Michael Helfand op-ed, "Making Faith-Based Institutions Inclusive" -- Inside Higher Ed

April 5, 2017 | By Kylie Larkin -- An op-ed by Professor Michael A. Helfand, "Making Faith-Based Institutions Inclusive," was published in today's Inside Higher Ed. Professor Helfand, the associate director of Pepperdine's Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies, considers how faith-based institutions successfully promote religious diversity.

Excerpt from "Making Faith-Based Institutions Inclusive":

From my vantage point, the reason why Pepperdine has proven fertile ground for cultivating religious diversity among its faculty alongside its continued commitment to its core Christian mission is because it conveys to its entire faculty that we are valued because of and not despite the university's faith-based mission.

This is a tall order. Some faith-based universities aim to maintain religious conformity as part of an overall commitment to their religious objectives -- an aspiration that often manifests itself in university policies requiring all applicants to sign a statement of faith. In these institutions, religious diversity isn't an objective; instead, the religious character of these institutions adds to the overall institutional diversity of higher education by providing unique faith-based approaches to university life.

The complete article may be found at www.insidehighered.com