The Concept of a University: How do Canada's Universities Stack up?

[0:00] Well, thank you very much, Bill. And thank you folks for coming out to a topic that looks so extraordinary for this Learners' Exchange. Several people have asked me about where do you hope to go with this topic? Are you taking a Christian perspective? I said, well, yes.

[0:27] That is my hope. Are you going to show us how well UBC has done in the international rankings, having moved up from 35th to 30th in the most recent ranking? No, that is not my intention.

[0:45] In fact, the topic, which was somewhat a compromise between my insistence and the Chair's insistence, derives from a question that Harry Robinson asked at one of our sessions in the spring.

[1:05] He asked, what are the universities doing to our young people? Hola! With the implication that the universities are doing something pretty awful. And I gave a very poor answer to that question at the time. And I thought, well, as I thought about it over the summer, that I should try to look at it a little more carefully. So, before we do so, let us pray.

[1:35] May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

[2:01] It's a little wobbly, but nevertheless, you can see the context. We heard last Sunday about the wonderful things that evangelicals have done historically in the areas of social work, the outlawing of the slave trade, the work in relation to prison reforms, orphanages and the like.

[2:25] We need to hear more of these accounts and take great pride in what our forebears have achieved for the Gospel. Today I have a less happy picture to convey in the sense it is the loss of initiative in relation to the universities, and to a large extent the abandonment of the universities by evangelicals.

[2:51] Some of you may have read a book by Mark Knoll called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. And Mark's opening sentence is that the scandal of the evangelical mind is that it has not been exercised.

[3:07] So this is a serious question. Mark wrote in 1994, and I think we can take pleasure in the fact that things have improved over the last 15 years.

[3:24] And the presence of someone like Jim Packer in our congregation suggests that one or two individuals are exercising their minds. But this is not meant to be a personal attack on any individuals.

[3:36] This is a general comment about the state of the universities. And just as a general and provocative comment, and you've heard something like this from me before, that one of the reasons that the initiative has been lost is that our emphasis on the salvation history has ignored the creation history.

[3:59] And that, in a sense, one can characterize the secular university as focused very much on the creation history, even though many would not accept the word creation.

[4:12] But the description of the marvels of God's creation, and the insights into what we are finding out about God's creation, have been taken over, and the initiative has been largely directed by secular persons.

[4:27] Anyway, that's just a provocative thought. You may disagree as you wish, and we could discuss that comment later. I propose to tackle the topic of what the university is doing to our young people, that is to say our Christian young men and women, by first of all asking, what lies behind Harry's question.

[4:58] And I'm very glad that Harry is here, because he, I suppose, would know better than most of us what lies behind his question. But I'll take a stab at interpreting it, and you can correct me, Harry, if I'm wrong.

[5:15] Second point that I need to look at is what is meant by the university today. It's a much more complicated question than it was 30 years ago.

[5:27] Some would say it has improved. Some would say it's got a lot worse. But in what dimensions? And what is our understanding of the university today?

[5:39] And then thirdly, I want to ask, what are the critical questions that should be asked when deciding what kind of a university our young people need?

[5:53] And I'll just go through a set of considerations that seems to me would be helpful for all of us. Those who've missed the opportunity in informing our children might find it helpful in talking to our grandchildren.

[6:09] and even our great-grandchildren for those of us in this room. And then I have some closing reflections. So, this is the way that things will unfold.

[6:24] What lies behind Harry's question? The superficial answer to the question is that the university is broadening the horizons of our young people.

[6:38] It's increasing the supply of HQP in Canada. HQP is the technical term for highly qualified personnel. And it is improving their lifetime earning potential.

[6:52] That's officially what the universities are doing to our young people. But I doubt that this has anything to do with Harry's question.

[7:04] I'm sure that his motivation was a pastoral concern. My assumption is that he is addressing specifically the British Columbian higher education system.

