Faith and Faculty Autonomy at Calvin College

The faculty role in governing Calvin has helped maintain the trust necessary to protect academic freedom and advance the college’s mission.

By George N. Monsma, Jr.

Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college in the Reformed tradition of historic Christianity. Through our learning, we seek to be agents of renewal in the academy, church, and society. We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God’s work in God’s world. Our primary purpose is to engage in vigorous liberal arts education that promotes lifelong Christian service. . . . Another purpose is to produce substantial and challenging art and scholarship.

Calvin College recognizes the importance of academic freedom to the fulfillment of its mission, and its institutional regulations reflect this understanding. Its faculty handbook contains the following statement:

As an institution of higher learning, Calvin College is fully committed to the objective of excellence in research and teaching, and academic freedom for its faculty. . . . Every faculty member, whether tenured or untenured, shall be entitled to the right of academic freedom in the performance of his or her duties. The faculty member shall be judged only by the confessional standards of Calvin College, and by the professional standards appropriate to his or her role and discipline. . . . [Academic freedom] extends to the [faculty member’s] discipline in the classroom, to research, writings, and other public utterances in the field of professional competence.

The statement goes on to enunciate the right of faculty members to speak as citizens, with much of the language borrowed from the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Many academics, including many members of the AAUP, would deem it inappropriate to include "the confessional standards of Calvin College" in the criteria by which faculty are judged. Indeed, such a standard would be inappropriate for most colleges and universities today, given their missions. But I believe the provision is appropriate and useful to Calvin College, in light of its mission. Moreover, such a provision is allowed by the "limitations clause" of the 1940 Statement (although the AAUP’s 1970 Interpretive Comments stated that "we do not now endorse such a departure").

For any college or university, it is important for the faculty, the administration, the governing board, and any other authoritative body (such as a legislature or a religious organization) to share a common commitment to the institution’s mission. That mission should be clear, and the commitments required of faculty members, administrators, and board members must be clearly communicated and accepted by them before their initial appointments. If any commitment, including a religious one, required of faculty members is not plainly stated and understood at the outset, the assurance of academic freedom will be eroded, and faculty members may fear to teach or engage in research concerning controversial topics. This kind of uncertainty can hinder the pursuit of truth, which is so important to any college or university. Academic freedom will also be jeopardized if the required commitments are subject to change whenever the administration, governing board, or other governing body decides to change them. Sadly, such inconsistency has characterized some religiously affiliated colleges and universities.

At Calvin College all faculty members must commit to do their academic work in conformity with the doctrines in three historic creeds of the Reformed branch of Christianity (the confessional standards mentioned above). We agree to do so before we join the faculty, and our doing so gives us a common basis on which to work with others on campus and in the faith community. It is hard to see how Calvin could fulfill its mission unless most, if not all, of its faculty shared a commitment to it and to the faith on which it is based.

The implications of making this commitment differ somewhat according to discipline. For example, the creeds affirm that the world is God’s creation and that he reveals something of himself in his creation. The fact that they do so adds an element of importance to the work of the natural scientists at Calvin, because their research can give a greater understanding of God’s work. But it does not mean that they should use the Bible as a scientific textbook, nor that they must accept any particular theory about how the world was created. When interpretations of empirical evidence differ from interpretations of the Bible, faculty must continue their efforts to understand both better, acknowledging that their understanding of each is fallible and that a correct understanding would rectify the contradiction in their present interpretations.

Diversity of Opinion

But we are in agreement on one point: our faith influences our teaching and research. For example, we believe that the individualistic and materialistic view of human beings that is the basis of most economic theorizing today is inadequate for understanding economic behavior; we therefore do not limit ourselves to that view. And we believe that when we evaluate economic policies, more emphasis should be placed on equity than on efficiency defined in an individualistic or materialistic way. Thus our research is oriented more toward questions of equity than is typical among economists generally. These common beliefs in our department establish a basis upon which we can discuss and debate matters and help each other sharpen our analyses. With this common foundation, we can also help our students explore the significance of faith in their lives.

Although Calvin faculty members affirm their agreement with certain historical creeds of the Christian Reformed Church, they do not have to concur with all the decisions of the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church. (The synod is the highest governing body of the church.) Requiring them to do so would seriously impede academic freedom at Calvin, because standards would change from year to year. Moreover, it would hinder Calvin in its service to the church, which includes helping to develop the church’s tradition and applying it to new situations. Sometimes this effort involves challenging views held by many members and leaders of the church, or even calling into question official statements of church bodies.

I am happy to report that Calvin’s faculty, administration, and board of trustees have worked with the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church to maintain the freedom for faculty members to engage in this kind of inquiry. All of these bodies approved the document ensuring academic freedom that I quoted from above. And in the few instances in which members of the church have formally challenged the academic freedom of a faculty member, the rights of the professor have been maintained.

The most prominent formal challenge in recent years occurred after Howard Van Till, a professor of physics, published The Fourth Day, a book about the relationship between Christian faith and natural science that touches on the early period of the universe. Some church bodies and many individuals attacked it as heretical, and calls were made for Van Till’s removal from the faculty. But after careful study, the board of trustees and the church synod upheld his right to engage in such research and publication. The board also affirmed the importance of having such research at Calvin. And the Calvin Alumni Association has since given Van Till its Faith and Learning Award.

