With Faith in Mind
With Faith In Mind is intended for academically-minded, ecumenical Christians. Our goal is to engage listeners with a thoughtful and faith-informed perspective on important issues and big questions that our society faces. We do this by having real conversations with people who have great stories and expertise. In our first series, titled “Christian Education at the Crossroads," we’re interviewing top leaders and scholars in the Christian education space.
With Faith in Mind
Christian College Abroad: The International Perspective
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Shirley Roels, the executive director of the International Network for Christian Higher Education (INCHE), joins John Terrill for a discussion on the international landscape of Christian higher education.
Learn about Shirley Roels & INCHE
With Faith in Mind is produced at Upper House in Madison, Wisconsin and hosted by Director of University Engagement Dan Hummel and Executive Director John Terrill. Jesse Koopman is the Executive Producer. Upper House is an initiative of the Stephen & Laurel Brown Foundation.
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Welcome to the With Faith in Mind podcast and our current series entitled Christian Education at the Crossroads. I'm one of the hosts, John Terrell, and I am excited about today's conversation where we explore the character of Christian higher education globally. In this episode, we welcome Dr. Shirley Rules to the show. Shirley, it is so nice to see you. Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01It's good to be here.
SPEAKER_04Well, it is good to have you here. Let me tell our listeners a little bit about Shirley. Dr. Rules is the executive director of the International Network for Christian Higher Education, otherwise known as INCH. Previously, she was the director of the network for vocation and undergraduate education, hosted by the Council of Independent Colleges USA. Shirley is also a professor emeritus at Calvin University in the field of management, where she served as department chair, academic dean, grant director, and director of the Van Lunen Center for Executive Management in Christian Schools. Her authored or edited publications include Business Through the Eyes of Faith on Moral Business, Organizational Man, Organizational Women, Calling, Leadership, and Culture, and Reformed Mission in an Age of World Christianity. Shirley, your bio is long. I could go on and on, but um I uh you've been played such a prominent role in Christian education for so many years. And um and you've committed your life to this. And so I'd like to start off our conversation today um asking you about a teacher or mentor uh who played an important role in your life that helped you decide to go into this field. I wonder if you could just share a story or a person uh from your background that that really made a difference for you with respect to your decision to really commit your life to Christian higher education.
SPEAKER_00I would cite one person who immediately comes to mind, he was my undergraduate advisor. His name was Del Nykamp. He was a professor of communications. I was a first semester inexperienced freshman in his course, scared to death. And it was a course in public speaking. He encouraged me. Um, I looked at the sophomores and juniors around me, and he said, you can do this just like they are, even though they're a year or two older than you are. And I was very encouraged in my work through him. Um, I think he helped me to frame my own education more broadly as a Christian, so that I was connecting all of the pieces. So I saw all of my education as faith-infused. And he was an important person in terms of practical guidance on courses that I was taking. I also had him as a professor in several courses. So I have very fond memories of his influence. And specific people make a difference for each of us.
SPEAKER_04Oh, absolutely. That's a great story. And I don't I don't know about your undergraduate work. Was it at Calvin University?
SPEAKER_00It was at Calvin. I was an under undergraduate in communications, which was a broad uh liberal arts major at the time. And then I had a minor in social sciences at the time.
SPEAKER_04I could imagine that it's wonderful to have that kind of example, uh, particularly in um public speaking situations, to reflect back on his encouragement and see his face in some of those challenging situations that I'm sure you've had to be in where you're speaking in front of large groups or having to communicate in delicate ways.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. I I learned a lot. I learned about semantics, I learned about group communications, I learned about persuasion, um, many things from him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That's a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Well, one of the reasons we thought you would be such a fantastic guest is that you can help us contextualize Christian education outside of North America. Um, in some ways, you know, we think you can really help us bust some myths. Um for many of us, um, and I'll speak for myself, a natural inclination is to think that organizational life around the world mirrors what we experience here. Um I think we can think monolithically about it, we can tend to overgeneralize. But my guess is that that's not the case with Christian colleges located in different parts of the world. Um and so I you know, I want to ask and lead with this question. Do Christian colleges around the world look like North American Christian colleges and universities, or are they different?