[7:19] Because this is what is most relevant to 95% of our young people. And that it was therefore a request for some insight into what our Christian community should be aware of in relation to that system.

[7:34] In our headlong dash to conform to society's standards and encouraging all our young people to flock to the universities, what are the problems to look out for?

[7:53] I will not be saying anything about the Canadian university system as a whole or about the world university system as such. This is in order to protect your rear ends from tiredness and from excessive detail.

[8:15] I think we should just focus on our British Columbia system and talk about that. Before we address also directly the British Columbia system, I should ask this question of the concept of one university.

[8:44] If I were to talk to you about the University of British Columbia I could speak with some confidence. As I speak about the whole of the BC higher education system my answers are more impressionistic.

[9:00] but I have had some contact with all aspects of the British Columbia higher education system. There will be references to other countries and other universities because our British Columbia educational system has been so strongly influenced by the United States, Great Britain, Germany, as well as the other administrations in Canada.

[9:26] But they'll be brought in for illustrative purposes only. So how many universities are there in British Columbia?

[9:37] Hands up? Five, you say? Right. Better than five? Or worse than five depending? Lots. Lots.

[9:48] Lots. Because they've changed a lot of the cultures for lunch or anything. The answer lots doesn't get very good marks. We've established it's more than five.

[10:05] Well, the correct answer at this point in time and who knows what the premier will do tomorrow is 14. There are 14 universities and they're entirely above board but they offer a very varied menu.

[10:25] I don't want to give you an official ranking of these either. That's not my purpose. But only to stress at this point that the idea of the university or a university has been stretched out of all recognition.

[10:43] Not just here in British Columbia but also globally. the list in alphabetical order so that you can recall it at any time anyone asks you is Capilano University, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Cauntland Polytechnic University, Quest University, which is private and secular, the Royal Rhodes University, Simon Fraser University, Thompson Rivers University, Trinity Western University, a private Christian University, the University of British Columbia, the University of British Columbia O, Broken Hogan, the University of the Fraser Valley, the University of the Northern BC, the University of Victoria, and Vancouver Island University.

[11:29] And believe it or not, in 2005 it transpired that there were 241 colleges and universities officially registered in British Columbia. Now, colleges and universities.

[11:43] And some of these it was discovered were phoning. To the point that one serious outcome from the finding was that the Secretary of State for Education in China banned Chinese students from signing up at any higher education schools in British Columbia other than UBC, UVic, Simon Fraser, and the University of Northern BC.

[12:08] Quest University at Squamish, which was just getting off the ground, found that its intake of students were suddenly in jeopardy through no fault of their own. But the other extraordinary thing is that in one week, the Premier, in fact, established five new universities, one each day of the week.

[12:31] And so you will see what the university is quite explicitly a creature of government. government, and it has become more and more a creature of government as time has gone on.

[12:47] I only have time to talk about three models of university in order to try to cut through this chaos. and we'll start with the Newman model, the Newman model which I would refer to as the English model, advisedly English because Wales didn't have a university at the time, and Scotland was rather differently arranged.

[13:17] Then I will look at the Humboldt- Schleiermacher model, which is a German model, which some of you will be unhappy to realise is what dominates our society at the moment, and thirdly the Christian college model, and try to see some similarities and differences between these three models of a university.

[13:43] The Newman or English model is threatened with extinction. I see the shock on the places of Anglicans under these circumstances.

[13:56] It is threatened with extinction, especially as described classically in Cardinal Newman's book on the idea of a university, which was written in 1852.

[14:13] At the turn of the 19th century, as we've heard from last week's discussion about the state of spiritual thermometers in Britain, the university also was in a state of considerable decay.

[14:31] Only two universities existed at the beginning of the century in England. Now, I won't ask you the question which ones they were. At that time, though, in spite of the decay and the lack of seriousness of application of much of the academic community, all students entering Cambridge, I'm not sure about Oxford, were still required to read Paley's evidences for the truth of Christianity.

