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Character-Building Colleges: A Few Token HBCUs; Colleges That Encourage Character Development
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. declared that "intelligence plus character is the goal of true education." But, complains the world famous investor John Templeton, in higher education today character development is often ignored in favor of a concentration on preparing students for graduate school competition or for the rigors of the workplace.
But not all colleges and universities are obsessed with so-called "bottom-line" issues. A large number of higher education institutions in the United States continue to emphasize character development as part of the educational process. A new guide from the John Templeton Foundation,(*) Colleges That Encourage Character Development, identifies more than 400 colleges and universities that offer educational programs that in the foundation's view share a common set of core values: honesty, compassion, and personal responsibility.
Many of the colleges in the guide are so-called Bible colleges such as Wheaton College in Illinois, Abilene Christian University in Texas, and Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. Most of the Bible colleges have a very small percentage of black students. A JBHE survey of black enrollments at the 100 members of the Coalition of Christian Colleges found that 41 schools had black enrollments of less than 3 percent, 33 colleges had black enrollments that were less than 2 percent, and 12 colleges had a student body that was less than 1 percent black.(**)
Other universities in the Templeton guide with religious ties to various Protestant churches include California Lutheran University, Baylor University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Brigham Young University. Many of the Protestant-affiliated colleges excluded blacks until the 1960s. But now most of these schools claim to have initiated outreach programs in order to increase diversity on campus. One Christian college that didn't make the Templeton list was Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.(*)
In addition,...