SPEAKER_00And the answer, of course, is it all depends.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, what I would observe is that there are some very established universities and colleges around the world that have been in existence and they're Christian. They've been here for more than 100 years. And in those kinds of cases, they frequently look more like North American colleges and universities. But with the global growth of Christianity in the South and East, there has been an absolute explosion of new Christian colleges and universities, many of which are anywhere from one to 25 years old. Uh, they're much younger as organizations, huge amounts of energy, huge amounts of vision, and they are still finding themselves in terms of organizational processes, trying to recruit faculty and trying to do a lot of things. So it really is highly varied around the world. I'll give you, I'll give you one working example. The country of Uganda realized about 30 years ago that they did not, as a small country, have the resources to build much of a public university system. So they shaped their system to encourage private institutions. And I believe 24 or 25 Christian universities were born within the next 15 years. Wow.
SPEAKER_01And it is a huge force in a country like that.
SPEAKER_04What are the numbers? Uh I'm just thinking about we're going to talk a little bit about your organization. Um, but just for for the for the for understanding kind of scale and scope, and and maybe there isn't a total number, but can you can you talk about numbers? Can you talk about numbers regionally? How many Christian colleges and universities are there outside of North America?
SPEAKER_00It it is really a total number that I don't know, but I would say it is probably in the thousands. Okay. Um, you know, what we find is that when you go into a context, for example, like India, where I have some connections, the deeper we dig, the more Christian colleges we find. And we have discovered there is a there's a significant network of them, or probably 60 or 70 of them at least in the country. Um, and then you go to another country, they're still building their systems. For example, in Nigeria, I just found a new uh Pentecostally based university, which seems to have excellent academic quality. Well, they just started in 2015. So, you know, these institutions keep growing and emerging uh and beginning. So it's hard to get a total number.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. And by uh comparison standards, I uh about 150 um Christian colleges and universities, they're probably more than that, but I think some of the associations are at about 150, 200 in the US. Is that about right?
SPEAKER_00It depends on how you define what it means to be a Christian college or university. If you if you say that a Christian college or university in the United States, for example, was historically founded and remains connected to some underlying religious order or Christian denomination or not, you know, multi-denominational group, then I would say in the United States, there are several hundred. Um if you want to say that there is a tighter configuration of saying what constitutes being a Christian college is that all your faculty are Christian, then you're between 100 and 150, probably.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And it gets complicated when you start uh drawing in Catholic colleges and universities. And it really changes the dynamic.
SPEAKER_00And and people do not realize that even within the United States, with a strong force, Catholic colleges and universities have become in part because of discrimination against Catholic schools that began in the mid-1800s. And the sense we can't be part of the public sector as much, so we will build our own educational systems.
SPEAKER_04Right. Well, I'm gonna ask you to generalize here just as we get started, um, and then I'm gonna try not to do that again. But what would you say is the biggest difference with respect to Christian higher education outside of North America versus in North America? If you had to sort of list the biggest difference, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01I would I would cite a couple of things.
SPEAKER_00First of all, I would say that the the balance between general education based in the liberal arts and uh education that is more applied and in applied fields of study is often different. Um because in a lot of emerging economies and less developed majority world countries, there's there's such a press for people who have knowledge and skills that is useful in terms of building the community, building the economy, building business, building governments. And so, you know, I would say a lot of the universities, you you go into them with the expectation that you are going to major in agriculture or education or business or engineering or information technology or social work or something like that. You don't start as readily with a couple years of general education and coursework study. And that is a little bit of a flip from the US model where most people say, well, the first year or two is general study, and then you gradually concentrate more in an applied field. So that's one big difference. Um the other big difference, I would say, is that people in the United States do not realize how blessed we are in terms of a support network for private higher education in the United States. We have a governmentally funded, federally funded financial aid system that supports students in both public and private universities. Um not have an equivalent like that. There are exceptions. Canada is pretty generous, but a lot of countries don't have a system like that. Uh students are on their own. It's parents and students working together to finance the whole works.
SPEAKER_04Even even in public universities, not just private, but even public universities. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so um, and and around the world, there isn't the kind of tax structure we had in the United States that encourages donors to give funds to private and public universities. There's many countries don't have so the whole financing mechanism is quite different.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, really, really interesting. We I imagine there are um, again, I just asked you to generalize. I'm gonna ask you to do it again, but um but in a different kind of way. If you think about the regions of the world, are there similarities um that that bear on particular regions? Um I know your work is on six continents, I think. So you you have a chance to kind of work regionally. What uh what similarities or differences do you see across regions of the world?
