As Korean, Japanese, and Australian universities see declining birthrates and a tapering off of the percentage of national age cohorts heading to universities, increased enrollments of international students are being pursued. As demographic changes force these universities to attract students from abroad, the globalization trend is also an…

The debate about the effectiveness of the liberal arts curriculum is centuries old, but recent financial and social pressures have placed the survival of the liberal arts in the United States at even greater risk. Using Kimball's (1995) notion of the oratorical and philosophical traditions of liberal education, this article first identifies…

In Australia, both Christian and non-Christian higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced a rapidly changing external environment that is becoming more performance-driven, particularly in relation to faculty research. Academics working in Australian Christian HEIs often feel pressure to keep pace with their counterparts in non-Christian…

Integrating faith with academics possesses significant benefits for students, because it connects major disciplines to students' personal values and goals, prepares students to be effective and faithful professionals in their discipline and vocation, and develops students' understanding of the nature of their discipline. However, to…

This study contributes to the understanding of the structural and cultural influences of Christian college environments on student activism through the framework of symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Mead, 1934). The goal of this research was to examine how the students at Christian institutions understand and engage in activism within their…

Colleges and universities are increasingly relying on philanthropic contributions to allow them to continue to provide high-quality education. Christian higher education is no different. African Americans give a larger percentage of their disposable income to nonprofits than any other racial group; this giving is primarily directed to the Black…

A qualitative case study methodology was used to determine what drives four Christian colleges attempting to become more diverse communities and what role their mission plays in seeking the change they desire. The focus was on analyzing the tension between the institutions' missions as Christian colleges and their desire to become more ethnically…

This paper takes a theoretical look at the relationship between ethnic identity formation, in-group ethnic affiliations, and academic achievement for students of color. To this end, the study examines the process of ethnic identity development and considers how human ecology theory, in particularly the concept of "ecocultural niches," may be…

This is a case study of the historical development of a private Christian faith-based school of higher education in post-Soviet Russia from its conception in 1990 until 2010. This binational school was founded as Russian-American Christian University (RACU) in 1996. In 2003, business and economics as well as social work undergraduate academic…

The Europeanization process has created new opportunities for Romanian Christian higher education institutions, but these are coupled with new waves of secularization. The secularization and the transformation of institutional identity are the result of inner institutional decisions only apparently, since these decisions were undertaken in order…

This qualitative case study sought to explicate relevant features of the spiritual climate at one liberal arts religious college and also highlight the diverse ways in which students, faculty, and staff identities shaped the experience of climate. The findings revealed that the spiritual climate of Lutheran College was a product of diverse and…

Persistence and retention have been studied extensively in higher education, but little research has been conducted on these areas in religiously affiliated institutions. The present study was designed to examine factors that influence the intentions of students to persist from their freshmen to sophomore year in private, religiously affiliated,…

Despite the fact that Baptists originated in 17th-century Europe, until recently Baptists had never established a liberal arts college or university in Europe. This essay explains what events took place to change this situation in Romania, the country where the first European Baptist university recently originated. It then undertakes a case study…

The Christian missionary movement is a kind of global movement that aims to evangelize the whole world; hence the concept of globalization can be useful for the study of Christianity as a worldwide movement. However, recent studies have suggested another equally important concept: the process of localization, which runs parallel to the process of…

This study incorporated an instrumental embedded case study design to explore how 15 faculty members and an administrator at one Catholic institution of higher education describe their responsibility to promote the academic mission of Ignatian spirituality. Interviews included Jesuit, Catholic, and non-Catholic faculty, and the president of Holy…