Are We Equipping?

Below is an email I received from Katie Rollings, one of our parents and current School Board member:

Bob-

I attended a luncheon in Columbia on Tuesday, and I found myself sitting next to an individual who is a CPA by training, but works in Student Affairs at one of our state universities.  We talked about many things, but I took the opportunity to get her opinion on student preparedness for college in those areas that employers are most in need of finding:  innovation, problem solving, thinking outside the box, collaboration, etc.  I won’t go into her full answer via email, but suffice it to say that she had several comments of interest:

·         The incoming freshmen are woefully lacking in these skill sets (I don’t think that should be a surprise to you)

·         25% of incoming students are on medication…and not ADHD medication, etc.  but medication for anxiety and depression.  I was both stunned and saddened by that percentage and it prompted me to solicit her opinion on the role of parents in this trend (because I personally believe that parents bear much guilt for transferring responsibility for their happiness onto their children…quite inappropriately obviously). 

·         Parents are a significant problem for Offices of Student Affairs in higher education across the country.  She sees it first-hand every day.  Again, not surprising, but I found it so interesting to sit and actually talk to someone living it versus reading surveys and studies that speak to the same reality. 

It got me thinking about Shannon’s distinctives and about what our “sell” is.  I think it goes back in large measure to two terms we’ve already discussed:   private and Christian.  We have the flexibility to address real educational needs in our world unhampered by the directives of the State.   We also, as a Christian school, offer the hope of Christ to a generation of students who are stressed out, anxious, burdened and utterly NOT free in Christ…even if they are Christians.   School, by its very design, encourages competition and stress which, although not all bad, does rob education of its purer side:  the pursuit of Truth and excellence motivated by OUR very design (i.e. what we were made to do).  I identify with this tension namely because it was the blue print for my own salvation…a freeing of me from my own enslavement to performance and perfection.  Obviously, I still struggle (often in not so subtle ways) with the old demons, but the FREEDOM in Christ I realized at salvation was transformative and still is.

So, I found this conversation with this individual over lunch interesting to say the least.  To my knowledge she is not a believer, and we certainly did not talk about any of her observations in a Christian context.  It was on the drive home that I began to think about the unique role SFCS does and can play in some of these problems endemic to higher ed. 

Katie