SPEAKER_00I think probably uh one of the similarities occurs just because of the age of institutions. So if you look at the context of Europe and North America, US and Canada, uh private Christian higher education has been around for quite some time. Although Canada's situation is quite different than the US. The Canadian government didn't believe that private Christian higher education could actually work until being convinced by example in the last 40 years. But generally, you do find a fair number of similarities with particularly Western Europe and the US and with Australia too, in terms of um what is there. Although the the Christian college movement in Australia has resolved in a number of smaller uh schools. But um that it's considerably different from what you find in um uh Africa, for example, where you have many younger institutions. And I would say what's interesting, of course, is that every continent has differences. So in Latin America, the primary providers of Christian higher education are Catholic universities. Well, that's logical given the overlay of Spanish uh and and uh Portuguese colonialism that it would be Catholic. And so you don't find near as many um Protestant institutions, they're quite rare in Latin America, but the Catholic institutions, some of them are quite serious about what does faith have to do with learning. So it's and then of course, Asia is its own context, and it varies from country to country. Korea has some many strong Christian universities in Korea because of the high rates of conversion to Christianity over the course of a century. Um in China, because of government repression, it's very difficult to be in that context. And it really is not possible in mainland China to have a private Christian university. Um, Indonesia, on the other hand, it's probably more than 85% Muslim, but they've created space for Christian universities, and there are a couple of very lively and very effective ones in Indonesia. So might vary.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's really interesting. Are there a couple of real hot spots, uh, countries uh around the world where they just seem to high high proliferation of new Christian colleges and universities, and they just seem to be really generating lots of activity?
SPEAKER_00I would say that um in Africa there's a lot going on because of the high uh conversion rates to Christianity. Uh you go to a country like Kenya, and most people will say roughly 80% of the population in Kenya is now Christian, which is huge. And these are people, families looking for education for their children. Um and there are a huge, I mean, there's just a huge number of Christian colleges and universities that's grown up in Kenya. Um the thing they're trying to find their way through is to say, well, we don't just compete, we ought to cooperate and help each other too. Um and and so I recall a meeting we had in Nairobi before the pandemic, we gathered a bunch of them who are that are within an hour of Nairobi for lunch, and they all looked at each other and they said, Why aren't we talking more to each other and helping each other? And then, of course, the pandemic began, so we're still left without question. Um, but that's I'd say that's a hot spot, as is Uganda, without question. The other place I would say is Nigeria. Um there are several very, very strong, solid um Christian universities in Nigeria that are growing up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well, that that's really interesting to hear. And I imagine um I can just hear your passion as you share some of those stories. And I would love to hear a little bit about your story, which I know is is really rich, particularly your vocational story. What what brought you to Inch? I know there's a story there, Shirley.
SPEAKER_00I I laughed because someone once asked me how I got this job. And I said, that's because God has a good sense of humor about my calling. It's just, you know, I mean, I decided by the time I was 25, I had a half-completed application to seminary and thought, yeah, it's it's not the con. I believe in the importance of the church, but it I don't belong inside the context of the church per se, uh leading a congregation. What is it? And it it struck me it was my great love of education um and my love of management and my love of theology that all led me to say the future really where I belong is Christian higher education in some way. But how it would take shape, who knew? And um I I loved my years of teaching, but I have this some people think it's an odd bet toward administrating and organizing programs and initiatives, and I think that's really what the non-administrators amongst us don't think it's a strange bet. They're they're grateful for the bet, but yeah, and so that's really what I've done without a without an obvious path. I I think I just I looked at what was in front of me, and the question was you know, what needs doing that you know about that your position to do so? That's a sense of calling. So it wasn't anything dramatic, but that's what occurred.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and so you've been at inch how many years?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've been involved in this network probably since the late 1980s when I first learned about it and was always curious about global Christian higher education, but it wasn't something I could do a lot with early on. Um, but in the 90s, my world got a lot bigger. I was invited to lecture in both mainly mainland China and in Russia. So I've been in Russia four times, I've been in mainland China three times lecturing and participating in seminars. And that really broadened my thinking about a lot of things. Um and and so I always had a hand in this network. I was always a member. I wasn't in a specific leadership role, but I always read the newsletter and I always paid attention. And um when the prior, one of the prior directors left in his office was right across the hall from mine, and I knew they needed a new director, and I thought, well, maybe, maybe not. And then I got an email from a couple of Christians in Slovakia who they said, can't you do something to help us in Christian higher education? I thought, okay, that's it. I have to, I have to think about this. And then it happened from there.
SPEAKER_04It was a little bit like Paul's call to Macedonia or something. You couldn't couldn't quite resist that. Um that that's really well tell I know our listeners would love to hear about um Inch, uh mission, vision, um, goals. Um it plays such a crucial role. Could you describe what it is that Inch does around the world?
