Global Discipleship and Online Learning: What does Blackboard Have to do with Jerusalem?
Shirley Roels, Director of the Lilly Vocational Project at Calvin College
Christian Scholar's Review
Volume XXXIII, Number 4 (Summer 2004)

Headings

Introduction

The blooms are off those first e-learning roses. The higher education community has learned that no matter how fragrant the promised e-learning flower, the cultivation process is more complex than was first imagined. Some efforts of the mid- to late-1990s have floundered, victims of utopian expectations that could not be met. The bold enrollment projections of several western governors for a new online university have not materialized. 1Columbia University pulled the plug on Fathom.com, an online for-profit entity for lifelong learning into which it had sunk millions. 2 Like the late 1990s technology stock bubble, some of the promise of e-learning was more a figment of overactive social hubris than of well-considered educational philosophy and careful analysis. In hindsight it seems that some of these early e-gardeners mixed their means and ends, thinking that if they delivered information, they offered effective education that would no doubt serve some learning constituency. Many forgot that changes in educational paradigms require careful cultivation in the soil of educational mission before the flowers can flourish.  

Yet instead of dying from their early diseases, hybrid e-learning flowers are maturing in strength and variety. Through hard experience the higher education community has learned that e-learning can be cultivated through better thinking about educational mission combined with careful analysis of learning demand, sufficient financial backing, pedagogies in which the faculty are well-trained, accessible student support systems, and stable standard technology. According to a September 2003 survey of chief academic officers at degree-grant institutions, financed by the Sloan Foundation, a significant number of higher education institutions and their students are embracing online education. During the fall of 2002 over 1.6 million students took at least one online course, including 11% of U.S. higher education students; and 81% of all higher education institutions offered at least one fully online or blended (defined as a mix of online and face-to-face instruction) course. 3 In December 2002 Harvard University modified a longstanding policy requiring that all masters degree recipients spend at least one year on campus. Stanford University is expanding to a fourth online master's degree. Brown University is developing a medical-school curriculum online while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is exploring online professional degree programs in collaboration with Cambridge University . 4 The University of Phoenix Online has expanded into a range of masters programs and currently has 63,041 students. 5

Hopefully Christian colleges and universities are also learning from these earlier experiments and continuing experiences. Yet some data leave doubt about how well e-learning is being accepted by Christian colleges and universities. The Sloan survey noted that 48.9% of public institutions offered online degree programs while only 22.1% of private, nonprofit institutions did the same. The opinions about learning outcomes among the chief academic officers surveyed also varied by type of institution. Seventy-five percent of those officers in public institutions responded that online education outcomes are either the same or superior to face-to-face outcomes while only 40% of their private-nonprofit counterparts agreed. They also perceived that their faculty members accepted online education at differing rates, with public institutions having an almost 20% higher rate of perceived acceptance. Overall it appears that private, nonprofit institutions of higher education are joining online efforts at a significantly slower pace than public institutions. 6 If Christian institutions mirror their private but secular counterparts, we are at a different point on the continuum of thinking about e-learning.

Perhaps the seeming reluctance of many in Christian higher education to engage e-learning reflects legitimate concern about educational mission. From the early experiments Christian educators know that e-learning is neither a solution to higher education's core diseases about faith and value nor the immediate answer to institutional cost and quality challenges, and when early experiments put technological means ahead of educational ends, Christian educators rightly questioned them. Yet if Christians have an educational mission that necessitates e-learning, we may still have a future in this new educational world.

Developing Our Mission

Whether the community of Christian higher education now invests significantly in e-learning depends on how we understand our Christian educational mission - the conjunction of educational philosophy with the learning communities that engage it. Are there important and appropriate ways in which the mission of Christian higher education should mesh with distributed learning in the 21st century? To consider this question requires not only a review of educational philosophy but also an analysis of the learning communities with which Christians could be engaged in the years ahead.

Christian educational philosophy has both common and diverse elements across the spectrum of those involved in higher education. There is a common commitment to teach the integration of Christian faith, learning and living until Christ's return. At different moments in history and in different institutions the three legs of the faith, learning and living triangle have varied in length. For example, at Calvin College, my home institution, the leg connecting faith and learning went through two curricular variations in the twentieth century, first connecting faith to the classical studies tradition of western civilization, and secondly meshing faith with the disciplinary tradition of the modern university. Now, via a new core curriculum, the college is becoming more intentional about lengthening the leg between learning and Christian living. Yet regardless of such changes in our three-sided figure, Christian colleges and universities share a common commitment to link Christian belief, college studies and a life of faithfulness. In that regard there is still much in common within Christian higher education.

However, even with such commonalities in educational philosophy, there is a second question that must be addressed when sorting our missions as Christian institutions of education: which learning communities should particular institutions engage with their Christian educational philosophies? As broad as is the biblical mission for Christian higher education, real institutions have unique histories, talents and resources, all of which create particular educational trajectories and boundaries. Given this, whichlearning communities can be most positively affected by e-learning?  

The first learning community to consider is that of North American undergraduates between the ages of 18 and 24. They are typically mobile, gravitate toward residential college living with great enthusiasm and can shape their lives to fit the demands of the on-campus schedule. For this group online learning is a lesser priority since access and timing are not significant concerns. E-learning may still add depth to the traditional undergraduate experience in selective ways. Faculty members are already learning how to incorporate web facilitated instruction into face-to-face courses through posted assignments and online discussion boards, and e-learning can offer benefits when selective courses are offered completely online.

