Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

Serving Students Well: Independent Colleges Today
“We try to get students to think for themselves and decide for themselves
what convictions they will carry with them beyond college and into life.”
—Larry Donnithorne, President, Colorado Christian University
American Sign Language courses so they can communicate
more easily with their peers; some have even decided to
pursue careers working with the hearing-impaired. The
special needs initiative is in keeping with the historical values
of Gardner-Webb, a Baptist-affiliated school that was founded
in 1905. In fact, the program was launched after a Baptist
clergyman, whose ministry was to serve the deaf in North
Carolina, approached the university with the idea. “Values,”
says Campbell, “are the underpinning of what we do.”
The Pervasiveness of
Faith and Values
A deep and deliberate concern about values infuses the
mission of most CIC member institutions. The emphasis
on values can be seen in their curricula as well as their cocurricular
activities. As we have already seen, a number of
CIC members value social commitment highly. Institutions
such as Cedar Crest, Earlham, and Warren Wilson
incorporate social commitment and community service
into their programs. As part of its service-oriented mission,
Ohio Dominican places a high priority on educating both
teachers and social workers. Similarly, institutions such as
Bloomfield, Claflin, Dillard, Heritage, Mount St. Mary’s, and
St. Edward’s assign a high priority to serving the underserved.
Their individual approaches are distinctive. They hold in
common their commitment to values.
Approximately two-thirds of CIC member institutions
are religiously affiliated. A number of these institutions require
coursework that is rooted in the philosophy, values, and
faith of the institution’s founders. A few structure the entire
undergraduate experience around faith-related issues. Indeed,
for many CIC institutions, faith defines who they are.
Colorado Christian University is one such
institution. The university, which began in 1914 as a Bible
college, has evolved into a Christian liberal arts institution.
“All of our faculty share a Christian worldview and bring
their faith perspective to bear on their discipline,” says
President Larry Donnithorne. “Students learn fields such as
business, history, and economics from a framework that looks
at the world as Christians do.”
Donnithorne, a retired Army colonel and West Point
graduate who has been at the university since 1998, teaches
a course on leadership in which the discussion of Christian
ethics plays a significant part. “Issues are framed in terms of
Biblical rather than traditional ethics,” he explains. At the
same time, because the university’s 800 undergraduates come
from a variety of Christian denominations, “we don’t try to
insist that any one denomination has the right approach,”
says Donnithorne. “We try to get students to think for
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