism), or the kind that says
Christianity is primarily an inner spiritual experience (as is
supposedly the case in pietism and revivalism).

The unfortunate consequence of this approach to teaching the
Anabaptist Vision was that it resulted in generations of students
and church leaders learning some of the behavioral aspects of
Christian faith without learning equally well that discipleship is
only meaningful and possible because it is an answer to who God
is and what God is doing in the world. Nor did they necessarily
experience what it means to have a vital and life-changing
personal friendship with the crucified and risen Jesus. Our
teachings of the Anabaptist Vision, whatever its benefits, has also
contributed to our spiritual impoverishment (2).

Dintaman’s (1993, 1995) ideas, as one might expect, are highly

controversial in Anabaptist circles. In very few places within the Mennonite

world did Bender’s “Anabaptist Vision” have a greater impact than at Goshen

College. As Dintaman argues above, the emphasis on “the behavioral aspects

of Christian faith” has left a hole in the faith lives of many Mennonites. This

sounds very similar to Burtchaell (1991b) when he writes that,

Religious faith comes fowvard nowadays in softer garments.
Justice and peace, social service, awareness of and care for the
environment, volunteer work; or liberal arts, discriminating inquiry,

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courses in professional ethics, gender studies: these are
presented as the contemporary surrogates for faith (36).

Dintaman further explains how the Anabaptist Vision has had a spiritually
impoverishing effect:

One way we have been impoverished is to see the Good News as

being Jesus’ teachings about the way of peace, and then

regarding Christianity as the practice of the way of peace. But

that falls far short of the New Testament understandings of God

bringing peace through the blood and in the body of Christ.

Peace and justice social activism and engagement in conflict

mediation can be authentic expressions of faith in Jesus Christ,

but I believe that for many it has become more of a substitute for

faith. Mennonite Academics, especially, are embracing a program

of peace and justice activism that puts them in the mainstream of

liberal, socially aware academia (Dintaman, 1995, 3, emphasis in

original).
If one embraces Dintaman’s thesis, it is logical to conclude then that Goshen
College, being populated with “Mennonite academics,” teaches the Anabaptist
Vision in the manner he suggests. While many (perhaps most) on the Goshen
College campus would not take the stance toward Mennonite pedagogy that
Dintaman does, a campus student culture has developed in the past that is
openly hostile to those students who are more overt in their faith lives. Most
faculty members do not encourage this, but their silence in many cases sends a
strong message. Perhaps Christianity is made more palatable to a questioning
student body if it is taught through issues such as peace and social justice.
Perhaps professors and administrators have hidden behind the Anabaptist
Vision to deal with their own discomfort with overt religious expression.

Perhaps they fear that “giving in” to overt expressions of faith, will irreparably

damage the Anabaptist Vision. In a 1995 article entitled, “Reading the

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Reactions to ‘The Spiritual Poverty of the Anabaptist Vision,” Dintaman writes
that,

The sharply negative responses [to his original essay] appear to

see the true Anabaptist ideal as being so constantly besieged by

fundamentalists and escapist pietists that great pains must be

taken to avoid any theological statements, or even any rhetorical

phrases, that may make it sound as though we have anything in

common with those interested in sound doctrine, grace or

Spirituality... What strikes me about this reaction is the siege

mentality it represents (5).
Several faculty respondents in the study noted that they feel either personally
impoverished in their faith or they observed that the faculty, in general, seem to
be uncomfortable expressing their faith in overt ways. One teaching faculty
member wrote that the college is “becoming more secular. I find the institution,
and myself, both becoming less overtly religious in our language, our
reasoning, and behavior. Personal devotion, prayer in meetings, thinking and
talking about faith...all are declining here and in my own personal life.” A
teaching faculty member concurred when she wrote that

GC could be less afraid of overt piety and its promotion. Shirley is

working on it (the main reason I believe for improvement in

relations with the church), but I do not hear the faculty as a whole

being less condescending toward expressions of piety (except, of

course, piety as expressed in socio-political activismnwhich is

certainly one valid expression).

Some faculty expressed dismay over the lack of Christian symbolism or
overt Christian practice on campus. This sentiment was given by both

Mennonites and other-than—Mennonites, from those who attended Goshen

College and those who did not. As one faculty member said,

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I think the place where we all run into difficulty here is around this
issue of community and consensus. It’s just too threatening to the
cohesiveness of this institution for there to be too broad of a
range of opinion about things. I wonder if that doesn’t happen in
part because there’s not enough open avowal of those things we
share in common. I am always impressed (and depressed) by the
infrequency with which we make reference to scripture in terms of
solving a problem or orienting ourselves on an issue. Rarely,
rarely do we make reference to scripture. I think, in part, people
are afraid because they know that’s when the hackles get raised.
But it also seems that’s the place where we could really ground
ourselves and do some teaching to the students. You know,
‘here’s this passage from the New Testament and we’re not
united in terms of what it means and yet we all still go to lunch
together, and get along together and teach in the same
institution.’ I think there could be some real modeling in terms of
that issue.

Another faculty member noted that he has,

been frustrated by the fact that the sorts of things that were very
obvious to me when I came, that we should have been doing, that
we could do on campus, just aren’t done. Things that would
seem to help our relationship with our past. For example, when
you walk on campus, the only Christian symbolism anywhere is at
college church with their two crosses... At Goshen we can’t have
any Bible verse or overt Christian symbolism around anywhere. I
don’t understand why we don’t do those simple things that would
have a lot of integrity if we picked a verse that really means
something to us.

Finally, an administrative faculty member, who grew up in the Mennonite
Church and attended Goshen College, said that,

I think people are afraid of doing some of the overtly Christian
things for fear of coming across as far-out Evangelical and so
they don’t do anything, and assume that ‘just the way we are’
shows rather than being able [to overtly show our faith]. This is
one thing that I do think Shirley has made easier for other people
- to step in and use overtly Christian language - use a prayer in an
opening without feeling quite as weird as they might have felt ten
years ago doing it. But there’s still this built up sort of suspicion
when it happens. ‘Am I doing it too much? Am I going to sound
like something I don’t want to sound like?’ And then I think for a

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lot of people the choice is ‘okay stay away from that still because I

don’t want to buy into this thing that I see on the other side and

don’t like at all.’ And I think we could work to achieve greater

comfort with that, where it is routine, and you do offer a prayer at

beginning of important events.

This response acknowledges the opinion of some that the college needs to be
overt in their Christian expression, but it also acknowledges the clear fear that
individuals do not want to appear to be like the part of the church that is
perceived to have become too evangelical and fundamentalist. This sentiment
was also expressed by Dintaman (1995). He writes,

Some people [who] wrote in support [of his original essay] admit

they struggle with using certain words for fear someone might see

them as too pious or conservative. Mennonites seem to have

become defined by their negative reactions against this or that

theology — to the point that our own theology is shaped by our

negative emotional reactions not only to certain concepts but

even to certain words (5).

While some faculty are open to more overt expressions of faith, there are
others who would be fearful about how these overt Christian expressions would
manifest themselves. It is imperative to acknowledge that there are some very
committed Christians on faculty who do not believe that religion and education
should be mixed. In the survey, the faculty were asked if “faith and learning
should have an equal presence on campus” (see Appendix B, question 38).
While the majority (80.2%) either agreed or strongly agreed with this, some
found this mixing of faith and education very threatening.

While not a common sentiment, there were some who were openly

hostile about the college having any relationship with the church. One long-

time teaching faculty member wrote, “this is a liberal arts institution, not a Bible

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college, and God forbid that it should ever become onell” This opinion was
expressed by others when the issues of church governance of the institution
and working with the church were approached (see Appendix B, questions 44
and 56). One teaching faculty member believes there must be a very distinct
separation between the college and the denomination. He wrote,

I found your questions disturbing. I think there is a healthy

distance between the denomination and the college. Academic

freedom is vital to our integrity as a liberal arts college and what

makes Goshen so distinct from places that exercise ‘mind-control’

and ask students for affidavits of doctrinal correctness before they

are accepted into a college.

When asked about whether or not the relationship with the church is
improving (see Appendix B, questions 9 and 33), one teaching faculty member
wrote, “this is irrelevant to my teaching here, until my conscience is sufficiently
distressed then, I will stop teaching here.” Another teaching faculty member,
when asked whether “faculty members need to be carefully recruited to serve
the relationship between church and college” (see Appendix B, question 46)
wrote, “this happens and I'm outa here.” Interestingly, 81.0 percent of the
faculty who responded to the survey either agreed or strongly agreed, that
faculty should be carefully recruited to serve the relationship with the church.
Burtchaell (1991b) writes that “the secularized graduate programs that train
new faculty have increasingly influenced Catholics to consider faith as a matter
of private (and possibly emotional) preference inappropriate to academic

interchange” (37). It seems that some Mennonites have also made this

divorce.

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President Showalter is stuck in a precarious position between various
groups on campus who would like to see the college be better at articulating
and expressing its religious mission, those who see no relevance to this
mission and those who are in the middle. One teaching faculty member
suggested that because some fear that religious messages will be incorrectly
read, the ones that are sent are often muddled:

It’s like we have to add this sort of plastic Christianity on top. The

big question is ‘what happened that we need to do this?’

Something happened in the past, the recent past, where a lot of

traditional forms of expression, the Christian nature of the college

disappeared. So now we are trying to get things back.
Dintaman (1995) hypothesizes that the Christian nature of the Mennonite
Colleges is hiding behind the Anabaptist Vision. Dintaman wrote that the
majority of the critical responses to his essay

...came from men fifty-five years of age and older who had

discovered the Anabaptist Vision early in their own personal and

professional formation. They seemed to perceive my essay as an
attack on the paradigm that had defined them and their life

work. . .[They] saw my essay as a rejection of Anabaptism and a

total embrace of Luther and/or pietism and/or evangelicalism (5).

In correspondence with Dintaman, he wrote that he “had a surprisingly warm
reception [on this t0pic] from younger GC faculty when I was GC’s guest for
faculty conference one year.” This is interesting because one teaching faculty
member at Goshen said that he believes,

We have a pretty radical split (that’s becoming less 30) between

older faculty members who have been here 25 plus years and the

new, young folks. For awhile, the real power brokers on campus

were the people who went to do their graduate studies in the 603,

and they had very much a politicized understanding about what
education was about. And they were the ones who were the

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movers and shakers on campus. In fact, the old faculty members
and the very young faculty members had a lot more in common.

It will be interesting to see what the new middle generation will do.
I think we are going to move away from this politicized notion of
education that [says that] education has a certain agenda to make
people think a certain way, as opposed to education as the role of
pulling people out from where they are, to helping people think for
themselves.

It is possible that the “younger faculty” mentioned by this faculty member and
Dintaman have less invested in the Anabaptist Vision and have experienced
the spiritually impoverishing nature of a Mennonite higher education. It should
be made clear, however, that Dintaman’s message clearly does not resonate
with all “younger faculty.” Dintaman told me that one of the most difficult
aspects of the discussion was the personal indictment that some felt in his
message. He wrote,

As I have thought about my essay, I have decided that it is really

about pedagogy. Some people heard me saying that my neo-

Anabaptist teachers were spiritually impoverished. I really think I

had come to see that their pedagogy was spiritually

impoverishing. A more accurate title [of the essay] would [have

been], 'the spiritually impoverishing effect of a prolonged steady

diet of Anabaptist Vision theology taught in a liberal arts college

without a corresponding diet of prayer, worship and spiritual

discipline'. The title I chose is a little more arresting.
It is important to note that it is not only Dintaman who has made these points.
However, it was he who took the first, most public step. In a group of essays
entitled “Refocusing a Vision: Shaping Anabaptist Character in the 21st
Century,” Levi Miller (1995) calls for the reconstruction of evangelical

Anabaptism. Below is his outline of the three tenets of a reconstructed

evangelical Anabaptism:

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A reconstruction of evangelical Anabaptism would start by
revisiting the thesis that Anabaptism was the logical conclusion of
the Protestant Reformation, or as Bender put it, ‘the culmination
of the Reformation’... This is an appropriation of what Bender
called a ‘consistent evangelical Protestantism’ which tried to
recreate ‘without compromise’ the early church and the vision of
Christ and the Apostles. It is an appropriation of an Anabaptism
which has high views of the scriptures, of Christ as Savior and
Lord, and of the conversion and regeneration of humans through
Christ, and which confesses the ancient beliefs of the Christian
church.

A second element in the reconstruction of evangelical Anabaptism
would affirm the importance of personal morality and the
devotional life. An evangelical Anabaptism is open to the
language of personal devotions, of spirituality and of Christ living
in us... An evangelical Anabaptism would also speak to our need
for holy living and personal morality...

Finally, a third contribution of a reconstructed evangelical
Anabaptism would be to confess that an ethic of love and
nonresistance and justice is central to the Gospel... It is not
mainly a secular response to an unpopular war, such as the one
my generation rightly opposed in Vietnam. Rather, it is a Christian
confession which is humbly lived in service to the world (Miller,
1995).

Some believe that Miller (1995) puts back into the Anabaptist Vision

what H.S. Bender always assumed was underlying it — the faith. It is both

important and fair, at this point, to come back to Redekop (1998). It is likely

that those in the former Evangelical Mennonite Brethren denomination, and

even those in the Mennonite Church who are not supportive of the college,

could have written Dintaman’s article years ago. While those on campus look

in contempt at those in the church who soak up evangelical radio and

television, those in more evangelical Mennonite congregation circles would

probably look at the Mennonite college campuses and ask, “Where is your

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What we have is a dilemma that has a few on campus, and many others
in leadership positions within the church, stuck in the middle. President
Showalter’s ongoing challenge is to find the middle ground. She must attempt
to express her faith in a way that seems honest both to those trained in the
Anabaptist Vision and those influenced by American evangelical culture. Some
in the church need to be shown the faith that underlies the Anabaptist Vision,
while some on campus need to understand that the “pluralism” they purport to
believe in should not exclude part of the very foundation on which many of their
institutions were established. “Despite the claims of the contemporary
universities to stand above all for openness, tolerance, academic freedom, and
equal rights, viewpoints that are based on discemibly religious concepts are
often informally or explicitly excluded” (Marsden, 1992b, 34). This sentiment
was expressed well by a teaching faculty member who wrote, “in some areas
pluralism is very strong, but in other areas it is effectively very weak (for
example, in making the campus comfortable to Mennonites with an evangelical
or more conservative worldview)”

Stage Eight: Marginalization of Religious Studies

Burtchaell (1991 a) argues that in this eighth stage, most secularizing
institutions took religious studies, which had once been the integrated core of
academic life, and extracted them from the center, putting them in a single
department. Christianity, in these secularizing institutions, went from a core
component of the curriculum, to a department which, ultimately, became a

department of religious studies.