For example, when prospective college students qualify for advanced coursework unavailable in their high schools, it may be valuable for Christian colleges to provide it via e-learning. Such offerings are a service to capable Christian students and may encourage such students to seriously consider a Christian college future. Colleges might also use e-learning to connect students to specialties beyond the scope of some Christian campuses. When a Christian college student in the Great Plains wants a course in marine biology, it seems more sensible to connect this student to an online option than to suggest that the student transfer to a different institution. E-learning can keep Christian college undergraduates engaged on our campuses even when their interests diverge in part from our standard curricular offerings. In addition Christian colleges and universities might find that offering an advanced practicum seminar via e-learning creates the option of placing students in practica that are more diverse. For cultural, educational and practical reasons, student teaching opportunities, business internships, social work placements or other experiential learning can be more geographically dispersed when students need not hustle back to a weekly on-campus seminar. E-learning creates all these possibilities for additional depth in the experience of Christian college and university traditional undergraduates.

E-learning also creates access for some adults desiring Christian higher education. The number of college students attending as financially independent adults has increased so substantially that, while 25% of American college students are residential and of traditional age, nearly half are non-residential adult undergraduates. 7These adult students may seek the benefits of a specifically Christian college education but are less geographically mobile and have less schedule flexibility than traditional undergraduates.   Some Christian institutions can provide educational services to adults when and where they are desired, particularly in larger metropolitan areas with significant population concentrations. Yet for institutions and/or adult students in less urban environments, e-learning may provide one of the few options for a Christian higher education. If as a community of Christian educators we value the lifelong pursuit of Christian education, e-learning may provide one important avenue for adult access to such knowledge and values.

It is not difficult to recognize the benefits of e-learning for selective undergraduate experiences among traditionally-aged or adult students. Through e-learning, many Christian colleges and universities are adding depth to the undergraduate experience and length to the age of its attainment. However, there is a third question of educational mission that is particularly germane for the twenty-first century. That question is one of scope. Does e-learning provide an appropriate and effective tool to extend the reach of Christian higher education far beyond North America? Christian educators believe that through teaching and scholarship we develop Christian knowledge, values, and skills that provide for the future of the church, the society and the academy of learning. What are the implications when we consider the mission of Christian higher education as one that should cultivate Christian disciples in all nations and for all global people groups?  

In a June 2002 lecture given at Baylor University, Joel Carpenter, provost of Calvin College, noted that the Great Commission emphasizes the global teaching tasks of the church. Just prior to the ascension Christ said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."8 The commission has two related but different foci-baptizing and teaching. Carpenter observed that the evangelizing church is more equipped to ground people in Scripture and spiritual disciplines than to teach the broader culture. Carpenter argues that, "If Christians are to fulfill their mandate to 'teach the nations,' the church must go deeper and broader in this immense task...we as Christian scholars are to be agents of cultural discipleship."9 Thus, Christ's charge to teach, involving the thoughts, relationships, social patterns and decisions of the nations, requires the involvement of Christian educators.  

In the 21st century the global cultural tasks of Christian higher education must complement those of the Christian church. In a world of great cognitive, cultural and systemic complexity, it would be difficult for the church to effectively disciple the nations without understanding the character of global people groups, textual hermeneutics, the nature of cultural change, the power of nations, and cultural frameworks for discipleship. The global Christian church will depend on its colleges, universities and seminaries to provide such cultural leadership in disciple-making through their teaching and scholarship.

A Century of Opportunity and Challenge

Even if we embrace this mission, there is still the significant question about how this should occur. How do Christian educators create the frameworks that allow for global Christian learning about cultural discipleship? How do we develop a multilateral framework for learning that that helps Christians everywhere grow and flourish together? Addressing that question requires a closer look at details.

First, we should note that the Christian community of learners beyond North America is expanding in an unprecedented manner because of changes in demographics and Christian evangelism. During the latter part of the 20th century, the characteristics of the global youth population began to change dramatically. As European and North American birth rates fell, birth and survival rates among children in the developing world, principally in the southern hemisphere, rose. The total fertility rate to sustain a population over time is 2.1 births per female. In the United States the current total fertility rate of 2.034 is causing a gradual aging of the overall population. By comparison, the total fertility rate for less developed countries is 3.1, or 3.5 if outlier China is removed from the data. Much of this net population growth will occur in Middle and West Africa, Central and South America , and Western Asia. Such changes are creating a booming youth population in developing nations.10  

Overall, this young population in the developing world is seeking higher education in great numbers. Governments are finding that they cannot finance universities fast enough for the high numbers of young people seeking higher education. For example, in Mexico, 134,894 applicants competed for 33,000 undergraduate admission spots, up from 88,584 applicants just two years ago. The shortage of spots has led to major public protests by aspiring students and their family members.11 While such governments are trying to increase public university capacity, as a strategy some governments have also become more open to private forms of higher education, creating a climate of opportunity for private entities to address young populations in the developing world.12

At the same time, the global growth of Christianity through evangelism has been phenomenal in the past century. According to Carpenter, when the 20 th century began, 80 percent of the world's Christians lived in Europe and North America; now 60 percent of the world's Christians live outside these regions.13 Paul Freston notes that while Catholicism grew impressively during the first half of the twentieth century outside Europe and North America, by the late 1990s, of the 2.3 million Christian congregations in the world, 79% were Protestant. Although there are some methodological questions about the finer points of the data, overall growth rates among world-wide evangelicals and Pentecostals are rising.14 Much of this growth is also in developing nations. Thus some growing populations groups have more potential interest in an education that is Christian.

