![]() After doing so, I remounted the porch, only to have the same lips tell me to go into the shed across the yard, undress, and put on the clothes laid out for me. As I mounted the rickety porch, the door opened only enough to reveal a pair of lips, which asked me to spit out my gum in the woods across the road. Because Sue was both smart and conscientious we had great discussions, and at the end of the term she invited me to have dinner with her family to thank me for my help.īecause she was the daughter of a well-known pastor, I felt comfortable driving into the mountains where Sue lived with her mother and sister in a former logging cabin, all three sharing the same allergies. Inside was her textbook, which she read through the glass lid, turning the pages by inserting gloved hands into holes cut into the side of the box. Agreeing to help a student who was allergic to the inside of both classrooms and books, I met with Sue (as I shall call her) at an outdoor picnic table, upon which she placed a huge wooden box with a glass top. I started thinking seriously about Christian college as fortress while teaching at a secular university during summer term. Several years ago a parent called during my office hours to protest the “C” his son received in my poetry course, saying “I thought you worked at a Christian college! What kind of Christian would do this to my child?” In these bulldozing incidents, institutions are regarded as bastions of (anything but) learning, bastions that must be conquered. Christian bulldozers seem to have a different fortress mentality, the enemy often being professors themselves. In March, 2019, the New York Times published an essay on “bulldozer” or “snowplow” parents who illegally clear the way to get their children into fortresses of financial success. Enjoy this post by Wade Center Co-Director, Crystal Downing, that first appeared on the Christian Scholar’s Review blog on June 10, 2021.ĭecades ago, when I informed an acquaintance that I had accepted a tenure-track position at a Christian college, he shifted his eyes awkwardly before smiling out, “Sounds like a nice place to send my daughters.” I repeat the appalling comment-appalling on many different levels-in order to contrast it with a different kind of parental approach that has disturbed the professorate in more recent years.
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