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While this is partially true at Goshen, in that it has a separate department
of Bible, religion and philosophy, very few on campus would argue that the
general curriculum is devoid of Mennonite values. Anabaptist beliefs and
teachings are still at the heart of a large part of the curriculum. President
Showalter was recently awarded the “President Leadership Award,” which is
given annually by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to five college
or university presidents in Carnegie l category institutions. In awarding the
grant of $150,000, the foundation panel noted that “few institutions have the
sense of self and purpose that Goshen College demonstrates. It expresses
religious faith through service, encourages the development of tolerance
through multi-cultural experience and nurtures both the moral and intellectual
development of its students” (Gautsche, 2000, 4).

The multi-cultural experience that the panel referred to is one obvious
and often quoted example of how Goshen expresses its faith through its
curriculum. The Study Service Term (SST) program, which Goshen initiated in
the late 19603, is a good example of Anabaptist values playing a central role in
the curriculum. As President Showalter wrote in an unpublished essay
honoring the sending of the 6,000th student on SST,

SST has been the path on which many of us first encountered

God’s way of teaching in depth—the Wisdom Way. God has

taught us through the poor, just as the Bible teaches. God has

shown us miracles. God has used all the academic disciplines

and brought us to the deepest philosophical and theological

questions. God has challenged us to use our privileged position

for the sake of peace and justice in the world. We have become

part of all that we have met, like the poet Tennyson says in
‘Ulysses.’ We have Ieamed to recognize better just how big

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God’s kingdom is and just how deep and broad is God’s love. We

have encountered first hand the reason we have reason, and our

hearts have been opened wide (Showalter, 1998b).

Several faculty members expressed, as one teaching faculty member did, that
“across the curriculum Mennonite/religious concerns are introduced into the
classroom.” When the faculty were asked if “Goshen College has an explicitly
Christian curriculum” (see Appendix B, question 54), 54.7 percent agreed or
strongly agreed, 27.4 percent were undecided and 17.9 percent disagreed or
strongly disagreed.

There were 27 written responses to this question. Many respondents
were not sure what a Christian curriculum is or as one teaching faculty member
wrote, “I personally don’t believe that there is such an ‘animal’ as a ‘Christian
curriculum’.” Others believe that it varies from discipline to discipline, while
another faculty member wrote that it is “perhaps more ‘implicitly’ than ‘explicitly’
Christian.” A retired administrative faculty member noted that “this is true in the
sense that all we do is based on Christian values, but this doesn’t prevent us
from examining secular ideas and points of view.” Finally, a teaching faculty
member who strongly disagreed noted that “an explicitly Christian curriculum
can be found at those institutions who weed out any variety of thought before
students set foot on their campuses.” While a majority agreed with this survey
question, there is still a fair amount of disagreement, or at least confusion,
about what a “Christian curriculum” is. However, there is near unanimous

acknowledgement among faculty members that their faith plays a significant

role in the way they teach their courses or conduct themselves at work.

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When asked if their “religious beliefs are relevant to the content of [their]
academic or professional discipline” (see Appendix B, question 23), 95.0
percent of the faculty agreed, 2.5 percent were undecided and 2.5 percent
disagreed. There were only four written responses to this question, all of them
in agreement with the question. In a related but slightly different question,
faculty were asked if their “religious beliefs are relevant to the way [they] teach
[their] courses or conduct [their] work” (see Appendix B, question 24). This
question had an even higher percentage of agreement, 96.6 percent either
agreed or strongly agreed, 1.7 percent were undecided and 1.7 percent
disagreed. There were only five written responses to this question, typified by a
teaching faculty member who wrote, “forget the duality that sets up the
individual as a ‘Christian’ writer or ‘Christian’ teacher. I am a professor whose
entire way of seeing and thinking is radically impacted by my faith in God and
Christ.”

Finally, faculty were asked about the importance of whether or not they
“serve as a Christian role-model to students” (see Appendix B, question 50).
Again, agreement with the question was very strong. Ninety-five either agreed
or strongly agreed, 3.3 percent were undecided, and 1.7 percent disagreed or
strongly disagreed. In a related question, faculty were asked if “serving as a
Christian role-model to students is as important as the work [they] do at
Goshen” (see Appendix B, question 51). The level of concurrence on this
question went down (82.3 percent agreed or strongly agreed). These results

together suggest that there is still significant Christian commitment in the

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faculty, even to the point for most faculty, that modeling it for students is as
important as their work. It is clear that while Bible, religion and philosophy are
separated into their own department at Goshen, this has not had the effect of
marginalizing Christianity from the rest of the curriculum, as Burtchaell’s theory
would suggest.
Stage Nine: Acquiescence to Secularization

In this ninth and final stage, Burtchaell (1991a) hypothesizes that
secularization did not come to most institutions as a “hostile takeover.” Rather,
it arrived quietly, with the acquiescence of active Christians who often
unwittingly chose the academic mainstream over their faith communities. The
faculty at Goshen College are spending time in the 1999-2000 school year
working on the Strategic Planning Committee’s strategic priority number one.
This first priority is to “clarify and publicize our identity as an Anabaptist/
Mennonite college” (Strategic, 1999). As has been demonstrated throughout
this dissertation, and as this priority suggests, the chances that Goshen College
will any time soon “unwittingly" secularize are extremely low. It has also been
shown, however, that while Goshen demonstrates counter-indications to
secularization in many of Burtchaell’s stages, there are areas where this
difference is not as clear.

Numerous authors (Boyer 1995, Meyer 1995, Burtchaell 1991b, Meyer
1987, Jencks and Riesman 1968) suggest that one of the most significant
impacts on the future of a college’s religious commitment is its hiring of

committed religious faculty members. Many faculty members at Goshen

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seemed to concur with this idea. Peppered amongst the written responses to
the questionnaire, and throughout the faculty interviews, was an emphasis on
the importance of hiring an academically qualified, committed Anabaptist
faculty. However, there were also concerns from some faculty respondents
about the ramifications of hiring a faculty that is represented predominantly by
any one group.

In the survey, faculty were asked numerous questions about the
importance of having a Mennonite/Anabaptist faculty and student body.
Frequently, the agreement with the statements was high, with some
respondents qualifying that a high percentage of Anabaptist faculty was
particularly important. One teaching faculty member represented this view well:

I still believe there is a critical mass role, but we could have fewer
students than we have who are Mennonite and still have critical
mass. For students, I still believe in critical mass, just look what
we’ve seen happen at Manchester9 and a couple other places. If
you don’t have a critical mass, it is hard to maintain some things
even if you have a [Mennonite] faculty. But I think [within] the
faculty, it is far more important to have a critical mass. That’s not
to say that you shouldn’t have some peOple who aren’t Mennonite
on the faculty. There are people who aren’t Mennonite who have
some very sympathetic concerns. It’s more that if you aren’t
careful what the tenor is, with two or three people, the tenor can
change fairly significantly. Whether we’re working with the church
or whether we’re oppositional to the church and see the church as
a problem that we have to deal with. Whether we see ourselves
as leaders of the church, whether we see ourselves as beaten
down by the church. You know, what stance you take about the
church.

 

9 This is in reference to Manchester College in Indiana. The college was founded by the Church
of the Brethren denomination and has a very small proportion of its students from its founding
denomination.

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The faculty were asked several questions about faculty recruitment and while
there was broad consensus on most of them, there were strong feelings on
each side. When asked if “faculty members need to be carefully recruited to
serve the relationship between church and college” (see Appendix B, question
46), 81.0 percent of faculty either agreed or strongly agreed, 6.4 percent were
undecided and 12.4 percent disagreed or strongly disagree. Interestingly,
these percentages were nearly the same for Mennonite and for other-than-
Mennonite faculty members. There were 21 written responses to this Likert-
type question.

Most of the respondents who disagreed with this statement added
comments, and most of these carried a common theme that,

We should not fall into that much political play. We should

choose faculty because they are talented at what they do, not

because they will bring in students or make the church like us...

Have we done this already during this administration?... Yes.
Most of the uneasiness with this statement concerned worry regarding the
academic qualifications of the candidate, and that too “pure” a Mennonite
faculty would be intellectually stifling. A young teaching faculty member who
agreed with the statement also warned that “this relationship [between church
and college] must be one of challenging each other — thus don’t just recruit
Mennonitesll”

In a related statement, faculty were asked to respond to the phrase, "GC

must be more proactive in their recruitment of Mennonite faculty members” (see

Appendix B, question 52). The majority of the faculty were in agreement

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(56.6% agreed or strongly agreed), but there was more disagreement on this
question than the previous one (16.7 % disagreed or strongly disagreed).
Some explained that they were undecided because they believe the college is
already proactive enough. In other words, there is no need for more proactivity.
There were some who expressed concerns similar to the following teaching
faculty member who wrote, “if you limit your faculty to Mennonites, you risk
having an atmosphere where no outside ideas are allowed. Is this really the
purpose of higher education?” Several respondents wrote that they are more
concerned that GC hire “clearly Anabaptist faculty” than wonying that they are
specifically Mennonite. Finally, one respondent complained that the college is
already a “hotbed of [Mennonite] nepotism” while others called for tracking
quality Mennonite candidates in graduate school and hiring them when
positions come available. This last point was addressed in the survey as a
statement.

Faculty were asked if “GC must actively encourage and call gifted
students from its own ranks and employ them when they are available” (see
Appendix B, question 53). Over 80 percent agreed or strongly agreed, with the
remaining respondents being evenly split between undecided and
disagreement. This broad support for the statement may be explained, in part,
because nearly 68 percent of the faculty respondents attended Goshen College
themselves. Those who disagreed with this statement expressed concern that
the practice of calling faculty from the college’s graduates would hinder the

opportunity to recruit a faculty with the kind of diversity (both racial and

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worldview) that the college needs. One teaching faculty member wrote, “We
need good faculty committed to the institution. However, we already have too
many faculty who graduated from GC and who are stuck in a particular

mindset. We need fresh ideas and new perspectives.” Another faculty member
wrote that she has “nothing against employing some Goshen students, but too
much nepotism leads a place to create its own unhealthy pseudo-reality.” One
retired faculty member, who was not opposed to the idea, noted that calling
qualified candidates back to the college happened quite a bit in the past.

The issue of faculty hiring will continue to be a sticky one because
among the faculty members, there are multiple concerns and competing
ideologies and interests. While some argued that the college needs an infusion
of new, outside ideas, others argued that the predominant Mennonite nature of
the institution makes it inhospitable to other-than-Mennonites. One Mennonite
teaching faculty member expressed the latter concern. She wrote that she is
troubled by the emphasis on Mennonite issues:

because I have seen Mennonites alienate other people so

often, especially at GC. I work with people who are not

Mennonite, who feel like they don’t fit in here. In fact, [some] won't

fill out this survey, which is sad to me, because I think we need to

hear their voices, but we probably never will. Is that what we

really want to be about? Do we want to bring others in, only as

long as we have the ‘majority’ who are Menno? Is it more

important to be Mennonite, or help others grow toward an

understanding of Christ and peace and work for the good of

others?

This respondent asks some very challenging questions. The college must

struggle to find answers to these questions as it finds the balance between

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attempting to reach out and maintaining a unique identity. Jencks and Riesman
(1968), in their discussion of Protestant, church-related schools, posit, just as
Redekop (1998) does in the case of the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren, that
reaching out to others can make it very difficult to maintain your own
distinctiveness. As Jencks and Riesman write in their discussion of student
recruitment from outside the denomination,

Recruiting students of diverse faiths was, however, a potentially

dangerous business. Initially, the college often assumed it could

do this without sacrificing the essentials of its ancestral faith.

Non-believers were accepted but were expected to accept the

college on its own terms. But such a policy contained the seeds

of further change. Once non-believers were admitted they

demanded religious liberty, and this was difficult to deny them in a

country where the rhetoric of toleration rang so clear (325-6).

Another teaching faculty member also expressed his discomfort with the
exclusive Mennonite nature of the college:

I have fairly strong opinions about the way “traditional Mennos’ at

GC treat those who come from other backgrounds. It almost

comes across as ‘holier than thou’ in some settings. Typically

about 50 percent of my students are from other backgrounds and

I often overhear their comments about the labeling. I also have a

[relative] who is [other-than-Mennonite] and a GC grad. Both of

these factors have shaped some of my responses.

It is not surprising that if the Mennonite nature of the college is
predominant, those from outside the faith community will feel excluded at times.
The fact, as we have seen expressed, that some are uncomfortable or feel
excluded is probably a significant sign that the Mennonite/Anabaptist core of

the college is strong. However, this sign of “strength” can be both a positive

and a negative. In any organization, those who do not embrace beliefs that are

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similar to the majority’s views will at times feel excluded. Certainly, throughout
their history, Mennonites have experienced this exclusion in their relations with
their surrounding cultures/societies. Some faculty respondents made a call for
greater intentionality in how the college is presented to those from outside the
faith community. Several faculty respondents expressed, as did the following
teaching faculty member, that Goshen must be clearer about whether it wants
to reach out to other-than-Mennonites faculty members or remain Mennonite:

Goshen College needs to decide what message is primary. We

say we value diversity, but then we want a homogeneous faculty

(primarily Mennonite) and certainly Christian. We also want to

‘push’ our form of Christianity (Mennonitism) on those who come

here. How can those who are different from us feel at home in

such an environment? I think we have put ourselves into a very

difficult situation.