SPEAKER_00I'd start by saying this Inch was not a North American creation. This network was born in South Africa in 1975 by um some Christian philosophers and theologians who said we should talk to people on other continents and learn from each other and organized a conference. And things went from there with periodic conferences, but it's not a North American invention. Um and we are active on six continents. We have primarily college and university members. Uh, we've got between 40 and 50 universities and colleges that are active members of our network. Um, our primary work is, we say it is to inform, connect, and equip. And so we try to inform people around the world of what their counterparts are doing. So, you know, if you're in a medical school in one country in a university that's Christian, we try to find and connect you to a medical school in another country that's doing something similar. Um, similar, you know, if people are in the field of education, we try to connect them so they learn from each other. So, you know, informing and connecting people and then equipping people. As we have grant funds available, we do professional development projects, um, primarily for faculty members to help them think about how does Christian faith and a framework of faith affect how we teach and learn, what we teach and learn, and how we tell Christian students to go about engaging their cultures. Um so, for example, we just started a new um grant project in Africa called Pre Preparing Regional. Redemptive change agents. And we will work with faculty on how do we think about what it means to educate our students to become redemptive change agents in their culture and curricularly and teaching-wise, what do we do to help that happen?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Shirley, that leads me into my next question. And I'd love to know more about the reasons students and families pursue Christian education in different parts of the world. You've talked about some of these cultural challenges and engaging culture, but I'm I'm curious to know what you've learned about the reasons that families and students in particular pursue Christian education.
SPEAKER_00There are lots of reasons. I think some families think that they really want their sons and daughters to learn more about the Bible and about theology. And they think a Christian college or university is the right, the best place to do that as an extension that can go deeper than a local congregation can. That's attractive to people in many cases. So there are lots of combined reasons why people seek that. And often parents can't pay for it. So sometimes, a lot of times, it's the 18, 19-year-old saying, I want to do this and I will get a job so that I can afford to pay for it. Sometimes they're gone for a semester or two because they're working to raise money so they can come back for the next semester. That's not uncommon.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So a lot of the Christian colleges, uh colleges and universities have, as you've noted, have a strong applied orientation. Yeah. Um they're they're you know focused on the trades. I imagine computer programming, things like this. That um I I don't know what the fields are, but business. I imagine, you know, we could look through a list of majors and you would probably see business and engineering and some of those kinds of things before you would see the arts and humanities. Okay. You know, I uh do do the Christian colleges and universities have substantive arts and humanities programs? Do they um do they not do that? Um, where do where do students typically go after they graduate, the kinds of jobs they take or the the degrees they pursue? Just curious to hear a little bit about the trajectory of what happens. Again, I'm gonna ask you to generalize. And maybe you maybe there's a particular part of the world or a country you'd like to zero in on to kind of paint a picture of this. But I'd I'd love to kind of think about students um in uh different parts of the world with respect to how it's different or similar to what students do this this side of the world.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll give you an I'll give you an interesting example about this question of the balance of applied study versus liberal arts in India. What's really fascinating in India right now is that a lot of these Christian colleges started in very applied fields. And now what they've come to realize is that if you're in applied field, you still have to be able to write well, speak well, think well, uh, and you've got to be able to rest well and appreciate beauty. Uh, that these things are all important in terms of someone being able to build a life where they can contribute appropriately. So in India right now, there's a big drive to enhance and increase general education studies in addition to the applied studies. So it's almost as if they're they're backing into a model where the US is you know trending a little bit in the other direction right now. So it's quite interesting to think about how these things shift around the world. I think we're all going to settle out in some balance of general education with applied study because we need both. Um but you know, where do people go? Um, yeah, a lot of people do stay in their home countries. Now that's good and right, because what we don't want to do in Krishna higher education is create brain drains in areas of the world which really, really need educated people. Um so maybe they go to work um in churches and in government, uh in education as teachers, um, in social services. I would say in developing countries, because you don't have necessarily all the structured employment options you would hope for, a lot of people become entrepreneurial and open their own businesses. That is not uncommon after you graduate, because that's the option in front of you, and you figure out something worthwhile to do in your culture. Um, you know, in time, a number of students do go on to advanced study. And um gratefully, there are more PhD and MBA kinds of programs of quality that are in their home countries and regions. So you don't necessarily have to leave your continent to do that. Um, or you may, you know, you may go from Kenya to South Africa or something like that, but you're not leaving the African continent as a result. But there's there still is a fair amount at the graduate and professional level, there's still a fair amount of cross-global kind of work. Now, what's interesting is that where people go depends on global conditions. So when the United States tightened up immigration regulations and was a less welcoming place for international students, Chinese students said, Well, we don't have to go there, we'll go to Australia. And they did in very large numbers. And so student generations flow depending on what conditions are. Some of it has been very affected by the relative tightness of COVID regulations over the last three years. So it varies. Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's really helpful. What about the faculty? Where do the faculty come from? Um, are they developed or kind of homegrown? Do they come from different parts of the world? What do you what trends do you see there?
