Latest / Salem Podcast Network / Meeting of Minds Podcast - Grove City President Brad Lingo on AI, Discipleship, and the Future of Christian Higher Education

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Meeting of Minds Podcast - Grove City President Brad Lingo on AI, Discipleship, and the Future of Christian Higher Education · Salem Podcast Network

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Meeting of Minds. My guest today is
0:08
Speaker 1: Bradley Lingo. Bradley J. Lingo is the 10th president of
0:11
Speaker 1: Grove City College. Brad, a 2000 Grove City alumnus, went
0:15
Speaker 1: on to graduate with a JD from Harvard Law School
0:18
Speaker 1: before embarking on a federal clerkship and years in private
0:20
Speaker 1: practice at firms including Gibson Dunn and King & Spalding.
0:24
Speaker 1: From 2022 to 25, Brad served as dean of Regent
0:27
Speaker 1: Law School in Virginia before returning to his alma mater,
0:30
Speaker 1: and assuming the presidency of Grove City in 2025, which
0:34
Speaker 1: is when I met you. Welcome to the show.
0:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me, Isaac.
0:39
Speaker 1: Thank you for taking the time. I think in terms of,
0:43
Speaker 1: as 20-year-olds go, I'm pretty busy. You're certainly more busy
0:46
Speaker 1: than I. This is a huge role that you're stepping into.
0:49
Speaker 1: And it brings a lot of, one, logistical work, but two,
0:52
Speaker 1: a lot of intellectual, formative work. And that's one of
0:55
Speaker 1: the reasons why I wanted to have you on so
0:57
Speaker 1: we could have this conversation is, you've been and a
1:00
Speaker 1: lot of other heads of higher educational institutions have been
1:05
Speaker 1: really trying to chart a course on a lot of
1:08
Speaker 1: heady issues, hot button issues, controversial issues on the biggest
1:12
Speaker 1: discussions happening in our day. And one of those obviously
1:14
Speaker 1: being artificial intelligence and all of our listeners are saying, great,
1:17
Speaker 1: another conversation about artificial intelligence. But I think this will
1:20
Speaker 1: be a bit different because most of the people we
1:22
Speaker 1: talk to are industry minds, that sort of thing. We
1:24
Speaker 1: don't talk to as many, nearly as many people in
1:26
Speaker 1: the higher education kind of student formation space or the
1:30
Speaker 1: people who end up coming into the workforce and being
1:32
Speaker 1: those kind of industry leaders. So I think this will
1:35
Speaker 1: be a different angle on a topic. It's very important.
1:37
Speaker 1: And I want to kind of open it up with
1:38
Speaker 1: this is a quote from you. This is from Grove's
1:41
Speaker 1: recent opening convocation. And this is what you said. Education
1:44
Speaker 1: should renew our minds and rightly order our loves. We
1:47
Speaker 1: must therefore learn to use powerful tools without outsourcing our
1:51
Speaker 1: intellectual and spiritual formation to them. A Christian education must
1:55
Speaker 1: do more than teach us to use technology and It
1:57
Speaker 1: must form us to recognize truth. So I will say
2:01
Speaker 1: at the outset, that does not seem like an off-the-cuff remark.
2:04
Speaker 1: That seems like a very intentionally curated, thought-about question. So
2:11
Speaker 1: where did that come from from you in terms of
2:12
Speaker 1: a theology of technology as an institutional leader, obviously, and
2:15
Speaker 1: also just as a person living in 2026? What were
2:19
Speaker 1: some of the inputs to that theology? Where did that
2:21
Speaker 1: start for you?
2:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, Isaac. So you're right.
2:25
Speaker 3: It is something that I had been thinking about for
2:27
Speaker 3: a long time. Arrived on campus about a year and
2:30
Speaker 3: a half ago and meeting, talking to the students, thinking,
2:34
Speaker 3: understanding what they're dealing with and what they're thinking about.
2:38
Speaker 3: What I came to realize is that a lot of
2:41
Speaker 3: these students have a much more conflicted relationship with technology
2:47
Speaker 3: than I might have guessed. We tend to think of
2:50
Speaker 3: young people as as early and eager adopters of technology.
2:55
Speaker 3: But I think actually that this generation of students, at
2:59
Speaker 3: least from where I sit at Grove City, is actually
3:03
Speaker 3: more skeptical about technology and AI than their parents' generation.
3:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
3:11
Speaker 1: Because as someone who isn't like Generation Z, kind of
3:14
Speaker 1: on the older end of that, I think the I
3:17
Speaker 1: remember reading an article about the perception is that we're
3:19
Speaker 1: more technologically adept, that sort of thing. But I was
3:21
Speaker 1: reading an article that basically said, yes, they're more technologically adept,
3:25
Speaker 1: but only in very specific ways like TikTok and that
3:27
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And on things like that are more
3:30
Speaker 1: relevant to like institutional work, business work, industry work. We're
3:34
Speaker 1: all we're no better than past generations. So like we're
3:36
Speaker 1: better at TikTok, but no one knows how to use
3:38
Speaker 1: the office printer is basically.
3:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
3:43
Speaker 3: Although I guess what I was observing, maybe even something
3:45
Speaker 3: slightly different than that, which is TikTok's a great example,
3:49
Speaker 3: but these students in this generation, they've experienced firsthand social media, TikTok,
3:56
Speaker 3: what constant connectivity can do to attention and relationships and
4:00
Speaker 3: the ways it can distract you or tempt you or
4:03
Speaker 3: lead you off course in ways that don't always better
4:07
Speaker 3: your wellbeing or your relationships or your mental state. And
4:10
Speaker 3: so I think as a result, They're more anxious about
4:14
Speaker 3: technology and what AI will mean for them and their
4:20
Speaker 3: lives and what their lives will look like and what
4:22
Speaker 3: their work will look like than I would have guessed
4:25
Speaker 3: before I stepped into this role. So that got me
4:29
Speaker 3: thinking about it a lot last year. And I actually
4:32
Speaker 3: had it kicking around in my mind for most of
4:35
Speaker 3: the summer in terms of the theology of it. The
4:42
Speaker 3: verse that I kept coming back to is a very
4:44
Speaker 3: familiar one to many of us in Christian education, Romans 12,
4:48
Speaker 3: to do not be conformed to the patterns of this world,
4:52
Speaker 3: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
4:55
Speaker 2: And just thinking about AI and thinking about.
4:58
Speaker 3: Actually in some sense, there are these new patterns, this
5:03
Speaker 3: fancy new word for patterns of this world, algorithms, and
5:08
Speaker 3: students are worried that they don't want to be conformed
5:11
Speaker 3: to those patterns either. And I, as a leader in
5:15
Speaker 3: Christian high education, don't want to see my students conformed
5:19
Speaker 3: to those patterns. I don't want them to be afraid
5:23
Speaker 3: of AI. I don't want them to be afraid to
5:27
Speaker 3: use it. But we don't want them to be formed
5:31
Speaker 3: by it. And that's what I was trying to say
5:33
Speaker 3: in the address that I gave at opening convocation, that
5:38
Speaker 3: what we're trying to do at Grove and throughout Christian
5:40
Speaker 3: higher education is not just transfer information, but education, Christian
5:46
Speaker 3: education is part of the renewal of persons that are
5:50
Speaker 3: made in God's image, a process by which, in the
5:52
Speaker 3: words of Romans 12, too, we can be transformed by
5:55
Speaker 3: the renewing of our minds. And so, but to do that,
6:00
Speaker 3: you have to actually do the work. You have to
6:02
Speaker 3: put in the effort. I saw an interesting statistic, an
6:07
Speaker 3: interesting chart A few months back, it was chat GPT
6:10
Speaker 3: usage by month. And if you look all the way
6:15
Speaker 3: up until May, it's at a pretty high level. Come June,
6:19
Speaker 3: it drops significantly. And then sure enough, in late August,
6:24
Speaker 3: it spikes back up.
6:25
Speaker 1: As soon as finals are over, a lot of people
6:27
Speaker 1: don't have to use chat GPT anymore, suspiciously.
6:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:30
Speaker 1: That's interesting you mentioned that about– because obviously Grove City
6:34
Speaker 1: is a majority undergrad institution, but you came from Regent
6:37
Speaker 1: Law where it's a lot of law students. Do you
6:38
Speaker 1: find it was different at Regent? Do you find that
6:40
Speaker 1: people had a different take on that sort of thing? Obviously,
6:42
Speaker 1: that wasn't just AI. It was just technology generally. Do
6:45
Speaker 1: you find that that's– it was more– I don't even
6:48
Speaker 1: want to say negative. Do you find that it was
6:49
Speaker 1: more skeptical at Grove with undergrads than it was with
6:52
Speaker 1: law students at Regent?
6:54
Speaker 2: I did.
6:54
Speaker 1: I did.
6:55
Speaker 3: I think– There are probably some institutional differences that make
6:59
Speaker 3: Grove students maybe naturally more skeptical. I mean, at Grove,
7:03
Speaker 3: we say that we are conservative and we mean that
7:06
Speaker 3: in the broadest and deepest sense, right? And so I
7:09
Speaker 3: think that's a part of it. But also keep in
7:11
Speaker 3: mind law students, they're not just oftentimes a couple of
7:15
Speaker 3: years older than college students. Many times they're coming back
7:18
Speaker 3: after three or four years in the workforce. So they
7:21
Speaker 3: may be closer to 29, 30, 31 years old. And
7:24
Speaker 3: I do think that they were in a different place.
7:26
Speaker 3: It really struck me coming here, talking to 18, 19,
7:30
Speaker 3: 20 year olds about it. And so I really just
7:33
Speaker 3: wanted to try to speak to them at the opening convocation.
7:36
Speaker 3: And it's something I think about a lot too, because
7:40
Speaker 3: we want to, we need to, we have an obligation
7:43
Speaker 3: to prepare our students, not just for the world as
7:45
Speaker 3: it exists today, but the world that they will enter
7:47
Speaker 3: and live their lives in where we know that artificial
7:51
Speaker 3: intelligence is going to be a big part of that world.
7:54
Speaker 3: So we absolutely want them to be able to use
7:56
Speaker 3: these tools skillfully. At the same time, the heart of
8:00
Speaker 3: what we're doing is formation. So we don't want them
8:05
Speaker 3: to just put it on autopilot and outsource their thinking
8:08
Speaker 3: or their judgment. As I said in that opening convocation,
8:12
Speaker 3: the paper matters, but the person you become in writing
8:14
Speaker 3: the paper matters a lot more.