Finally, there is also an interest in Christian education in countries that are less open or less able to support their own Christian institutions of learning. Culture and law do not allow Christian institutions to flourish in many contexts. For example, it is difficult for those who are Christian minorities, whether by birth, conversion or migration, to safely access Christian education in predominantly Confucian, Islamic or Hindu environments.

When the educational demands of a global youth population, the rapid growth in global Christianity and the needs of Christian minority populations are intertwined, the void that can be filled by Christian higher education is apparent. This is a century of opportunity for Christian institutions of higher learning in much of the world.

To fill this void many new evangelical universities have been created, particularly in Asia , Latin America and Africa. Names such as Handong University, Universidad Christiana Latinoamericana, and Daystar University are becoming familiar to many involved in Christian higher education, and more such schools are emerging. The national churches and missionary groups that are founding these schools recognize the need to translate their Christian principles into providing education that connects to Christian cultural discipleship. Their goal is to provide Christian students with high quality learning in fields where they can bring their Christian commitment to bear on society.

Yet as Carpenter notes, many of these schools are still developing their programs and looking for a "big picture Christianity" that can unite Christian faith, specialized fields of study, and rapidly changing social contexts. These schools need more than a chapel program and a couple of Bible courses to fill gaps in perspective, knowledge, and skills. They need the support of developed centers for Christian thought to help students in advanced topics where they lack faculty resources, and they need access to thoughtful Christian teachers in professional fields who bathe education for occupation in the larger framework of Christian vocation.15 

The gaps are particularly acute at advanced levels of Christian learning that extend beyond basic undergraduate courses. North American seminaries are already working to fill some of this void. For example, Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary of Newburgh, Indiana provides education in biblical studies, theology, pastoral ministry and counseling to more than 10,000 self-directed learners, many of whom are in 70 countries around the globe; and Fuller Theological Seminary just began a Master of Arts in Global Leadership, almost all of which can be completed anywhere in the world. Yet these seminaries also recognize that the leadership needs of the global church extend beyond the specifics of Scripture, theology and ministry in which they are particularly adept.16 They realize that the church needs leaders in social justice and public life who understand community development, ecology, economics, finance, strategic planning and a host of related fields. North American seminaries that are extending themselves into the global church cannot provide all the educational thought through which a full-orbed Christian faith should influence society.

For Christians who are already established in higher education there is much that can be offered to meet such needs. The question is, how can it be made accessible? The historical model brought Christian leaders from other countries to North America for years of advanced study. During the twentieth century, it was not unusual for Christians from other countries to seek learning opportunities at North American colleges, universities and seminaries. The expectation was that after several years of leadership training these students would return home to address the needs within their cultures.  

However, such an educational delivery model has some significant problems associated with it. By its nature it disconnects learners from their home cultures; it is an increasingly expensive model that cannot serve massive demand for Christian education; and it is a model fraught with new problems in the wake of 9/11.

First, the disconnect from one's culture of origin is a serious problem. Consider, for example, the story of an African Christian who is also a tribal chieftain. When he is transported to the American Midwest for advanced learning, there is little understanding of the nature of tribal leadership and considerable confusion about his expectations. Since his family stays behind in their home country and does not experience North America, gradually the cultural divide between such an international student and the family widens substantially. He learns to enjoy American comforts unavailable at home. How often isn't the result of such a scenario a culturally homeless person? Becoming immersed in North America can cause serious cultural and familial dislocation. It may develop a person less fit for Christian service at home or unwilling to return home unless pressed to do so.  

Second, this model probably worked when a few selected and very special students from the developing world were sponsored for educations in North America. However, it would be much more difficult for this model to support massive demand from young Christians in emerging economies. The cost of education, housing, transportation and health insurance in North America is vastly different from that in the developing world. By U.S. law, foreign-born spouses of international students cannot seek substantial legal employment while in the United States, thus curbing the potential to support a family that comes with the student. Not only is international student access to health care a vexing problem but the related expenses can be a tremendous burden. To ask an international student to provide the deductible cost for a health-related problem is often a substantial sacrifice for which they did not budget.

Consider, for example, Charity Emdin, a Liberian Christian who has opened a small faith-based school in Monrovia.17 After a brief educational visit to Calvin College, she went home to continue her work as a school leader. Since then she has contacted the college numerous times to plan for an advanced degree. She believes Christian learning is critical to her educational leadership. Yet even with a college-financed tuition waiver, the costs of her travel, books, health insurance and housing, when coupled with a potential loss of income, make such an option impossible. Her spouse and children could not accompany her to the United States because of the cost. To travel home for time with her children each year drives the cost of a U.S. degree beyond reach.

Now multiply the challenges and costs associated with bringing such students to the United States by the increasing number of Christians, primarily in the developing world, who seek such learning. The financial, human and community resources required to support these students would be insufficient to the task.

Third, in the wake of 9/11, the United States has made substantial changes in its policies and procedures for international students. The new S.E.V.I.S. system for processing education-related visas complicates an already complex and expensive process of transporting and supporting international students who study in the United States. There are new layers of governmental reporting and supervision. For example, the new system required interviews of all incoming international students for the fall of 2003, offering less security that those admitted to educational programs in the United States, would indeed arrive when and as expected. With greater national skittishness about terror, even small procedural errors can result in significant entry problems for international students.

For a few global students, the provision of learning within North America may continue to be the preferred path. However, this historical model cannot easily overcome its inherent problems or match emerging demand. If the future is not one in which this model can provide effective access to Christian higher education for global populations, what is the alternative? It seems reasonable to assume that combining efforts of indigenous Christian schools with online distributed education is the best hope. If Christian educators are serious about disciple-making for all nations, then we need a model of access to and delivery of Christian higher education that can match the emerging demand and fill global gaps.  

