The Company You Keep: National Associations and Christian Higher Education

This special issue of Christian Higher Education: An International Journal of Research, Theory, and Practice underscores the role that national higher education associations play in supporting, directing, and promoting Christian colleges and universities. Commissioned by the journal’s previous coeditors, Karen A. Longman and Laurie A. Schreiner of Azusa Pacific University, most of the articles that follow were first presented to attendees of the 2022 International Forum hosted by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU). This quadrennial event convenes a diverse array of professionals serving in Christian postsecondary institutions around the world (CCCU, n.d.-a). In addition to plenary sessions featuring nationally known figures (CCCU, n.d.-b), the 2022 installment offered concurrent sessions divided into eleven tracks: Advocacy & Public Policy, Christians in the Public Square, Distinctiveness of Christian Higher Education, Enrollment & Demographics, Ethics & Technology, Financial Health & Resource Development, Human Sexuality, Innovating for the Future, Leadership, Presidents, and Racial & Ethnic Diversity and Inclusion (CCCU, n.d.-c). Presenters whose sessions were deemed outstanding received an invitation to submit a manuscript version of their presentation for publication in this special issue.

Although higher education associations wield significant influence over institutional values and behavior, they themselves are rarely the subject of formal academic study. To understand the position the CCCU occupies within the broader Christian higher education landscape, it is helpful to locate it in relation to other national associations whose membership also includes Christian postsecondary institutions. Bloland (1985) has provided a useful classification scheme for understanding how higher education associations function, and two categories in this scheme relate directly to Christian higher education: institutionally tied associations, which “seek to advance educational institutions as a whole,” and special task associations, which “perform specific functions for higher education, such as accreditation” (p. 13). Bloland also notes that associations can come in three forms: umbrella, core, and satellite.

The main umbrella association for American higher education is the American Council on Education (ACE), which coordinates collective action to shape public policy and institutional practice (ACE, n.d.). Located in the National Center for Higher Education at One Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, ACE also organizes the Washington Higher Education Secretariat (WHES), a chief-executive forum to which the CCCU belongs (WHES, n.d.).

Core associations have also been established for each of the major sectors of American higher education, such as public universities, private colleges, and community colleges. Faith-based institutions belong to the private college sector, which is served by two different core associations, one for each of the two primary functions performed by ACE. The Council for Independent Colleges (CIC) provides programming support for its member institutions, while the National Association for Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) handles lobbying efforts for the sector.

Satellite associations are dedicated to more narrow and specialized interests (Bloland, 1985), such as religious education. Six major associations serve the faith-based segment of the private sector of American higher education; one half could be classified as institutionally tied associations, and the other half could be classified as special task associations. The history of each institutionally tied association illustrates the social processes Bloland (1985) identified as influencing the formation of interest groups.

The first is complexity. Bloland (1985) explains that “as societies grow and become technically and socially more complex and specialized, associations are created to represent those specialized interests” (p. 25). He identifies the late 1800s as the dawn of growth and diversification within American higher education. The first institutionally tied association serving faith-based higher education, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), was founded near the beginning of this period (1899). A member of WHES, ACCU “strengthens and promotes the Catholic identity and mission of its member institutions” through programming, public information, and advocacy (ACCU, n.d., para. 1).

A second social process, entrepreneurship, spurs the formation of special interest groups through the “drive and ambition of one or a few persons to construct a viable association” (Bloland, 1985, p. 26). The aforementioned CCCU, originally founded in 1976 as the Christian College Coalition, owes its start to a handful of driven advocates, including former Seattle Pacific University president David McKenna, former Westmont College president John Synder, and former Christianity Today editor Carl F. H. Henry (Patterson, 2001). At present, CCCU is the largest institutionally tied higher education association serving Protestant colleges and performs both programmatic and advocacy functions (Patterson, 2001).

A final social process, disturbance, results from changes in society “ranging from innovations in technology to business cycles to changes in the federal law” that can lead newly disadvantaged groups to seek to “return to their former statuses through the organization of formalized interest groups” (Bloland, 1985, p. 25). Such a disturbance occurred in 2015, after some CCCU members changed their employment policies following the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, leading others to leave the association (Derrick, 2015). A few years later, many of these departing institutions joined the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE), a new institutionally tied association launched in 2020 to serve Protestant institutions (Kahler, 2019). IACE seeks to “unify, synergize, and strengthen collective conviction around biblical orthodoxy and orthopraxy, cultural witness, scholarship, professional excellence, and resourcing of Christian education at all levels” (IACE, n.d.).

Three special task satellite associations provide accreditation services for faith-based colleges and universities. The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) serves institutions within the Bible college movement, a collection of schools that primarily train students for full-time Christian ministry. The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) serves graduate theological institutions, such as seminaries and divinity schools. The Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) provides accreditation to Christian colleges and seminaries. While these special task associations differ in their particularities, common to all is the power to enforce standards for institutional practice.

Whether through formal accountability mechanisms or softer kinds of pressure such as normative isomorphism (Rine et al., 2022), higher education associations have the ability to shape the values and behavior of their member institutions. At its best, this directive capacity is used to encourage Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries to pursue their institutional missions more faithfully, and in so doing, to better serve students, church, and society. As the journal moves into a new season of service to the field, most welcome will be research that explores how associations across all segments of Christian higher education can achieve this lofty ideal.

P. Jesse Rine
Editor-in-Chief
Center for Academic Faithfulness & Flourishing, Greenville, South Carolina, USA
[email protected]