The Case for a Houghton Education
Like all institutions of higher education in these challenging economic times, Houghton must make its case. The value of a college education—and especially a private, Christian liberal arts college education—is not at all taken for granted.
Why not attend the local public university and live at home? Why pay for four years at a private college when I could go to a community college for two years for less? Why go to a Christian college when I could stay in my local church, attend the local university, perhaps even get involved in a campus Christian organization, and avoid going into debt all at the same time? One might be tempted to build a case around the near-perfect match between the long established qualities of a Houghton education and the needs of our 21st century world.
Global Citizens
With the center of the global economy and the global church shifting away from Europe and North America, the world needs graduates with global competence and global connections. Houghton’s new Center for Faith, Justice and Global Engagement highlights the college’s long-standing commitment to preparing global citizens through our intercultural studies major, Mayterm travel-study programs, Houghton semester programs in Tanzania, Australia, and the Balkans, international sports ministries, Global Christian Fellowship, TESOL program, and the more recent partnership with World Hope International in Sierra Leone. Houghton knows how to prepare graduates for a global world.
Critical Thinking AND Practiced Imagination
With the increasing specialization of academic disciplines and the increasingly complex and interdisciplinary nature of the world’s real problems, the world needs graduates with both logical skills and a practiced imagination. As Daniel Pink asserts in A Whole New Mind, the future belongs not to those with “logical, linear, and computerlike capabilities,” but to those with “inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities.” What better way to prepare for this new world than at a college known for decades for both rigor in the sciences and the creative arts? It is no accident that Houghton’s Science Honors Program prepares students to work on the ‘real world problem’ of alternative energy by training them in a variety of disciplines - history and writing, as well as biology and physics.
Lifelong Learners
With the pace of change faster than at any other point in history, the world needs graduates who know how to learn, how to be flexible, and how to adapt to new circumstances. What better way to prepare for that world than with an education that equips graduates to be lifelong learners, savvy readers of texts, clear writers and speakers, effective askers of probing questions, and intellectually curious?
Sustained and Thoughtful Dialogue
When sound bites are the norm in public discourse
and polarization is the chief characterization of society’s politics and
religion, the world needs graduates who know how to carry on sustained
and thoughtful dialogue that can bring people together. Houghton
specializes in community. In the laboratory, on the athletic field, in
philosophy club, through service projects, in off-campus programs, in
chapel, in the residences, and in Bible studies, Houghton brings people
together to make a difference in each other’s lives.
The Value Added
I believe that the long-established gifts of a Houghton education are ideally suited for effectiveness in today’s world. I am also aware that higher education as a whole—large universities as well as liberal arts colleges—is using the same language. Nearly everyone is talking today about preparing ‘global citizens,’ ‘educating whole people,’ ‘developing real-world problem-solving skills,’ and ’preparing graduates to make a difference.’ While I welcome the fact that Houghton shares with a host of others in the academy the commitment to bring the gifts of education to a hurting and broken world, there is more to the value of a Houghton education than its preparation for global effectiveness, integrated thinking, problem solving, lifelong learning, and community building. We believe that true learning begins when one’s intellectual growth occurs alongside the development of one’s fundamental moral and spiritual commitments, rather than in isolation from them.
For one thing, Houghton, unlike so much of higher education, is explicit about the ultimate grounding of our searchfor knowledge and understanding. Our desire for knowledge is embedded in our desire to know God, the father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—to love Him with all our mind, our heart, our soul and our strength—and to come to love and care for the world that He has made.
Second, at Houghton, we believe that every educational community starts with a ‘learning covenant.’ Every educational institution starts out with certain assumptions about what is appropriate for discussion in the classroom, what guides and what limits our search for knowledge, how values are arrived at, how professors are to be involved in students’ lives, etc. At Houghton, we are explicit about this ‘learning covenant.’ We believe that questions about meaning and purpose are as much a part of the ‘cognitive furniture’ of the classroom as the traditional content of a course. Houghton graduates should be as thoughtful and mature in their Scriptural and theological understanding as they are about their psychology or chemistry.
We believe that learning happens best in the company of professors who, along with modeling excellence in their disciplines, also model excellence that is grounded in their relationship with Jesus Christ in such life skills as making choices, keeping promises, and sustaining commitments.
Third, at Houghton, we believe that it takes more than education—even a very good education—to make the world a better place. As important as an education is, it remains, in the end, a tool—a tool whose impact is shaped by the purposes of those who use it. It is worth remembering that some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century happened in cultures known for their academic and technical excellence.
At Houghton, our ultimate hope for students and for our world is grounded in the loving purposes of a God who created us and invited us to participate in His redemptive plans for our lives and for all of Creation. It is the value of spending time in an academic community that is organized around responding to that invitation— in the classroom, in the residences, in the laboratories, on the athletic field, in ensemble practice—that makes a Houghton education worthwhile, for our students and for the sake of the world.
