PROVO -- Brigham Young University faculty believe the LDS Church-owned school can achieve academic excellence while placing a premium on faith when it comes to questions of academic freedom, a soon-to-be-published survey concludes.
Results of the 1998 survey show that BYU faculty are committed to strong scholarship, "although not at the expense of faith," wrote Keith Wilson, assistant professor ancient scripture. Wilson's research, conducted in conjunction with a nationwide project on religion and academics, will be published in the forthcoming issue of "BYU Studies."The "Spirituality & Education" survey was administered at the tail end of an intense debate about academic freedom. The debate culminated with an official censure of the Provo school by the American Association of University Professors, which concluded the academic climate at BYU was "distressingly poor."
But some already are pointing to Wilson's survey as evidence that most BYU professors may not agree with AAUP's assessment. BYU President Merrill J. Bateman cited results of Wilson's research in an August speech, saying BYU faculty compared favorably with those of Notre Dame, Baylor and Boston College when it came to commitment to the schools' religious purposes.
Nearly 90 percent of BYU faculty said they "have more freedom at BYU to teach as they deem appropriate than they think they would have elsewhere," Wilson wrote. He said when faith and reason clash, the majority of BYU faculty "show a deliberate preference for spirituality over intellectuality."
Wilson conducted the research in conjunction with Baylor University professors Larry Lyon and Michael Beaty. The pair eventually plan to publish comparative results among the four schools, and they are scheduled to appear with Wilson at a BYU symposium on the topic later this year.
Initially, BYU administrators withheld approval of the questionnaire because they feared it could fan the flames of the raging debate over academic freedom, which began in 1996 with the termination of English professor Gail T. Houston.
But Lyon and Beaty, who had secured federal funding for the project in 1996, vowed to go ahead with the BYU survey even without administrators' OK. Eventually, administrators acquiesced to allowing the survey, although a cover letter sent with the questionnaire pointed out the research was not conducted by the BYU administration.
Of 1,520 questionnaires, 876 (58 percent) were returned. Wilson said the general question answered by the results was whether BYU faculty are simply "foot soldiers" forced to follow the party line of the school administration and LDS Church at the expense of intellectual pursuits. That's not the case, Wilson said.
"I think there's quite an active wrestling with what's appropriate and what's not," he said. "We're not just deferring to faith and becoming a Bible college.
"On the other hand, we're not just throwing out faith-based learning and becoming secular."
What BYU faculty members attempt to do is mix faith and reason, something that became rare after the "academic revolution" of the early 20th century, Wilson said. He suggested the inevitable conflict between faith and reason was not a negative and has been present throughout BYU's history.