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…

Paul S. Boyer was the youngest of the three Boyer brothers, with Bill the oldest and Ernie in the middle. Paul served on the faculty in the history department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and was referred to by the "New York Times" upon his death on March 17, 2012, as "an intellectual historian who wrote groundbreaking…

The educational theories and policies promoted by Ernest L. Boyer (1928-1995), who served as chancellor of the SUNY system, U.S. Commissioner (Secretary) of Education, and president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, were significantly influenced by his affiliations with the Brethren in Christ Church and the Society of…

This article explores the historical roots of Ernest Boyer's impact on Christian higher education in the United States. Boyer's stints as a student at two Christian colleges (Messiah College in Pennsylvania and Greenville College in Illinois) and his first faculty and administrative posts at Upland College in California were significant…

This article considers the significance of Boyer's work on general education for Christian colleges and universities. After beginning with a synthesis and analysis of Boyer's vast body of work on general education, this article then identifies the challenges facing those concerned with renewing the general education program in Christian…

This article assesses the degree to which Christian scholarship has responded to the rise of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). To what degree, and with what kind of disciplinary and chronological distribution, have overtly Christian publications in scholarly journals evidenced a concern with questions of teaching and learning? This…

People tend to evaluate themselves more favorably than they evaluate others, a tendency that is known as the better-than-average effect (BTA effect; Alicke, 1985; Brown, 1986). In an attempt to demonstrate the concept of the BTA effect, a classroom exercise was conducted with 78 undergraduate students in an "Introduction to Psychology"…

This article presents a historical defense of liberal arts education--a philosophy that is commonly claimed among Christian colleges and universities--in order to provide an understanding of liberal education to skeptics and subscribers alike. A subsequent discussion of the role of mathematics in the liberal arts tradition contends that…

In this article the selected works of Ernest Boyer are examined in the context of curricular and cocurricular integration. The authors argue that Boyer advocated for a closer connection between the academic and student affairs programs on American college campuses and further contend that this is particularly true and important for Christian…

The integration of faith and learning is regarded to be a primary distinctive of Christian higher education, yet this terminology conveys a false dichotomy. The frequent call for integration suggests that the Christian faith and learning belong to different areas of knowledge and practice; consequently, there is a need for bringing the two realms…

An increasing number of universities have initiated activities and assignments to foster empathic and altruistic behavior in students. This study is a report of an outcomes assessment of a poverty immersion experience in a Christian urban ministries course. Following Firmin's (2006) protocol, we used a qualitative methodology that included…

This article describes a qualitative study that involved two small private universities, examining their process of transformation from institutions headed toward closure to institutions that underwent a successful turnaround. The primary questions that guided the study included the issues and circumstances that led to the need for a turnaround,…

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…

The development of critical thinking skills among learners is a common educational goal across graduate theological schools. The purpose of this article is to provide a survey of some of the primary historical influences of the critical thinking movement in higher education in the United States and the movement's impact on graduate…

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…