An Alabama Baptist college that is the last remaining all-women college in the state needs to raise $1.5 million in gifts and pledges in order to remain open for the spring semester, its president told alumnae and donors Dec. 15….
What should it cost a denomination to control governance of a university?
How much money should a denominational body have to give to a university in return for the ability to control that university’s governance? Turns out, not much in many cases. As state, regional and national denominational bodies have faced declining…
I was trolled by the Right, and here’s what I learned
I knew Campus Reform was going to write about my Baptist News piece on white Christians and climate change. Campus Reform is a conservative news site that uses students as reporters to target progressive professors, and a young writer had…
Deconstructing the crisis of Christian colleges and the culture wars
In one of her first public appearances as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos delivered a speech at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference and established herself as a fixture in the culture wars. Her brief remarks began with swipes at…
Historically Black college welcomes white pastor with passion for racial justice
When Chris Caldwell thinks about student housing and food services, his pondering goes deeper than the mere campus amenities that concern administrators at most colleges. “We have many students who are insecure in terms of their housing, and we have…
Faced with generational crisis, Christian universities eye two paths
I began college in the fall of 2006 as a pre-med honors student with an undeclared major, an ambivalent relationship to religion, and a less-than-positive attitude about the entire affair. I wanted to go somewhere big, prestigious and, most importantly,…
Nation’s first for-profit Christian school loses bid to be nonprofit
An Arizona university founded by Southern Baptists but sold in 2004 to become the first for-profit Christian college in the United States has dropped its bid to change back to a nonprofit entity. Grand Canyon University’s self-perpetuating board of trustees…