The Significance of Personnel Change for Operative Goals: A Structuralist Approach to Theological Self-Identification and Attitudes toward Academic Policy in Southern Baptist Colleges

Abstract

Utilizing the work of Perrow, Simon, Pfeffer, and Levi-Strauss, this paper analyzes the structural implications of differences among self-identified fundamentalist, moderate, and liberal professors who teach in Southern Baptist Colleges. While the goals of religious socialization and scholarly initiative provide a set of constraints within which these colleges must operate, there are numerous possible ways of relating to them. It is hypothesized that fundamentalists will endorse policies that favor religious socialization, but liberals will prefer policies that encourage scholarly initiative. Data collected in 1991 indicate that large discrepancies exist between fundamentalists and liberals, and that only slight erosion of differences occurs among those with six or more years of experience. Attempts to change the current composition of faculty - who are mostly liberal - by hiring more fundamentalists will likely provoke intense debate and conflict over methods of educating students.