SPEAKER_00That's, I'd say that is one of the biggest challenges in these younger Christian universities around the world is finding and securing and retaining qualified faculty. Um, what many of them will do as they as they are beginning in their early years, they will find you know, three or four really strong anchor people who are deeply uh committed to Christian faith and are strong senior, wise leaders. Um and then from there to to find faculty in all these fields, uh, you find a lot of people who cross over. It's during the day they teach in public universities and then they teach a night course or two in the Christian university. Um, you'll find people who span more than one Christian university and teach in a couple different ones. Um and and you know, some of these universities also send people off to advanced study with the intention that they will come back and serve in their universities. But it's it's a major challenge. Um, I think one of the ways, one of the things that's helped is some North American um colleges and universities actually are aware of the challenge, and they will, in effect, loan faculty to teach at other places for short periods of time. Um LCC International University in Lithuania has a number of North American faculty who are there and teach for a year or two. They have a wonderful experience there. It's just tremendous. Um and but then they go back to a home base often elsewhere. Some stay longer term. Um, when I taught in Russia in the summer of 2004, that was supported by a donor to the Calvin University who believed that it was important for faculty to get international experience.
SPEAKER_01And it was a wonderful short-term teaching experience, which I still value.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and that that opens um the door to uh a question I've had, and that is the relationship between North American Christian colleges and universities and some of these emerging Christian colleges and universities around the world. In what ways are they partnering? It sounds like they're doing some faculty exchange. Are there other ways that you see partnership, or maybe a particular example that's just a real exemplar in this world?
SPEAKER_00I, you know, there for one thing, there are all kinds of student semester exchange programs. I we Inch does not do that work because the institutions themselves do it so well at this point.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, but most colleges or universities have some kinds of exchange partnerships with areas around the world and specific partners they've come to rely on, come to know. They know families who house students who have done it for 15, 20 years. Um, and what's interesting as well is that I think when we have student semester exchanges, you see more crossover among theological traditions. So you may find Protestant colleges and universities that are partnering up with Catholic universities in some areas of the world because they think it's the best match. Um, and and that's pretty healthy. Um, so there's a lot of student exchange. I think um faculty um partnerships, there are some limited faculty partnerships related to research and scholarship. Um, and that's one of the things we try to help happen. The Fulbright organization with their faculty Fulbright Awards is very helpful in that regard. So I know of a Calvin University professor who was able to go to Nigeria, to her home country, have a full, she had a, I don't think it was Fulbright, I think it was Carnegie, but she had an award to spend some time there with the people working with them, and then they visited back in the United States. Um those kinds of things are very helpful. Um, but we do need global research to be done. Things like climate change don't stay in anybody's backyard, they affect all of us all the time. So we need to be doing global projects together.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it sounds like there are lots of opportunities there and some really good examples. We talked a little bit about economics, and I imagine there's um a lot of North American Christian colleges and universities that would love to recruit promising international students, and some of these um younger Christian colleges and universities, and and established ones around the world would love to retain those students in their respective um countries. Um I I'd love to hear uh and and and the North American colleges and universities can offer you know significant financial aid, aid, scholarships, things like that. What are the economic models um and and sort of the the pressure points that um students encounter and have to overcome in different parts of the world? Um I so it'd be interesting to explore that from a student perspective, and then I you know I want to follow up with some questions around the the organizational perspective, but what what challenges do students face?