The need to be more intentional in deciding how the college is going to reach
out was also expressed by others. One teaching faculty member wrote that “as
we hire, I think it’s critical that we make [our Anabaptist heritage] explicit so that
it’s not like an inside code.”

Other respondents agreed with the above respondent saying that the
college must be intentional in its policies in recruiting faculty from outside the
denomination. However, many also believe that it is imperative that new faculty
be very sympathetic to Mennonite/Anabaptist values. When asked if the
college needs to be “strongly Mennonite” in all of its components (governance,
faculty, students and staff, see Appendix B, question 44) some expressed, as

did the following administrative faculty member, that the college has to maintain

a strong connection with the church “unless we want to be Wheaton or

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Taylor‘o.” Another teaching faculty member noted simply, “As far as I can tell,
that is the only way to keep it a denominational college.”
Conclusion

Redekop (1998) has shown that denominations which do not have
strong institutions of their own are more likely to be pulled in directions away
from their core religious beliefs. This would suggest that for those who believe
Goshen College should serve the denomination, it is critical that the college
remain strong in its Mennonite foundations and financially viable. One
essential way to remain strongly Mennonite is to hire a committed Mennonite
faculty. Van Harn (1992) notes that “the first requisite of the church-related
college is to ensure faculty members’ and administrators’ (with faculty status)
loyalty to the institution’s shared mission with the affiliated church” (82). When
asked about hiring Anabaptist faculty, President Showalter told a story about
her sabbatical leave at Valparaiso University. While there, she served on a
committee that was trying to discern what it means for Valparaiso to be a
Lutheran university. She said:

one of the insights that I gained about this issue [of faculty hiring]

came not at Goshen College but at Valparaiso University. There

really are critical stages, these people [like Burtchaell,] who have

stage theories about the decline or the secularization of the

church college are right-on in terms of critical mass. There are

certain key decisions that you make, that bring you a set of

problems you didn’t have before, and they also bring you a set of

opportunities you didn’t have before [when you hire faculty from

outside your faith tradition]. But a lot of people are kind of blind to
either one and they assume that the new people can kind of get

 

'0 These are two well-known Christian colleges that have had great success being non-
denominational.

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pulled in and socialized to the whole system which doesn’t usually
happen. I sat down and talked with one of the few Jewish faculty
members at Valparaiso and heard how she viewed the project I
was part of — which was the humanities and the arts project -—
which was to strengthen the church-relatedness identity of the
institution. There was this committee about Lutheranism, what
does it mean to be a Lutheran College or University? The
existence of that committee threatened her and that’s the way it’s
going to be for a lot of people. On the other hand, they had a
provost there who was Hindu or Sikh and she felt very
comfortable saying that ‘while I don’t subscribe to the Lutheran or
even the Christian religion, I can enjoy helping this place identify
and maintain Lutheran character.’ So both of these people
existed, a Sikh and a Jewish faculty member. One of them said, ‘I
want this place to be Lutheran because if it’s Lutheran it will be
better.’ The other one said, ‘I’m not sure if I can work in a
Lutheran institution and if they talk about what it means to be
Lutheran I feel left out.’

This sentiment of “feeling left out” was expressed by some of the other-

than-Mennonite respondents in this research. For example, one other-than-

Mennonite respondent wrote about the survey,

I feel like some of the questions were directed to the interests and
concerns of Mennonites exclusively. It made some of the
questions very difficult to answer since I don’t identify with the
concerns that a Mennonite would have with regard to Goshen and
in connections with the church and its constituencies.

While some respondents expressed concern about the exclusion that some

other-than-Mennonites experience, others were concerned that the college is

not careful enough in hiring faculty who are Anabaptist, or who are at least

sympathetic to the Anabaptist heritage of the college. One administrative

faculty member said,

I feel very uncomfortable that we are hiring some people that
have no conception of what the [Mennonite] Church is, just

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absolutely none at all... I understand some of the things that
factor into that, but I don’t understand some of the factors.

He went on to explain that one of the factors is a campus goal of increasing the
diversity of the faculty. He said, however,

It would be much easier for me if I saw that those outside hires

were people who were significantly different from the rest of the

faculty. In reality, they’re just the same as all of us, except they’re

not Mennonite. Socioeconomic status and racial diversity are not

being served by reaching outside. If we need to reach outside to

bring in more true diversity then sure, but if we reach outside to

bring in someone who is just like us, but not of us, why bother?

This issue of being “ecumenically hospitable” in hiring faculty and
recruiting students will continue to be a critical one with which the college will
wrestle. l have come to understand after surveying and interviewing faculty
members that the college is well served in its relationship with the church by
hiring a diverse group of faculty who are Anabaptist or sympathetic to the
Anabaptist commitments of the institution. However, some respondents
showed almost a disdain for the Mennonite nature of the college. For example,
one teaching faculty member who I quoted in the last stage, when asked how
the college “is moving closer or farther from the church” (see Appendix B,
question 33), wrote that this question is “irrelevant to my teaching here until my
conscience is sufficiently distressed...then, I will stop teaching here.” It seems
that the viability of the church/college relationship should be one relevant
concern to the work of any faculty member at Goshen.

This type of response was not typical. I received surveys from and

interviewed those with life experiences outside the Mennonite church, who are

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outstanding academicians, strong Christians and have a thorough and
respectful understanding and appreciation for the Mennonite/Anabaptist nature
of the institution. As one such faculty member said,

The only reason for Goshen College to exist is to educate

Anabaptist young people or people who want to know more about

Anabaptism. In that sense, I don’t know why it is such a bad thing

to be more acceptable to the church, but still push ahead in some

ways that are glued to the tradition. The theology is not so

restrictive that we cannot do all sorts of very creative things.
Another other-than-Mennonite faculty member, who called him/herself “an
honorary Mennonite,” was hesitant, for various reasons, to respond to the
survey, but s/he finally “decided that to be silent is no way to help shape GC.”
S/he went on to say,

I’ve been spewing forth this negativity but you have to understand

that I love this place. I mean, I really do, I love this place. I think

it’s wonderful. I love what much of Mennonite Christianity really

focuses its energy towards... I do have a love for the Mennonite

history, as well as the faith, as well as cultural heritage but

because I love it and also come from outside, I also have some

different eyes and wish that some things might be changed.
These two faculty members respectfully bring fresh perspectives and academic
excellence to the institution, without undermining its Anabaptist mission.
Recruiting a faculty committed to the religious mission of the institution should
always be a concern for the college. Goshen must find a way to balance the
need to bring in outstanding faculty from other sympathetic faith traditions, with

the need to have a strong Mennonite faculty that clearly values and

understands its Anabaptist mission.

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CHAPTER 6: THE COMPLEXITIES OF LEADERSHIP IN A RELGIOUS
INSTITUTION

 

Introduction

To this point, this research has dealt with the story of the relationship
between Goshen College and the Mennonite Church. While the consensus
view of secularization is that secular markets trump religious ones, this view is
not applicable in this case. It is absolutely clear that at this time, the best
market for Goshen College is the Mennonite Church. However, it is also clear
that across the continuum of the Mennonite Church, some have been heavily
influenced by outside religious forces while some have come to value academic
elitism. This leaves a small niche within this continuum from which the college
can draw students. This work is not just an organizational study, it is a
leadership story. It is, in many ways, difficult to separate these two
intenlveaving story lines because the leadership provided by President
Showalter has a very direct impact on the college’s relationship with the church,
or at least on people’s perspectives about the relationship between the two.
This chapter will focus on President Showalter as a leader. The topic of
symbolic leadership and President Showalter’s use of symbolism in various
forms will be addressed, and faculty responses to her leadership will also be
discussed. This chapter will also deal with the difficult nature of leadership in
an educational organization. Finally, there will be a discussion of several

leadership issues that have emerged from this research process and case.

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President Showalter as a Leader

Bensimon and Neumann (1993), in their book entitled Redesigning

 

Collegiate Leadership, write that

 

Leadership is the shared construction of meaning. Leadership

requires skills in creation of meaning that is authentic to oneself

and to one’s community. It also requires the uncovering of

meaning that is already embedded in the other’s minds, helping

them to see what they already know, believe, and value, and

encouraging them to make new meaning. In this way, leadership

generates leadership (xv, emphasis in original).
Bensimon and Neumann do not offer a prescription for this construction of
meaning. It will take differing forms depending on the skills and abilities of a
leader. President Showalter has a gift in her abilities to communicate
effectively with a wide variety of audiences, both on and off-campus. She is
particularly effective in her ability to use symbols and symbolism to interact with
her audiences. Symbols can take many forms. A symbol could be an actual
object or place, it could be a story or, as has been discussed before, one could
say that Goshen’s foreign study program could be seen as symbolic of the
values of its Mennonite heritage. The president him or herself can actually
become an institutional symbol. As Kingsley (1992) suggests, “If successful,
the leader inevitably assumes a powerful symbolic role in affirming who and
what the college is and in representing the college in the big world beyond”
(69). People tend to respond positively to the use of symbolism, unless they

believe that it is being used to manipulate their understandings or opinions.

Thus, the use of symbolism can be both a powerful leadership tool, and a

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potentially harmful practice, if followers perceive even a small amount of
disingenuousness on the leader’s part. Firestone and Louis (1999) write that,

The symbolic leader’s role has many aspects, including (1) a
historian, who reads current events in the school and reinterprets
them for the rest of the staff; (2) an anthropological detective, who
searches for meaning in the behavior of others; (3) a visionary,
who projects hopes and dreams for the entire staff; (4) a symbol
in him or herself, by making sure that important routines or
ceremonies in school’s life are reliable and communicate caring
(316).

The faculty members were asked, both in the survey and in interviews,
to talk about President Showalter’s leadership in church/college relations. Most
expressed the belief that she is very effective in relating to the church. As one
middle-career teaching faculty member wrote,

I think she has taken significant steps toward the church in her

public speeches which are clearly grounded in a deep spirituality,

deeply rooted in Anabaptist-Mennonite theology, and are

respectful of local congregational life. I've heard very positive

comments from individuals who have heard her speak in local

settings. She is warm, approachable, caring... ready to speak

about her faith in ways that have depth and integrity.

While this sentiment was echoed over and over again by respondents,
sometimes faculty members viewed the outcomes of her efforts to reach out to
the church with uneasiness. The following middle-career teaching faculty
member acknowledged that President Showalter is effective in relating to the
church, however, he is not always comfortable with the message being
transmitted:

President Showalter is very good at communicating. She has a

sincere desire to make this ‘marriage’ work. It makes me uneasy

sometimes with too much ‘church’ talk if there is no openness
from the church to [also] listen to our ‘academic’ talk and

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concerns. The church and college share many goals, but there
are differences and these should be acknowledged and
respected.

Another teaching faculty member described Shirley’s outreach efforts as an

attempt to make

...us more ‘palatable’ to the church. The problem is, when she
uses the rhetoric that makes the church happy, then the more
liberal faculty members get uncomfortable. But it really is all
about rhetoric and the way it is received... I am pleased with the
leadership Shirley has provided and do not feel her rhetoric
interferes with my teaching or status on campus.

This respondent uses the term “rhetoric,” while others have labeled her efforts

to reach out as "public relations.” As one middle-career administrator wrote,

It is clear that the present administration is trying to be visible in
the church. I think its very appropriate for us to publicize and call
attention to the service we provide the church. The administration
is also using language that it deems likely to be more acceptable
to more (or different) parts of the church. While public relations
work is neither insignificant nor unneeded, I think there is a risk of
trying to transform what happens in the classroom and on campus
into public relations as well. I think the goals of classroom and
campus should continue to be the development and education of
our students. Layering too much public relations onto already
heavy teaching loads threatens to have a negative impact on the
faculty most committed to the dual faith and educational goals of
this institution.

The use of public relations and symbolism can be a delicate issue for any

leader. There is a side to these tools that can be, or at least appear to

followers to be, manipulative and disingenuous. One administrative faculty

member related an experience he had where the mixing of college life and

public relations seemed contrived:

Shirley wanted to start a new tradition where the graduates built
onto a rock cairn at the college cabin. So she asked [the campus

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minister] to plan a ceremony in the context of a chapel and the
chapel committee planned a service and we had a procession
down to the college cabin, we were singing hymns, and there
were all these cameras snapping shots, not just the [student
newspaper, The] Record, but the PR department, guys from the
local news... Everything doesn't have to be a media event. For
awhile, it felt like that.

This respondent and others discussed how they are not always comfortable
with President Showalter’s strong skills in managing the relationship between
the college and the church:

I don't know how you deal with this business aspect of it, but it is a
reality I think, and Shirley is pretty sawy with it and sometimes it
makes me uncomfortable just how sawy she is. I think she
knows how to handle the business side. I think some of the
things she's done have helped on campus but I think she could do
more and it would feel less like marketing if people on campus
knew [why she did what she did]. This discussion next year
[about what it means to be an Anabaptist college] should help
make our message more genuine as we discuss who we are.

President Showalter is aware of the need for her to be more open about her
vision for the institution, but she is facing a dilemma in that she is concerned
that if she reveals her ideas, they will seem too calculated. Further, she is
hesitant to discuss her ideas, because she may fail. President Showalter told
me that it is difficult
...to be able to walk that fine line between revealing what you are
trying to accomplish, without looking terribly Machiavellian about
it. As a leader, trying to figure out when to reveal and when to be
silent is a real challenge... There is a strategy behind this, and it’s
never been laid out in great detail, and I’ve always been kind of
unsure as to when to do that because you can always be wrong

about these things and then to be so publicly wrong about them
would be painful.

