An institutional revolution in higher education

As a high schooler, I heard many complaints from family and church members about colleges. They warned me about their politically left-leaning orientation, where conservative views weren’t engaged but derided. They described the indifference at best and outright antagonism at worst many universities displayed toward Christian beliefs and morality. When I went to college, to graduate school, and then into the academy, I was blessed to study mostly with thoughtful professors across the political spectrum. Students, too, generally were open to different views and respectful, even observant, of Biblical principles. But I also saw much to confirm the criticisms, especially when I stepped outside my home institutions into the broader collegiate world. It largely was a “monoculture,” a world closed to non-progressive and then “woke” viewpoints.

But while I heard plenty of complaints, I never heard tangible ideas about how to respond. People would rail against; but they did so without concrete plans holding real chances of implementation to make things better.

That now is changing. The orthodoxies are being challenged on campuses in substantive ways. Among the most notable are the establishment and strengthening of centers at public universities across the country. These centers include the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida, the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, and the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee. Ohio alone has and is developing five such centers on campuses across the state.

These centers do more than express a protest against the state of the modern university. They desire to be an institutional (and thus lasting) response to make things better. They seek to bring more intellectual diversity and thus balance to campus discourse. This is a desperately needed goal so that education does not devolve into crass cultural and partisan indoctrination. But, more than that, these centers pursue cultural and political goods woefully absent at many colleges. The Chase Center at Ohio State has the stated purpose of “Cultivating citizens for a free society through open inquiry and excellent scholarship.” The Declaration of Independence Center at Ole Miss affirms the Declaration of 1776 as a document that, “expresses fundamental principles of American freedom.” It further says the Center is “dedicated to the academic and open-minded exploration of these principles, and exists to encourage exploration into the many facets of freedom.”

In other words, these centers seek to renew an approach to education that cultivates citizens fit to exercise republican self-government. Such citizens must know the basic political principles and structures of America. This education includes learning a thoughtful patriotism, one not uncritical of past and present mistakes yet also loving the good, achieved and still possible, in our regime. It also contains a classical component, reintroducing students to the wonders of great works of the past in literature, science, art, and more.

Interestingly, these centers are the result of political action. State legislatures and governors have driven their establishment and provide essential funding for their work. We often think of politics as being “downstream” from culture, meaning that culture sets ideas and practices in motion while the political world follows. Yet this movement shows the relationship is more complicated, more of a two-way street. Political will can help affect cultural change. It should not be neglected or disparaged in attempts at societal renewal.

Christians should take note of this effort. We need more renewed than our education in civics and in classical learning. We face theological crises distinct but linked to these other challenges. Biblical literacy has plummeted. Christian morality remains ignored or openly mocked. We need new and reformed institutions, including schools and churches, to engage in the critical catechesis that will firmly plant future generations in the Faith.

But we also should seek to integrate renewed Christian education with these other endeavors. We must seek anew to know how Scripture and Christian history speaks to the duties of citizenship. We should engage with classical sources, as did our theological fathers, to show God’s Providential rule in all times and places. There is a wealth in Scripture and the Christian tradition to retrieve on these fronts. That tradition will do much more than simply rubber-stamp partisan or sociological commitments. It will refine and, where need be, challenge those other views, helping us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

So, let us do more than take heart at these new developments on the collegiate landscape; let us take action. Let us build. In so doing, let us seek to spread further the kind of cultural, political, and yes, religious renewal so needed in this country.