[15:00] research was the role of the Royal Society of London, and with due apologies to Martin Barlow, for ingenious and curious gentlemen who accepted nothing on authority.

[15:19] In other words, research was something that was not done in the universities. This was a teaching enterprise, and the essential ingredients of the university, as defined in the Newman model, were oral instruction, communication between man and man, notice, gender insensitive, the personal influence of a master, and the humble initiation of a disciple.

[15:47] I quote, the general principles of any study you may learn by books at home, but the detail, the color, the tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, you must catch all these from those in whom it lives already.

[16:09] This argument was built on this medieval model, a model which scarcely exists of all in Canada, and is in danger of becoming extinct worldwide, and some would say about time too, whereas others, such as I, regret.

[16:25] the passing of such a model. I'll say more about the opportunities that such a model presents, but bear in mind that we have very little left of that model in our BC universities.

[16:39] The second model called the Humboldt-Schleiermacher model, it's not just because my sixth-great's grandfather was the author of it.

[16:51] This has become the dominant public sector secular research model. It was initiated by Wilhelm von Humboldt, who was an important dignitary and a bureaucrat, and it was written up by Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was the thinker.

[17:13] The important change, this was introduced in about 1810 in Germany, the important change that the university was to focus on research and scholarship as well as teaching.

[17:27] This new model of a research university became widely accepted in the United States, and the character of such a university bore little resemblance to the medieval model.

[17:40] The university that you will be most familiar with which adopted this model, first of all, is Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and they adopted the model wholesale.

[17:52] Specialization was the operative word on the assumption that integration would follow. This was an idealist philosophical model, and said that, the deeper and harder you think about something, the more clearly you will see the connections between different parts of knowledge.

[18:14] The evidence today is rather the opposite. The tendency for specialization tends to divide people, and of course the university in British Columbia expresses that very clearly today.

[18:30] We have over a hundred departments, many of which don't speak to each other. We have a dozen faculties, many of which regard the other as insufferable, and in general the needs of specialization do not lead automatically to integration, which of course has profound implications for us as Christians to understand that there is really no basis for integration of that kind beyond a philosophical or religious or faith-based unity.

[19:12] Again, you challenge that. The Christian college model is a third one which does exist. It's private, because the government won't pay for it, and it's a college model rather than a university model, but it does have all the serious objectives of the medieval or Newman model in a Christian framework.

[19:44] There's a book by Arthur Holmes which has been reprinted a couple of times called The Christian College Concept of, the concept of a Christian College. In it, it is suggested that a Christian education must cultivate the integration of faith and learning of faith and culture.

[20:11] This is its unique task in higher education today. While the reality of Christian colleges is often more like an interaction of faith and learning than a completely ideal integration, it is important that under no circumstances does it become a polemic against secular learning and science and culture as if there were a great gulf fixed between the secular and the sacred.

[20:42] All truth is God's truth, no matter where it is found, and we can thank him for it all. Arthur Holmes' position is that the Christian College has a constructive task far more than a defensive one.

[21:00] Holmes elaborates on the educational and the religious distinctives of Christian colleges. The educational distinctive means that it is primarily an undergraduate's teaching institution.

[21:12] The Christian Liberal Arts and Science College demonstrates that the Christian vocation is larger by far than any specific ministry or vocation one may enter.

[21:23] It reaches into everything a person is and can be or do. And the religious distinctive is that a Christian college refuses to compartmentalize religion.

[21:36] It retains a unifying Christian worldview and brings it to bear in understanding and participating in the various arts and sciences as well as the non-academic aspects of campus life.

[21:52] And I'm sure that all of you at this point are thinking in your, well, those of you who are thinking, are thinking very much about Regent College as a model.

[22:05] In a sense, Regent College is a response to the failures of the secular models that I've been outlining.

[22:15] it's not entirely, it's not entirely graduate, although its main personnel are graduates and the scholars who are the professors we know as being major contributors to the life of academia.

