Adventist Higher Education: Looking for the Point

What would the ideal Adventist college graduate look like?

Last weekend, presidents, deans, and chief financial officers of North American Adventist Colleges came up with the answer.

Or provisional answer.

Gathered at Southern Adventist University for a Mission Conference on the weekend before meetings of the constituency of the Adventist Association of Colleges and Universities, these leaders agreed on the following draft statement:

The Mission of Adventist Higher Education

Based on our commitment to Scripture, the Adventist Church, and present truth, Adventist colleges and universities inspire our graduates to practice the Way of Christ through:

• God’s transforming Grace
• Careful, logical thought about ideas and faith
• Wholeness as physical, intellectual, and spiritual beings
• Educated servant leadership in community and congregation
• The pursuit of truth and the pleasure of learning
• Authenticity toward self and others
• Life work as divine calling
• Compassion, peacemaking, and the stewardship of God’s creation
• The blessing of Sabbath rest
• Hope for the future, as a basis for witness and action

Now the organization is seeking conversation from any interested party concerning the statement. College leaders will present the statement to their faculties, boards, and other stakeholders. The document with otherwise go into even wider circulation. It may be that revisions follow. Certainly there will be conversations about how to do a more effective job of instilling these values in Adventist college graduates.

What do you think? Is it on target? On the bull’s eye? Does it have any potential to revive passion for Adventist higher education? Or is it off target altogether?

Charles Scriven chairs the Adventist Forum board of directors and is president of Kettering College of Medical Arts, in Kettering, Ohio.