Over the past decade, Christian higher education has faced unprecedented challenges. Technological advancements, government regulations, cultural changes, a global pandemic, the impending demographic cliff, and more have prompted Christ-centered colleges and universities to innovate and adapt while holding firm to their deeply held religious beliefs and mission.

In 2014, the CCCU Board of Directors voted for Shirley V. Hoogstra as the seventh president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. Ten years later, after Hoogstra announced her retirement in 2024, the CCCU Board named her successor: Dr. David A. Hoag.

As the CCCU marks this landmark presidential transition, President Hoag invited the five Christian higher education leaders who have served as chairs on the CCCU Board of Directors to reflect on the past decade. What challenges have Christian universities and the CCCU faced? How have they adapted? What insights can these individuals share as leaders of Christian higher education today look toward the future?

David Hoag: Thinking back to 2014, what leadership priorities were top of mind for the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities?

Chip Pollard: In 2014, the board and search committee were looking for someone who could provide steady, wise, and sustained leadership to the CCCU—someone who could unify and lead for the future. Shirley was the right leader at the right time. She had high-level leadership experience at Calvin University, experience working with the CCCU, and key legal experience. She was eager to advocate on behalf of the CCCU. She was theologically grounded, dispositional optimistic, hopeful, wise, experienced, and completely committed to Christian higher education.

Jay Barnes: When Shirley Hoogstra was chosen to lead the CCCU, the organization faced several challenging issues. We needed a leader who was wise, who could build bridges to the various wings of the CCCU, who could network with other higher education entities in Washington, and who could articulate the vision needed to advance Christian higher education. We needed an effective advocate who could rally our institutions to a worthy cause.

Hoag: What milestones have marked the past decade for Christian higher education and the CCCU? What predominant headwinds have we faced?

Shirley Mullen: The past decade has seen ever-greater polarization of society at all levels, both in the political and religious sphere. This has required the CCCU to be especially attentive to the constant potential for fractious issues to divide its membership even as it sought to maintain an overall respectability and legitimacy for the work of Christian higher education within the Department of Education and Congress.

The CCCU committed to a strategy of engagement rather than isolation, proactively choosing to partner with the larger world of higher education when common interests aligned. This was reflected in unprecedented levels of intentional engagement with leaders of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the American Council on Education (ACE), the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), leaders of Catholic higher education, and more. This was a time during which NAICU deliberately sought to include on their own board more members of CCCU institutions—understanding that these CCCU leaders understood how to navigate faith commitments
within a pluralistic context.

Another key headwind over the past 10 years has been continuing public pressure to defend the value of Christian higher education. For the CCCU, this reflected the need for three levels of defense—the value of a college education in general, the value of a private college education, and the value of a Christian private education.

The past decade has seen ever-greater polarization of society at all levels, both in the political and religious sphere. This has required the CCCU to be especially attentive to the constant potential for fractious issues to divide its membership even as it sought to maintain an overall respectability and legitimacy for the work of Christian higher education… — Dr. Shirley Mullen

Barnes: As Shirley assumed leadership, the culture was rapidly moving away from historic views held by the world’s monotheistic religions. Several of our universities began examining their hiring practices and student conduct codes. Over the course of several months, the CCCU reaffirmed our commitment to historic biblical understandings, requiring governing members to affirm those as well, while creating new membership categories for institutions who had changed some of their policies and practices.

Pollard: The COVID-19 pandemic was one major unexpected headwind during the past decade. Beyond the challenges the pandemic brought to higher education, it also required the CCCU to quickly rethink the role of the overseas GlobalEd programs within the CCCU’s portfolio of services.

Hoag: How did Christian higher education change during your tenure as board chair?

David Wright: The early 2020s have seen an increase in the number of institutions diversifying their academic offerings to include professional programs, as well as adult-focused, nontraditional programs. At the same time, Christian institutions have had to become much more aware of the regulatory, legislative, and legal landscape than ever before. The need for consistent and effective advocacy has become a central concern of Christian institutions.

