The faculty members of the future: how are they being shaped?

Christian Century, Feb 4, 1998 by Barbara G. Wheeler

That younger faculty are markedly less likely than their older colleagues to hold the M.Div. degree, be ordained or have professional ministry experience is largely due to the entry of many women into the field. Women are not eligible for ordination in the Roman Catholic Church and in many conservative Protestant churches. Mainline Protestant women report that they sometimes are advised not to try to do both ministry and teaching. Perhaps this advice is good. It is very difficult, according to women who have done both, to fit seminary, parish ministry, doctoral study, teaching, publication and child bearing into the two decades between college graduation and the age--the early 40s--at which tenure usually is granted.

Theological faculty also are active in their denominations and in ecumenical agencies. They spend an average of 15 days a year in such activity in addition to their other church involvements. Figures like these convince me that the standard proposal of church leaders--that seminary faculty regularly spend sabbaticals or other periods of leave as ministers in congregations--is misguided. Most already invest a great deal of time that way. In contrast, they allot very little time to civic and community activities or to recreation and leisure. My strong impression, based on these data, is that faculty tend to spend too much rather than too little time in church activities, and that scholarship and involvements beyond the church consequently sometimes suffer.

Though these findings led our research team to conclude that many standard concerns about theological faculty are not well grounded, all is not well. Our study produced evidence of problems--or at least strenuous challenges--that do not yet worry church and seminary leaders but probably ought to. These problems are linked to a major social and cultural shift that affects all the professions. I call the shift commodification.

Not long ago professions were understood as the social roles in which occupation and vocation combined. One committed one's whole self to the profession. Character and spirit were as relevant to professional practice as knowledge and technical skills. Because the profession was what one was as much as what one did, the commitment to it was usually for life. The institutions that professionals served demanded this kind of dedication and often returned it, giving many the chance to work in the same place from the beginning to the end of their careers. Committed to a calling for life and to particular institutions for extended periods, professionals were expected to be both experts in their fields and social leaders.

Increasingly, however, professionals now are viewed as vendors of highly specialized services. The profession is considered not an identity but a marketable capacity, to be sold to the highest bidder. A person's character and commitments and the larger purpose of his or her life are irrelevant as long as the professional product meets the standard set in the contract for services. If the market for one kind of service weakens, the professional may well refit herself to offer a different one.