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One of President Showalter's great strengths, according to many respondents,
is her ability to speak in ways that are eloquent, and to connect with a variety of
audiences. She is both good at telling stories and understanding their power to
shape the direction of the institution as well as their role in perpetuating the
Mennonite faith. In a 1998 speech at Abilene Christian University‘, President
Showalter noted,

Mennonites are a product of the sixteenth century. We have little

or no religious stake in Enlightenment thought and almost none in

Scottish Common Sense Realism. We have never vaunted the

rational over the emotional, though we have some fears of both,

especially if divorced from the other. Since we have a history of

persecution and no highly developed creedal tradition passed on
through propositional truths, we pass on the torch from generation

to generation largely through stories and songs and a few central

images. We are a people of narrative (Showalter, 1998d).

President Showalter is aware of the power of the narrative, and she is
also cognizant of the power of tradition in developing a positive institutional
image. One of her efforts along these lines has been to bring more formality to
the presidency. Since the 19603, all members of the campus community,
whether faculty, staff, student or president, have related to one another on a
first-name basis. As has been evident throughout this dissertation, when the
faculty talk about her, they say “Shirley.” President Showalter has been
intentional in trying to have herself introduced as “the President” in formal

settings and in writing. When she met with me, she gave her rationale for

wanting to increase the formality. She said,

 

‘ This speech was written by President Showalter but delivered by professor of history, Theron
Schlabach, because of a death in President Showalter’s family.

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In my case, it has more to do with the strengthening of tradition
and ritual and the power of that. I’ve studied myth and
symbolism. If what you want to do is create a sense of
awareness about what the institution is, then the people who have
special roles in that institution are part of the ritual, part of the
symbolism, part of the tradition that have to be valued or their
roles have to valued as part of that. I see it not as an individual
decision but as one small ’notching up' so that we can build
traditions at Goshen College, plural traditions. To keep the
opening convocation as a ritual, and [I asked the person who
introduces me to say] ‘the President will address us.’ The
President will be introduced in a formal way, as ’President
Showalter.’ And there’s lots of times when this doesn‘t happen,
but it’s happening more than it did before and it's happening
without an absolute decree which is the way I want it to happen.

This focus on formality by the President is an attempt to develop a
presidential persona that brings more respect to the office of the president, not
necessarily herself. Wills (1994) writes about how a leader’s attention to
persona can be seen as a form of rhetoric. “This was part of the ‘educated
manner’ that (Cicero tells us) the orator uses to give greater authority to his
words. In that sense, the whole persona forged in order to win an audience
can be considered a branch of rhetoric” (Wills, 217). This Is not to suggest that
attention to one’s persona is an improper or faulty strategy for a leader. “So
much of leadership is the projection of an image that will appeal to followers”
(Wills, 274). Wills warns, however, that the use of any type of rhetoric can be
viewed negatively:

Such concern for appearance raises the objection some people
have to all forms of rhetoric — the constant strive for effect.
Rhetoric, in this view, is totally artificial, manipulative, hypocritical.

It adds to, ornaments, or disguises the truth — dresses it up,
though truth’s body is best seen naked (Wills, 217).

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While President Showalter’s reasoning for developing a more formal
presidential persona appears to be valid and sincere, there are indications that
her efforts have not been universally appreciated. This may be, in part, a
transitional difficulty because she was an internal presidential candidate. The
faculty knew her as “Shirley,” a colleague, before she became their president.
As one teaching faculty member noted,

I like Shirley very well and much of what she does is very good,
but she has become very, very full of herself about being
presidential. She is very, very proud to be president. She says in
all kinds of settings ‘As president... as president...’ She says it in
chapel, she says it in meetings. We all sort of know she is
president but she is feeling doggoned presidential these days. I
think that this has not been that helpful for her or for the
institution. On the campus there is some resistance to that. I
know that I, who am fairly predisposed to like Shirley and think
she is doing a pretty decent job as president, really get turned off
by that kind of language.

This development of a more formal presidential persona is not only intended to
impact how the presidency is viewed. President Showalter also expressed that
this increased formality came about from an understanding on her part and
others, that the world has changed since the college started going on a first-
name basis:

Faculty do not like that they don’t get any respect from the
students. Part of it is just a sense of moving from Sixties to
Nineties culture, and people saying there may have been a
reason why we dropped all of those things in the Sixties, but
maybe there is some reason to reinstate at least some of them
now for the sake of our common life. Where, if they were too
formal at one point in history, now we’re not respectful enough.
There were a lot of faculty complaints about this, about student
behavior, so that sets a climate where a little bit of formality all
across campus would be a good thing. Not because people need

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to enforce their positions, but so that we all respect each other in
those positions.

Perhaps, in order to increase faculty support and understanding for this
decision, President Showalter needs to make more explicit to the faculty her
reasons for increasing the formality of the presidency.

The development of a formal presidential persona has thus far been the
focus of the symbolic nature of President Showalter’s work. She is also well
aware of how symbolism and ritual can help build new traditions. In her
baccalaureate address in the Spring of 1997, she talked about her desire and
motivation for the creation of a meditation garden:

For me, the most spiritual, sublime, and hopeful experiences of
life are the same. That is why I suggested the idea of a
meditation garden by the waters next to the College Cabin as a
gift I would like to help give the College after the inauguration was
over. The senior class, the Board of Overseers, Mennonite
Mutual Aid funds and other donors made that dream possible,
and a beautiful garden is taking shape. It contains 121 stones
from around the worid, and many more from Elkhart county. Next
years first-year students will gather there at the beginning of the
year, and there I will encourage them to listen for the tune without
the words. They may hear justice rolling down like a mighty river.
They may hear a still small voice. If they come back often
enough, they will hear all and nothing. They may not know what I
am talking about when I encourage them to listen for the time
without the words, but I trust something more deeply than my own
feeble words or even [the apostle] Paul’s or Emily Dickinson’s —
the Spirit is the ultimate teacher, and the Spirit will find them. Our
job as faculty, staff, and administration is to provide liberating
spaces and to be a witness to the work of the Spirit in our own
minds, hearts, and lives (Showalter, 1997d).

This meditation garden is a tangible example of how President Showalter is

building tradition and using symbolism to relay her educational and religious

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messages. Numerous faculty members commented positively about her use of
religious language. As one teaching faculty member perceives it,

Shirley seems to be using the kind of rhetoric that is rooted in the
tradition of the church. The kind of traditions especially of singing,
and searching, and strongly metaphorical rhetoric, all of which I
resonate with very strongly. She has done it so far I think in a
very skillful way. She's used the kinds of words and ideas that
people in churches everywhere resonate with but she has not
done it in such a way as to hamstring the institution. I think it’s
really brilliant.

While her rhetoric is viewed positively with this faculty member, he also
recognizes that it might not be so with every faculty member:

There are the more liberal elements on campus, who as soon as
they hear ‘that rhetoric’ dig in their heels and say ’oh no, here we
go, we're going back to being controlled by a kind of
fundamentalist theology.’ I don’t think that's the case. I know that
she and many people on campus were profoundly influenced by
Gideon [Project] that encouraged us to just speak any kind of
religious rhetoric because we are perceived as being areligious
[sic] here.

Another teaching faculty member posits that because President Showalter’s
language is both religious and academic, it is not going to be attractive to some
parts of the church:

She does use very spiritual language that can be seen as rooted
in the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition, but she also uses very
poetic language that I think a lot of these inactive congregations
don’t connect with, and they wouldn’t be that moved and inspired
by it to begin with. They would almost be turned off by it, it’s kind
of an academic and intellectual, poetic language. You’d have to
have a certain kind of cultural background for it to even push you.
So she’s reconnecting, maybe strengthening ties with a certain
group of congregations that have a predisposition to like us

anyway.

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Finally, an administrative faculty member acknowledged his discomfort with the
use of rhetoric and public relations efforts, but he also recognized their
necessity. In talking about President Showalter, he said,

She probably puts [her faith] a little more forward [now that she’s

president]. It seemed clear that this was part of the plan for her

when she got into office. ‘Okay, I’m going to make sure I do this

whenever’ and I think it does get mixed up a little bit then with the

‘Shirley schmooze’ stuff. It gets complicated that way, on that

level, although I don’t think anyone doubts her sincerity in that, it’s

just a different style than what would be normal for the campus as

a whole because the campus as a whole, in its daily life, can't

afford to always be thinking PR. I mean, it just doesn't make

sense. It's clear that Shirley does need to think PR a lot.
It is critical, as it is with any leader, that President Showalter, never lose sight of
the multiple ways that her use of symbolism can be perceived by those she is
leading because if those who are led believe that symbols are being used to
manipulate, they lose their power to transform.
The Symbolic Nature of Academic Prestige

Another area in which President Showalter has been proactive in her
efforts to change institutional culture is in the matter of academic prestige and
excellence. Even before she was inaugurated, she acknowledged her desire to
“strengthen the intellectual and spiritual climate” of the college. In the January
opening convocation of 1997, she noted,

I will be working every day to strengthen the intellectual and

spiritual climate of this college--to take it from where it is now, a

very good but not very visible college, to a new level of excellence

in teaching and learning. There will be changes at Goshen

College, but they will be based on strengthening values already

present. They will build on the goal of making our motto ‘Culture
for Service’ even more incarnational than it is now.

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True to her promise, President Showalter has been a major catalyst behind
recent efforts to develop an honor’s program and establish a dean’s list. One
faculty member believes that these programs, along with the academic
messages which are being sent out from the President’s office, indicate an
objective of drawing in more academically capable students. These messages
“are also part of Shirley’s intent, to signal with public relations and advertising
and marketing sort of ways, that this a good place for very bright and strong
kids to be. That we have some special things to meet their needs.”

This leader’s attempt to change the academic culture can be understood
from several different perspectives. First, President Showalter cleariy believes
that the college needs to improve its academic image to more effectively
compete in increasingly sophisticated American and Mennonite higher
education markets. One may question, however, why she would choose an
honor’s program and a dean’s list as part of this plan when, as we will see, she
understands how they can be viewed negatively by some? In the opening
convocation to students in 1998, she outlined thirty hopes for the school year.
One of these hopes was,

That students and faculty under the direction of Professor Jo-Ann

Brandt create one of the most creative honor’s programs in the

country. That [one of] its central features be community-building

and not corrosive competition (Showalter, 1998a).

She clearly recognizes the potentially negative side (“corrosive competition”) of

this program, but she has weighed the risks and believes that the benefits

outweigh the drawbacks.

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Along with an honor’s program, another initiative to improve academic
excellence is the publishing of a dean’s list. The 1999-2000 school year was
the first year for the list, and because those who developed the program are
aware of the potential of controversy surrounding it, they allowed students who
were eligible to opt out of having their names included. I the Fall of 1999, ten
percent of those who were eligible chose to not have their names posted
(Lanctot, 2000, 1). Again, the understanding that these programs can be
divisive was made clear in an article published in the student newspaper, The
Record. In it Academic Dean, Paul Keim, was asked if "the competitive nature
of a dean’s list will interfere with GC’s philosophy of education.” He responded
that “it functions as a structure where students can look to satisfy high
achievements, yet it doesn’t in any way undermine the strengths and
uniqueness of the college... I would have paused if there was a danger of
creating an elite cadre” (Lanctot, 1).

While the dean is not concerned about the development of an “elite
cadre,” some faculty members expressed at least initial concern about the new
academic programs and their possible effect on church/college relations. One
teaching faculty member wrote that he

...had concerns about President Showalter’s interest in an

’honor’s program’ as promoting an academic kind of elitism at the

price of church-related values, but [I now] feel that overall, her

actual approach [has] turned out to be more compatible than my

initial hesitations.

An administrative faculty member concurred when he wrote, “President

Showalter’s vision includes academic excellence, but in the Anabaptist

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tradition. [She is] very intentionally looking for ways to play out that academic
excellence in closer ties with the church.” Others have had their fears
appeased by what they see as the symbolic nature of the programs. In talking
about the honor’s program, one teaching faculty member said somewhat
jokingly,

I think that one of the advantages of what Jo-Ann2 produced is

that it’s so complicated and crowded that we’re comfortable with

it. It's designed so nobody does it... Small colleges generally just

evaluate GPAs and its only the large institutions with the large

student bodies where you can have different kinds of degrees.

We are doing something that only large universities do and taking

a big chance.
So, why would President Showalter choose to develop these programs which
could be viewed as antithetical to Anabaptist ideals when at the same time she
is striving to improve ties with the church? First, she understands that
academic prestige is increasingly important to many Mennonites. In order to
attract these students, the college must appear to be more prestigious and
have something to offer the “gifted” student. An honor’s program and dean’s
list are relatively easy first steps on this elitist trail. These programs can best
be understood from a “new institutional” perspective. When looking at
organizational actions from this perspective, it is hypothesized that “once
institutional sectors are well formed [as is higher education], various processes

reduce variety and increase homogeneity (or isomorphism) of organizational

forms In the sector” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999, 366).

 

2 Jo-Ann is Jo-Ann Brandt, the chair and architect of the honor’s program.

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Rowan and Miskel (1999) also note that those institutions which closely
copy the most common organizational forms typically receive the greatest
rewards. This creates less diversity of form as institutions increasingly attempt
to appear like other similar institutions. The addition of programs that make
Goshen College appear to be more elite, is simply an attempt to make it look
more like other elite schools. This is an example of mimetic isomorphism
where, as Rowan and Miskel argue, “organizations mimic successful or
prestigious organizations in the field” (367). An administrator discussed one of
the findings of George Dehne’s consultation. He said, Dehne told us,

The market is terribly thin, but he’s impressed that we are not
‘vanilla’ like a lot of small, formerly church related schools are —
that we have some uniquenesses here that are pretty key. So
[Dehne] is trying to help us enhance our strength. We were more
creative with the May term this year. Dehne hits us pretty hard on
that, he says ‘your student body, I mean you’d think that if I’d go
to a typical small college like Huntington or whatever, that your
kids would come from area small towns and they’d be quite
provincial, but man your kids are really cosmopolitan. l more
typically find a school like Goshen in the suburbs, because those
kids want to get to the city for the kind of stimulation and cultural
advantages the city offers. Here, you are in the middle of
nowhere, but your happiest people are the ones who want [city
life].’ And so he was saying, ‘are there ways in your program that
give them entree to [something] that you’re currently not?’ and the
most obvious place we can do it is the May term, given the design
of it.