SPEAKER_00I you know, the biggest challenge for students is how do you pay for it? Um because many times students in other countries beyond the United States don't have governmental financial aid that can follow them no matter where they go in the world. Now, the UK is building a new system for that called the Turing System, which I think will be better than what they did before. And you do find an exchange among the EU countries through the Erasmus scholarship system, which helps them to exchange students. So they help each other. But still, in the majority world, the big question is how does a student from Brazil who wants to attend a college in the United States, how do you pay for it? When you don't have any federal financial aid, then it's all family resources. So if you're from a well-to-do family that can afford it, they pay. And if you're not, you don't see an easy way to do this. Now, um, Christian colleges and universities in the United States try to be responsive, and many of them do have scholarships to help students from other areas of the world because they think it's really healthy for any student body to have some international students in it to open up our perspectives on what does it mean to be Christian? It's not just all about your country, it's about you know God's work in the whole of the world. So so that's that's important to them. And so they they do have scholarships, many funded by donors who over time have a heart for the same thing. Often the scholarship will pay maybe half of the cost, but the student still has to come up with the other half. So it's a huge challenge. Um, it's a huge challenge to be able to study in the United States. And of course, they don't even have access in many cases to things like student loan programs that American students have access to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So huge sacrifices on the part of families to to help that happen.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it sounds like it. What do the institutions do? Um I they don't have um government assistance. Do they uh are do they rely on individual benefactors? Are these um universities and colleges mostly tuition driven? Uh how do they make it work? What are the models that you have seen out there and what um what seems to be successful? Um, particularly with these with some of the emerging uh colleges and universities that are trying to get their footing?
SPEAKER_00These these are mostly tuition-based models.
SPEAKER_01That this is what students and parents pay.
SPEAKER_00Uh faculty salaries are very modest, but people work incredibly hard with high teaching loads because they're dedicated to a cause. And the university hopes and prays and plans that its budget holds together year to year. Um and that's how it gradually develops. And um there's there's a lot of faith out there in in very big ways as these institutions stretch themselves in the future. I when I was in Uganda and I talked to the people there, they said, we at Uganda Christian University, which is Anglican in its basis, they said, well, we weren't sure how we were going to fund a medical and dental school, but we knew our country needed one and we felt called to do it. So we did it. And you go, oh my goodness. But they worked to figure it out. Um, but it's you know, it's a big challenge because you don't have the kind of cultivated networks of donors that you have longstanding in the US. You don't have the foundation structure where you can go to a private foundation and ask for grants. That's not near as common around most of the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, it's really a unique situation we have here. The the models, I know the the models or delivery mechanisms um play a big role in cost, um, you know, virtual versus in-person. Um what are what models do you see out there? Is it kind of a mix from traditional campuses where students live on campus to hybrid model, commute commuter models where students come in for the day and leave, and so universities don't need to create all the infrastructure to virtual models. What do you see out there? And again, I'm asking you to generalize, but um it'd be really interesting to know if it in some ways reflects the range of possibilities we have in North America.
SPEAKER_00I I would say this about models. Um, most of the models that I've encountered are campus-based, um, but not all of the campus-based models include residential housing. That's very common in Christian colleges and universities in the United States. It's uncommon in the rest of the world. You know, students expect to go home at night and live with their families or live in a neighborhood with a family there as the basis for going to the university. But residential housing on campus is more rare. Um, but here's the big thing the pandemic changed everything.
SPEAKER_04Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Because when you have a campus-based module model, just like in the US, well, and nobody can be on campus because of virus spread and fear of it, and everybody has to go home, well, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01Virtually anybody who could figure anything out went online in some way.
SPEAKER_00Um, and even I had I have we have a small Bible college in eastern Uganda that's in our network, and and I know they don't have much of a technological infrastructure, and they said, We're open and we're teaching. And I'd I said, Pastor Moses, how how are you doing this?
SPEAKER_01And he said, Well, we have phones.
SPEAKER_00So they were downloading all their lessons, all their teaching to people's phones, and that's what they did during the pandemic. So I think on this side, as we graduate as the pandemic gradually recedes around the world and we find our way. Now you see much more because these universities they had to upgrade their IT infrastructures just to do anything. They had to do something, and they had been working on it and they realized it's a priority. So now there's much more experimentation with combination programs that are some residential, in-person with some uh computer. I I know one place in South Africa that's trying to educate Christian teachers, and they've created a second program where students mostly from rural areas are homesteading a good share of the week, but then they come into their campus for these intensive in-person weekend occasions because they still think the in-person is important, but how you do it and when you do it and the balance is different now after the pandemic.
SPEAKER_04So it's so helpful, and it it raises another question for me. In the North American model, there are so many extracurricular, co-curricular um opportunities, and I think a lot of these institutions see that as really important formative uh uh components of what it means to get a Christian education. And it sounds like um in other parts of the world, because of um lack of infrastructure or just the dynamics of an urban setting or whatever it is, rural setting, um, some of this can be really challenging, that it's it's it's a model that doesn't lean as heavily on the extracurricular and co-curricular, and maybe there just isn't the margin to do that. Um but I'm curious, are are some are are you starting to see some Christian colleges in other parts of the world um move in the direction of co-curricular, uh, extracurricular, um formative kinds of experiences that that look more typical to the American model?
