Arthur Holmes's The Idea Of A Christian College

So many people go into college unaware of any deeper motivation than an education, an experience, or athletics. They do not go into college with any adequate reasoning besides the “questionable social aspirations” and “tentative vocational goals” (Holmes 1). Yet the Christian college is worth more than such goals, the Christian college allows students to pursue academic excellence while keeping God at the forefront of every area of study and campus activity. The goal of the Christian college is to not compartmentalize Faith and Education but to integrate it in everything the college does. This consistent thesis in The Idea of a Christian College by Arthur Holmes was well explained and delivered almost ad nauseam. Though this was the main

As the text says, “Liberal education means the stretching of minds and imaginations, the unceasing stimulus to honest inquiry, the appropriation of a cultural heritage, the transmission of ideas and values, an exposure to the frontiers of learning” (Holmes 64). To achieve such goals, both the student and the university faculty should be free to study any type of academia that is conducive to personal and institutional growth. If a university or professor were to limit the type of study that was being done, the detrimental effects of the limitations would ultimately harm the student and the institution of higher education. Academic Freedom, while it does give professors and students the option and the encouragement to study controversial subjects and discuss them in their class, does not give students or faculty the blanket protection for any and every type of free speech. Professors should not slander the administration, other professors, the students, or any other person and claim that it is permissible because they have the “academic freedom” to do so. Similarly, although a professor is at liberty to bring up other fields in their classes, it is not advisable for professors to bring in controversial subjects in fields that differ from the class that the professors teach. Academic freedom, then, facilitates learning and instruction because it helps eliminate concerns some professors may have over the security of their job. As Gary Olson puts it in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Institutions benefit from the system because their faculty members may go on to produce groundbreaking work that brings greater distinction to the institutions. But a college or university has no comparable incentive to protect extra-disciplinary speech because such discourse is peripheral to the normal workings of the campus.”