8:18
Speaker 1: No, I think that's true. And you mentioned that the
8:22
Speaker 1: temperamental kind of conservative approach to a lot of things is,
8:26
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to say avoidance, but I'm, I
8:27
Speaker 1: think it was Michael Oakeshott who had that quote about
8:29
Speaker 1: conservatism is about preferring the, the tried to the untried, right?
8:33
Speaker 1: The traditional to the new. And that's, that's well and
8:36
Speaker 1: good in a lot of areas, especially in terms of
8:38
Speaker 1: like matters of faith and faithful orthodoxy. And we'll get
8:41
Speaker 1: into that. But I also do think in areas of technology,
8:43
Speaker 1: it can lead to kind of that reflexive under adoption,
8:47
Speaker 1: that reflexive disengagement that we're trying to avoid. But you
8:51
Speaker 1: mentioned this discipleship-based education. I want to talk about that
8:54
Speaker 1: in a minute. But you're obviously the president of a
8:58
Speaker 1: college that has essentially three schools, right? We have a
9:00
Speaker 1: school of arts and letters, which is like a liberal
9:02
Speaker 1: arts thing. We have a STEM school, and then there's
9:04
Speaker 1: a business school. And it seems to me, even outside
9:07
Speaker 1: of Grove, that people I talk to that kind of
9:09
Speaker 1: exist in those three fields have vastly different, one, temperamental
9:13
Speaker 1: approaches to technology and education more generally. subsets of Grove
9:23
Speaker 1: together under cohesive, one, theology of tech, if you want
9:27
Speaker 1: to go down that route, but also just theology more generally?
9:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question, Isaac. And I love that you used
9:33
Speaker 3: the word we as a fellow Grove City graduate who's.
9:36
Speaker 2: Doing great work.
9:37
Speaker 1: I should say, full disclosure, yes, class of 24, it's
9:39
Speaker 1: the greatest college ever. Go to gcc.edu That's my sworn duty, yes.
9:45
Speaker 3: Oh, well, Isaac, I didn't realize you're a class of 24.
9:47
Speaker 3: You've really accomplished a lot.
9:49
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
9:50
Speaker 2: I'm proud of you.
9:51
Speaker 3: I read what you wrote on AI just the other
9:53
Speaker 3: day and really enjoyed reading it.
9:55
Speaker 1: So i appreciate that i guess i just missed you
9:58
Speaker 1: yeah pretty much like by one year i was i
10:00
Speaker 1: was mcnulty's last year and then you came in so
10:03
Speaker 1: we i think we met at some law journal thing
10:06
Speaker 1: or something or other and that was how i first
10:08
Speaker 1: got to know you.
10:11
Speaker 3: Yeah well anyway yeah i mean you're absolutely right so
10:13
Speaker 3: we have a lot of different departments, a lot of
10:15
Speaker 3: different schools were preparing students to do a lot of
10:18
Speaker 3: different things. I'd add to that, that on any faculty,
10:22
Speaker 3: even if it were completely uniform and disciplined, you'd still
10:27
Speaker 3: likely have many, many different opinions about artificial intelligence and
10:31
Speaker 3: how to engage with it in the educational process. But
10:35
Speaker 3: to my mind, the fact that we have a lot
10:39
Speaker 3: of different disciplines, a lot of different opinions, a lot
10:42
Speaker 3: of different approaches is a good thing. So rather than
10:48
Speaker 3: trying to impose one institutional approach on AI, I do
10:55
Speaker 3: think that academic freedom has to be at the heart
11:01
Speaker 3: of how we engage with this question, right? That different disciplines,
11:05
Speaker 3: different schools can and probably should bring their own set
11:10
Speaker 3: of concerns and insights into into the conversation. From an
11:16
Speaker 3: institutional perspective as the college president, what I'm trying to do,
11:20
Speaker 3: one of the other reasons that I started the year
11:23
Speaker 3: with our convocation talking about AI is institutionally, I want
11:29
Speaker 3: to encourage serious reflection and thought and conversation about how
11:37
Speaker 3: do we do this well. And how do we do this? Well,
11:40
Speaker 3: I don't have all of the answers. I know that
11:42
Speaker 3: that framework has to be grounded in biblical truth. It
11:47
Speaker 3: has to be grounded in human dignity. It has to
11:51
Speaker 3: involve academic integrity, right? Because that's a key part of it.
11:56
Speaker 3: And the fact, something that's really, really important here at
12:00
Speaker 3: Grove City College, it's in the stained glass window that
12:03
Speaker 3: sits right outside of my office, that we are pursuing wisdom,
12:07
Speaker 3: not just knowledge. And so in this age of artificial
12:13
Speaker 3: intelligence where machines are going to be able to provide
12:16
Speaker 3: really strong technical answers almost instantly across a wide variety
12:20
Speaker 3: of questions, some of the ancient and deepest questions.
12:26
Speaker 2: Is it good? Is it wise? Is it right?
12:28
Speaker 3: Those kind of questions are going to become more important
12:31
Speaker 3: than ever. So the other thing I think about from
12:33
Speaker 3: Grove City's perspective and from my perspective, that's why.
12:38
Speaker 2: The humanities matter. so much.
12:42
Speaker 3: Humanities, I'm sure you went through it, Isaac, our humanities core,
12:46
Speaker 3: which is a set of seven classes that every Grove
12:49
Speaker 3: City College student has to take. I took them and
12:53
Speaker 3: I hope they're taking them for all the time. But
12:55
Speaker 3: those humanities courses where you get inducted into the great
12:59
Speaker 3: long running conversations of Western civilization or read the great
13:02
Speaker 3: books or ask the deep questions or engage with scripture.