SPEAKER_01I think there is some movement in that direction.
SPEAKER_00I I think a lot of the the colleges and universities I work with have some sports programs. You know, sometimes they're club sports, but of course, around the world, for example, soccer is everywhere. And soccer as a sport doesn't have to be that expensive. So, so you know, they they lean toward uh sports opportunities that are less expensive uh for the students so they. You know, they don't have quite the equipment costs or the infrastructure costs of building big stadiums or things like that. But but they think that there is value from what students learn from team sports. So you so you do see them, um, and you do see competitive clubs of of things like soccer and uh other sports around the world. The variety depends on, I mean, you see cricket in some places and and um tennis in others, and um, but it's there. Um, but they do realize I don't think there's many in most places because many students do need to work part of the time to make money to afford the tuition, to pay the tuition. Um, so it so it's a it's a little different balance. But it's it's not, these are not sterile environments that people just come and go. There, there are clubs, there are communities, there are student organizations. Um, there are, you know, there are small coffee shops and gathering places for lunch, you know, that where there's a real social life where people are making friends and lifelong, you know, acquaintances.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, that's I uh you've painted a really vivid picture of that. As you walk around these places uh in different parts of the world, you see those kinds of interactions. Um students together, you know, doing a lot of the things that college students do, right? They forming friendships that really do last a lifetime. Shirley, you're a management um theorist. Um if you had to sort of describe the growth curve of global Christian education, um how would you describe the curve? Where where is it uh in in its life cycle?
SPEAKER_00I think it depends on what continent you're part of.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um, and it it also depends on what your vision for Christian education is. If you think that Christian education is primarily focused on 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, emerging adults, then Europe and North America are not growth markets. Because you know, birth rates have fallen. We already know that babies that weren't born, you know, 17, 18 years ago are not going to be going to college in 20 years from now. Um but that assumes your only idea is that it that this kind of education is for people who are 18 or 19. You know, there are some institutions who have said there are multiple phases of life where Christian education is really important, and they've reinvented themselves to offer education to people in their 30s and 40s who are focused on building professional knowledge, and then people who are older who say, I really want to take a pottery class, and I'm 65 and I can do it now, and they want to go back to a Christian college to do it. So it depends on how many different, you know, um, people in different stages of life you think it's about. But if I had to think about the growth curve in the global South and East, it is going to be huge. I believe that 50% or more of the African sub-Saharan population is under the age of 18. I mean, there are countries where the average age is only in the early 30s because there are so many more children that have been born, and with the increases in the quality of global health care, a family that used to have four or five children and have a couple of them die before they were five years old. Now these children live and they're growing up. And there are millions of them that are going to seek education. So, you know, the the opportunities in some areas of the world uh are huge in places like Indonesia, in India, where populations are growing. Pakistan has a huge population. Um, sub-Saharan Africa, when you think about where they are in the life cycle of Christian higher education, they are very young in it yet.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So Shirley, just scale that. I I just I want to add that to sink in because um, you know, these kids who might have otherwise perished due to disease or lack of nutrition or water, they're now growing up healthy because of advances in medicine and um other kinds of you know, uh health, hygiene kinds of things. Um just scale it. Like how how many Christian c just uh how many Christian colleges could a a place like Uganda host um or Kenya? Just uh, you know, as one example, you know, could there be thousands of these institutions in a place like that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, again, it's it's a very context-specific uh answer. For example, in Kenya, there was a huge growth in the Christian colleges between about 2000 and 2017-18, because there was this mentality that every child growing up should go into higher education and should be allowed. And then the Kenyan government looked at what they were doing and how much it was costing and said, you know what? We have to raise the level of the qualifying scores on 12th grade examinations that qualify people to go to any university, and they did, and it cut the population of people who could go to a university in half. But it also depends on how specific countries regulate and structure their systems in terms of who is eligible for higher education, and it also depends on what people can afford and how you finance it. And so financially healthy countries are going to have many more uh people pursuing Krishna higher education than countries that are in economic trouble.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's really complex. It it sounds like it. Uh you know, one of the things that we didn't talk about accreditation standards. I imagine that that's something that's starting to emerge as well. Are you starting to see that become more central in some of in some of these countries and regions of the world?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Most of these countries realize that they have to have some kind of an accrediting structure to have quality results. And they're serious about it. Um, so you know it's it's varied, and you have to try to figure it out. And every country has its own system, and you have to try to learn as you go. But in our network, for example, you can only be a full institutional member if you are nationally accredited, because we at least see that as one screen uh of control related to quality. Um, yeah, you can be an affiliate member of our network and we'll help you if you're not yet accredited. But to be a full institutional member, you need to be accredited. But most countries realize that accreditation is a means to be helpful in setting some standards and having institutions rise to the standard.