[22:34] But what they're also doing, as many of you know, is they're upgrading the education in Christian perspectives and Christian studies teachers, when they have had such sophisticated education in details of a secular subject, and there's a danger that their maturity in the secular field is that much greater than their maturity in Christian things.

[23:03] So that Regent College, in a sense, is a unique experiment, experiment, and one of the reasons you see it so filled with students and great faculty, is that this is a very unusual response to the situation.

[23:21] We can talk more about that. But what do each of these models do best and what do they do worst? is a question we should think about. In Newman's view, liberal education is a preparation of free human beings for the enjoyment of their freedom, rather than for the necessities of making a living or for the isolation of intensive research.

[23:49] You see that saying that medical school and law school and so on, it's all vocational, and engineering and specialized research is over there.

[24:04] We just have to focus on the liberal arts and science. It is the acquisition of liberal knowledge which is its own end.

[24:19] By the way, by using the word liberal, I'm sure that there are some hackles that will go up in the audience. It's not meant to be a supporter of Gordon Campbell. Liberal knowledge is meant to be that breadth of understanding of a range of intellectual and cultural activity.

[24:41] a habit of mind is formed which lasts through life. This is the hope. A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and hopefully wisdom.

[25:02] when Cardinal Newman was writing these things, of course the religious context was implicit.

[25:17] Some of you, if you have visited Oxbridge colleges, will have noticed how large the chapel is. I mean, it's absurdly large in the case of my undergraduate college, but every college has a chapel in which people have the opportunity to worship and to express Christian commitment.

[25:41] The fact that the services are not crowded is an indication that the university as a whole does not take advantage of this opportunity.

[25:53] But my point is that the Newman model with this statement about freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom did in a certain way depend upon the faith context in which it was devout.

[26:12] I'm not suggesting that non-Christians can't be equitable or calm. Many of them can be. But the pointed issue is that these are the virtues and these are the strengths of that particular model that encourages that kind of goal.

[26:34] From my experience at my college, and this is ancient history, in 1958 I was admitted and immediately introduced to quotes, a moral tutor and an academic tutor.

[26:49] Now, the fact that the moral tutor was immoral is beside the point. There was a personal relationship established between student and faculty from day one.

[27:05] College to which I was admitted had a chapel which was almost as large as the rest of the college. Incoming students were invited to attend the college chapel and the dean and the chaplain offered cherry and personal consultation if you made an appointment.

[27:25] Some people just went for the sherry. At the same time, the university provided opportunity for active Christian fellowship in something called the CICU, C-I-double-C-U, which is sometimes spelled in a more familiar way.

[27:44] But this is an undergraduate Christian fellowship which had existed since the mid-19th century. On Saturday evenings we attended Bible studies in the student union building, the scene on other days of the week of uproarious debates.

[27:59] I hate to mention this about it, I don't know whether any of you watched Poirot on Friday evening, but there was a very good reenactment of a typical union debate from the 1930s.

[28:12] In that very hall you would find 500 undergraduate and graduate students each Saturday evening attending Bible studies. And the debates were not uproarious, but the fellowship was good.

[28:31] Each college had its own Christian union chapter, which though small, engendered deep friendships. So the picture that I want to project is that of the residential college community which ingrained in us a sense of the intrinsic value of the life of the mind.

[28:50] And the life of the mind definitely included religious faith and practice for those of us who wished to take advantage of it. Sadly, of course, many did not participate in the liturgical or faith-based life of the college.

[29:05] I don't want to make too much of mottos. We've had visions at UBC for a number of years and some people pay no attention to them, but a motto of my college, to the extent it means anything, was veritas et utilitas, or truth and usefulness.

[29:28] Now, my wife will confirm that the second half of this motto was not achieved in my case. But I think it's important to note that the object of the college explicitly stated is the pursuit of truth, as well as usefulness.