Dan Boone: When I became board chair in 2023, we were observing early signs of financial weakness in many of our schools as we walked through COVID. The infusion of funding from a supportive federal government sustained even the weakest of schools for a few years. Over the past two years, I have seen the acceleration of school closings, enrollment declines, and financial exigency within our own family of schools.

Hoag: What challenges do leaders in Christian higher ed face in 2024? How can the CCCU meet those challenges?

Boone: Being persons who follow Jesus is one thing. Reflecting that priority through an entire institution is another. Our presidents are looking for the right posture to take, based on the ethic of Jesus, in a world that may not welcome our input. However, the wisdom of God will shine like light in the darkness if we can be unapologetically Christian without being seduced by the sirens of an angry culture. The CCCU must prioritize helping presidents and institutions to find the posture of Christ.

Barnes: First, I think the continuing challenge for Christian higher education is to remain mission-true. While we must adapt to changes in the broader culture, it must never come at the cost of surrendering our Christ-centered commitments. We expect to be countercultural in what we believe. The fact that we see the integration of faith into learning and life as essential makes us outliers. The CCCU’s role in mission enhancement and preservation is essential.

Second, the scope of education and delivery systems continue to evolve. Will the circle for potential recruitment of students continue to shrink? Will vocational educational programs find a home in residential colleges? Will the growth of credentials, certificates, delivery through professional organizations, and other nontraditional forms of education
become part of CCCU institutions? The CCCU has an important role in helping members imagine the future, learn from each other, and learn how to deliver life-changing experiences in new ways.

Mullen: Concerns around human sexuality seem to have become the contemporary litmus test, such that it is increasingly difficult for institutions and denominations to have the kind of deep theological, biblically informed discussions around these issues that Christian higher education would equip people of faith to have. One challenge is discerning how Christian colleges and universities can continue to facilitate these kinds of conversations.

Another ongoing challenge is the need to arrive at an economic model that brings together the supply and demand for higher education. Christian colleges and universities face increasing competition from alternative means of credentialling, especially driven by technology. This certainly applies to the larger world of higher education as well, but it applies in some particularly challenging ways to CCCU institutions—many of which are rural and relatively small, with high levels of investment in physical buildings, and with strong alumni loyalties and constituency loyalties that make timely decisions for innovation extra difficult.

In the face of these challenges, the CCCU can continue to promote in its programming the space for ongoing dialogue among member institutions on all the controversial issues of the day, continue to partner with the larger world of higher education on issues of common concern, and continue to pursue bipartisan connections in Washington so that the CCCU and the needs of higher education in general are understood no matter which party is in power.

Wright: The leaders of Christian higher education face two primary challenges in 2024. These are not new challenges, but they demand much more sophistication, persistence, and creativity than ever before.

The first is to be absolutely clear about and resolute in the pursuit of the institution’s unique Christian mission. Growing from this is the need to be absolutely clear about the audience the institution is serving and to be sophisticated and consistent in communicating with that audience.

The second challenge is to ensure that the institution’s business plan is current and well-suited to the current realities. It will be impossible to thrive over the next decade using a way of doing business that is structured for an environment that existed 50 years ago.

Hoag: How has President Emerita Shirley Hoogstra’s leadership shaped the CCCU over the past 10 years?

Barnes: The CCCU might not exist today if Shirley had not become president. She brought vision, courage, and a willingness to connect in helpful ways with the broader higher education world. Under her leadership we successfully navigated the headwinds of the past decade. To do that, we redefined membership and the responsibilities of membership. She worked hard to make sure that all theological flavors of the Christian family were valued.

Wright: Shirley led the association through the institutional earthquake of the dissolution of the GlobalEd programs. It is impossible to overstate the impact of this change on the finances, identity, and functioning of the CCCU. Though these programs had been declining for years, the pandemic forced a massive shift in the work of the association. Shirley’s leadership was key to the transition the CCCU had to make in its focus and finances.

