In last month’s issue of Books & Culture, Alan Guelzo published an article called Cracks in the Tower, which purported to outline problems with Christian liberal arts colleges. I wrote a letter to the Editor about Guelzo’s article, because I think it’s empirically and philosphically off-base. They didn’t publish my letter, but the editor told me there were many others like mine that were already in press. Unfortunately, the current issue of B&C contains only two letters about Guelzo’s piece, one of which is interesting but very narrow, and the other of which is anemic. So, for what it’s worth, here’s what I wrote:
Dear Editor,
Allen Guelzo’s article “Cracks in the Tower: A Closer Look at the
Christian College Boom” (July/August 2005)is facile and misleading. The argument that students at Evangelical Christian College are generally of lower caliber than students at other colleges is simply false. At Gordon College (my alma mater), for example, most applicants fall in the 600-699 range for both Verbal and Math scores on the SAT (as reported on www.christiancollegementor.com), with statistical tails above and below that range. Although this doesn’t place Gordon near Ivy-league numbers, it compares favorably with other quality liberal arts colleges. Drew University in New Jersey, for example, ranks fifty-ninth on the U.S. News list of liberal arts colleges, and reports similar SAT numbers. Schools like Messiah and Westmont report similar numbers, and Wheaton’s are comparable in some respects to some of the elite non-Christian colleges. So, although it is true that the Evangelical Christian colleges admit a higher percentage of students from a smaller applicant pool, it appears that the sorts of applicants who self-select for these schools is
generally of reasonably high quality, in terms of mere numbers, compared to the entire undergraduate applicant pool.
Of course, SAT scores are only a small part of the story, and where Guelzo runs completely aground is his apparent ignorance of an Evangelical college’s character-forming mission. The Intervarsity and Campus Crusade groups available on other college campuses perform important roles, but they are not usually interchangeable with the experience of living in an intentionally Christian community for four years. The most valuable aspect of my Gordon experience was the zeitgeist of the place. Through the regular chapel services, special speaker programs that attracted important Christian thinkers, personal interactions with administrators and professors, and late-night bull sessions in the dorms with other students, I imbibed an atmosphere that was uncompromising in its dedication to the belief that “all Truth is God’s Truth.” This was one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received.
In seems to me that Guelzo is perhaps projecting angst about his own
institution, Gettysburg College, in his assessment of the Evangelical
colleges. Schools like Gettysburg — quality liberal arts colleges that fall a bit short of Ivy-like prestige — constantly need to wring their hands about the kinds of empirical data that drive the U.S. News rankings. The Evangelical colleges need to pay attention to those data as well, but their principal focus appropriately is in a different place: preparing whole people for service in the Kingdom of God.
Sincerely,
David W. Opderbeck
Assistant Professor, Law Department
Baruch College, City University of New York