Does it matter who speaks and what they say?
What may rattle through your head when youโre lying awake.
No matter your role at your college or university, everyone experiences sleepless nights obsessing about one thing or another. Please give yourself a point for each thought youโve ever had in the middle of the night.
Just because you have a camera on your phone doesnโt make you a photographer. Please let your marketing and communications colleagues do their jobs.
Making sense of demographic trends and their implications for institutional strategies.
Building relationships with donors makes senseโbut it can create problems that result in the crossing of lines.
Explaining the language institutions use to describe their waxing and waning relationships with their religious connections.
Explaining or discussing faith can ignite heated, passionate and explosive debates in academia. And yet, faith has played and continues to play a large part in higher education. The manifestation of faith is a continuum ranging from adherence to specific practices associated with a particular organized religion to something more general, like faith in humankindโs ability to learn, prosper and contribute to the greater good.
In the U.S., the historical origins of many colleges and universities have been closely tied to faith, in particular Christianity. For example, Harvard University, the oldest U.S. institution, was founded in 1636 to train Congregational clergy. Numerous religious sects have supported higher education by establishing institutions large and smallโRoman Catholics (Georgetown University), Methodists (Emory University), Presbyterians (Davidson College), Baptists (Baylor University) and Lutherans (St. Olaf College), to name a few. Over time, the degree to which institutions align themselves with a particular faith waxes and wanes. The language institutions use to signal these connections is nuanced and institutions carefully choose how they signal identity relative to religion and belief. Here are a few terms, very general definitions and some examples:
The existence of faith finds evidence in declarations by numerous international human rights organizations insisting on equal access to higher education. One example is the United Nationsโ Internal Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, dated Dec. 16, 1966. Article 13, item 1 states,
โThe States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.โ
And in particular, Article 13, item 2. c. states,
โHigher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.โ
The answer is no, and hereโs why thatโs OK.