Academic Freedom and Christian Scholarship

The dawning of the second millennium finds many Christian colleges and universities in a search for identity. Grappling with the often confused and misunderstood topic of academic freedom is essential to defining this identity. This new book by a widely respected practitioner offers the most articulate and informed discussion of academic freedom available. Anthony Diekema, who has spent the past forty years in higher education, provides a practical perspective on the much-maligned topic of academic freedom. The volume offers reflection on the extensive scholarly literature on academic freedom against the backdrop of personal experience. In the course of the book Diekema develops a sound working definition of the concept of academic freedom, assesses the threats it faces, acknowledges the significance of worldview in its implementation, explores the policy implications for its protection and promotion in Christian colleges, and provides some practical advice to those who are called to address the subject of academic freedom in their own institutions. As one might expect from a college president on a subject most often addressed by faculty—and among them usually by those who have been the “target” of actual academic freedom cases—this book is neither a totally sympathetic nor a thoroughly intellectual essay. Hoping to incite as well as to inform, Diekema, an unabashed defender of academic freedom, seeks to prescribe some movement in an academy that has lost its way toward an ethos of freedom. Critical yet constructive and hopeful, this volume is must reading for college administrators, faculty members, boards of trustees, students, and influential constituents of higher education. (From the Publisher)