By offering new academic programs and honors that mimic more prestigious
institutions, the college is attempting to signal to those in the church who are
searching for prestige that Goshen College has a quality, cosmopolitan

academic program.

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Colleges as Organized Anarchies

During this research process, I have had the opportunity to talk to
President Showalter about her leadership, read much of what she has written,
listen to people talk about her leadership, survey faculty and read much of the
literature on leadership. Probably the only person who has thought more about
President Showalter’s leadership during this research period is the President
herself. Being a college president is not easy. In her inaugural address,
President Showalter noted,

The presidency of any college is an awesome responsibility.

Sister Jeanne Knoerle, former president of St. Mary of the Woods

College and now a vice president at the Lilly Endowment, recently

wrote about the pressures she faced from external evaluators,

parents, faculty, student affairs personnel and students. Their

desires were often paradoxical, even contradictory. For example,

she says the alumni “wanted to preserve all the excellent things

they hated while they were in school.’ The human condition is full

of such intriguing puzzles. We are divided creatures, yearning for

wholeness. No president has the power to heal that divide. And

every college is a crossroads of ideas and groups (Showalter,

1997a)
President Showalter finds herself in a precarious position, between the strong
pulls of secular higher education, a fickle educational market, and her
commitment to the Christian nature of her institution. She inherited a
leadership role at a small, rural institution with serious enrollment concerns.
She came to the role from within the organization (which can be viewed as both
a strength and a hindrance), and the college is in a denomination that appears

to also have its own “‘isomorphic” tendencies, in that parts of it are looking more

and more like other non-denominational, evangelical churches.

185

One of the things that makes her job (and that of any other college
president) difficult is that organizationally, higher education institutions are like
few others. Cohen and March (1974) coined the term “organized anarchy” to
describe organizations that have three distinguishing characteristics:
problematic goals, an unclear technology, and fluid participation (Bimbaum,
1988). In explanation of these characteristics, Cohen and March (1974) write
that,

The American college or university is a prototypic organized

anarchy. It does not know what it is doing. Its goals are either

vague or in dispute. Its technology [teaching] is familiar but not

understood and its major participants wander in and out of the

organization (3).

Cohen and March stressed that “these factors do not make a university a bad
organization or a disorganized one; but they do make it a problem to describe,
understand, and lead” (3). Kerr and Gade (1986) also note that “the ‘welfare’ of
an institution is hard to define. There is no simple definition such as profitability
or stock value” (52). President Showalter is in the difficult position of leading an
institution of higher education with all of its ambiguities and frustrations.

In order to be effective, those who are in leadership positions must
spend time reflecting on the type of leadership they will offer. This reflection is
what Foster (1986) called the development of a critical theory of administration:

A critical theory of administration is necessary because a critical

theory requires us to reflect on what we do and how what we do

affects all who encounter us. A critical theory seeks the moral

base of decisions... It asks how we, as individuals, can make a
difference (Foster, 70).

186

President Showalter has taken care to spend time on this task. She stated in a
1998 speech at a Christian higher education conference at the University of
Notre Dame, that she has,

...been challenged, as president, to try to create a philosophy of
management consistent with Anabaptist principles. I am not
working on this job alone. I have a president's council consisting
of seven vice presidents and myself. And I have a board of
overseers very receptive and supportive of this task. We are
trying to create a consciously Anabaptist model for what we do.
That means more than prayer before our weekly meetings, which
we do. It means more than helping each other in times of
financial or emotional crisis, which we do. It means more than
cultivating the usual administrative virtues of honesty, willingness
to work hard, helpful, clear organization, and so on - which we all
aspire to (Showalter, 1998e).

She went on to explain how this Anabaptist model manifests itself:
I believe that institutions can operate on an ethic of love and that
one calling of Mennonites in higher education is to keep trying to
know more and more about what that commitment means in
practice. Soon, I hope we have an organizational chart that
begins with circles rather than boxes and shows relationship
rather than hierarchy. Parker Palmer’s highlighting of I
Corinthians 13 as an epistemology - knowing is loving -- can be
applied, I think, to organizations as well as to the classroom. At
least that is the ground on which I am willing to stake my own
presidency (Showalter, 1998e).
This idea that organizations can operate on an “ethic of love" is in direct
opposition to Cohen and March’s (1974) outline for leadership effectiveness.
What Cohen and March did, which many other organizational theorists do not,
is offer a prescription for survival, or “getting one’s own way”, in an organized

anarchy (see Figure 6.1). If one looks at their rules for leadership, there is a

very manipulative side to them. Bensimon (1991), in her examination of Cohen

187

and March’s leadership rules, posits that “a feminist critique argues that such a
tactic as ‘interpreting history’ [see Figure 6.1, number 8] is abhorrent as it
implies deceit. Moreover, it is the kind of tactic frequently used by powerful

elites to silence minority voices and deflate their positions” (148).

 

Figure 6.1: Rules for Leadership in an Organized Anarchy*

1. Spend Time - Those who have put the most energy and time into a decision will
likely have a larger impact.

2. Persist — Don't give up if the decision is not passed the first time. Keep pressing
theissue.

3. Exchange Status for Substance - Often a leader can confer status on decision
participants in exchange for the decision s/he wants made.

4. Facilitate Opposition Participation — By including participants with opposing
opinions leaders can strengthen the final decision. Opponents can better
understand the constraints under which the decision was made. If opposition is not
included, they can later have more ammunition for criticism.

5. Overload the System - If the leader proposes more plans than can realistically be
dealt with, at least some will be passed while others are being debated.

6. Provide Garbage Cans - Leaders should create committees or other groups that
deal with contentious issues so that time can be spent on issues that are more
important to the leader.

7. Manage Unobtrusively - Leaders should find ways to make small changes that can
slowly move the organization in the direction they want it to go.

8. Interpret History — Since the analysis of historical event is subjective, a leader who
has control over the interpretation of history has additional power to affect change.

* From Cohen and March, 1974

 

 

 

Many of Cohen and March's (1974) rules offer leaders ways to deceive
and manipulate those who work in their organizations. These rules make
leadership a game and as such, it becomes something to be won. Cohen and
March’s prototypical leader is constantly striving to impact the decision-making
process no matter what the cost. This impact is more important than the quality
of the decisions that are being made. For Cohen and March’s leader, there is

never a sense that it is important to listen to those who follow. It is clear that

188

Cohen and March’s rules are the antithesis of how a leader would lead if they
were following Foster’s (1986) critical theory of administration.
Another leadership theorist who offers a cynical view to leadership is

James Fisher. Fisher, In his 1984 book, Power of the Presidency, studied the

 

attributes of effective college and university presidents. He does not provide an
actual “how to lead” list as do Cohen and March ( 1974). However, if the reader
puts the pieces of advice he does offer together, Fisher’s model is also very
manipulative. President Showalter, who has read this book, described it in the
following way:
I have been thinking long and hard about leadership, and l have
decided what kind of leader I want to be. It is not the kind some
advisors to presidents advocate. James Fisher, who has studied
presidential leadership in colleges and universities, says that
good presidents cultivate distance. They are remote, aloof, and
deliberately create an air of mystery. They transform their
campuses because of charisma that never allows scrutiny or
vulnerability to penetrate (Showalter, 1997c).
This is a fair critique of Fisher. In Figure 6.2, his ideas about how “charismatic”
leaders guide their followers are outlined. While not identical to Cohen and
March’s (1974) list, it does not take much to find the more manipulative side of
Fisher’s (1984) “charismatic” leader.
President Showalter’s critique of Fisher is on target, but so is her

honesty about the ways in which she might appear to be “Fisheresque.” When

I met with her, she said,

189

 

 

Figure 6.2: Leadership Skills for a Charismatic Leader“r

Create Diversions - “Honest diversions for faculty and students - sports events, lectures, plays,
competitions, and so on - are important and healthy and should be fostered by the president” ( 65).

Ignore Zealots — “Ignore zealots if possible; if not, shunt them off on an associate whom you can later
protect. If all else fails and their popular support is gaining, an insignificant issue can be granted to
them, allowing the president to earn the support of the greater public so long as the move does not
appear to be made out of weakness" (67).

Manipulate Dissenters — “Although difficult to do, it is often better to reward those we do not like or those
we feel dissimilar to than those to whom we are attracted" (31 ).

Remain Aloof - “Distance means being utterly transparent but always remote...Distance is being a friendly
phantom: warm and genuine, concerned and interested, but rarely around too long or overly involved.
Distance is recognizing and using the trappings of office, adjusting these only to suit the taste and
sophistication of the audience or constituency. Distance balances remoteness with familiarity. The
effective leader is both excitingly mysterious and utterly known. Distance is being warm and
attentive, open and casual, but never, never really getting off that presidential platform with anyone
who knows you as the president" (45).

Don’t Show Weakness - “Your people rightfully expect you to be strong; never, never discuss your
problems with them” (71 ). “Never, never get off that presidential platform" (12).

Desire Impact - “The effective leader must have a desire for impact, for being strong and influential.
Moreover, this must be stronger than either the need for personal achievement or the need to be
liked by others” (10).

Be Strong/Assertive - “People seem to want an astute, strong, assertive figure who involves them in the
decision-making process but makes the final decision and accepts responsibility for it” (20).

Have Vague Goals — “Lofty and sometimes rather vague goals promote morale and leadership
effectiveness, so long as the goals are legitimate and progress toward their achievement is made”
(58).

Know that Others like to Associate with Powerful People - “A seeker of power or a leader who already has
a measure of it can sometimes dramatically increase his or her influence by recognizing and
responding to the fact that people are attracted to persons of power. Followers are especially loyal if
association with a perceived authority figure seems to offer an opportunity to enhance their own
reputation or status” (41).

Be Aware of Introductions - “Research further demonstrates the value of perceived expertise: People
being introduced as prestigious feel better accepted and more at ease than people being assigned
low-prestige roles, and they are measurably more effective and influential...Your own introduction as
a president, both on and off campus, is important here, unless you are a former Secretary of State”
(38).

” From Fisher, 1984

 

There are some things I’ve done that probably would be
’Fisheresque' but he seemed not to care at all about the faculty...
You know, everybody, no matter whether you are at the top of the
organization or the bottom of the organization, everybody has
somebody above to be accountable to and somebody below who
is accountable to them. It seems to me that Fisher is really
concerned [about the group above] and forgets about [those
below]. He wants [those below] to conform to the will and the
needs of the institution through the aura of the office, which

190

 

doesn't fit me, but more importantly doesn't fit Goshen College.
Even if I had been the best Fisher kind of president and I had
come in and imposed that kind of presidency on this place, it
would not work. You have to know your environment too and
some environments are based on hierarchy and some are not,
and this one's anti-hierarchical.

President Showalter clearly is not comfortable with the distance that Fisher
(1984) promotes. She said, “I disagree with Fisher completely. Charisma and
distance. It may be a leadership style that works and is good, but in terms of
what he is advocating for everybody, I certainly think it is wrong in that regard.
And whether it fits me, at least I hope it doesn’t.” She immediately went on to
recognize, however, that it is true that to lead, “you have to have a certain
steeliness about your character.” This steeliness is probably both inevitable
and proper. Leading a public life necessitates a certain “steeliness.” Fisher
believes that it is important to understand the leader’s motivations for taking on
their role:

One’s desire for impact, strength, or influence may take either of

two forms: (1) it may be oriented primarily toward the achievement

of personal gain and aggrandizement, or (2) it may be motivated

by the need to influence others’ behavior for the common good

(Fisher, 28-9).
President Showalter is well aware of these contradictory motivations. In
discussing the use of her presidential title in more formal settings, she said,

It comes back to the ego question. Are you doing this because

you are trying to build an empire for yourself? Immortality for your

name? Or, are you doing it because you believe there is

something inside these people that wants to be released? Wants

to be released in harmony with other people and that they have

powers themselves that they don’t know that they have. You

want to create language and methods of bringing them together.
And that’s what I think my motive is for everything I do and that’s

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what excites me and energizes me and that’s why I would never

do anything like this by decree only by example and to live with

the ambiguity which we now have. Lots of people call me Shirley

and in informal one-on-one settings I’d have it no other way.

That’s always putting people on notice that l have power and I

don’t want to do that. Furthermore, it’s very alienating to the

person who has to be addressed that way because then we’re

always talking about a thing rather than who I am.

The critical lesson to Ieam from this discussion is that leaders must
constantly monitor their impact. There are very important reasons for a leader
such as President Showalter to have a “steeliness” of character, but there are
equally important reasons for a leader to show their vulnerability and be willing
to explain their actions and ideas with those whom they lead. The “distance”
that Fisher (1984) recommends, while potentially effective, can also be very
alienating if those who are following doubt the leader’s intentions.

Leadership in a Religious/Political Context

During my eight years of graduate study, I have had the privilege of
studying leadership. While I am not currently in a leadership position, I know
that most leaders do not have the time to carefully examine what they are
doing. Too much time is spent simply surviving the rigors of their professional
and personal lives. As I conclude this work, I am left with a few very important
leadership themes that have emerged from reading leadership literature,
conducting this research, observing President Showalter and attempting myself
to lead. The following five themes provide a picture of leadership that is

significantly different than the one presented by Cohen and March (1974) and

Fisher (1984).

192

Followers ‘Have a Say’

Throughout this research process, I have heard many faculty members
voice concerns that the college should be pushing the church toward their
understanding of Anabaptist/Mennonite values. For example, many on campus
believe that by being less than bold on the issue of club status for lesbian, gay
and bi-sexual students, the college is throwing away a chance to lead the
church. It is true that the college has not been bold on this issue. However, if
those at the college want to lead the church, they must remember that, as Wills
(1994) writes, “followers ‘have a say’ in what they are being led to. A leader
who neglects that fact soon finds himself without followers” (14). Wills went on
to discuss how,

Senator John F. Kennedy, when he wrote (in a way) a book about

other senators, Profiles in Courage, found courage only in those

who defied their constituents — with the result, sometimes, that

they lost the constituents’ support. Kennedy praised them at the

very point where they ceased to be leaders, to have followers (23,

emphasis in original).

