A panel of university presidents from prominent Christian colleges gathered Friday afternoon in McKenna Hall Auditorium as part of this weekend's "From Death to Life" conference. The panel, entitled "The Future of Christian Higher Education," included Charles Dougherty, the president of Duquesne University, Robert Sloan, president of Baylor University, and Father Edward Malloy, president of Notre Dame.

Each speaker expressed different points important to the mission and identity of private Christian universities. Dougherty emphasized the unique role Christian universities play in a religiously pluralistic society.

"I think U.S. society is drifting towards an amorphous spirituality," he said. "There's a hunger for values in America, and our universities help fill that."

The success of Christian universities is part of a new counter-movement to growing secularization in society, and for them to compromise their mission would be to lose both part of their identity and their niche in the economy, Dougherty said.

Sloan, in his efforts to promote and improve education at Baylor, stressed the interplay between maintaining a Christian identity and making gains in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. One of Baylor's goals was to break into U.S. News' "top tier" of universities, while at the same time deepening his school's Christian roots.

"Christian faithfulness and academic excellence are not mutually exclusive," Sloan asserted. Where the pursuit of these goals conflicted, however, Sloan emphasized the higher ideal of offering a Christian education. "It is more important to be faithful than it is to be great," he said.

Sloan also revealed his theory that Christian universities, if well-run, can impact society in four distinct ways including educating students morally, preparing them for leadership, analyzing and critiquing culture, and replacing society's bad moral content with good. This final impact on society can be realized, according to Sloan, by putting things out into "the marketplace of ideas."

Malloy stressed the importance of hiring faculty who are committed to carrying on the university's Christian mission as well as establishing a core curriculum for all students designed to foster exploration religious questions. Malloy referred to Notre Dame's University requirement of two philosophy and two theology courses as a way to establish such a Christian core curriculum.

Malloy also addressed the skepticism society shows toward religiously affiliated universities.

"There are always people suspicious of an institution like Notre Dame," Molloy said. "Some people equate pursuing a university's moral mission with mediocrity. I do not think this is the case."

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