Multiversities & Christian Liberal Arts Colleges

In The Uses of the University, former University of California president Clark Kerr wrote that though the university started as a single community, the large American university had become instead (in 1963) a collection of communities. He also claimed that the liberal arts student-centered university Newman promoted (in The Idea of a University in 1873) had been replaced by the science-based research-oriented university described by Flexnor as “The Idea of a Modern University” (in 1930). Kerr believed all these models had been superseded in his day by what he called a “multiversity.” But there are still Christian liberal arts colleges.

Can Theology Still be the Queen?

In “The Idea of a University,” Newman argues that since universities profess to teach universal knowledge and theology is a branch of knowledge, universities should teach theology as knowledge. Unsurprisingly, those responsible for the curricula of secular universities today deny the conclusion of this syllogism (and so also reject at least one of its premises). What is surprising is that though Christian colleges and universities should be able to affirm both the premises and conclusion of Newman's argument, many of them do not teach theology as a source of knowledge, but rather as a basis for mere faith or belief.