President Showalter and others at the college are aware of this tension
between leading the church and being willing to listening to it. When asked
about why the college has not been more forward in its message about
homosexuality, President Showalter said,

What I want is relationship, with both my own faculty and with the

church, and I believe that staying in relationship to these kinds of

moving, changing bodies is the best way that we will both lead the
church, which is what a lot of faculty want to do, lead them right

into oblivion if you aren't careful. [The desire to lead] is a

legitimate thing to want and a legitimate reason to be here, very
legitimate. And I want to help authorize that voice, but it can't be

193

without regard to the environment and to the world in which we

live and to what pe0ple will listen to. In order to lead them they

have to be willing to listen.
Wills (1994) discusses the danger that leaders face in their attempts to be
diplomatic. “Trying to make one side see how the other side views things, the
diplomat can look like an advocate for the other side. But the true usefulness
of a diplomat is precisely the presentation of many attitudes at work in any
situation” (Wills, 76). President Showalter is one of the people at Goshen who
needs to straddle the line between church and college and for that reason, she
must be willing to be diplomatic. Some might believe that there is not much
principle in this position, but it takes a great deal of integrity for any leader to
listen to opposing groups with respect and attempt to help them better
understand each other.

Listening is Key

Before taking office, President Showalter spent time talking with every
employee on campus who was willing to meet with her. This was both a very
potent symbol of her leadership style, and a sure way to better understand the
ways that those on campus experience their work. When asked why she spent
the time doing this, she said,

My motivation really was to do just that, to listen, because how on

earth can I lead a group of people when I don't know what is on

their hearts? Even though I was an internal person, I had been

off-campus for a whole year and as you know, a year is a long

time in academic life. And I had never listened to anybody as a

potential president. That’s a whole different listening experience

in and of itself.

I then asked her what she Ieamed from the experience. She said,

194

I would have to say it was discouraging to me, very discouraging.
In fact, it got to the point where I really didn't want to get up out of
bed in the morning and go listen to somebody else dump
heartaches on me. Not that they were mean. You already have
natural questions about taking on so much responsibility and you
think 'oh how can I ever carry this many unfulfilled dreams or this
many burdens?’ because you do start to accumulate them. One
of the things that I did in response was to have a session fairly
early on where I reported my findings and reported just that and
the impact it had on me. It was called ’Straight Talk from the
President.’ And in a way, by not sugar-coating the message and
by saying 'when I took this job there was real question as to
whether I'd really wanted to do it after I listened to our collective
sighing.’

At the same time, I was truthful about what I heard and described
one of the hardest things I had to hear was ’Shirley, I stopped
dreaming. I've closed down that part of myself.’ When you'd hear
it that bluntly stated and to think about the untapped potential of
this college and it's accumulated weight when more than one
person seemed to be carrying burdens was hard because I didn't
feel particularly strong and carrying their burdens too didn't seem
possible. But, as I've found so often in life, when you are willing
to walk through something instead of trying to go around it or
under it or avoid it altogether there is a real reward for that
journey through the thick and that's true whether it's your own
personal doubts and despair or whether its walking with
somebody else through theirs. You name it for what it is and then
you try to find some other framework in which to use this
information.

Of course there were many positive things there too. Clearly,
when you add it up you'd say ’why are these people here?‘ and
then you know when it came down to it you knew there were
reasons why they had stuck it out and then you focus on those
reasons and you try to remove as many of the obstacles to their
dreams as you possibly can without creating unrealistic
expectations of ‘everybody can dream and everybody’s dream
can come true.’ We’re almost at that stage three years later
where that's the problem. Which is a problem I'd rather have. I
wouldn’t necessarily have imagined that we could have moved as
much as we have moved together.

Leaders must constantly be willing to listen to anyone who has something to

say. Listening means more than hearing, it means attempting to be empathic

195

and it means taking action when what the leader has been told merits action
and is feasible. President Showalter told me about her continuing attempts to
listen carefully. She said,

There are a lot of... kind of built in animosities between faculty
and administration. One of those is because these people don’t
understand each other’s worlds very well sometimes. I feel quite
confident that I know the role of the faculty member. My goal is to
become an administrator who doesn’t have to make bitter jokes
about the faculty in order to feel good about him or herself. The
important dimension is the continued willingness to listen, the
need to remember, remember what it is like to get the grades in,
remember how tired you were at the end of the semester,
remember how you wondered how this institution was ever going
to get one bit more blood out of this turnip. To show that you
remember, show that you care that people are that committed and
that they work that hard for the institution. And also, requests
from the administration can seem like impositions. It doesn’t
mean you can avoid doing them but to just keep in mind the
realities and to find ways to force yourself to keep in mind the
realities of other peoples lives, is an important part of maintaining
relationship with them.

This certainly is very different than the leadership style that is being advocated
by Cohen and March (1974) and Fisher (1984). Followers are more open to
the kinds of work that leaders attempt (which may initially appear to be
manipulative) if they know that they have been listened to and understood.
Show Me Your Leaders

Wills (1994) writes in his book on leadership, “Show me your leaders and
you have bared your soul” (21). President Showalter discussed her views on
leadership and what she has read on the topic. One of the authors that she
cites as a major impact on her work is Max DePree. DePree (1987, 1992), the

former CEO of Herman Miller, the world-renowned Michigan furniture company,

196

has written several books about his views on leadership and how the
empowerment of his employees helped create a wildly successful business.
President Showalter told me more about her reactions to DePree. She said,

I have been interested in the subject of leadership for a long time

and I continue to read about it and work at It. My bibliography

would include all of the works of Max DePree and not just his

books, he is coming again Wednesday. He has been a mentor to

me and has been on campus visiting... I met him by having

someone recommend his book, reading the book and noting that

he was retired and living in Holland, Michigan. So, I decided to

call him up. He came, had a good experience here, I asked if he

would serve as a kind of mentor to me and he agreed to do it.
To me, this mentoring relationship with DePree is an indication that President
Showalter is open to leading in a way that will benefit those who work at
Goshen. She may not always be able to drop her guard or that “steely” nature
so necessary to leadership, but having a relationship with a “leader’s leader"
like Max DePree, will only help her and the institution.

True Leadership is a Call to Service

Max DePree (1992) in his book, Leadership Jazz, writes that “leadership

 

is a position of servanthood" (220). There is a dearth of writing on the subject
of “leadership as servanthood,” but what is there is often quite compelling.
DePree is an important resource for those who do not view leadership as a
manipulative endeavor. He shows that a leader can be a servant and develop
an organization in which employees are challenged, appreciated and expected
to contribute. Most importantly, however, to make this message acceptable to
a cynical business community, he led this way while accomplishing all the

financial outcomes on which businesses are typically measured. DePree

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provides a real-life example demonstrating that successful organizations do not
have to “eat up” their employees.

There have also been others who have written about the need for those
with leadership abilities to accept the call to lead in ways that go beyond their
own aggrandizement. Anrig (1988) expresses this thought very eloquently
when he writes,

My belief in and commitment to public service are based on a
fundamental principle: We are not put on this earth just to benefit
ourselves. If we are blessed with God-given talents, we acquire
new obligations as we move ahead in life. Indeed, the more
opportunity and recognition you earn, the greater your obligations
are to give back something to your family, to your community, to
your profession, and to your country (3).

President Showalter has publicly shared her call to leadership and her
struggle with deciding whether or not to accept this call. In her baccalaureate
sermon to the Class of 1999, she told the following story:

The season of Lent will always have special aura of sadness for
the Showalter family. Two years ago, my niece, Alicia Showalter
Reynolds, was kidnapped on March 2 and her murdered body
was discovered about six weeks later. Alicia had been trained up
as a child in the way she should go. She had graduated from
Goshen College, where her professors and fellow students had
tried to show her the love of Christ even as they taught her
chemistry, biology, and physics. At the time of her death, she
was studying on full scholarship at one of the premiere research
universities in this country, Johns Hopkins. She was trying to find
a cure for schistosomiosis, a tropical disease that kills thousands
of children every year. The article in the Baltimore Sun quoted
her co-workers in describing her as a ‘devout Mennonite who
wanted to use her education for the good of others.’ When I read
that article, at a time when I was trying to decide whether to
accept the call to the presidency of Goshen College, I knew that I
would say yes. It is for Alicia and the many other young women
and men who have found their callings and will find them in the
church by coming to Goshen College that I do my work today.

198

But it is not only for youth but for age, for the leaming of a lifetime
that leads to wisdom, that we work together (Showalter, 19989).

Leaders are People Too

Leaders often lead very public lives. Finding time for themselves and
their families can be difficult. They also have similar fears and insecurities to
those around them. President Showalter told of her fears of failure, and she
expressed the frustrations and the joys of her work. She told me, ”I am on a
leadership journey, and l have had guides along the way, and l have Ieamed
through making mistakes and going through depression and recognizing that I
am not in control.” Kerr and Gade (1986) have discussed how institutional
constraints serve to bind college and university presidents:

Few presidents can rise totally above the context that surrounds

them; few can levitate on the basis of their own convictions and

energy alone. Leaders may be ‘born’ but the specific context may

either liberate or suffocate them; may let them bloom or cause

them to wither (Kerr & Gade, 1986, 170).
It not easy for those who follow to truly understand the amount of institutional
constraints that are imposed on leaders. It is easy, however, for those who
follow to lose sight of the person who is under the title. Kingsley (1992) notes
that “the costs of leadership are high, in loneliness, exhaustion, criticism,
rejection, invasion of privacy, and, at the worst, self pity” (73). As President
Showalter continues to develop a presidential persona, those on campus
should remember to recognize the real person underneath. Along the way, she

must be allowed to fail. We very rarely discuss the fact that many great

discoveries and ideas have come from years of struggle and failure.

199

In both our scientific and social laboratories, it is sad that we too

often teach our students only the arrival and not the journey. We

teach them principles, theories, and convictions devoid of the

pain, the anxiety, the doubt it took to produce them. Daring, not

infallibility, is the mark of leadership (Bogue, 1985, 39-40).
President Showalter must be allowed to lead without fearing failure.

Organizational Life can be Ugly

Organizational life includes both great and terrible leaders. When
leadership is ineffective or manipulative, organizational life can be
dehumanizing and dreadful. Much of this has to do with the political nature of
organizations. As Bolman and Deal (1991) write,

There is clearly a need for both organizations and individuals to

develop constructive and positive ways to master organizational

politics. The question is not whether organizations will have

politics, but what kind of politics. Will they be energizing or
debilitating, hostile or constructive, devastating or creative? (202).

Leaders have choices to make about how they use the political nature of their
organizations. They can manipulate it and their followers, as Cohen and March
(1974) and Fisher (1984) suggest, or they can use the political nature of
organizations to help empower others.

Goshen College has gone through some insecure financial times in the
past two decades. Several faculty members discussed how the improving
financial situation has helped improve faculty morale. Faculty morale has been
low for some time because of budgetary constraints and faculty/administration
relationships. President Showalter inherited a difficult situation between
teaching and administrative faculty. In a speech to Goshen College alumni in

1997, she talked about her experience meeting with retired Theatre professor,

200

Roy Umble, just prior to his death. She had a wonderful conversation with him
and asked for advice. She noted that her first visit with Dr. Umble was

in April of 1996, just after I gave my acceptance speech. Roy
expressed his approval and his congratulations. He breathed, ‘l
have known them all.’ What he meant was that he knew all the
Goshen presidents from Noah E. Byers to Shirley H. Showalter.
Some measure their lives in teaspoons; Roy seemed to measure
his by bushels of love for this college and its leaders. As I held
both his hands, tears streaming down both our cheeks, I was
holding the hands of all thirteen presidents who have gone before
me. I now know a certain measure of why blessings were such
an important part of ancient Jewish life, why Jesus was
commissioned with the words, ‘This is my beloved son in whom I
am well pleased’... Roy offered not only a blessing, he offered an
admonition, too. ’Shirley’, he said, ’you must be a healer. That is
your calling. Bind up the wounds. Do what it takes to open new
spaces for love’ (Showalter, 1997f).

This is a very real calling for President Showalter. She knows that she must be
a catalyst for institutional change and when we met, she expressed one
enduring belief that guides her work at Goshen College:

One thing that has never left me, is the real root belief that people

here are not just pretending to believe what they believe or

pretending to live a certain way. They genuinely want to do these

things. There are barriers, difficulties and examples of falling by

the wayside, but basically, at heart, we do believe there is a better

way and a better world, and that we can make a contribution to it.
Is this an exhaustive list of leadership lessons? No. However, those leaders
who seek to Ieam these lessons, as President Showalter is attempting to do,
will reap great rewards. Stable and ethical college leadership will be the critical
factor in the future of the church/college relationship. As Kingsley ( 1992)

writes,

In the church-related college especially, good leaders must be
good people. They must eschew the tendency toward

201

manipulation, toward letting ends justify means, and toward that
self-glory that usually masquerades as self-righteousness or self-
rightness. They work not only for the good of the group but also
for the larger good rooted in their tradition of religion and faith,
moving the group toward the doing of that larger good (70).

202

CHAPTER 7: FAITH, STATUS AND MARKETING

 

This is a study about a relationship between a college and its supporting
denomination. It is a study about an institution’s efforts to improve its academic
status while remaining faithful to its religious heritage. It is a study of a church
that is perceived to be in flux. It is a study about the role of religion and
religious institutions in a market society. Finally, it is a study about a new
college president and her attempts to find a delicate balance between these
complex concerns. Within this story, three very important concerns arise.
These factors will impact the future of the relationship between Goshen College
and the Mennonite Church. First, how and by whom will the Mennonite faith be
defined? Second, how will the importance that society places on status impact
the college? The final concern, which is intricately interwoven with the first two,
is how and to whom will the college attempt to market itself?