Furthermore, if Christian educators think carefully about the nature of discipleship, we recognize that North Americans have much to receive from channels of Christian thinking and living around the globe. Ephesians 4: 11-16 tells us that those within the kingdom have a variety of gifts all of which work together to build up the body of Christ for service, reach unity in the faith, and mature us in the knowledge of the Son of God. Each part does its work so that "we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching."18 Christians in every culture bring special gifts to our common body construction project as they help the community of Christ discern the truth and mature in it; and according to Scripture, it is a matter of obedience for Christians to engage each other across many cultures. As much as Christians in North American higher education can teach, we have more to learn from global believers about Christian worldviews, learning and practical word-deed living.

North American Christians need the questions and commentary of other global believers to peel back their cultural blinders and reframe Christian perspectives in a global way. In relatively stable economic and political environments, it is all too easy to live within known comfort zones without a close sense of dependence on God. As much as Christian educators in other regions of the world need the support of North American Christians, we are likewise dependent on their vision, critique, energy, educational paradigms and sense of Christian hope.

Sociologically, this is also a ripe time for such mutual engagement. According to Paul Freston, many new church groups that have developed around the world are autonomous local communities that do not first and foremost conform to an externally imposed frame for Christian belief, living, worship or evangelism. These autonomous locals may have fresh insights into Christian faith as they explore the intersection of faith and culture. In addition, Christian groups worldwide have formed their own networks of evangelism.

For example, South Korea has 5800 missionaries spread across 152 countries. South Africa has 600 missionaries abroad and Brazil has 1700. This global network sharing the good news is already multilateral and finding ways to influence each other's mission efforts. In the discipleship tasks of Christian colleges and universities we can learn from both the more independent church communities and these mission networks. By doing so we will more deeply distinguish what is Christian from what is western and more fully understand the essential tasks of Christian higher education in a global context.19

To summarize, secular universities recognize that as technology, finances, and culture converge worldwide, the developing world will demand more higher education than it currently has the capacity to provide. They are widening access to themselves through e-learning. Yet such universities are not positioned to meet the teaching and disciplining needs of the Christian community. They cannot see their work as the mutual development of learning about faith-based beliefs, values and perspectives. Christian colleges, universities and seminaries are the only ones who can answer this global call.

Whether we embrace e-learning depends on what we believe to be the mission of Christian higher education institutions that are currently based in western culture and typically in North America. If the mission is to serve North American youth, then the most that e-learning may provide is an enhancement of their experience, a fringe benefit to the normal residential college experience; or with adult learners, e-learning may provides some access to a second North American population to be served with Christian higher education. However, if the mission of Christian higher education is to disciple the Christians of this world and their cultures, then e-learning provides our best avenue to create global access to deeper Christian learning.

E-Learning and the Mission: Worries

Even if Christian educators accept the thesis that the scope of Christian higher education must change in response to Jesus' command to disciple all nations, we may still worry about whether the means of e-learning inappropriately corrupt the ends of our mission. Such means can only be embraced if they support the inherent nature of Christian education.  

Christian educators have several worries about e-learning, including the types of learning for which it is conducive, potential effects on the learner, the strategic energy needed for such initiatives, and practical matters of strategy and policy. We must seriously explore these concerns about possible, though perhaps unintentional, effects of online learning.

One worry about e-learning is that to date it appears most effective in delivering learning in areas of technical and professional knowledge and skill. For example, the University of Phoenix Online initially developed programs in business and information systems. Stanford University has concentrated its efforts in three engineering programs and a newly emerging effort in bioinformatics.20 The first degree program of Universitas 21, a new online university aimed primarily at students in developing countries, is a Masters of Business Administration; and its second will be a program in information-systems management.21 

When large universities such as these are setting the curricular agenda, one worry is that e-learning may be a much more effective frame for delivering technical, quantitative and professionally-related information than it is for nurturing the Christian worldviews and values inherent in a Christian educational mission. Can one effectively teach Christian philosophy, theology, biblical studies, history, literature, lab science and the fine arts through this medium? Or will the expanding use of e-learning effectively reframe the curricular and programmatic offerings of Christian colleges and universities? Is it possible that Christian institutions will become more heavily weighted toward the teaching of technique than the development of faith and values?  

A second concern is that e-learning may fragment the learner in ways that are not Christian. The pedagogical e-learning house will profoundly affect the learners who live in that house. Christian educators embrace holistic learning that engages the heart, head and hand together. This holistic approach is an effort to overcome secular Greek influences that tended to divide the body and soul, thinking and practice, ideas and tangible commitments.22 Furthermore, Christian educators who have thought deeply about humans as images of God believe that humans are inherently relational. Humanity was meant to mirror the Trinity in its own relationship, one of a close, loving, giving community among the Father, Son and Spirit.23 Thus, in the minds of many educators, to be Christian means that higher education must be embodied and highly relational in its pedagogy.

Christian higher education has gradually recovered a vision of education that intertwines knowledge, character, skill and virtue. Does online learning once again divorce the informational head and technique hand from the passionate heart of education? Is Charles Ess, professor of philosophy and religion at Drury University, correct when he suggests that "Students may readily learn basic information and maxims online.but to learn to make finer judgments, especially when confronted by uncertainty, urgency, or vulnerability, they need the guidance or example of teachers 'as embodied beings' who can model expertise, mastery and practical wisdom."24 Christian educators rightly worry about whether face-to-face interactions and human embodiment are inherent to a Christian education, particularly when we want that learning to shape Christians as communities of believers.

