Campus Life: In Search of Community, Expanded Edition
Overview
In 1990, under the direction of Ernest Boyer, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published a classic report on the loss of a meaningful basis for true community on college campuses—and in the nation. Now this expanded edition of Campus Life: In Search of Community reintroduces educational leaders to the Boyer report’s proposals while offering up-to-date analysis and recommendations for Christian campuses today.
Editors Drew Moser and Todd C. Ream have assembled pairs of academic and student-development leaders from top Christian colleges to offer a hopeful update on the practical contributions of Christian higher education to the practice of community. This volume includes new chapters, the long out-of-print Boyer report in its entirety, and a discussion guide to facilitate team conversations.
Higher education now stands at a critical point, yet the contributors to this expanded edition of Campus Life see current challenges as an opportunity to revive Boyer’s commitment to its formative power.
- Offers a context in which readers can reflect on the past while also thinking critically about the prospects for the future
- Examines the challenges and opportunuties of modern college campuses
- Helpful for individuals interested in what they can contribute to the fabric of the communities
Part One: Campus Life—A Recurring Challenge or Opportunity?
- Prologue: In Search of Renewal (Again) (Drew Moser and Todd C. Ream, Taylor University)
- A Purposeful Community (Mark L. Sargent and Edee Schulze, Westmont College)
- An Open Community (Randall Basinger and Kris Hansen-Kieffer, Messiah College)
- A Just Community (Brad Lau and Linda Samek, George Fox University)
- A Disciplined Community (Stephen T. Beers and Edward Ericson III, John Brown University)
- A Caring Community (Paul O. Chelsen and Margaret Diddams, Wheaton College)
- A Celebrative Community (Doretha O’Quinn and Tim Young, Vanguard University)
- Epilogue: Walking the “Narrow Ridge” of Christian Calling and Academic Excellence—Beck A. Taylor, Whitworth University
Part Two: Campus Life by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1990)
- Foreword by Ernest L. Boyer
- Prologue: In Search of Renewal
- A Purposeful Community
- An Open Community
- A Just Community
- A Disciplined Community
- A Caring Community
- A Celebrative Community
- Epilogue: Compact for Community
- Appendix A: National Survey of College and University Presidents, 1989
- Appendix B: National Survey of Chief Student Affairs Officers, 1989
- Appendix C: Technical Notes
- Appendix D: Carnegie Classifications
- Discussion Guide
- Mark L. Sargent and Edee Schulze of Westmont College
- Randall Basinger and Kris Hansen-Kieffer of Messiah College
- Brad Lau and Linda Samek of George Fox University
- Stephen T. Beers and Edward Ericson III of John Brown University
- Paul O. Chelsen and Margaret Diddams of Wheaton College
- Doretha O’Quinn and Tim Young of Vanguard University
Ernest L. Boyer and his colleagues at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published essential works on higher education, and Campus Life: In Search of Community was certainly among them. This important report was valuable to me as a university president when it was originally published. So often I would hear from faculty, students, and staff: ‘You have a problem and you must solve it.’ The key, I learned, was to shift the matter to ‘We have a problem and we must do something about it.’ But that shift is possible only when there is a real sense of campus community, a sense of belonging on the part of everyone. This fine volume is a valuable guide in building and maintaining a campus community. The editors of this expanded edition have done an important service not only by making Campus Life available again but also by combining it with essays focused on Christian campuses. As David Brooks suggests in his splendid forward, leaders of all colleges and universities can gain insights on building community from those campuses, whether or not they are faith-based.
—Thomas Ehrlich, president emeritus, Indiana University
Nearly thirty years ago, Ernest Boyer issued a call for colleges and universities to be not just research and teaching centers but true learning communities. Today that need is as urgent as ever, and Christian colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to create the kind of vibrant communities that educate the soul as well as the mind. In this important volume, seasoned higher education professionals offer practical insights and examples of how such communities can thrive in today’s challenging environment. This book will be valuable to readers interested in understanding what makes Christian colleges and universities so unique, as well as to educators seeking to develop such communities at their own institutions.
—Rick Ostrander, vice president for research and scholarship, Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, Washington, DC
This is a thoughtful, justice-oriented approach to thinking about some of the most difficult topics and challenges on college campuses today, as well as the obligations Christian colleges have to the world, their faculty and staff, and most of all, the students who attend them. A thorough and invaluable resource.
—Donna Freitas, author of The Happiness Effect and Sex and the Soul
- Title: Campus Life: In Search of Community, Expanded Edition
- Editors: Drew Moser and Todd C. Ream
- Edition: Expanded
- Publisher: IVP
- Publication Date: 2019
- Pages: 208
- Resource Type: Collected Essays
- Topic: Education
Drew Moser (PhD, Indiana State University) is dean of experiential learning and associate professor of higher education at Taylor University, where he teaches courses on vocation and personal development. Drew codirects The Vocation in College Project, a multi-phase research exploration of vocation in the college student experience. He is coauthor of Ready or Not: Leaning into Life in our Twenties.
Todd C. Ream (PhD, Penn State) is professor of higher education at Taylor University and a distinguished fellow with the Lumen Research Institute. Previously, he served on college and university campuses in residence life, student support services, honors programs, and as a chief student development officer. He is the author and editor of numerous books and contributes to a wide variety of publications including About Campus, Christianity Today, First Things, Gastronomica, Inside Higher Ed, Modern Theology, New Blackfriars, Notre Dame Magazine, The Review of Higher Education, and Teachers College Record.