The Mennonite colleges are key players in shaping the future of the
Mennonite Church. The debate on the Goshen College campus revolves
around how to play this role. Should they be consistently “ahead” of the
denomination pushing it, or should they be more cautious, pragmatic and
diplomatic, remaining in-step with the church? This debate is occurring as
those at Goshen College intentionally attempt to increase its level of prestige
while concomitantly striving to remain grounded in the Anabaptist Vision which
has sustained it. All of this at a time when many on campus perceive that parts

of their supporting denomination are becoming less committed to this Vision.

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Finally, the college is on the cusp of dramatic change. If the marketing plan
that they are currently following does not draw the college closer to the church,
then they will be forced to look even more proactively outside it for students.
One teaching faculty member expressed a common faculty viewpoint:

I have a sense that Shirley is truly, thoroughly committed to

making this institution tie into the Mennonite church in a way that

has integrity but is also ready to entertain doing something else

with it if that attempt doesn’t work in the next five or ten years. In

that sense then she has positioned us rather nicely to sell

ourselves in this way that has both intellectual integrity but also

offers a spiritual life.

This faculty member suggests what has been stated throughout this
dissertation, that the Mennonite Church is the best current market for Goshen
College. However, looking pragmatically at the shifting nature of the
denomination and any institution, this relationship may not be the best one in
the future. Presently, the case demonstrated at Goshen College does not
mesh well with the long-held theories that markets and status will inevitably pull
a religious institution away from its supporting religious group.

This study has obvious ramifications for other denominationally affiliated
colleges which are also attempting to maintain a viable relationship with their
supporting churches. It can be used as framework to compare with other
denomination/ church college relationships. This research also speaks to the
wider higher education community because outside pressures, whether they
are political, religious or social, will influence the types of education which are

“purchased” by society members. Marketing, which many of this study’s

respondents find so abhorrent, is an increasingly necessary tool for any

204

educational institution. The management of school missions and symbols are
all important concerns for any educational institution. In many ways this is a
story of pragmatic leadership that could be retold throughout many higher
education institutions. President Showalter, like most college leaders, must find
a central position between the college’s constituencies and its faculty. It is not
clear whether both of these groups can be happily served. The balance she is
attempting to find will inevitably leave some in each party feeling misunderstood
and misrepresented.

This research adds a twist to the consensus secularization theory that
secular markets will eventually trump religion in higher education (Cohen, 1998;
Brubacher and Rudy, 1997; Hofstadter, 1996; Kingsley, 1992; Springsted,
1988; Jencks and Riesman, 1968; and Rudolph, 1962). Instead of running
from the supporting denomination which has been the recurrent theme in
Christian higher education, Goshen College, through its President, Dr. Shirley
Showalter, is attempting to improve its market position from within the
Mennonite Church. President Showalter believes strongly that the path to
higher status and institutional health runs through the church. The problem for
President Showalter and the college then becomes how to get a large enough
portion of a shifting church to buy into the vision that they are concomitantly
creating and sustaining.

Goshen College and the Mennonite Church are currently debating what
it means to be “ecumenically hospitable.” In other words, to whom will they

market themselves? The solutions that come out of this dilemma will

205

dramatically impact the future of the college and the denomination. Is there a
way to be inclusive and maintain a strong sense of peoplehood? It appears
that the answer to this peoplehood question has taken different parts of the
denomination in opposing directions. Some in the church believe that their
future is best served by dropping their Anabaptist heritage and the institutions
founded within it. These people need to carefully examine Redekop’s (1998)
thesis. As he writes,

There are two good reasons to tell and analyze this story [of the
loss of Anabaptist identity in the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren
denomination] . First, to the extent they listen to or read them, the
histories of how human groups struggled to achieve their ideals
are of great benefit to descendants. Second, the history of the
[EMB denomination] involves an intriguing, fascinating, and
important story of how a renewal movement becomes
transformed (Redekop, 13).

There is also what seems to be a prophetic warning to the Mennonite
colleges from Jencks and Riesman (1968):

The survival of recognizably Protestant colleges. . .seems to
depend on the survival within the larger society of Protestant
enclaves whose members believe passionately in a way of life
radically different from that of the majority, and who are both
willing and able to pay for a brand of education that embodies
their vision. Such enclaves still exist but they are few in number
(330).

The potential for the erosion of a Mennonite “enclave" is addressed by Goshen
College History professor emeritus Theron Schlabach (1997) when he writes,
Goshen College and its church still seem to ask questions
together. For the two to continue asking the questions together

seems to depend as much on what kind of church the Mennonite
Church will continue to be as it does on the college itself (221 ).

206

Van Ham (1992) argues that the impact of secular sources and ecumenical
movements has eroded denominational unity. “Several decades ago, the
cohesiveness and allegiance within, and to a lesser degree among,
denominations were more pronounced. Influenced by ecumenical movements,
modern worldviews, mass media religion, and sociocultural changes, many
individuals have replaced loyalty to denominations to loyalty to special
interests” (77). This statement rings true within the story that the Goshen
College faculty are telling. l was surprised by the intensity and frequency with
which I heard from faculty discussing the erosion of Anabaptist values in
sections of the Mennonite Church. If they are correct that the Mennonite
Church is becoming increasingly pressured by outside evangelical and
fundamentalist groups, this influence will continue to erode the support that the
college can expect to receive from its own denomination.

However, if the college reacts to these ecumenical pressures by creating
what Dintaman (1995) calls “a siege mentality,” there is the danger that those
on campus (and in the church) who hang on to their version of the Anabaptist
Vision at all costs, will only alienate greater portions of the denomination.
Noftzger (1992) notes that,

Pluralism exists within every denomination... Obviously, a

structural identification with a specific adjudicating body may be

defined for the institution, but strategic choices also must be

made by the institution. Will the institution identify with the full

range of pluralistic options within the denomination? Or will it

choose to identify with a more narrow theological (sociological or

geographical) ‘camp’ within the denomination (whether liberal or

conservative)? .. The commitment to a particular view does not
prohibit the legitimate expression and support of perspectives

207

considered acceptable with the pluralism of an affiliated
denomination (89-90).

Clearly, the “siege mentality” that Dintaman (1995) describes has meant that
the college will only associate with a part, perhaps an increasingly small part, of
the Mennonite Church. Dintaman argues that,

Mennonite historians have been adept at naming and critiquing

‘outside influences’ like fundamentalism and pietism, but have yet

to look seriously at how much the skepticism and pragmatism of

the modern academic world have been major formative factors in

contemporary neo-Anabaptism. We are long overdue for a

discussion of what our educational priorities should be and, in

particular, how we approach the teaching of faith (8).
This kind of discussion could be both fruitful and threatening at Goshen.
Goshen’s faculty is not currently a group of what Burtchaell (1991a) calls
“scholars predominantly of no faith or a hostile faith or an intimidated faith” (29).
However, as Dintaman (1995) notes, “Mennonite professors do have personal
spiritual lives, but they tend to pull the shades and look over their shoulders
before they talk about such things” (3). President Showalter’s ability to express
her faith within the Mennonite/Anabaptist tradition is a clear example of how
faith and work can be done concomitantly, with integrity. Hopefully, her
example will encourage other faculty members to increasingly and explicitly
share the faith that underlies their work.

The push by President Showalter and others toward increasing the
status of Goshen College should be done with great care, because if this

undertaking is successful, it could have the greatest secularizing effect of all.

Nord (1995) underlines this concern with the caveat that “capitalism and

208

consumerism, pluralism, nationalism, individualism, science and technology
divert our attention from the life of the spirit, undercut traditional religion,
refocus our interests, provide us with new ways of thinking about the world,
and, in the process, secularize us” (158). The interest in serving societal (and
increasingly Mennonite church members’) desires for prestige feeds into the
secularizing (read: anti-Anabaptist) influences of consumerism and
individualism.

Further, while true selectivity in admissions is only a dream at this point,
what will happen when the college is deciding between a more academically
qualified other-than-Mennonite student and a less qualified Mennonite student?
If the college is able to provide what is perceived in broader society as an “elite
education,” there will be increasing pressure to move away from a Mennonite
student body which will have an alienating effect within the church.

President Showalter is providing some middle ground for these
discussions, and is not universally appreciated on campus for it. Under her
intentional leadership, there appears to be little worry that the push toward
elitism will erode the Mennonite/Anabaptist values that ground the college.
However, great care must be taken when hiring future leaders. One with a less
substantial faith grounding could take the college in directions President
Showalter never intended. As she told me, one of her primary concerns is to
remember that, "other people sat in this space and other people will sit in this
space and you are in a line of succession and it is up to you to pass on the

institution in stronger form to the next person.”

209

One important way to improve institutional health is to pass on a clear
Anabaptist framework for the academic programs being proposed. In President
Showalter, there appears to be the strength and commitment to the Anabaptist
Vision that is necessary for the college and the church to survive, along with the
gifts of a strong spirituality and an ability to openly express it. In a speech to
the 1997 Mennonite General Assembly in Orlando, Florida, President
Showalter said,

Anabaptism, as my colleague, Nelson Kraybill, President of

Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, has reminded us, is not

just a faith founded in the sixteenth century. It is a faith alive and

moving and growing, preparing for the 215’ century. What will that

century be like? Will each soul be rekindled with fire from above?

Will it be one where we catch fire again and use the institutions of

education, health care, and mission that visionaries of the past

produced, renewing them with new life through our support? Or

will we follow other churches whose embers have died out, so that

a generation from now the word ’Mennonite’ will have only

historical meaning? I have cast my lot with those who perversely

believe that God wants the renewal of worldwide Anabaptism

(Showalter, 1997e).

It is still unclear who will join her in this “renewal” or what kind of story
will be told about the Mennonite colleges in the years to come. Will Goshen
become another example used by the likes of Jencks and Riesman (1968), who
note that secularization was inevitable because of secular market pressures?
Will Goshen College be another example of a college whose leadership
unwittingly allowed the college to secularize as Burtchaell (1991a)
hypothesizes? Will the isomorphic tendencies of its supporting denomination

make the Mennonite market too insignificant to support the college and other

Mennonite institutions? Or will President Showalter be joined in her call to

210

“renewal” which will allow Goshen College to continue to hire committed
Mennonite/Anabaptist faculty members? Faculty members who will strive to
thwart secularizing pressures while providing an outstanding Anabaptist!
Mennonite, liberal arts education to future generations of Mennonite and other
sympathetic young adults.

The isomorphic pressure that is exerted on individual institutions through
market forces does not serve the institution or higher education well. Rather,
American higher education is well served by the diversity of institutions within it.
It will be a great disservice to American society if denominational schools, like
Goshen, which teach tolerance while bringing fresh perspectives to the
educational table are not supported and allowed to remain distinctive. This
dissertation is about more than just an individual institution. It is about a
relationship between an institution and a religious body. The future of
Mennonite higher education and a distinctive denomination is at stake here. If
Redekop’s (1998) thesis is applicable to the Mennonite Church, the direction in
which the church is heading is every bit as crucial as how Goshen is being
pressured by its markets to change. A delicate balance must be maintained
between welcoming new expressions of faith into the church and the college,
while at the same time safeguarding the historic Anabaptist/Mennonite values

that have sustained the college and the denomination.

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APPENDIX A

QUESTIONNAIRE COVER LETTER

212

Date
Dear Faculty Member,

Greetings from E. Lansing, Michigan and Michigan State University. I am
writing to invite you to participate in part of my doctoral dissertation research. A
couple of years ago, Dr. Michael Wiese of Anderson University conducted
research that measured church member attitudes about the relationship
between the Mennonite Church and its colleges. Wiese’s research, entitled
The Gideon Project, studied the attitudes of Mennonite Church lay leaders and
pastors, as well as students at Mennonite Church colleges/university and other
colleges and universities, about the Mennonite Colleges. Many interesting and
important results were found, but this research left a very important piece of
organizational understanding open for further research. In particular, how do
teaching and administrative faculty feel about the college relationship with the
church? Further, it is important to understand what faculty believe the future of
the relationship could and should be.

I am conducting research that will include both an initial survey and more in-
depth interviews of selected faculty. The questionnaire which I will be e-mailing
you tomorrow includes some demographic questions. These questions are
asked only so that comparisons between various groups can be made. All
results will be treated with strict confidence and the subjects will remain
anonymous in any report of research findings. Categories that would include a
narrow group of people (e.g. female, Bible and religion professors) will not be
reported. This questionnaire should take approximately 30 minutes to
complete. You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate in this research
project by completing and returning this questionnaire.

Thank you for your time in completing this important questionnaire. Your
responses will help as discussions about the future of the church/college
relationship continue. If you have questions or concerns do not hesitate to e-
mail my advisor (Dr. David Labaree) at dlabaree@pilot.msu.edu.

Sincerely,
Dan Koop Liechty
Doctoral student - Department of Higher Education

Michigan State University
E. Lansing, Michigan

213

APPENDIX B

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

214

Second Cover Letter
Date:
Dear Faculty Member,

Yesterday, I sent you an e-mail introducing you to this research project. I am
interested in better understanding faculty attitudes about the college
relationship with the Mennonite Church. Please answer the following questions
as best you can and don’t hesitate to type in additional comments or
concerns to any question. This questionnaire should take approximately 30
minutes to complete. You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate in
this research project by completing and returning this questionnaire.

After you have fully completed the survey simply hit your reply button and send
itback.

Thanks again for your willingness to participate in this research. If you have
any questions or concerns please e-mail me at Iiechtyd@pilot.msu.edu.

Sincerely,

Dan Koop Liechty

Doctoral student - Department of Higher Education
Michigan State University

E. Lansing, Michigan

Demographics

The following background questions are used for comparisons and to provide
an overall respondent profile. No attempt will be made to identify individual
respondents.

