Transformational Academics for Transactional Students

Can Christian colleges help undergraduates transcend "careerism"?

Yesterday I had the opportunity to moderate a conversation with a group of Bethel faculty who lead first-year courses. Whether those classes are gen ed requirements or gateways to major programs, virtually all of us find ourselves wrestling with a question that I’ve written about before:

If our students come to college primed to think of higher education in transactional terms, will they actually experience transformation?

It’s not just faculty who should worry about this. Our current leaders have defined “transformative academics” and “life-changing student experiences” as core to our strategic plan. But more and more, American students are not coming to college to have their lives changed or to be transformed, but simply to take a necessary step on their way to a career that they’ve already started planning.

I won’t speak for anyone else at yesterday’s event, or even try to encapsulate the conversation. But here’s how I framed the problem, and what I suggested faculty could do about it early in students’ time at college.