Yet even if such basic questions about the nature and content of Christian learning and learners can be addressed, there is a third strategic worry among Christian colleges and universities. Will concentrated effort to develop e-learning erode gains that Christian institutions have made in traditional college markets? In the past 30 years the network of committed Christian colleges and universities has put enormous energy into improving the quality of its programs for undergraduates, principally those in residence. Through groups such as the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and Lilly Endowment networks for higher education, colleges from a host of denominational backgrounds have worked to clarify the meaning of Christian learning. Not only have many such schools worked to become more profoundly Christian in their teaching, but they have also raised the bar of academic performance. During the 1990s, enrollments in CCCU colleges and universities rose 41.89% while enrollments in public colleges and universities rose 4.28%.25 Christian institutions of higher education have increased their share of the educational market in North America and are gaining greater influence.

If indeed e-learning remains a peripheral benefit to residential undergraduates, then is energy poured into online pedagogy misplaced? Might Christian institutions compromise quality among highly prized undergraduate students by deflecting some of the focus to global e-learning? Perhaps such ventures should be left to large secular universities with more extensive financial pockets and deeper technological resources.

Finally, Christian educators recognize that e-learning brings with it a new set of knotty strategy and policy questions, many of which chart unknown territory. Regarding strategy, for example, institutions puzzled over whether they should act alone or in a broad collaborative effort under the Christian University GlobalNet (CUGN) umbrella. Before financial backers of this fledgling enterprise pulled back, many institutions were unsure about whether such a mutual entity could provide enough benefits to outweigh the risks in relinquishing some institutional control.

On the level of policy, there are other questions. As David Noble, recently of York University, continues to ask, who owns the content of a course once it has been made available online? Does the structured course belong to the professor who created it or to the institution that supported its development, enrolls the students and provides the degree?26 Or, for example, how does an institution guarantee academic integrity in the test-taking of online students? A professor can't easily tell whether the disembodied test-taker is truly the student who enrolled in the course.  

These are basic worries about e-learning as a means. The question is whether the means are so fraught with snares that good ends, namely wider accessibility and discipling the nations, cannot be reached through them.

E-Learning and the Mission: Possibilities

These worries represent significant and warranted concerns that must be discussed within the Christian educational community. However, often the devil or the deliverance is in the details. They must be dissected to determine if worries about online learning can be addressed effectively.

If our concern is about the programmatic limitations imposed by the technology of e-learning, we must be sure that e-learning is as curricularly restrictive as we imagine. We should observe that in addition to major universities investing in technical programs, Christian seminaries are also growing users of e-learning. Typically seminary programs are based on the contextual disciplines, arts and social sciences in their teaching of subjects such as biblical studies and languages, theology, church history, worship and the arts, counseling, and missiology. Many of these fields of study are more akin to those offered in Christian colleges than those at research universities; and seminaries are finding ways in which to offer such content via e-learning around the globe.26 Thus the presumption that e-learning can only be effective for heavily information-laden or technical coursework may be mistaken.  

In addition perhaps we will find that, in part, it's a matter of encouraging human creativity to catch up with the technology. When one studies food chains and ecosystems, isn't it as possible to dissect an owl pellet at a kitchen table as in an on-campus lab? Could some social science experiences be online simulations? Couldn't a recital be transmitted via streamed technology? Couldn't language pronunciation be evaluated via online audio connections?  

The technology may not be the curricular limitation that we envision. Instead the educational programs that have developed to date may be less a matter of technological restrictions and more a matter of global demand that secular institutions can meet. Many of the programs developed to date are oriented toward adults seeking professional education and degrees. Given rapid changes in global commerce and technology during the last portion of the twentieth century, it should not be surprising that there is global demand for programs in business, engineering and information technology. Yet the experience of seminaries indicates that online learning may have fewer curricular boundaries than we at first imagine. Perhaps the demand for many programs that Christian colleges and universities can offer is latent but still exists.  

We should admit that there are technological limitations that hamper the development of some program areas. It would be difficult to deliver a curriculum in physical education online. Fantasy baseball is not the same as learning to play the game in a real team environment. Yet just because e-learning lacks a comprehensive reach, we should not discourage the provision of Christian learning that can be delivered by this medium. For many colleges there were earlier times in which a lack of floor space, practice fields, and laboratories also limited what they could offer in the arts and sciences. The real question is not whether e-learning can replicate the on-campus course experience. The defining issue is whether e-learning has the capacity to offer coursework that creates a sound and needed program of study.

To date, the more significant divide in usage rates for e-learning are between undergraduate and graduate coursework. According to the Sloan study, "More students in Masters institutions are taking ALL their courses online than any other group."28 In addition doctoral and masters institutions perceive online education as more critical to their long-term strategies than do baccalaureate institutions.29 It is possible that the online learning niche of advanced research, scholarship and practice will be bigger than that of bachelor's level learning. Thus, the curricular divide may be one less related to the nature of the discipline and more related to the level of education sought. Yet if this pattern is sustained, a complementary partnership between emerging Christian schools around the world and Christian institutions positioned to provide advanced online learning could be effective.

The effects of e-learning on the learner are a challenge. Christian educators have an abiding desire to take the whole person seriously, teaching head, heart and hand to work together. We will need to think long and hard about how we provide the equivalent to the communal and face-to-face components of embodied teaching that enrich Christian intellectual analysis, discernment, compassion, integrity and service.  

Yet what is required to build such community may depend in part of the age of the students and the nature of the program. Older students come with different educational needs, capacities and interests than do 18 year-olds who are just developing themselves as independent adults. For example, it might not be as difficult to build a sense of community among adult Christians seeking an advanced degree in economic development as it is to create belonging for younger students with still scattered educational interests.

