A Faithful Faculty

Volume 6 | Issue 1 | Spring 2010

CCU’s Academic Master Plan

Educational theorist Robert Mager was famous for asking three questions: Where are we going? How will we get there? And how will we know when we’re there? Those questions are simple but powerful. At CCU, answering them clearly provides the basis for our Academic Master Plan.

The CCU faculty and academic administration work together annually to assess and revise the CCU Academic Master plan to provide a clear statement of CCU’s academic direction. It articulates where we are going, how we will get there, and how we will know when we are there.

Where We Are Going?

CCU’s Academic Master Plan begins with a statement of vision and goals. Here the plan states in various ways what makes CCU’s education distinctive. Five key words state that a CCU education is:

• Biblical—grounding students in the Word of God with a substantial required core of courses in biblical studies and theology for all students. All undergraduates major in biblical studies and theology, while some pursue a second major in ministry, education, business, or other areas. Graduate students, regardless of their specific focus, complete a comprehensive program of required courses in biblical studies and theology.
• Experiential—challenging students through experiences of service. Serving in the church and community is part of every student’s experience at CCU. That experience becomes the testing ground and growth point for a life of ministry.
• Transformational—aiming students at life change through the power of God’s Word. The combination of biblical instruction and deliberate service yields minds and hearts changed to reflect the image of Christ.
• Missional—directing students to the fulfillment of the church’s mission. All programs at CCU are aimed at enabling students to become productive leaders who vigorously pursue the Lord’s mandate to take back His world.
• Global—confronting students with the realities of a multicultural world in need of the good news. CCU aims to enable all students to develop their cultural competency so that they can be effectively engaged in global evangelism.

How We Will Get There?

Pursuing those goals requires specific strategies and objectives. The CCU Academic Master Plan lays out our best sense of how God is leading us to do our academic work in the coming years. Here are some of the plans:

New Sites and Programs

CCU is already teaching in three sites: the main campus on Cincinnati’s Price Hill, a site in the Tri-County area of Greater Cincinnati, and at the Indian Creek Christian Church in Indianapolis. This spring we will launch our newest site in Greater Louisville, at Southeast Christian Church’s Jeffersonville, Indiana, campus. Our plan anticipates a site in Lexington, Kentucky, by 2012 and another, either in Dayton or Columbus, Ohio, in 2014.

In addition the plan looks forward to the introduction of new degree programs to augment CCU’s biblically-centered curriculum. Music education and secondary English education are actively being planned, and others are being considered for all divisions of the university.

The plan also aims for development of online education, especially for the adult learners in the seminary and the College of Adult Learning degree-completion program. While we expect the core of CCU’s efforts to be in face-to-face education, online technology will enable us to expand the reach and influence of CCU’s distinctive educational experience.

Anticipating growth means growing our resources. Our primary resource is our faculty, and so our academic plan commits CCU to investing in our faculty. Programs and resources for their growth as scholars and educators are vital.

Adding new faculty as our student body grows is also essential. Our plan aims at adding faculty to maintain our favorable student-to-faculty ratio. It also anticipates the need to develop effective means of managing larger numbers of faculty, to ensure and encourage their faithfulness to the gospel and effectiveness in their work.

As we build on the quality of our faculty, we also want to build on the quality of our curriculum. Our planning includes a commitment to relationships that help us keep our instruction focused and current. This includes the development of advisory boards—groups of committed Christian professionals in various fields—to advise our faculty on refinement of our curriculum to meet present needs. It also includes attaining accredited status with national organizations that review and certify the effectiveness of specific departments.

A quality curriculum means providing a variety of experiences for all kinds of students. CCU’s Academic Master Plan commits us to developing further our ability to teach students from diverse backgrounds. It commits us to enhancing the intercultural perspective of all of our programs, not just those focused specifically on intercultural ministry. It also commits us to providing a greater range of experiences, including more campus lectures and study-abroad options in the developing world.

How Will We Know When We’re There?

Plans are vital, but so is measuring their success. CCU’s Academic Master Plan concludes with a commitment to more effective assessment of student learning. CCU has worked hard for the last decade to pursue best practices in measuring what students are learning and using that information to improve our teaching effectiveness. In the future that task will be even more vital, as our work becomes bigger and more complex, just as the world becomes bigger and more complex.

CCU’s Academic Master Plan is focused on our historic mission as a Bible college. But it also ambitiously seeks to expand the reach of our distinctive educational product. With God’s provision, we look forward to seeing the plan realized.

Dr. Jon Weatherly
Academic Dean of the College and the Vice President for Academic Affairs