[29:52] The education was expensive, of course, though I and many others were fortunate enough to get a free ride. Exclusive admissions to Oxford at that time were 0.2% of the age cohort, which compares with 50% of our age cohort in British Columbia that goes to university.

[30:14] And learning was a community activity. In British Columbia, I would say, in the list of 14 universities that I mentioned, Quest University is the nearest example to this Newman model.

[30:30] If you happen to be visiting Brackendale, near Squamish, you should take the opportunity of taking a look at the campus and see what is going on there. But interestingly enough, the two graduate colleges at UBC, Green College and St.

[30:47] John's College, also come close to this Newman model. I perceive, I may be incorrect, but I perceive a growing sense of loss among many of the faculty and the establishment of these two colleges by President Strangway in the 1990s is an indicator of possible future trends.

[31:07] Now the difference is that these are only for graduate students, whereas the Newman model was entirely for undergraduate students. So I think you can see some of the things that are done well and some of the things that are difficult.

[31:22] people. The second model, the Humboldt- Schleiermacher model, scientific and scholarly research as well as job training form the central parts of the vision.

[31:39] By the time I reached my final year of teaching and research at UBC in 2004, our first-year undergraduate student might well have no direct conversation with any faculty member through the whole academic year.

[31:56] She was assigned a number that might well be taught by a sessional lecturer and a teaching assistant. The point at issue is the only personal relationships that could be guaranteed arose between student and student and student and teaching assistant and sessional lecturer.

[32:15] I'm not maligning the quality of the teaching assistant or the sessional lecturer. They are excellent. They work far more than they're paid for.

[32:29] But the point is that there are many places in the university where the student does not have a personal relationship with a professor.

[32:39] Now UBC is a secular university where religion is officially separate. But there is a department of classical, near eastern and religious studies which exists alongside the other 100 or so academic departments.

[32:57] The religious colleges occupy a ring around the edge of UBC. The symbolism is quite explicit. If you see a map of the University of British Columbia you will see the religious colleges are spread around the edge.

[33:16] They enjoy affiliated status and they have each of them one representative on the university senate and the university senate has 90 members so you can see it's a very diffuse contribution.

[33:31] Religious affiliation is entirely a personal matter and no student is penalized in any way on account of their religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or hair color.

[33:46] Fortunately. At university scale the situation is not much different from Oxbridge except for the fact that Christian fellowship groups are more diversified and many students give their local church loyalties higher priority than the campus groups because of course it is a commuting campus.

[34:09] We have at UBC complete freedom to engage and to organize prayer groups, Bible studies, attend the graduate faculty Christian forum, Intervarsity Christian fellowship, Campus for Christ and there's active evangelism on the campus.

[34:23] UBC is cheap. UBC is cheap, though you may not think so compared to a few years ago, but UBC is cheap compared to the Newman model.

[34:37] It is open, as I said, close to 50% of the age cohort, but with a large first year dropout rate, which is corrected after a few years when people come back.

[34:51] But nevertheless, that's a serious issue. And the university motto, again, I don't want to make too much of this, but do you know what the university motto is at UBC?

[35:03] To a mess. To a mess, yes. You're on your own, mate. I think symbolically, this tells us an awful lot. Even if people pay scant attention to mottos as such, it tells you something about the founders of a place as to what their aspirations were.

[35:25] Harvard University is veritas. They don't need anything else. They just have truth there. My college had truth and usefulness. we have.

[35:38] It's up to you. So I'll just reflect on that for a moment. The Christian college model, I mentioned that's probably uniquely exemplified in region, provides Christian studies at an undergraduate level in order to upgrade the Christian education of highly secularly competent graduates, but also provides advanced Christian education and additional vocational training through its MDiv program.

[36:12] I'm not aware of a local Christian college that corresponds precisely to the criteria which Arthur Holmes has put forward, because Regent is, in a sense, providing such an upgrade for graduate students, but adds a great deal more.

[36:24] clearly the question of evangelism in the campus of Regent College is scarcely an issue.