E-learning technology already allows some measure of community building. Through threaded online discussion boards, students can challenge each other's thinking, discernment and judgment about their learning. Many online courses begin by requiring every student to provide a photograph and a short biography on a personal homepage. Colleges and universities have learned that online courses need common starting and ending dates to maintain a communal rhythm to learning. Some instructors have learned to build smaller online groups for project purposes within the course. These small groups of learners develop topics, original research and case studies for the rest of the online class, but such assignments also create bonds within the project team.30

Many online colleges and universities have already come to recognize that effective models combine community learning with individualized instruction. For example, Walden University, an early and exclusively online educational provider, now expects periodic face-to-face learning time with faculty members and other students in all Ph.D. programs and many masters programs. Periodically Walden students meet at one of several U.S. locations for five days at a time.31 Fuller Theological Seminary's new online Master of Arts in Global Leadership degree will require a couple two-week classes in Pasadena.32 Other institutions require online learners to meet at designated locations for intensive weekends of learning together. Some institutions expect that those completing an online degree program join one particular cohort of students, all of whom proceed through a program together. The question is no longer whether there should be face-to-face embodied learning; it is now a matter of determining the relative balance of such time in a given program and the location of such learning.

Programs will continue to experiment with whether students must come to the home campus for a period of time or can meet with professors in other global locations. They will pilot different lengths and frequency for short-term but intense residencies. Some programs may opt for a required summer of residence while others may expect several weekends of communal learning spread over the course of a couple years. Programs may appoint on-site learning coaches who assist a professor located elsewhere. It will take time to sort out appropriate blends of embodied and online learning depending on the program level, the age of the learners and the type of learning desired.33

Yet we should remind ourselves that even highly traditional residential settings with exclusively face-to-face instruction don't always meet our holistic educational goals. Residential students can fail to experience the communal learning envisioned because of large classes, off-campus jobs, transferring among institutions, off-campus living in their upper-class years, media distractions or sexual attractions.  

Hybrid blends of e-learning programs will be imperfect. E-learning creates a different balance of embodied and disembodied learning. E-learning is not appropriate for programs that require intense personal embodiment for sustained periods of time. Online programs may fail to meet the educational needs of some students. We should admit such, assessing what and who can thrive in this model and discourage those programs and students that cannot. Careful programs choices and selective admission will help as will careful attention to community building online and in person. Although e-learning has unique "embodiment" challenges, we should not automatically elevate what occurs on our campus when comparing it with online learning; and we should not presume that embodied holistic education cannot occur in other frameworks.

Whether e-learning absorbs institutional energy that should be committed elsewhere is a judgment call for every institution. The answer will depend on institutional history, faculty culture, programmatic opportunities, and resource priorities. Some institutions will choose not to become involved in e-learning because they lack technological resources or sufficient faculty interest and capacity to cultivate them. Others will determine that given the demographics of youth in their geographic region and the limited opportunities for Christian higher education available there, they will stick to their knitting and serve the population in front of them. Yet others may conclude that institutionally they have refined their existing programs and settled their curricular debates to a point that they can look to a new challenge. It will not detract from existing efforts. Such colleges and universities might argue that without the opportunity to reach global constituencies, without the opportunity to provide advanced learning, some of their best faculty will become restless and discouraged, thus detracting from existing institutional efforts.  

Yet again, it is not as though such questions are not always present in Christian higher education. Every new on-campus program requires energy to integrate such an effort into the curriculum, student life, finances and facilities of an institution. E-learning creates new angles on such matters and magnifies interesting questions about registration, advising, assessment and embodiment. Yet in the absence of e-learning, campuses will still be answering the question of the balance between existing and new educational initiatives. Each institution will need to sort for itself the amount of energy required to sustain its present efforts and that available for new ventures; but for some institutions, online global instruction may offer the opportunity and challenge they need.

Finally, there are the strategy and policy questions that are sometimes vexing. Strategically, institutions are starting to learn more about when and how it makes sense to collaborate and when they should function independently. We have learned that similar educational objectives and common software platforms aid collaboration immensely. We're also more cognizant that the institution awarding the degree must retain a fair amount of control over its program content. Yet it is still possible to cooperate well once we've develop our institutional transfer policies for online courses.  

Policy-wise, institutions are finding their way. When disregarded or clumsily handled the matter of intellectual property rights related to online courses can become a significant source of faculty discouragement or distrust. Yet good institutional policy models already exist. The Division of Government and Public Affairs of the American Council of Education provides guidance in its discussion of the factors affecting course ownership in "Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21st Century Learning".34 The Pew Learning and Technology Program offers case examples to illuminate the issues and help institutions resolve them.35 AAUP guidelines provide helpful advice in sorting areas of faculty and administrative responsibility for online course ownership.36 Furthermore, institutions such as Duke University have had policies in place since May 2000, pointing the way for other colleges and universities.37 On matters of academic honesty, institutions have developed tighter examination procedures and honor codes, asking online students to verify that they are indeed the test-takers. For final exams some institutions require a proctored exam setting in which an on-site examiner verifies the identity of each student taking a program exam.  

There have always been and will always be significant strategy and policy questions that require close scrutiny in Christian higher education. Yet such questions shouldn't be insurmountable barriers because they are related to e-learning. If we have appropriate processes by which our institutions address matters of academic and institutional policy, why can't we use these existing channels to address the issues arising with online learning? And if Christian institutions truly believe that God owns our education resources and guides the learning we provide, won't we have different vantage points from which to decide such matters?