SPEAKER_01So they work at it.
SPEAKER_04I want to start moving our um conversation to a conclusion. Um, I'm gonna ask this last this question in the form of, in some ways, it it's kind of a prayer request. Um, but what you know, you've painted a picture of opportunities and challenges, and and you've done so vividly. Um what's the key thing that you hope our listeners um take away, particularly in in uh in the possibilities? I'd love to hear you sort of respond to that. And then how can how can um for those who care about Christian education and care about different parts of the world, what's a practical way that somebody could get involved?
SPEAKER_01I think one of the things to pray about is that nations that really need Christian higher education are open to it.
SPEAKER_00Um you know nations have different systems of openness to Christianity, um but you do sometimes see remarkable changes. Uh in Pakistan right now, Chris where Christians are about five percent of the population, there's a new openness to um a Christian university supported by Korean missionaries, that you think, where did this come from? And somehow in the Pakistani government, all of a sudden it seemed like a good idea. So, you know, pray for places like that. Um and and I would say, you know, we can't all do everything, but find a place, a region of the world in a country and a particular institution that you care about. And many of these um institutions have partnership funds in the United States to which you can contribute very easily with a standard U.S. tax deduction for a donation. And you can help to support them and their work by contributing um to that work through a U.S. partnership fund that they host here. Um, and I would encourage you to do so. It's amazing what difference a few hundred dollars can make in many areas of the world. Um, and sometimes it's the money, and sometimes it's the it's the message that the money sends, which is we are with you. We are Christians with you who care about the education and formation of your children as Christians, and we are with you from North America to wherever you are. You're not alone.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's that's so helpful. Well, well said. And we will put in the show notes um contact information for Shirley in the International Network for Christian Higher Education. Inch uh is an institution that is working um at the forefront of all these issues. And um it's a place people can give as well, right? And direct their resources.
SPEAKER_00We certainly accept donations, no question.
SPEAKER_04Uh so that's great. And and you can also, I know your organization can also address questions for those who might be motivated to get involved and wonder how how to take a next step in a particular region of the world. So that's really helpful. Shirley, as we begin to as we wrap here, I I'd love to hear. Um, I know you have your hands in lots of different things. Is there something you're working on right now that you're just really excited about? I know you've, you know, you're an author and um you bring a lot of expertise to organizational leadership. Um it might be connected to your work with Inch, uh, something else you're working on. But what do you what are you working on these days that that has you really excited? Uh, maybe it's a new angle or a fresh angle on some of your work that you've been committed to for so many years.
SPEAKER_00One of the things that I keep working on that got a little stalled during the pandemic, is I'm really trying to get our network to create a small-scale seminar for senior leaders who teach business in their Christian universities to think deeply about how faith and theology ought to connect with the goals, the structures, the practices, the ethics of business. That brings me all the way back to my teaching field where I started. But I just think one of the things the world really needs is ethical Christian business leaders. And if we can create a seminar where we teach the teachers who then teach the students, maybe we will have added something that the world really needs. So that's that's the thing I spent time on this morning. Um was thinking about my strategy for that, where we would host it, who would be part of it. I started to make a list of people we might invite.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's wonderful. Well, that that touches my heart. I care about that that field as well. So I am so glad you're leaning into that. And um, I'm excited to hear that you're excited about that and you're working on it. So um that's that's fantastic. Well, Shirley, I've enjoyed this. I so appreciate all the work that you do. Um, thank you for your heart for the world um and the way you're invested in Christian education around the globe. It's making a big difference, and you've inspired us today with some wonderful stories. So we are grateful for your time and for your work.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks for having me today. This is work I love, and um, I'm glad to share at least some knowledge of it with everyone else.
SPEAKER_04Well, we appreciate it, Shirley. Thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for joining us. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, be sure to subscribe and give us a rating on your favorite podcast app. Also, be sure to check out our upcoming events on upperhouse.org and our other podcast upwards, where we dig deeper into the topics our in-house guests are passionate about. With Faith in Mind is supported by the Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation. It is produced at Upper House in Madison, Wisconsin, hosted by Dan Hummel and John Terrell. Our executive producer and editor is Jesse Koopman. Please follow us on social media with the handle at Upper House UW.