This month two Council for Christian Colleges & Universities leaders received the honor of being included in Christianity Today’s “50 Women to Watch: Those most shaping the church and culture.” The list and accompanying profiles were featured as the cover story package in the October issue of Christianity Today.
The 50 women were selected based on input from dozens of evangelical leaders who were asked “to identify Christian women in North America whom evangelicals (both men and women) admire and who are shaping the life of the church and culture in significant ways.” Online Editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey wrote, “This list is hardly the last word, but it recognizes the growing public role of Christian women in our movement and culture, and suggests the ways they are shaping our future.”
Included among the 50 were Kim Phipps, chair of the CCCU Board of Directors and president of Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., and Shirley Mullen, president of Houghton College in Houghton, N.Y.
In the profile of Phipps, Richard Mouw, president of CCCU theological institution affiliate Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., noted Phipps’ emphasis on intellectual and spiritual hospitality. He quoted from an essay in which she described academic hospitality as “a methodology of inquiry that humbly assumes that we can learn as much (or more) from those with whom we disagree as we can from our like-minded colleagues.” Yet, Mouw also noted that Phipps grounds her case for hospitality in biblical authority, making clear she is not advocating for a spirit of epistemological or moral relativism. As Mouw wrote, “Phipps has translated hospitality into acts of institutional leadership, initiating new programs at Messiah in diversity, faculty research, vocational discernment, and curricular integration.”
Mullen is described by Mark Noll, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, as distinctive in evangelical higher education “for the depth of her academic preparation, the insight of her institutional leadership, and the breadth of her Christian concerns.” Noll noted that Mullen has been a promoter of Christian approaches to history with contributions marked by balanced seriousness. He also described initiatives at Houghton under her leadership: from strengthening natural sciences studies and beginning social outreach programs to rebuilding the college’s relationship with Sierra Leone and creating a partnership with AmeriCorps.
The CCCU is pleased to celebrate the accomplishments and impact of Phipps and Mullen along with so many other women at CCCU institutions whose leadership gifts, as Bailey wrote, “are changing the life of the evangelical church and North American society in remarkable ways.”
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About the CCCU: The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities is a higher education association of 172 intentionally Christ-centered institutions around the world. The 118 member campuses in North America are all fully-accredited, comprehensive colleges and universities with curricula rooted in the arts and sciences. In addition, 54 affiliate campuses from 19 countries are part of the CCCU. The Council’s mission is to advance the cause of Christ-centered higher education and to help our institutions transform lives by faithfully relating scholarship and service to biblical truth. Visit www.cccu.org.