E-learning does raise new worries because of the delivery system itself. It is a different education, and no one should claim that its learning processes will be exactly what they are for traditional residential students. However, in the end Christian colleges and universities must simply ask whether the development of our educational mission "to disciple the nations" is sufficiently important to offset some of these differences. Can we work effectively with these differences in means to reach our educational ends? That is the judgment call we must make.

Conclusion

Experience with e-learning over the past decade has not always been pretty. Some e-learning experiments have been painful and costly with limited results. However, the experience of the past decade has also made the higher education community a little wiser about the future of this approach to learning. It has helped some grow beyond their mistaken vision that online education would provide high quality-low cost learning to massive numbers of students anywhere; and providers of such learning have backed into the recognition that some embodied community learning should accompany individualized instruction. Educators are gradually maturing in understanding and judgment about online delivery systems.

Yet for Christian colleges and universities, the major question is a much bigger one. It is one not of delivery systems but of basic educational mission. It is the question of whether our current paradigm for Christian education has been overly restricted by physical geography in an age where our sense of place can be broader. Is it the case that Jesus' Ascension command to "make disciples of all nations and to obey everything that I have commanded you" may have something to say about the global reach of our mission, our programs and Christian efforts to educate each other worldwide?  

Perhaps this is a crossroads for Christian higher education with some similarity to the educational intersection of the mid-1800s. U.S. leaders then pressed for changes in educational systems to provide the burgeoning population of young adults with knowledge and skill in agriculture and mechanical arts. It was a time when the technology related to farming and manufacturing were changing rapidly. Yet, in the face of such shifts, the religiously-based colleges maintained the model of higher education that they knew, a local college with a classical curriculum. Many of their leaders recognized the educational good of what they were doing and were hesitant to consider new paradigms. They worried about resource and priority risks related to their Christian educational mission. Yet, with limited imagination among private church-related schools and small capacity among public institutions, there was insufficient access to higher education for the emerging nation. The U.S. government responded by passing the Morrill Federal Land Grant Act of 1862, opening up a whole new network of universities to serve the needs of U.S. people. With government financing and new sources of student tuition revenue, these new institutions grew into massive state universities over the next 140 years. Most of the old-time religious colleges remained more limited in their vision and programs. For many church-related colleges and universities the rebalancing of their program offerings and expansion into a great range of academic fields only occurred much later. In many cases these schools waited for another century to pass, long after the U.S. consciousness about higher education had moved beyond the "class-bound, classical-bound traditions which for so long had defined the American collegiate experience".38

The analogy is imperfect since paradigmatic changes for the twenty first century are not inherently a contest between emerging and traditional curricula but a contrast in delivery systems. Yet isn't it still possible that excessive foot-dragging in the face of the changing global demand for education, might once again restrict the power of Christian higher education? Do we run similar risks on the global stage if we cede this emerging educational territory to secular institutions? Is it possible that the global consciousness about higher education is rapidly moving beyond known boundaries and that the sources of global higher education are being redefined?

Thankfully e-learning is not our God. We can step back from the technology to place it in a much larger Christian context. Our basic identity and purpose reside first of all in the kingdom of God, not in the home of technique. We are not dependent on technology to give us meaning and hope. Yet given this, we can more readily place online learning within the way of the cross. It could assist our common cultural discipleship as together we learn to die to our old lives and rise to the new ones we have in Christ.

Christians in higher education must decide whether God's command to make "disciples of all nations" is central to our Christian educational mission, and if so, whether online learning is now the preferred vehicle to fulfill that calling. If we incorporate the e-learning into our educational missions, the paths will be a little crooked. We will not match every global student need. Technology will crash on more than one occasion. Pedagogy tried will not always succeed.

Yet I continue to think about the Charity Emdins of this world. If such students could finance a good computer and a wireless hookup, what could we provide for them, their Christian communities, their nations and God's world? And what could such students provide us from their experience of war, strife, struggle, fear and continuing faith? But we cannot learn deeply with the Charity Emdins of this globe now; and without e-learning we may never be able to do so.

If via e-learning we open ourselves to a truly global sense of Christian educational mission, isn't it possible that we will be closer to answering the bidding of God? And if we so open ourselves we have a Savior who promises to be with us always to the very end of the age, no matter where this venture takes us.39

1 Carnevale, Dan, May 19, 2000 , "Two Models for Collaboration in Distance Education," Chronicle of Higher Education, Retrieved May 19, 2000 from <http://chronicle.com/free/v46/137/37a05301.htm>. In this article Carnevale notes that following high hopes for enrollment in 1998, by 2000 this collaborative university had enrolled only 200 degree seeking students from multiple states, was running a deficit and lacked accreditation.

2 Forelle, Charles, "Elite Colleges Finally Embrace Online Degree Courses,"Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2003: B1. Forelle notes the announcement of the decision to close out Fathom, made by Columbia University in the previous week.

3 Allen, I. Elaine and Seaman, Jeff, Sizing the Opportunity: the Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003, Boston, MA : The Sloan Consortium and the Sloan Center for Online Education, co-located at Babson College and Franklin Olin College of Engineering, September 2003, 1-2.

4 Forelle, " Elite Colleges."

5 Carnevale, Dan and Olsen, Florence, June 13, 2003, "How to Succeed in Distance Education,"Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on September 18, 2003 from <http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v49/i40/40a03101.htm>.

6 Allen and Seaman, Sizing the Opportunity , 7, 10, 14, 23.

7 Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, "Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education: Findings from CAEL's Benchmarking Study," Chicago , Ill: 1999, 1.