13:06
Speaker 3: That's probably more important than it's ever been for preparing
13:11
Speaker 3: our graduates for the world that they'll be entering theology
13:14
Speaker 3: and philosophy and history and literature, asking that question, what
13:19
Speaker 3: are human beings for? What's the end that technology should serve?
13:26
Speaker 3: How do we exercise, how do we use that technology faithfully?
13:31
Speaker 3: That's the kind of conversation where I think we do
13:33
Speaker 3: have a common institutional view on that. Our view is
13:38
Speaker 3: that those kind of questions are very important. They're going
13:41
Speaker 3: to be even more important in the future. But rather
13:47
Speaker 3: than having one institutional approach, I would say our approach
13:52
Speaker 3: is one, our faith gives us a common vocabulary, a
13:56
Speaker 3: common broad set of theological commitments or understanding of what
14:00
Speaker 3: a human being is, but we want to allow a
14:03
Speaker 3: lot of space for faculty across the liberal arts or
14:07
Speaker 3: STEM or business to have a dialogue.
14:11
Speaker 2: And I just hope that we engage in it.
14:13
Speaker 3: We don't want to bury our heads in the sand
14:15
Speaker 3: and not recognize that this is going to deeply shape
14:19
Speaker 3: the world that our students live in.
14:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very, very well said. I mean,
14:23
Speaker 1: and the other thing you want to avoid, and I
14:25
Speaker 1: think you're doing this very well, including at the opening
14:27
Speaker 1: convocation and institutionally, is you're avoiding just being solely reactive. things,
14:32
Speaker 1: like current events, technological advancement, whatever you want to say.
14:35
Speaker 1: As a Christian institution, especially, I think we're trying to
14:39
Speaker 1: be active. We're trying to act first based on those
14:44
Speaker 1: unified first principles. We're trying to have a serious conversation about, okay,
14:48
Speaker 1: we have the anthropology down, where we understand what human
14:52
Speaker 1: beings are. And as a result of that, we have
14:55
Speaker 1: a much more stable foundation on which to engage the
14:59
Speaker 1: AI question, on which to engage You mentioned the piece
15:01
Speaker 1: I wrote, so this gives me a shameless opportunity to
15:04
Speaker 1: plug that. But we have a shameless– we have an
15:06
Speaker 1: easy way to– we have a more secure way to
15:08
Speaker 1: talk about can AI be– genuinely replace people. And we
15:13
Speaker 1: know that the answer is no, but that's a first principle.
15:15
Speaker 1: And so we can have a discussion that's a lot more–
15:18
Speaker 1: that's less up in the ether somewhere and is more
15:20
Speaker 1: grounded in reality. I want to ask you a little
15:23
Speaker 1: bit about the college just institutionally because you mentioned in
15:27
Speaker 1: the past, including on– I think it was a First
15:29
Speaker 1: Things podcast. about that part of your aim as president
15:33
Speaker 1: is to encourage what you call a prioritized, rather, a
15:36
Speaker 1: discipleship-based approach to higher ed. One, love the term. It's great.
15:41
Speaker 1: My initial impressions of that when I heard it were
15:43
Speaker 1: kind of twofold. One, this kind of goes without saying,
15:47
Speaker 1: but this heavily puts the onus on Grove City College
15:50
Speaker 1: to maintain Christian orthodoxy because that's the discipleship-based part. But
15:56
Speaker 1: then the second part, and you can tell me if
15:58
Speaker 1: this is accurate or not, is if you're doing discipleship-based approach,
16:02
Speaker 1: the community of that kind of commits Grove to not
16:07
Speaker 1: heavily moving into kind of the online college space. I'm
16:10
Speaker 1: pretty sure the first one of those impressions is correct, Patel,
16:12
Speaker 1: but I'm interested in your takes on both of those.
16:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think, so I absolutely believe in and
16:19
Speaker 3: talk about Grove City College's discipleship-based approach to Christian higher education.
16:25
Speaker 2: And I agree with you.
16:26
Speaker 3: I think that that statement has implications for both of
16:29
Speaker 3: those things, that you mentioned, it's certainly at a bare minimum,
16:33
Speaker 3: the ante for a discipleship-based approach to Christian education would
16:39
Speaker 3: be fidelity to traditional Christian faith and beliefs, the same
16:43
Speaker 3: beliefs that have animated the college from its founding.
16:48
Speaker 1: As many institutions are learning, the difficulty of Christian higher
16:50
Speaker 1: education is you have to be Christian. That apparently is
16:54
Speaker 1: a burden.
16:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sort of the minimum threshold, right, in order
17:00
Speaker 3: to be able to do this. But certainly, you look
17:03
Speaker 3: at the history of colleges in this country, and you
17:06
Speaker 3: actually see a history that shows it's quite hard to
17:09
Speaker 3: maintain that minimum over time. But secondly, to your second point,
17:16
Speaker 3: a discipleship-based approach to Christian higher ed absolutely requires learning
17:21
Speaker 3: in a community and in a way that we're the
17:26
Speaker 3: students are known and cared for and respected as individuals.
