School presidents celebrate the value of faith-based higher education
The American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-based Universities unveils first in a series of BYUtv documentaries at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
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Attendees watch as the BYUtv documentary “HIGHER ed: The Power of Faith-Inspired Learning” is screened during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. Isaac Hale, Deseret News
Tad reported this story from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON — Nearly 2 million students attend faith-based colleges and universities, a fast-growing segment of American higher education that now has a new tool to share its story.
Over 50 college and university presidents gathered Monday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capital and vigorously applauded after watching the first episode of a new BYUtv documentary series, “Higher Ed: The Power of Faith-Inspired Learning in America."
“Faith-based institutions are the bedrock of American higher education, and we’ve not paid adequate attention to that role and to that responsibility,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, speaks during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
ACE launched a Commission on Faith-based Colleges and Universities last year and Monday’s event drew the presidents of dozens of commission member schools, including Notre Dame, Yeshiva University and Brigham Young University.
The event also drew representatives of the U.S. Department of Education, the Faith Angle Forum, the American Enterprise Institute and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, as well as reporters from The Washington Post and other media outlets.
The new BYUtv documentary highlights students and presidents at three faith-based schools — Catholic University of America, Taylor University and BYU-Hawaii.
“This is a way of saying, ‘Faith institutions have a contribution to make,’” said Elder Clark G. Gilbert, the commissioner of education for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Two additional episodes will be released in August and will include students from other commission schools. Those schools amount to 10% of the nation’s colleges and universities and are excited to tell their stories, four presidents said during a panel discussion.
Their stories need to be told even to people of faith, said Ryan Burge, the event’s keynote speaker and a well-known analyst of data on faith and religion at Eastern Illinois University.
Burge said it’s a myth that college is a place where students lose their faith.
“College is not antithetical to religion,” he said. “In some ways, it accelerates religion, enhances religion.”
Data shows that the more educated Americans are, the more faithful they are, Burge said. He has found that the more Americans are educated and faithful, the more they flourish in numerous data sets.
Ryan P. Burge, author and social commentator as well as an associate professor and graduate coordinator for political science at Eastern Illinois University, speaks as he gives the keynote address during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
“To summarize, education is good. Religion is good. Education plus religion is good,” he said. “It causes trust. It makes us more loving of our neighbors. It increases our income. It increases all these outcomes.”
In the documentary, Isabela Barboza said she decided to attend Catholic University of America because she decided that “if religion is part of my life, it has to be part of my education and formation.”
Taylor University student Hannah Wylie, whose parents attended Harvard and Brown, said she struggled before turning down her own Ivy League offer to attend the small evangelical school in Upland, Indiana. She is grateful she did.
“I wanted to be taught to think deeply about things I was doing,” she said in the documentary. “I wanted to do things for a purpose.”
Every college and university president in America is grappling with data that shows students facing a crisis of meaning in their lives.
Rabbi Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University, took a moment of gratitude during the panel discussion because he found the documentary powerful.
From left, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, leads a panel comprised of Candice McQueen, president of Lipscomb University, Michael Lindsay, president of Taylor University, Rabbi Ari Berman, president and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, and the Rev. Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
“Young people are looking to university to find themselves and their values because they are not seeing answers to their deep, existential questions in the ephemeral choices being offered them in other institutions,” he said.
Lipscomb University President Candice McQueen said she was grateful the documentary illustrated what colleges and universities like her Churches of Christ school in Nashville, Tennessee, bring to the table.
The Rev. Robert Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, said his school takes a both-and approach to the holistic growth of its students.
“Notre Dame is a place where we educate the whole person, where both faith and reason are engaged, where matters of the heart as well as the life of the mind are very much valued,” he said. “We want our students to grow not only in understanding, in knowledge and in technical skills but in wisdom, and we want them to grow in faith, hope and love.”
The Rev. Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, talks with Devan Patel, counsel and senior director of legal affairs at the American Unity Fund, before the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
Among those in attendance were BYU President Shane Reese, BYU-Idaho President Alvin Meredith, BYU-Pathway Worldwide President Brian Ashton and Ensign College President Bruce Kusch.
BYU-Hawaii President John Kauwe wasn’t at the Kennedy Center, but he was seen in the documentary riding a skateboard on the Laie, Hawaii, campus in white Nikes with a black swoosh and a splash of blue.
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“What faith-based institutions offer is another type of belonging,” Kauwe says in the 30-minute film.
The presidents met in working groups in the morning to learn about best practices around issues like hiring people who fit a school’s mission and how to share and elevate stories about their faith-based schools.
Elder Gilbert said the Commission on Faith-based Colleges and Universities creates a friendship for every school.
“There is connectivity for those who always feel like the odd man out,” he said.
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Elder Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Bruce C. Kusch, right, president of Ensign College, shakes hands with Kipling Sheppard, chair of the president’s leadership council at Brigham Young University–Hawaii, during a reception in the skylight pavilion after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Michael Lindsay, right, president of Taylor University, hugs Joseph Castleberry, president of Northwest University, during a reception in the skylight pavilion after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Jeff Simpson, CEO of Deseret Management Corporation who also oversees BYU Broadcasting, greets Rabbi Ari Berman, president and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Brian Ashton, president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide, shakes hands with Trent McBride, institute council member at the Southern Virginia University Institute of Religion, during a reception in the skylight pavilion after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Shirley Hoogstra, president emerita of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, hugs Dr. Leslie Pollard, president of Oakwood University, as Hoogstra greets Prudence LaBeach Pollard, vice president for faculty development and research at Oakwood University, before the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Attendees watch as the BYUtv documentary “HIGHER ed: The Power of Faith-Inspired Learning” is screened during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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David Moss, coordinator and institute director with the Charlottesville Virginia Institute of Religion, watches as the BYUtv documentary “HIGHER ed: The Power of Faith-Inspired Learning” is screened during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Ryan P. Burge, author and social commentator as well as an associate professor and graduate coordinator for political science at Eastern Illinois University, speaks as he gives the keynote address during the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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From left, Elder Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, leads a panel comprised of Candice McQueen, president of Lipscomb University, Michael Lindsay, president of Taylor University, Rabbi Ari Berman, president and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, and the Rev. Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Michael Lindsay, president of Taylor University, speaks during a panel discussion as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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The Rev. Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame, speaks during a panel discussion as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Alvin F. Meredith III, left, president of Brigham Young University–Idaho, talks with Candice McQueen, right, president of Lipscomb University, as they’re joined by Elder Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the Church Educational System within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Rabbi Ari Berman, president and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, hugs C. Shane Reese, president of Brigham Young University, after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Jeff Simpson, CEO of Deseret Management Corporation who also oversees BYU Broadcasting, talks with Paul Lambert, director of the religion in society initiative at Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute, after the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Rabbi Ari Berman, president and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, speaks during a panel discussion as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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Candice McQueen, president of Lipscomb University, speaks during a panel discussion as part of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities held in the Justice Forum at the REACH of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 9, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
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