8 Matthew 28:18-20a. NIV.

9 Carpenter, Joel A., "The Mission of Christian Scholarship in the New Millennium," Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation, Edited by Douglas V. Henry and Bob R. Agee. Grand Rapids, Michigan : Eerdmans, 2003, 68. Carpenter notes that he is building on the work of historians Andrew Walls and John Van Engen. These two historians observed that historically the church has worked through its schools to open the entry for Christ into any given culture. This was the pattern of evangelization in prior centuries. Northern Europe was Christianized by missionary monks and their monastic schools. United States Protestants quickly recognized that colleges were strategic in discipling this emerging nation. They established colleges first in New England and then in the new western territories such as Ohio. Carpenter quotes Andrew Walls who writes, "If a nation is to be discipled, the commanding heights of a nation's life have to be opened to the influence of Christ; for Christ has redeemed human life in its entirety...Discipling a nation involved Christ's entry into the nation's thought, the patterns of relationship within that nation, the way the society hangs together, the way decisions are made," from Walls' book, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in Transmission of Faith, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996, 51. He also cites John Van Engen's chapter, "Christianity and the University: The Medieval and Reformation Legacies," in The History and Mission of Evangelical Colleges in America, edited by Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, 14-37.  

10 Haub, Carl, "2003 World Population Data Sheet, 2003 Data Sheet Highlights: Using Global Population Projections," Population Reference Bureau, Retrieved September 17, 2003 from <http://www.prb.org/ Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/Content/ContentGroups/Datash...>

11 Lloyd, Marion, "Mexican Students Demand More Seats", Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2003 , A40.

12 Carpenter, Joel A., "New Evangelical Universities: Cogs in a World System, or Players in a New Game?", International Journal of Frontier Mission 20:2 (Summer 2003): 55-65 {Part I}, and 20:3 (Fall 2003): 95-102 {Part II}. This essay will also appear in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities, Edited by Ogbu Kalu, London and Grand Rapids: Curzon and Eerdmans respectively, forthcoming.

13 Carpenter, Joel A., "Agents of the Great Commission," Keynote address, Fall Faculty/Staff Conference, Calvin College, September 4, 2002. Retrieved September 3, 2003 from <http://www.calvin.edu/admin/provost/pubs/agents.htm>, 5.

14 Freston, Paul, "Globalisation, Religion and Evangelical Christianity: A Sociological Meditation from the Third World," Paper presented in September 2001 in South Africa. This paper will appear in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities, Edited by Ogbu Kalu. London and Grand Rapids: Curzon and Eerdmans respectively, forthcoming.

15 Carpenter, "New Evangelical Universities."

16 "Distance Education: A Revolution in Progress,"Christianity Today, May 2003, 73-80.

17 The name inserted is fictitious to protect the identity of the actual person being described.

18 Ephesians 4:14 (NIV).

19 Freston, "Globalisation, Religion and Evangelical Christianity," 8.  

20 Forelle, " Elite Colleges."

21 Olsen, Florence, August 28, 2003, "Universitas 21 and Thomson Open Online MBA Program for Students in Developing Countries,"Chronicle of Higher Education , Retrieved August 28, 2003 from <http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2003/08/2003082801t.htm>, 1.

22 Hardy, Lee. The Fabric of This World, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990, chapter 1. Hardy discusses the Greek concept of work and its implications for the Christian church.

23 For further commentary on social trinitarianism, see Plantinga, Neal, Engaging God's World, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, 33 and Moltmann, Jurgen, History and the Triune God: contributions to Trinitarian theology, New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992.

24 "Online Teaching Cannot Teach Wisdom,"Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Vol. 2:3, June 2003. Retrieved September 18, 2003 from <http//www.sagepub.co.uk/journal.aspx?pid=105475>.

25 "The State of Christian Higher Education: Thriving," Washington, D.C.: Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Revised September 12, 2002.

26 Noble, David, March 1998, "Confidential Agreements Between Universities and Private Companies Pose Serious Challenge to Faculty Intellectual Property Rights", Retrieved March 1998 from <http://communication.ucsd.edu/ dl/ddm2.html>.

27 "Distance Education: A Revolution in Progress," 73-80.

28 Allen and Seaman, 20.                                                                      

29 Allen and Seaman, 10.

30 For further ideas about how to build learning communities online, see Polloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith, Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.

31 Retrieved September 15, 2003 from <www.waldenu.edu/prospect/distance_learning/index.html>.

32 "Distance Education: A Revolution in Progress," 73-80.

33 For additional ideas about how internationally distributed learning might occur, see Weigel, Van B., Deep Learning For a Digital Age: Technology's Untapped Potential to Enrich Higher Education, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002, 128-130.

34 "Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21st Century Learning", Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, Offices of Government Relations, Public Affairs, and General Counsel, March 2000.

35 Twigg, Carol A., "Who owns online courses and course materials?   Intellectual property policies for a new learning environment," The Pew Learning and Technology Program, Distributed at a February 2000 invitational symposium in Miami, Florida about "Who Owns Online Courses and Course Materials?" Retrieved from <http://www.center.rpi.edu/PewSym/mono2.html>.

36 Retrieved September 2003 from <http://www.aaup.org/spcdistn.htm>.

37 "Duke U. Policy Sets Rules for Online-Course Ownership and Conflicts of Interest," May 23, 2000, Chronicle of Higher Education, Retrieved May 23, 2000 from   <http://chronicle.com/free/2000/05/200005230lu.htm>.

38 Rudolph, Frederick, The American College and University, New York: Vintage Books, 1962, 263.

39 Matthew 28:20b (NIV).

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