Baylor and Silliman: Keeping Quality Faculty in Two Christian Universities

Abstract

The experiences of Baylor University and Silliman University are compared as they both struggle in keeping the religious tradition
upon which they were founded while ensuring that a quality education responsive to changing times is provided to all types of students. As a UBCHEA Fellow at Baylor University for four months, the researcher modestly documented how Baylor kept Christian faculty while maintaining quality scholarship and how such practices are different or similar with Silliman University. The
aspirations of the two universities to recruit develop, and keep Christian faculty with high levels of scholarship are embedded
in their respective strategic plans. They demonstrate the need for Christian universities, if they want to maintain such identity, of
having a critical mass of Christian faculty who are also academically competent to integrate faith and learning. This is anchored on the argument that the successful transmission of Christian ideals and values, measured by the quality of a university’s graduates, is dependent upon the Christian commitment of its faculty members.