Above all, the one thing that I believe will define the era of Shirley’sleadership of the CCCU is the work to secure a legislative and legal space in which CCCU institutions may pursue their mission and operate according to their deeply held religious convictions. The years of Shirley’s tenure saw the most serious attack on, and potential erosion of, CCCU institutions’ ability to legally operate according to their religious convictions and still participate in the federal framework that supports higher education. Shirley’s leadership was crucial to securing a legal and regulatory future for Christian higher education.

Pollard: Throughout the decade, Shirley has been the consummate networker in Washington, getting the CCCU at the table in so many conversations for the first time. She has also been a champion for CCCU institutions and their people—encouraging leaders in our organizations through the CCCU’s convening power.

Beyond her work as a bridge builder, Shirley has deeply shaped the movement through the tone she has set for the CCCU. She is irrepressibly optimistic; she is deeply grounded in her faith so she has little fear in engaging people who are either hostile towards or ignorant about the Christian faith; she is smart and strategic in advocacy both in litigation and legislation; she makes friends easily; she loves the breadth of institutions and people in the CCCU, and she wants each institution and each person to flourish in the unique calling that God has given to them.

Mullen: President Hoogstra has truly been God’s leader for this hour at the CCCU. She has an incredible, unique capacity to speak for Christian higher education in ways that both protect its distinctive qualities and demonstrate its rich contribution to the treasured diversity of American higher education. Her tireless work ethic and proactive pursuit of institutions who may have questions or concerns, as well as her cultivation of new potential members and partners, have meant that not only has the CCCU not fallen apart amidst the challenges of this past decade, but emerged stronger and with more credibility than ever.

Christian higher education is one of the great leavening influences in American society….God uses Christian higher education to bless individuals and communities out of all proportion to our size and political standing. — Dr. David Wright

Hoag: What are your hopes for the future of Christian higher education and the CCCU?

Barnes: God willing, I hope we celebrate the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities with joy and confidence that the CCCU is making a difference. We need to continue the strong advocacy and networking that Shirley enhanced. We need a sense that we are in this together, doing our best to help each other thrive. We need to think creatively about the type of education and delivery systems that will allow our missions to flourish in the decades to come. While we should value our different flavors as institutions, we must celebrate the things that unite us.

Pollard: My hope is that the CCCU will continue to be the winsome, joyful, committed, and thoughtful voice for Christian higher education. That the CCCU remains a broad tent of different denominational and interdenominational schools committed to the same core theological beliefs and advocacy positions. That students, faculty, and staff will thrive and flourish in their calling. That the CCCU remains an effective advocate to ensure our religious freedom, which allows us to fulfill our missions in harmony with our deeply held
Christian convictions. That the membership will support, encourage, and pray for David Hoag and the CCCU staff as they represent Christian higher education in so many different venues.

Wright: Christian higher education is one of the great leavening influences in American society. Its impact is felt most at the local level, but it reaches throughout the American economic and political landscape. God uses Christian higher education to bless individuals and communities out of all proportion to our size and political standing. My prayer is that this spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and economic vehicle will continue to thrive for many generations to come.

Boone: I am a prisoner of hope and am committed to the radical optimism of grace. The CCCU stands in a moment of history to serve the next generation of college students. They already know that the way of the world is not creating communities that teem with peace, justice, and joy. Under the leadership of David Hoag, I believe we will sharpen our distinctive contribution to humanity through a formative college experience for the incoming generation. Our graduates will be the leaders the world needs. We have hard trench work to do, and God is with us in the trench.

Dr. David Hoag serves at the eighth president of the CCCU.

Dr. Dan Boone is president of Trevecca Nazarene University and serves as the current CCCU Board Chair (2023-2025).

Dr. David Wright is president emeritus of Indiana Wesleyan University and served as CCCU Board Chair form 2022-2023.

Dr. Shirley Mullen is president emerita of Houghton University and served as CCCU Board Chair from 2020-2022.

Dr. Jay Barnes is president emeritus of Bethel University (MN) and served as CCCU Board Chair from 2018-2020.

Dr. Chip Pollard serves as president of John Brown University and served as CCCU Board Chair from 2013-2018.