Please put an X in the box which best fits your response [ X ]
1. My denominational/religious affiliation is:

76.2 %1 Mennonite Church (MC)
6.6 General Conference Mennonite Church (GC)
4.9 Dual (GC/MC)
0.8 Mennonite Brethren

11.5 Other Christian

 

’ All percentages are valid percent. Sums may not be 100% due to rounding errors.

215

2. Were you raised as a Mennonite?

84.4 % Yes (Which Mennonite Denomination?)
Mennonite Church (68.0%)
General Conference Mennonite Church (4.1)
Dual (GC/MC) (3.3)
Mennonite Brethren (3.3)
15.6 % No (please specify other denomination, if applicable)
Amish (2.50/0)
Methodist (2.5)
Baptist (1.6)
Orthodox Church (0.8)
Church of the Brethren (0.8)
Presbyterian (0.8)
United Church of Canada (0.8)
Lutheran (0.8)
Church of God (0.8)

3. Did you attend a Mennonite College for your undergraduate education?

83.5 % Yes (please specify which college)
Goshen College (67.8%)
Eastern Mennonite University (8.3)
Hesston College (1.7)
Tabor (1 .7)
Bluffton (0.8)
Fresno Pacific University (0.8)
Bethel College (KS) (0.8)
16.5 % No (If no, did you attend another Christian college?)
Secular (11.6%)

Christian (5.0)
4. My contract is percent administrative?
5. My contract is percent teaching.

6. My gender is:

36.9% Female
63.1 Male

 

2 After looking at percentages, the following categories were developed: Administrative Faculty
(28.7%), Teaching Faculty (45.1%), Retired Administrative Faculty (8.2%), Retired Teaching
Faculty (18.0%),

216

7. Academic degree achieved: (Please specify major/field of study)

99.2% Bachelors
Unspecified (22.3%)
English (11.6)
Music (8.3)
History (6.6)
Nursing (6.6)
Chemistry (5.0)
Social Work (4.1)
Biology (3.3)
Communication (3.3)
Physical Education (2.5)
Business (2.5)
Psychology (2.5)
Art (1 .7)
Bible & Religion (1.7)
Economics (1 .7)
Education (1 .7)
Elementary Education (1 .7)
Management (1 .7)
Physics (1 .7)
Sociology (1 .7)
Other majors3 (8.0)

86.7% Masters
Unspecified (20.8%)
Nursing (9.4)
Music (8.4)
Library Science (5.7)
English (4.7)
Social Work (4.7)
Communication (2.8)
Counseling (2.8)
Administration (1.9)
Biology (1.9)
Business Administration (1.9)
Divinity (1.9)
Education (1.9)
Elementary Education (1.9)
Fine Arts (1.9)
History (1.9)
Physical Education (1.9)

 

3 Sum of categories with only one respondent

217

Physics (1.9)
Psychology (1.9)
Theology (1.9)
Other(16.2)

3.3% Ed.D.
Educational Administration (50.0%)
Educational Leadership (25.0)
Education (25.0)

0.8% Professional Degrees
JD (100.0%)

41.7% Ph.D.
English (7.8%)
Religion (7.8)
Sociology (7.8)
Biology (5.9)
Unspecified (5.9)
Chemistry (3.9)
Communication (3.9)
Counseling (3.9)
Economics (3.9)
Education (3.9)
German (3.9)
History (3.9)
Physical Education (3.9)
Physics (3.9)
Psychology (3.9)
Theology (3.9)
Other (22.0)

8. How many years have you worked as a faculty member at CC?

Mean = 17.1 years
Median = 17.0 years

218

Faculty Attitudes About the College/Church Relationship

The following questions are specifically designed to measure your attitudes
about the church/college relationship. For these questions, please check one
box [X] for each question.

I strongly encourage you to add comments of clarification or concern
after any of your answers to these Likert-type questions.

9. I believe GC’s relationship with the denomination is improving (20 written
responses)

10.9%4 Strongly Agree
61.3 Agree
26.1 Undecided

1.7 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

10. CC should be looking more proactively outside the Mennonite church for
students (24 written responses).

19.7% Strongly Agree
43.4 Agree
23.8 Undecided
13.1 Disagree
0.0 Strongly Disagree

11. Faculty members have an important role in improving the relationship
between the college and the church (11 written responses).

44.3% Strongly Agree
49.2 Agree

3.3 Undecided

2.5 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree

12. On the whole, GC’s curricula match denominational values (21 written
responses).

14.2% Strongly Agree
64.2 Agree
19.2 Undecided

2.5 Disagree

 

" All percentages are valid percentages.

219

0.0 Strongly Disagree

13. The social/political atmosphere on campus is out-of-synch with the
denomination (33 written responses).

0.8% Strongly Agree
31.1 Agree
33.6 Undecided
31.9 Disagree

2.5 Strongly Disagree

14. The spiritual atmosphere on campus is out-of-synch with the denomination
(26 written responses).

0.0% Strongly Agree
19.2 Agree
17.5 Undecided
54.2 Disagree

9.2 Strongly Disagree

15. The influence of pluralism is too prevalent on campus (18 written
responses)

1.7% Strongly Agree
10.1 Agree
26.9 Undecided
42.0 Disagree
19.3 Strongly Disagree

16. I would change my curriculum, or way of conducting my work, if it would
improve the college/church relationship (27 written responses).

2.6% Strongly Agree
43.1 Agree
31.9 Undecided
17.2 Disagree

5.2 Strongly Disagree

17. I am more committed to serving the church than most other faculty
members at this institution (23 written responses).

4.3% Strongly Agree
15.7 Agree
31.3 Undecided
43.5 Disagree

220

5.2 Strongly Disagree

18. CC should guarantee its faculty the freedom to explore any idea or theory,
even if the ideas question some traditional Mennonite beliefs or practices
(28 written responses).

25.8% Strongly Agree
52.5 Agree

6.7 Undecided
14.2 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree

19. CC should guarantee its faculty the freedom to read and discuss anything
in the classroom they believe pertains to what they are teaching, even if
the ideas question some traditional Christian beliefs or practices (27
written responses).

22.3% Strongly Agree
53.7 Agree
1 1.6 Undecided
11.6 Disagree
0.8 Strongly Disagree

20. CC should continue to require its students to attend chapel services (15
written responses).

27.9% Strongly Agree
51.6 Agree
13.9 Undecided

4.9 Disagree

1.6 Strongly Disagree

21. CC should require its faculty to attend chapel services (21 written
responses).

3.3% Strongly Agree
28.9 Agree
23.1 Undecided
33.9 Disagree
10.7 Strongly Disagree

22. It is possible for GC to both achieve academic excellence and maintain a
strong Christian identity (7 written responses).

67.8% Strongly Agree

221

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

27.3 Agree
3.3 Undecided
0.8 Disagree
0.8 Strongly Disagree

My religious beliefs are relevant to the content of my academic or
professional discipline (4 written responses).

54.5% Strongly Agree
40.5 Agree

2.5 Undecided

2.5 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

My religious beliefs are relevant to the way I teach my courses or conduct
my work (5 written responses).

61.2% Strongly Agree

35.5 Agree
1 .7 Undecided
1 .7 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

In the hiring process, too much emphasis is placed on a faculty member’s
religious views (16 written responses).

7.6% Strongly Agree
5.9 Agree

14.3 Undecided

58.0 Disagree

14.3 Strongly Disagree

I am concerned about the quality of the academic program at CC (25
written responses).

22.7% Strongly Agree
29.4 Agree
15.1 Undecided
24.4 Disagree
8.4 Strongly Disagree

The spiritual atmosphere on campus, among students and faculty, is what
it should be (23 written responses).

1.7% Strongly Agree

222

39.2 Agree
35.0 Undecided
23.3 Disagree
0.8 Strongly Disagree

28. The social atmosphere on campus is not what it should be for a Mennonite
institution (19 written responses).

0.0% Strongly Agree
1 5.7 Agree
40.5 Undecided
38.0 Disagree
5.8 Strongly Disagree

29. What are the two main reasons you chose to work at this college?

See Table 7.1: Two Main Reasons Faculty Member Chose to Work at
GC (p. 112).

Communalism and Traditionalism

Fred Kniss, in his recent work on the Mennonite church, discusses two factions
in the church. The first group he calls “Traditionalists” who he says “stress
traditional moral and spiritual values, the importance of family, biblical and
communal authority and the denial of individual interests in favor of the
collectivity” (6). The second group he calls “Communalists” who he says are
“concerned for egalitarianism, social justice, pacifism, stewardship of the
environment, mutual aid, and a focus on religious congregations as primary
communities for their members” (6).

30. Which group best defines your beliefs (14 written responses)?

30.0% Communalist
4.2 Traditionalist

59.2 A mix of both
6.7 Neither

31. Which tradition best fits GC as a whole (10 written responses)?
30.8% Communalist
0.9 Traditionalist
62.4 A mix of both
6.0 Neither

32. Explain whether or not GC can legitimately serve both traditions: (101

223

written responses).

33. Please explain the ways that GC is moving closer or farther from the
church: (94 written responses)

34. Please discuss how President Showalter’s administration is taking the
college closer to or farther away from the church: (93 written responses).

Maintenance of a Strong Church/College Relationship

Numerous authors on the topic (Mennonite and other) of church/college
relationships have offered ideas about the maintenance of a strong
relationship. The following questions come from these authors' ideas. Again,
for these questions, please check one box [X] for each question.

35. The only way to have a truly Christian college is for it to remain an
intentionally active part of a denomination ( 18 written responses).

19.0% Strongly Agree
41.3 Agree
14.0 Undecided
22.3 Disagree
3.3 Strongly Disagree

36. There is hostility between the church and GC (47 written responses).

0.0% Strongly Agree
31.7 Agree
35.0 Undecided
30.8 Disagree

2.5 Strongly Disagree

37. GC should constantly work at balancing any antipathy between church
leaders and faculty (19 written responses).

20.0% Strongly Agree
57.5 Agree
15.0 Undecided

6.7 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree

38. Faith and Ieaming should have an equal presence on campus ( 19 written
responses).

30.6% Strongly Agree

224

49.6 Agree
10.7 Undecided
7.4 Disagree
1.7 Strongly Disagree

39. Faculty should be involved in denominational leadership (32 written
responses).

8.3% Strongly Agree
45.0 Agree
27.5 Undecided
15.0 Disagree

4.2 Strongly Disagree

40. Denominational leaders should be encouraged to play an active role on
campus (20 written responses).

1 1 .7% Strongly Agree
51.7 Agree
21.7 Undecided
11.7 Disagree
3.3 Strongly Disagree

41. Denominational leaders should be encouraged to speak in chapel (13
written responses).

21.3% Strongly Agree

71 .3 Agree
5.7 Undecided
1 .6 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

42. Denominational leaders should be encouraged to teach college classes
(44 written responses).

4.1% Strongly Agree
36.4 Agree
34.7 Undecided
20.7 Disagree

4.1 Strongly Disagree

43. Faculty need to publish articles frequently in church publications (30 written
responses).

11.6% Strongly Agree

225

57.9 Agree
19.0 Undecided
7.4 Disagree
4.1 Strongly Disagree

44. In all components (governance, faculty, staff and students), there must be
a strong representation of members of the Mennonite Church (GC or
MC) (16 written responses).

34.7% Strongly Agree
44.6 Agree

9.9 Undecided

9.1 Disagree

1.7 Strongly Disagree

45. A majority of both faculty and students must be sympathetic to Mennonite
history and the commitments of the college (18 written responses).

34.5% Strongly Agree
52.9 Agree

6.7 Undecided

5.9 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

46. Faculty members need to be carefully recruited to serve the relationship
between church and college (21 written responses).

36.4% Strongly Agree
44.6 Agree

6.6 Undecided

9.1 Disagree

3.3 Strongly Disagree

47. More emphasis needs to be put on developing faculty teams that are
committed to the religious mission of the college (23 written responses).

8.5% Strongly Agree
39.8 Agree
34.7 Undecided
12.7 Disagree

4.2 Strongly Disagree

48. The relationship between GC and the church should be proclaimed openly

to those from outside the church who choose to participate (16 written
responses).

226

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

27.5% Strongly Agree

57.5 Agree
1 1.7 Undecided
3.3 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

More emphasis needs to be placed on reviving student interest in
denominational ties (23 written responses).

5.1% Strongly Agree
41.5 Agree
33.1 Undecided
17.8 Disagree

2.5 Strongly Disagree

It is important that I serve as a Christian role-model to students (7 written
responses).

57.5% Strongly Agree
37.5 Agree

3.3 Undecided

0.8 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree

Serving as a Christian role-model to students is as important as the work I
do at Goshen (19 written responses).

38.7% Strongly Agree
44.5 Agree

7.6 Undecided

8.4 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree

GC must be more proactive in their recruitment of Mennonite faculty
members (26 written responses).

19.2% Strongly Agree
37.5 Agree
26.7 Undecided
12.5 Disagree
4.2 Strongly Disagree

GC must actively encourage and call gifted students from its own ranks
and employ them when they are available (15 written responses).

227

26.4% Strongly Agree

53.7 Agree
9.9 Undecided
9.1 Disagree

0.8 Strongly Disagree
54. CC has an explicitly Christian curriculum (27 written responses).

10.3% Strongly Agree
44.4 Agree
27.4 Undecided
15.4 Disagree
2.6 Strongly Disagree

55. CC has an explicitly Christian extra-curriculum (20 written responses).

6.8% Strongly Agree
40.2 Agree
30.8 Undecided
20.5 Disagree

1.7 Strongly Disagree

56. The church and GC need to work closely together to decide what types of
education should be provided (22 written responses).

10.7% Strongly Agree
45.9 Agree
19.7 Undecided
18.9 Disagree
4.9 Strongly Disagree

57. CC teaches students not only how to Ieam but how to live (8 written
responses). .

39.2% Strongly Agree
58.3 Agree

2.5 Undecided

0.0 Disagree

0.0 Strongly Disagree

Thank you for completing this questionnaire. If you have any additional
comments or concerns, please write in the space below (26 written responses).

228

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