[36:39] I'm sure that Dr. Packer would enlighten us on this. but there is, of course, also a problem in that it's not a residential university.

[36:54] There's no way that a private college with the resources available could be residential. But it does achieve this, in its goals and in its courses, this complete integration, to the extent as possible, of the secular and the Christian.

[37:19] And indeed, it subsumes the secular under the Christian goals and practices. So what are the critical questions?

[37:32] Oh, I seem to have moved ahead of this. What are the critical questions that should be asked by Christians about our university?

[37:55] Do we want a secular university? Commonly now referred to as a multiversity, or a Christian liberal arts and science university?

[38:10] If we want a secular university, do we want a liberal arts and science university, a research-intensive university, a vocational training university, or a multiversity? If a Christian liberal arts and science university, do we want a graduate and undergraduate or an exclusively undergraduate university?

[38:31] Is the size of the institution important? Large versus small, residential versus commuting? Do we think it's enough to learn about the interaction of faith and learning, or do we want complete integration of faith and learning?

[38:48] I think probably the minimum components which can lead to complete integration are perhaps fourfold. Learning about creation, and there is a lot taught about creation in the secular university, but it's not called creation, and thereby hangs a big tale.

[39:12] The nature of the human person, are we indeed free to write our own checks as liberated persons, or do we have some responsibility to God and to each other as human beings?

[39:35] Thirdly, and this is of course very contentious, the search for truth, what it is that the university is understanding by the nature of truth.

[39:48] And again, to go back to this issue of the mottos of institutions, you'll see in many Christian institutions, of course, closer and closer approximations to the motto following Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, and very explicit statements of creed involved in their mottos.

[40:12] And finally, the cultural mandate, the extent to which we are seen as stewards of our environment. These four themes seem to me to constitute the clues to an integration of the experience of education.

[40:34] Now, when we ask these questions, again, trying to pursue my questions in the same way as I try to pursue Harry's questions, what do we mean by this?

[40:49] The decision of whether you want a secular university or a Christian university. Some of us believe that the artificiality or the difference of a Christian university from that of the rest of society gives an unrepresentative experience to the student of the challenges and the goals that the student will meet in society as a whole.

[41:25] So it's not... I mean, you might say, well, it's obvious you want a Christian university. Many of you might feel that way. In my own case, I would want to argue for a secular university, which reflects the goals and the ambitions of secular society.

[41:48] We are, after all, a minority in that society. And it seems to me that that does provoke a response of Christian faith, Christian reaction.

[42:04] I think about my own experience of being entirely in a secular university. I've never actually been part of a Christian college.

[42:18] And therefore, you take my comments as entirely biased. But it seems to me that it is very difficult to reproduce a model of Christian life which does not have some opposition, which does not have some internal tensions.

[42:41] So that seems to me a more basic issue that each of us has to wrestle with. And when you speak to your grandchildren, that would seem to me to be an important first question that needs to be answered.

[42:59] The fact is that if you say, I want a Christian university, it's also going to cost you a great deal more, may have a bearing on the decision. But I think we should not be guided exclusively by the financial implications.

[43:16] So then the second level, if we decide that we are happy to endorse a secular university, do we want liberal arts and science university, research intensive university, vocational training university, or a multiversity?

[43:33] Well, one answer would be that we can operate as Christians in any one of these circumstances. That each of them has distinctive goals.

[43:48] The liberal arts and science university has a warm and fuzzy feeling about it. But note it's close to extinction. And if we went to make a major thrust on this kind of a university, then it's a big push.

[44:05] And indeed, Regent College represents a major pushback in that respect. But the multiversity, which is the least like the Newman model and most like the Humboldt-Schleiermacher model, is the one which we have most commonly in Canada.

[44:31] And British Columbia, in its chase for 14 universities, has got essentially six multiversities and eight that would be closer to being vocational or Newman model type institutes.

