Spotlight: The Great Divide
March 21, 2007
We are a university in tension.
While 94 per cent of students consider themselves to be a Christian, there is a wide spectrum of beliefs within our shared faith. On this campus, there are students from all different denominations; there are students who read their Bible everyday and students who rarely pick the book up; there are students who follow community standards and students who do not. Within our common faith, there is tension, between the conservatives and the liberals, the creationists and the evolutionists, the traditionalists and the modernists.
But this state of tension is not static; it is constantly in flux as we navigate through university life, growing in knowledge and experience, and questioning the beliefs we currently hold. As we discover areas of lack, we begin to adopt new beliefs and discard the old. But as we do so, we feel the tension between what we believe and what we have believed.
This year, we are also a university in flux. With our former president gone, and our new president leading the way, we are in a year of transition. And as we enter a new era, there is tension between the old and the new, the way things were done before and the direction the university now wants to go. We are at a turning point in the history of Trinity Western University; so how do we move forward? As the university stakes out its strategic plan for the next decade, we must seriously ask the question,
What does it mean to be a Christian university today, in the particular context we find ourselves?
In answering this question we may find that the structures currently in place are no longer beneficial. Already, the Board of Governors is considering new ways of policy governance. As well, the university, in a very bold move, has decided to bring together TWU’s two most fundamental—and perhaps most fundamentally different—aspects of its existence: Academics and Student Life.
As one professor put it, in the past the university has viewed the faculty as the source of knowledge, and privileged Student Life as the source of the Christian experience. The disconnect between the two departments has grown over time, and has helped to create a tension between the student body and Student Life. In the last three years in particular, this tension has increased, as more and more students have begun to question the values of the TWU community as spelled out in its Responsibilities of Membership. At the same time, fewer students are attending chapel, and fewer students are applying for student leadership. Something is shifting in the spiritual climate of TWU.
And with this shift, we may expect change; the university will not look as it did thirty years ago, or even five years ago. As a university and as students ever in flux, we must constantly ask questions and re-examine who we are and what we believe. The changes we make and the questions we ask are not detrimental; as sixty per cent of students surveyed can attest, the questions we ask are in fact what help us grow.
And in the end, though the structures of the university may change, we remain a community of faith.
Now you go...
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