“I love Jesus, and I like ladies.” I can still hear the graduate students’ laughter as I candidly used that line to explain how my Christian faith and queer identity informed my work as a faculty member.
Looking at my CV, it is easy to see how my positionality has shaped my research agenda, leading me to explore questions related to religion in higher education and the experiences of LGBTQ+ collegians. Likewise, the years I spent in seminary and later as a campus minister profoundly shaped my approach to teaching and advising. Though I had long ago left the world of full-time ministry behind, I remained pastoral in my approach to student support as a faculty member. As I saw it, my responsibility was not only to nurture students intellectually but also to attend to the fullness of their humanity.
“This project is not only looking at where faculty differ; it is asking what gives their life’s work meaning.”
Undoubtedly, all faculty bring their beliefs and identities to their work. Yet, until recently, little was known about faculty members’ religious, spiritual, and secular (RSS) affiliations and how their worldviews shape their teaching, research, and service. Last month, a research team led by Dr. Matthew J. Mayhew, the William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher Professor of Educational Administration with a focus on Higher Education and Student Affairs at The Ohio State University, released findings from their national mixed-methods study, InFORM (Including Faculty on Religious, Spiritual, & Secular Mattering). As Mayhew explains in the project’s overview video, “This project is not only looking at where faculty differ; it is asking what gives their life’s work meaning.”
The national study found that faculty need better preparation to engage worldview differences in the classroom; religious inclusion may offer common ground across political divides; and race and religion come together to explain faculty motivation in teaching, research, and service.
Given the central role faculty play in shaping students’ educational experiences and outcomes, the InFORM findings have implications not only for faculty themselves but also for the students they serve. Additionally, as heightened attention is directed to faculty members’ political ideologies, InFORM illuminates the commonalities that exist across worldview differences. As Mayhew notes, “We’re all motivated to make sure that our work reaches people beyond the audience of the academic journal, making sure that our life’s work has meaning, and I think that’s what brings us together.”
For me, that is one of the study’s most striking outcomes. As someone who continues to serve as an adjunct faculty member, InFORM reminds me that my colleagues, too, are complex individuals whose work is likely motivated by their deeply held religious, spiritual, or secular commitments. Although they may not “love Jesus and like the ladies,” the study suggests that I likely have far more in common with my faculty peers than I once assumed.
Becky Crandall
Becky Crandall is the Director of Educational Partnerships at Interfaith America.