17:35
Speaker 3: I don't know that it's impossible to do that online,
17:38
Speaker 3: but certainly the fact that Grove City is almost entirely residential,
17:43
Speaker 3: almost every single student lives here all four years, eats
17:47
Speaker 3: three meals a day in the dining hall, doesn't just
17:50
Speaker 3: learn in the classroom, but learns in the community, on
17:53
Speaker 3: the on the practice fields in the dorm rooms and
17:56
Speaker 3: the dining halls and on missions trips. Uh, that's a
18:00
Speaker 3: really key part of the Christian formation that we're, that
18:04
Speaker 3: we are hoping happens. And I think it's really that
18:07
Speaker 3: community is, is the secret sauce that makes the Grove
18:12
Speaker 3: city college experience so transformative. But, but when I'm talking
18:18
Speaker 3: about a discipleship based approach to higher education, um, I'm
18:24
Speaker 3: actually trying to get at something that's maybe broader and
18:28
Speaker 3: deeper than just a commitment to traditional Christian beliefs or
18:30
Speaker 3: to in-person education. I mean, think just first about the opportunity.
18:35
Speaker 3: This is what got me thinking about that really in
18:37
Speaker 3: a real.
18:37
Speaker 2: Way, right?
18:38
Speaker 3: Scripture gives us the great commission, go and make disciples
18:41
Speaker 3: of all nations. Well, here we are at Grove City College.
18:43
Speaker 3: We don't even have to go. These talented, eager students
18:45
Speaker 3: come to us and they come to learn at one
18:47
Speaker 3: of the most pivotal times of their lives and And
18:50
Speaker 3: we have the opportunity to really make the most of
18:52
Speaker 3: the four years that we have with them. Students arrive
18:54
Speaker 3: in college, including at Grove City, in very different places spiritually.
18:59
Speaker 3: They'll leave in different places spiritually. But our hope, the
19:03
Speaker 3: hope of this discipleship-based approach to higher education is that
19:07
Speaker 3: wherever they start and wherever they finish, over the four
19:09
Speaker 3: years that they were here, they were formed to be
19:11
Speaker 3: more like Jesus during the time that they're here. And
19:15
Speaker 3: there's hardly a better opportunity for discipleship than we have
19:22
Speaker 3: when students live here in 24-7 community with us. They've
19:27
Speaker 3: come to learn and they've come at a period of
19:29
Speaker 3: their lives where they're really thinking and exploring a lot
19:32
Speaker 3: of these big questions. And then what I mean by that,
19:37
Speaker 3: and it may be a more practical sense, which I
19:39
Speaker 3: think you're also getting at, I sometimes talk here internally
19:44
Speaker 3: about the discipleship car wash. And what I mean by
19:49
Speaker 3: a discipleship car wash is that when a car goes
19:52
Speaker 3: into the car wash, which is a process that it
19:55
Speaker 3: moves through over time, it's not cleaned by just one
19:58
Speaker 3: nozzle and one hose that's super powerful that just blasts it.
20:03
Speaker 3: It moves through a process in which hundreds of sprayers
20:07
Speaker 3: and brushes and claws and dryers are all reaching every
20:12
Speaker 3: part of the outside of that car over time. And
20:15
Speaker 3: so in the same way, what I'm trying to communicate
20:18
Speaker 3: to our Grove City community is that Christian formation doesn't
20:25
Speaker 3: just happen in the chapel or through the Christian formation office.
20:28
Speaker 3: That's certainly one of the most powerful, biggest brushes and
20:31
Speaker 3: hoses that we could use to do that. But it
20:35
Speaker 3: It happens in classrooms and residence halls and in student-led
20:38
Speaker 3: ministries and in career services when they're discerning their calling
20:42
Speaker 3: and in academic support when they're struggling on an athletics
20:46
Speaker 3: team and through coaches and friendships and service. And so
20:51
Speaker 3: think about aligning those nozzles and brushes, right? Every part
20:55
Speaker 3: of the college, every person in our organization, to my mind,
21:00
Speaker 3: has a role in the process of spiritual formation and discipleship.
21:04
Speaker 3: So when I talk about it, discipleship-based approach to Christian
21:08
Speaker 3: higher ed, what I'm trying to do is get every
21:10
Speaker 3: one of those nozzles, sprayers, brushes that we have at
21:13
Speaker 3: this college all pointed in that same direction with a
21:17
Speaker 3: common goal so that when a student emerges from our
21:20
Speaker 3: four years here, they are more like Jesus than when
21:25
Speaker 3: they started.
21:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very wise. I will say kind
21:31
Speaker 1: of biographically, I suppose, in case you need more evidence
21:34
Speaker 1: for the fact that I'm super young, So I graduated
21:36
Speaker 1: high school in 2020. So I came into Grove in
21:38
Speaker 1: August of 2020. And at the time, especially during that
21:42
Speaker 1: college search period, I remember, because obviously, I mean, it
21:45
Speaker 1: was 2020. I mean, most colleges were really tamping down
21:48
Speaker 1: on anything that was in person, anything that involved people
21:51
Speaker 1: getting within five feet, 11 inches of each other. I
21:55
Speaker 1: think it felt very much at the time when I
21:58
Speaker 1: was looking at institutions to potentially spend the next four
22:00
Speaker 1: years of my life at, it very much felt like
22:02
Speaker 1: there were some institutions that were almost instinctively the minute
22:07
Speaker 1: COVID happened, it's like, well, okay, that's done. We're going
22:09
Speaker 1: to pull all this in-person stuff back because that's, that
22:12
Speaker 1: is solely an area of risk. And obviously there were
22:16
Speaker 1: lots of questions about how much of a risk that
22:18
Speaker 1: was at the time, but there are also questions about
22:21
Speaker 1: if your value proposition involves the kind of discipleship that
22:24
Speaker 1: happens in community, that's a much more, that makes the
22:28
Speaker 1: decision to go completely remote, go remote for one semester,
22:32
Speaker 1: two semesters, like a year, right? even past that for
22:36
Speaker 1: some institutions, that makes that conversation a lot more difficult
22:40
Speaker 1: because you're not just, you are mitigating a certain kind
22:43
Speaker 1: of risk, but you're also running the risk of degrading
22:46
Speaker 1: a certain kind of value that happens when students are
22:49
Speaker 1: on campus together.
22:50
Speaker 2: And I think.
22:52
Speaker 1: Both seem to understand that that was a two-way street.
22:55
Speaker 2: I totally agree with that.
22:56
Speaker 3: I mean, we have four years with these students every
23:00
Speaker 3: single year.
23:01
Speaker 2: Is precious.
23:02
Speaker 3: So to give up a year in community, that's no
23:05
Speaker 3: small thing.
23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially for me, at least, it would have been
23:09
Speaker 1: a freshman year, right? To give up the formation that
23:12
Speaker 1: happens freshman year of completely, obviously, you're phase shifting your
23:15
Speaker 1: entire life. Most people come from places that are not
23:18
Speaker 1: the town into this tiny little town. And I do
23:21
Speaker 1: mean tiny. So for context, I also live in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
23:24
Speaker 1: Brad and I's offices are probably a thousand feet away
23:27
Speaker 1: from each other. We could have done this via like
23:29
Speaker 1: tin can and a string. But it's like it is
23:31
Speaker 1: there is like this phase shift sort of thing that happens,
23:33
Speaker 1: especially when you're a freshman and four. And Grove always
23:36
Speaker 1: seemed to take that very seriously, even when it was
23:39
Speaker 1: maybe not so in vogue to do that, which I appreciate.
23:42
Speaker 1: So in terms of the future of the institution, I mean,
23:45
Speaker 1: I feel like you knew this question was coming. It
23:47
Speaker 1: seems like everyone in higher ed is talking about the
23:49
Speaker 1: term demographic cliff. I think you contractually have to say
23:52
Speaker 1: it in every higher ed interview that happens.
23:54
Speaker 2: That's right.
23:55
Speaker 1: So the demographic lift, for those of you who are
23:57
Speaker 1: not like super keyed in on this, and Brad, you
23:59
Speaker 1: tell me if this is an inaccurate summary of what
24:01
Speaker 1: it is, but it's basically this phenomenon where, right, so
24:03
Speaker 1: you have lowered birth rates from like recession era, and
24:06
Speaker 1: now there's like a dearth of college age applicants compared
24:09
Speaker 1: to past decades. One, obviously, the question of what to
24:14
Speaker 1: do about this has been asked and answered many times.
24:17
Speaker 1: But I guess for you as the president of a
24:21
Speaker 1: a pretty unique institution and maybe some of this is
24:24
Speaker 1: alumni bias but some of it really isn't do you
24:27
Speaker 1: see the audience that grove is speaking to so like
24:30
Speaker 1: one majority christian audience right and christians tend to have
24:33
Speaker 1: kids and contribute less to the demographic cliff than maybe
24:35
Speaker 1: other segments of the american population but do you see
24:38
Speaker 1: potential grover type audiences as more reliable perhaps in the
24:45
Speaker 1: coming years against kind of that looming demographic cliff? Or
24:48
Speaker 1: what do you, what are you thinking about that as
24:50
Speaker 1: you're kind of staring that in the face?
24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I think you're thinking about it.
24:53
Speaker 3: I think you're, I think you're thinking about Isaac very
24:55
Speaker 3: similar to the way that I'm thinking about it just
24:59
Speaker 3: for the audience. So, um, birth rates dropped significantly during
25:03
Speaker 3: the great recession, which was about 2008. So if you
25:06
Speaker 3: do the math, those students started showing up in college
25:09
Speaker 3: this year. Um, And that's not uncommon at all for
25:13
Speaker 3: periods of economic downturn and recessions. What was unusual about
25:17
Speaker 3: this is after that recession ended, the birth rates didn't
25:21
Speaker 3: go back up. They actually continued to go down. So
25:25
Speaker 3: they go off a cliff and then they continue to
25:28
Speaker 3: just go down sharply. And they have continued and consistently
25:32
Speaker 3: gone down sharply essentially every year since then. So as
25:37
Speaker 3: far out as the eye can see, there will be
25:41
Speaker 3: fewer students turning 18 and going to college than there
25:46
Speaker 3: has been before. And that was initially due to economic factors.
25:51
Speaker 3: Now I think it's also societal trends and a whole
25:56
Speaker 3: host of things have really contributed to it. But so
26:01
Speaker 3: that demographic cliff is real. And you're right, every college
26:04
Speaker 3: president around the country, regardless of where they sit and
26:08
Speaker 3: what their mission is, is thinking about it. We're no
26:11
Speaker 3: exception at Grove City College. And in fact, here in
26:14
Speaker 3: Western Pennsylvania, the demographic cliff is probably more real and
26:19
Speaker 3: more significant than it will be in other places because
26:23
Speaker 3: it's compounded for us by also migration patterns across the
26:30
Speaker 3: United States, which have favored states in the South over
26:34
Speaker 3: states in the North, generally speaking.