Shared Governance

Without a common commitment to the institutional mission and what it requires of faculty members, the parties responsible for governing any college or university may not trust one another—and trust is necessary for cooperation in governance. The board may doubt the recommendations of the faculty regarding matters of faculty status, and faculty members may wonder whether the administration and board will support them when they pursue truth in controversial areas. Such a lack of trust places academic freedom in jeopardy. I believe that the strong role of the faculty in governing Calvin has helped maintain the trust necessary to protect academic freedom and to fulfill the college’s mission.

At Calvin the faculty participates in decision making through academic departments, committees appointed directly or indirectly by the Faculty Senate, and the elected Faculty Senate itself. The faculty’s role conforms closely to that set forth in the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, formulated jointly by the AAUP, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

Appointments and Promotion

It is appropriate for department members to have primary responsibility in these matters, because they are the ones who can best make clear the implications of the mission of the college for their disciplines and best evaluate candidates’ disciplinary expertise in relation to that mission. If candidates who do not share the commitments of the college are recommended and appointed, it will not serve the interest of either the appointees or the college. And if the requirements were not made clear before an appointment was made, but were imposed later, it would be a serious violation of academic freedom.

The departments do not have exclusive responsibility in appointments, however. The president, provost, and academic dean for the candidate’s area also interview the candidate, as does the faculty’s Professional Status Committee. Two members of the board of trustees join the committee when it interviews candidates for initial appointment. Again, the concern is for qualifications for teaching and scholarship and for commitment to the standards and mission of the college. The Professional Status Committee forwards the names of the candidates it approves to the president, who recommends appointees to the board. The board then presents the list of appointments it approves to the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church for ratification.

I want to call attention to two features of this appointment process. First, although the faculty has the primary responsibility in it, the administration and board also have important roles. The role of the board in appointments and reappointments helps to maintain the board’s trust in faculty recommendations in this and other areas. Second, all parties have a duty to clearly communicate the mission of the college and the standards for and expectations of faculty members to the candidate and to evaluate him or her according to those criteria. This joint responsibility contributes to a climate of trust that would be difficult to maintain if one or more of the parties felt no obligation to carry out this duty.

Evaluation of faculty members for reappointment, including reappointment with tenure, follows a similar progression. The department has the initial and primary responsibility, and the Professional Status Committee, academic administrators, and the board contribute to the collegewide assessment. Performance in teaching and scholarship, including the integration of faith and learning, receive the major emphasis in the evaluation. For a first reappointment and a reappointment with tenure, the board of trustees interviews the faculty member after the Professional Status Committee and the president recommend the individual.

No doubt other institutions have different, and perhaps less complex, procedures. But this wide sharing of responsibility, with the primary call in the hands of the faculty, has worked well at Calvin. Although the evaluations by the Professional Status Committee and academic administrators are serious, departmental recommendations for appointment or reappointment are usually approved. And although board members have had debates over candidates, never in the past twenty-five years has a person recommended for appointment or reappointment by the Professional Status Committee been denied it by the president, the board, or the synod.

Questions of Fitness

For allegations of incompetence against a tenured faculty member, the department usually has primary responsibility for the peer review. For allegations of moral misconduct, the Professional Status Committee has primary responsibility. For allegations of confessional unorthodoxy, the board decides whether an inquiry is necessary.

If it is, the provost conducts it and reports to the board and the Professional Status Committee. If the board is not satisfied that the report clears the faculty member, a formal investigating committee, half of whose members are from the board and half from the Professional Status Committee, conducts an investigation and reports to the board. Challenges requiring such formal adjudication are extremely rare. Only two formal investigations of allegations of confessional unorthodoxy have occurred in the past twenty-five years. In both cases, the professor involved was cleared, although the process for both lasted longer than was desirable and created stress for those affected.

I do not mean to say that Calvin’s institutional provisions regarding faculty status are perfect. I believe that more procedural safeguards should be included in some of the college documents, because I have seen injustice done unintentionally at other institutions when procedures guarding due process were not in place before a difficult situation arose. But many faculty members at Calvin do not see the need for such "detailed" provisions, trusting that members of the Calvin community will do what is right.

And formal institutional regulations are not in themselves sufficient to ensure academic freedom at an institution. Administrators, faculty members, and the board must share a belief in the importance of academic freedom and behave in accordance with such belief. Even when good procedures and a strong tradition of academic freedom exist, faculty members will be concerned about actions by an administrator or a board that even appear to discount the faculty’s role in status matters, or that call into question an institution’s support for academic freedom. Even more serious would be an actual attempt to censor or restrain a faculty member or a failure to give due process to a professor under attack. As Anthony Diekema points out in his book, such actions have a chilling effect that can lead faculty members to engage in a self-censorship that undermines both academic freedom and the mission of the college. Once that happens, it is very difficult to restore an ethos of academic openness at an institution.

To prevent such incursions on academic freedom, faculty members must make a strong commitment of time and expertise to institutional governance, and they must promote regulations and behavior that support academic freedom. At Calvin the administration, the faculty, and the board have joined forces to uphold the standards and mission of the college. This commitment, together with a strong faculty role in governance, has allowed us to advance the cause of academic freedom at Calvin. It is my hope that we will continue to succeed in this endeavor for many years to come.

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