A Christian Educator’s Final Warnings About Hiring Faculty
(ANALYSIS) Year after year, faith-based colleges produce waves of upbeat brochures, social media appeals and videos for parents and their children.
The presidents of these institutions should study these materials closely, said Houston Christian University President Robert B. Sloan Jr. at the January 2026 conference of the International Alliance for Christian Education.
“All of the brochures in the world, declaring in glossy print the Christian claims of an institution, cannot overcome the failures of personnel to embrace, expound and affirm the Christian identity of the institution,” said Sloan, who led Baylor University, his alma mater (and mine), before his 2006 move to Houston. “If the recruiting materials and fundraising newsletters do not match what really goes on in the classroom or in student life, you may expect not only disappointment but cynicism and, eventually, conflict.”
Thus, presidents must have courage when hiring faculty, he stressed.
“When you hire someone,” said Sloan, “you should never accept their mere consent, no matter how good their credentials are academically, to 'appreciate' or 'be sensitive to' your culture and character. I used to know of a situation where an interviewer would refer to the 'expectations of our constituents' and then ask, 'Are you all right with that?’”
Close is not good enough, stressed Sloan. It's crucial to learn, “Does the candidate want to be at an institution like yours? ... Or do they simply want a job?”
Sloan's address — 11 theses for Christian higher education — was timely after years of headlines about faith-based schools closing their doors as experts warned about a looming "enrollment cliff" due to falling birth rates. It was also symbolic because Sloan died on July 4, after suffering a stroke at age 77.
That plenary address “was the best presentation I have ever heard him give. It will serve as a guide for IACE and for all Christian higher education for years to come,” said Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President David Dockery, writing for Baptist Press.
Dockery had previously served as president of Union University and Trinity International University.
Asked by email about the Sloan address, Dockery noted: “Faculty hiring is the key to sustaining the mission at an institution.”
When Sloan arrived, Houston Baptist University had about 2,100 students on a commuter-friendly campus next to a jammed highway. It became Houston Christian University during his tenure, while adding an honors college and numerous other programs. Enrollment hit 4,693 in fall 2025, and with new dorms, many more students lived on campus. Surrounded by Houston's 2.4 million residents, HCU became one of America's most culturally diverse Christian schools.
It was unusual to see a president leave Baylor, which has 20,000 students today, for a much smaller school. But Sloan made the move after years of fierce debate about his ambitious “Baylor 2012” plan, which sought to make the school a national-level research university while strengthening its commitment to Christian doctrines.
In a 2011 World magazine interview, Sloan noted: “We began to work hard to hire people of great academic reputation and visibility who were of a Christian sensibility. Hiring Christian people was the college's policy, but everyone would just wink and nod. They spoke up when I moved to enforce that. ... My critics said I would turn Baylor into a Bible college.”
At one point, Sloan said a faculty member told him: “We have to get rid of the Baptist and religious stuff — there are bigger fish to fry.”
Theology is important when stated in signed doctrinal covenants, and not just because critics search for vague policies when suing faith-based schools on matters of marriage, gender, sexual morality and other hot-button issues, Sloan told IACE. “Explicit convictions" matter because they shape academic communities for generations to come.
“The sexual revolution ... has accelerated dramatically in the last 20 years and threatens to make cowards of us all,” said Sloan. “The sexual habits of many of our own evangelical students (are) surprising, to say the least. And what they are willing to tolerate as an ethical practice and even justify within their own theological frame of reference ... is equally as distressing.
“Theology and ethics do not live in separate categories. Both are very experiential and have a mutual influence upon one another.”
COPYRIGHT 2026 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.