26:36
Speaker 1: So it's maybe shocking to the people listening to this podcast,
26:38
Speaker 1: but people aren't exactly flocking by the droves to come
26:41
Speaker 1: live in Western Pennsylvania.
26:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:44
Speaker 3: So, so, so it's something that we think seriously about
26:48
Speaker 3: a growth city and we're not at all immune. I
26:50
Speaker 3: think about it on a weekly, if not a daily
26:53
Speaker 3: basis at the same time, alongside that demographic cliff, uh,
26:59
Speaker 3: we talk about a Christian wave. So you've seen over time,
27:05
Speaker 3: and we expect to see into the future, really significant,
27:10
Speaker 3: almost explosive growth in the classical school movement, in Christian schools,
27:16
Speaker 3: in the homeschool movement. And so as the total population
27:23
Speaker 3: of graduating seniors is declining, students in classical schools and
27:29
Speaker 3: Christian schools and home schools are actually growing pretty significantly.
27:34
Speaker 3: So for that reason, I like to say at Grove City,
27:38
Speaker 3: our mission is the magnet that's going to draw the
27:41
Speaker 3: students and frankly, the professors and the donors that are
27:45
Speaker 3: going to be the key to our future. So the
27:46
Speaker 3: more clearly we can lean into our mission, the more
27:51
Speaker 3: clearly we can articulate and lean into what makes Grove
27:54
Speaker 3: City College distinctive, the better off we will be to
27:58
Speaker 3: attract the students and the faculty and the donors who
28:02
Speaker 3: are vital to our future. And so when I think
28:06
Speaker 3: of our mission, I think Grove City is Christian, conservative,
28:10
Speaker 3: academically excellent and affordable. And so that gives us, right,
28:16
Speaker 3: they don't eliminate the demographic challenges, but they give us
28:20
Speaker 3: a clarity of purpose and they give people a compelling
28:23
Speaker 3: reason to come to Grove City College. So I don't
28:27
Speaker 3: stay up late worried that we're staring into an abyss,
28:32
Speaker 3: but it is something we think about, and I think
28:38
Speaker 3: we do have unusual reasons for confidence, provided that we
28:42
Speaker 3: maintain fidelity to our mission and our distinctives. Frankly, I
28:48
Speaker 3: would rather be here at Grove City than almost anywhere
28:53
Speaker 3: else as this cliff continues to have an impact on
29:00
Speaker 3: higher education.
29:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it goes back to that confidence
29:03
Speaker 1: in the value proposition, right? Whether that was the COVID
29:06
Speaker 1: era thing of, no, we're actually still a college. We're
29:08
Speaker 1: not going to move to become like a loose aggregation
29:11
Speaker 1: of Zoom meetings that kind of teach school. There's something
29:16
Speaker 1: real that happens here. There's something tangible that happens in
29:18
Speaker 1: these buildings. And that I also, I mean, going back
29:22
Speaker 1: to that Christian orthodoxy point, I think Grove's in a
29:24
Speaker 1: much better place than I'm sure we could name institutions here.
29:27
Speaker 3: We won't.
29:28
Speaker 1: We could, but we won't. But it's in terms of
29:33
Speaker 1: being able to genuinely lay claim to holding to Christian orthodoxy,
29:38
Speaker 1: that's a value add, right? It's not just a vaguely
29:42
Speaker 1: kind of Christ-referencing occasionally version of a state school or
29:48
Speaker 1: a version of just kind of a generic northeast corridor college.
29:53
Speaker 1: This is something different. I think that's a really good
29:56
Speaker 1: occasion for for hope. This maybe is a rather light
30:00
Speaker 1: closer against the previous question of what do you see
30:03
Speaker 1: when you look at the abyss? But again, you're dealing
30:06
Speaker 1: with a lot of big picture issues, obviously, institutional identity formation,
30:11
Speaker 1: emerging technologies, all that sort of thing. But in terms
30:15
Speaker 1: of kind of for you as an institutional leader, what
30:17
Speaker 1: are you reading? What are you listening to? What do
30:19
Speaker 1: you recommend other people should be reading and listening to
30:22
Speaker 1: from your vantage point?
30:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
30:26
Speaker 3: I find myself doing more reading uh, than I ever
30:29
Speaker 3: have before, because I'm with people so much of so
30:31
Speaker 3: many days that sometimes I just have a, uh, uh,
30:35
Speaker 3: almost a craving to go back and sit and read.
30:37
Speaker 3: So maybe I'll mention two books that I'm reading now.
30:39
Speaker 3: And then one that I, one that I meant I
30:41
Speaker 3: read over the, uh, the summer that, that, that made
30:44
Speaker 3: an impact on me. So, um, Oh, Oh, Oh, I got,
30:47
Speaker 3: I got on a little bit of a Dallas Willard
30:49
Speaker 3: kick over the summer. I was talking with, uh, uh,
30:52
Speaker 3: A friend in higher education who was talking about the
30:55
Speaker 3: impact that Dallas Willard had on him. So I subscribed
30:58
Speaker 3: to the Dallas Willard podcast, which Dallas Willard.
