What Does "Wesleyan" Mean at a Wesleyan University? 1

I am giving a talk tomorrow to some of our Adult and Professional Studies profs on what the "Wesleyan" means in Indiana Wesleyan University. But I am writing up this piece so it would apply at any Wesleyan institution of higher learning (but it works for Wesleyan high schools too :-).

The talk is already prepared in my head and Power Point--it is basically a modified version of what I blogged about the personality and essence of The Wesleyan Church (now on my archive site: http://www.kenschenck.com). But I am creating a full length version under the above title as well. In my usual fashion, I thought I would blog the "patches" here from the other piece to this one.

For example, the new introduction follows:

The Nature of Wesleyan Colleges and Universities
A college or university of The Wesleyan Church is not the same as a Wheaton or a Fuller. Indeed, they are not even the same as Free Methodist colleges or universities. For example, many might be surprised to know that Wheaton College was actually founded as a Wesleyan Methodist institution. But because it was created as a self-contained institution, it's trustees felt free to change first to a Congregationalist college and then to this day it remains somewhat Calvinist in flavor. But its governance is a matter of a self-perpetuating group of trustees who have the authority to make it become anything they want it to be.

Not so with a Wesleyan university. The Wesleyan Methodist Church learned its lesson after "losing" a couple institutions like Wheaton and from then on made sure it held the title deeds to the colleges it founded. This is not true of, say, Free Methodist institutions. If a Free Methodist college decided to abandon its connection with the Free Methodist Church, the most the denomination could do would be to withdraw its funding and support.

But the Wesleyan Church has the authority to fire the board of trustees of any of its institutions. Indeed, the Wesleyan Church closed one of its former institutions even though its trustees had unanimously voted to keep it open. A college like IWU will never become more liberal than the Wesleyan Church will allow it. If its trustees at some point decided that for some reason they wanted to be all about making money to the exclusion of being a Christian college in some way, the Wesleyan Church could remove every one of them from office and replace them with whomever they wished.

This is an important fact about a Wesleyan college or university. Its boss is The Wesleyan Church, and it serves the pleasure of The Wesleyan Church. To be sure, the Wesleyan Church does not have an oppressive or antagonistic attitude toward its institutions. Those of us who work at Wesleyan universities can be thankful for having a very helpful boss that, indeed, looks to us for guidance on important issues. I do not view this relationship as a bane to us!

But this is simply not a matter for debate. Here is a warning to the naive who think that academia--anywhere--is just about truth and that an intellectual can argue his or her way into existence. There are things that can be changed and things that cannot be changed. This is an issue that will not change for the foreseeable future. End of story. If you feel strongly to the contrary, you will eventually need to go somewhere else.