[44:52] And of course, it goes without saying that the biggest ones are the multiversities. The multiversities allow the freedom of choice of the student of any direction that they may wish to follow.

[45:13] And given that we are paying, subsidising the education of our young people, that seems to me to be an important consideration.

[45:31] Now, one of the other aspects, this third question, is whether we want an exclusively undergraduate university as compared to undergraduate and graduate.

[45:43] It may well be that you will opt for two different models. That you will opt for an undergraduate Newman type model and a multiversity type graduate institution.

[46:00] Or indeed, you may go for a research intensive university exclusively. Or you may go for vocational training. In other words, these options are different, it seems to me, at the graduate level as compared to the undergraduate level.

[46:17] Most of our society is moving through the undergraduate programs and then specialisation decisions come after the completion of the undergraduate program.

[46:28] The questions of the question of the question of the question of the question of the question of the nature of your grandchild in terms of the degree of gregariousness, the degree of independence, the degree of conviction of Christian virtues and so on.

[46:47] But I think the last question is, in many ways, the most challenging. Is it enough to learn about the interaction of faith and learning?

[47:03] Or do we need and want complete integration of faith and learning? And it is a very complex question. And by this I mean, do we wish to be models of faithful Christian living in a secular society with interacting on the basis of evangelism?

[47:33] Do we want to interact as full members of that society?

[47:45] To what extent are we able to project the fact that Jesus is Lord in a secular society? It's no different than the question of how we do this in our local community, in our own neighbourhood.

[48:03] After all, that's the key criterion, it seems to me, for being a Christian. That we are burdened by the need to share the faith that we have been given.

[48:18] I was interested last week in the presentation which referred to the work of Charles Simeon.

[48:29] Charles Simeon, we learned, was the rector for 54 years of the Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge. And he was a fellow of a college at the same time.

[48:43] His ministry was extraordinary. In a sense, an example of faithfulness over 54 years, operating both as a respected academic and as a pastor of the flock.

[49:00] There is nothing, I would suggest, that is inherently impossible for the Christian young person in going into a secular university.

[49:17] The question we need to ask ourselves is, what is the best arrangement? And what is the most helpful for the kind of person that our grandchild wishes to become?

[49:30] My last personal reflection is as follows. I'll read this. My parents never received education beyond the age of 15.

[49:43] And I personally never even considered any of the questions outlined above. So if some of you are worried that you haven't thought these things, or even haven't mentioned these things to your children or grandchildren, it's not unusual.

[49:59] I moved, as I reflect on it, almost in a dream. From one hurdle to the next. And most of these questions have occurred to me in retrospect. I performed well in academic subjects, moderately well in sports, and badly in the creative arts and woodwork.

[50:22] I still remember bringing home a pipe rack after my woodwork class. And neither of my parents ever touched a smoke of any kind.

[50:36] And they couldn't work out what this was anyway. So I had to explain in detail. This was a work of art, which had been done with love.

[50:49] At the age of 16, I wrote an essay in my school magazine, entitled, Why I am a Christian. It was a time immediately following my adult baptism, when I felt a strong need to nail my colors to the mast.

[51:05] That was the expression I was told to follow. I gave God thanks for attempting such a thing.

[51:17] But as I reread the text, I realized I had no idea how counter-cultural it was, and how completely unintegrated was my perspective with the education that I was receiving.

[51:30] It was Jesus and I against the world. Great, you say. There's good New Testament authorization for such a perspective.

[51:43] But which was completely uninformed about culture, science, and the demands of an integrated faith. I'm not recommending my reactionary and defensive approach to culture.

[51:58] There was, in effect, very little choice in the context of the one university model that I was aware of. The choice that was made was a compulsion to share my faith with my fellow students.

[52:11] And that, by the grace of God, has stayed with me throughout my life. But today, when we're faced with such a cornucopia of choices, a whole variety of opportunities, parents and grandparents could do a lot worse than make their families aware of the implications of their choices.

[52:31] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.