• ‘On Topic’ convenes Baptist, Catholic, Jewish presidents to discuss faith-based education

    Across the country, many prospective college students and their parents are increasingly focused on the answer to one question: “Will this college get me/my kid a good job?” In such an era, some wonder if there’s really a place for faith-based universities like Baylor.

    Last week in our nation’s capital, as part of his ongoing “On Topic” series, Baylor President Ken Starr led a very public conversation on such questions. As the president of America’s largest Baptist university, Starr convened the president of America’s largest Jewish university, Yeshiva University, and the president of The Catholic University of America to discuss the issue. [Watch the complete “On Topic” conversation below.]

    “We would all agree that education is more than a transmission of information, attending classes, doing lab work,” said Starr. “But what is it?”

    Yeshiva’s Richard Joel answered the question this way: “Do we teach [students] that they are supposed to do more than graze and make money and go shopping? It’s very important that our children compete in the global economy, but we need to teach them the rules of engagement, the values that they bring to the competition, and, once they succeed in the competition, what their responsibility is… Of course, they need to learn how to make a living. But they also need to learn how to live a life.”

    “The point of education is to help our students advance in both wisdom and virtue,” added CUA’s Garvey. “And they are connected to each other in surprising ways. Virtue makes us aim at the right mark; wisdom helps us choose the proper means. When we learn about topics we can’t make proper judgments about them without an ethical basis.”

    Those few sentences are just a taste of the full hour-long conversation; if you’re curious about the future of faith-based education in the United States, I highly encourage you to watch the full recording above and/or read the recaps linked below.

    [READ MORE: The Chronicle of Higher Education || Baptist News Global || The Boston Pilot || The Christian Post || YU News || Photo gallery]

    The “On Topic” series returns to Waco this spring, as Judge Starr welcomes a pair of longtime Congressmen to the Waco Hall stage. Baylor will host former U.S. Representative Frank Wolf, now the university’s Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom, on March 18, followed by a conversation with former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman on April 28. Free tickets for each event will be made available Feb. 16 and March 30, respectively.

    Sic ’em, President Starr!