31:01
Speaker 2: Has been long gone.
31:05
Speaker 3: But a lot of his famous Christian philosopher taught at
31:09
Speaker 3: UCLA for a number of years. But I started listening
31:13
Speaker 3: to some of his sermons and right in the middle
31:16
Speaker 3: of reading his great work, The Divine Conspiracy. which has
31:21
Speaker 3: been really helpful as I think about Christian higher education
31:24
Speaker 3: generally and discipleship specifically. I'm also reading more for fun
31:32
Speaker 3: a biography of Blaise Pascal that came out just a
31:36
Speaker 3: year or two ago. Pascal was this remarkable 17th century scientist, mathematician, inventor.
31:43
Speaker 2: He was also a man of deep faith.
31:48
Speaker 3: And he was a man of deep faith at a
31:50
Speaker 3: time in Europe during the scientific revolution when really secular
31:56
Speaker 3: humanism was gathering a lot of momentum and his Christian
31:59
Speaker 3: belief was becoming less intellectually fashionable. So I've been reading
32:03
Speaker 3: that for fun. I'm partway through that.
32:05
Speaker 1: And he wrote this book called The Pensace, which is
32:07
Speaker 1: like the notes app of books, right? I'm sure you've
32:11
Speaker 1: read Pensace, but it very much feels like He was
32:13
Speaker 1: just writing things on post-it notes and just kind of
32:15
Speaker 1: stuffing them together into this aggregation. But it's great. I mean,
32:19
Speaker 1: it's a peek into the mind of a scientific genius.
32:21
Speaker 1: I'm sure the biography is good, too.
32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, a brilliant man of faith who died at age 39.
32:27
Speaker 3: But then as I've been thinking about that, and then
32:31
Speaker 3: the one I read this summer is, again, probably on
32:34
Speaker 3: the lighter side. But I spent some time this summer
32:39
Speaker 3: as we ended the year, I was just reflecting back
32:41
Speaker 3: on what a leadership challenge it is to lead a
32:45
Speaker 3: Christian college. And frankly, it's the toughest leadership challenge I've
32:50
Speaker 3: ever faced because it brings together so many smart, really committed,
32:54
Speaker 3: really opinionated constituencies. You're trying to lead roughly 2,200 students,
32:58
Speaker 3: but also 150 faculty members and 24 head coaches and
33:00
Speaker 3: 300 staff members and more than 30,000 alumni.
33:02
Speaker 2: And so.
33:09
Speaker 3: I, I got my hands on some different leadership books
33:12
Speaker 3: and was reading through them just, just to try to
33:15
Speaker 3: develop myself as a leader and think through what would it,
33:18
Speaker 3: what would it look like to lead well, uh, in,
33:22
Speaker 3: in Christian higher education. And, um, and a friend, uh,
33:27
Speaker 3: or someone gave me a book, um, um, leadership by, by,
33:32
Speaker 3: by Joseph Stowell, who was a Christian higher education leaders,
33:35
Speaker 3: the president of Moody Bible Institute. And then, uh, And
33:38
Speaker 3: then later Cornerstone, which is a Christian college up in Michigan.
33:43
Speaker 3: And he didn't write it for college presidents or really
33:50
Speaker 3: with many direct references to being a Christian college president.
33:54
Speaker 3: But as I was reading the book, I could very
33:57
Speaker 3: much relate to some of what he described and could
33:59
Speaker 3: only imagine the context in which he might have had
34:03
Speaker 3: opportunity to consider some of the thoughts that he was sharing.
34:08
Speaker 3: as he was leading. And so that was probably the
34:11
Speaker 3: surprise for me at the time was reading that book,
34:15
Speaker 3: came out probably 10 or 15 years ago, just helped
34:18
Speaker 3: me reflect intentionally on how I can lead in a
34:21
Speaker 3: Christ-like manner. Probably the book that I've read this year
34:28
Speaker 3: that's made the biggest impact on me as I sort
34:32
Speaker 3: of think about how I want to exhibit the fruit
34:34
Speaker 3: of the Spirit in my own life through my leadership
34:37
Speaker 3: and lead with clarity of purpose, but also.
34:41
Speaker 2: Humility, right?
34:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. That's a great way to close.
34:46
Speaker 1: And I mean, I will say from a perspective as
34:48
Speaker 1: one of those 30,000 alumni, it's been great to see
34:52
Speaker 1: what the college has been doing. I'm excited for the future.
34:55
Speaker 1: I'm so happy you're here. I wish you nothing but
34:57
Speaker 1: the best. And thank you for taking time amidst all
35:00
Speaker 1: of that, right? Amidst all of that institutional leadership, you
35:03
Speaker 1: still found time to be on this little podcast, which
35:06
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate.
35:07
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm happy to do it, Isaac. We're all very
35:10
Speaker 3: proud of you here at Grove. I love reading what
35:12
Speaker 3: you write.
35:13
Speaker 1: That's terrifying. There's nothing more terrifying than that.
35:17
Speaker 2: You're making a great impact.
35:19
Speaker 3: And so you're a great example of a Grove City
35:22
Speaker 3: College graduate.
35:23
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that, my friend. Thank you for coming
35:26
Speaker 1: on and taking the time. And thank you to all
35:28
Speaker 1: of you for listening to Meeting of Minds.
35:34
Speaker 3: Thank you.