Gary Luhr, executive director of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, recently spoke with Outlook Editor Jack Haberer about how those colleges prepare students for life after graduation, and about the continuing significance in higher education of the Reformed tradition.
Presbyterian colleges and universities do a good job, Luhr said, preparing students not only for the job market in an economy still in recovery, but also for the challenges of life.
One reason for that, he said, is that Presbyterian schools provide a solid liberal arts foundation — giving students needed analytical skills both to land a first job and enable them to advance in a variety of fields.
Presbyterian connection. When asked, if “P.C.(U.S.A.)-related” really means anything more than “mere window-dressing,” Luhr said that he titled his recent annual report to the colleges, “Signs of Hope” — reflecting an improved rela-tionship developing between the colleges and the church.
“For a number of years the colleges have been the prime movers in maintaining and trying to strengthen the relationship with the church, and have at times struggled to simply remain on the churches’ radar screen,” Luhr said. “I think that might be changing.”
The General Assembly Mission Council, at its February meeting, adopted a new collegiate ministries strategy — a response to an overture passed at the 2010 General Assembly. Luhr described that strategy as a “work in progress, but the foundation of it is that it sees collegiate ministry as being primarily a congregational responsibility, and a lot of effort will go into helping nearby churches get more engaged with college students.”
Luhr said he is also encouraged because the council’s new four-year mission work plan includes two goals relating strongly to colleges and universities. One is a goal of producing transformational leaders for the church — including identifying 1,000 prospective leaders who will, in effect, become the next generation of PC(USA) leadership, and some of whom undoubtedly will come from the campuses of Presbyterian colleges. “That kind of identification at an early age can go a long way toward keeping those young people connected to the church after they graduate,” Luhr said.
The other goal has to do with ministry to young adults between the ages of 18 and 30. Conventional wisdom about those people — that they fell away from church but returned after they married and had children — no longer is necessarily true, Luhr said.
“The GAMC has recognized that and is saying that we need to be more deliberate about keeping these young adults connected to the church in college and after they graduate,” he said. “I think our colleges can be a great resource in implementing both of those goals.
Degree of connection. Luhr said the more than 60 Presbyterian colleges take a variety of approaches to their historic Presbyterian connection. Some are very distinctively Christian colleges, which he described as “Christ-centered institutions that take a very evangelical approach to education, where they speak openly of God and faith in and out of the classroom, and gear the educational experience around that.
“At the other end of the spectrum you have institutions that are Presbyterian primarily in a historic sense, and yet as a part of a complete educational experience they continue to provide for the spiritual life of their students. Quite often their chaplains are Presbyterian ministers, so there continues to be a relationship in that sense.”
Other colleges fall somewhere in the middle.
APCU Presidents’ Conference. The recent meeting of the APCU presidents included the start of a process in which the presidents’ group hopes to draft values statements the colleges can incorporate into promotional materials, drawing the connection between the schools today and their Presbyterian and Reformed heritage.
“When you talk about study abroad, or volunteer service, or doing things in community, or vocational discernment,” all those things “do in fact derive from the Reformed tradition,” which continues to influence life at the schools today, Luhr said.
