IS A DOCTORATE ALL THAT IS NECESSARY? ° STANLEY E. PORTER ° Associate Professor of Religious Studies Trinity Western University In their article, "The School of Religion in the Christian University," Samuel L. Dunn and Daniel N. Berg (Faculty Dialogue 18 [Fall 1992]: 143-51) define several significant and timely contributions that a strong religion or biblical studies faculty can and should make to a vibrant and healthy Christian university. In defining the characteristics of the faculty member of a strong school of religion, the authors list five characteristics, none of which they develop in great detail. Although I could quibble with a couple of the characteristics, for four of the five I have no serious objections. The first characteristic, however, is that faculty members should "teach primarily in the area of their doctorates" (p. 144), and it is this statement with which I wish to differ, for two major reasons. First, this statement seems to imply that faculty members of Christian universities will have doctorates (I assume that the authors mean earned doctorates). I am not convinced that this should be the fundamental assumption when one is concerned to create the best faculty of biblical or religious studies in a Christian university. In the United States there is an incredible amount of pressure exerted by regional accreditation boards for the highest number of faculty member to have earned doctorates. I recognize this. This is probably at least in part a legacy that the United States has inherited from patterning its modern universities after the German university, where the doctorate was offered and insisted upon much earlier, rather than after the British university, where up until quite recently the doctorate was still seen to be optional. Whether one does or does not have a doctorate is a very easy way to appear to be qualifying one's academic credentials, but it may not be an entirely accurate indicator of them. It is still the case-and I believe that it should remain the case-that the Ph.D. is essentially a research degree, in which the degree candidate demonstrates specialist competence in an academic discipline. It is not primarily, or at least it should not be viewed primarily as, a degree that alone qualifies the recipient to be a competent teacher. Therefore, this degree itself actually says very little directly about one's abilities in the classroom, abilities rightly emphasized by Dunn and Berg in their article and rightly thought important by most Christian universities, as well as most other universities these days. Simply to insist upon holding the doctorate in order to qualify for a teaching position at a Christian university might well exclude a number of people who would make a sizable contribution to the institution as qualified and expert teachers. I am not saying that the requirement of an earned doctorate should be dropped from the qualifications for university teaching, but I am saying that this requirement should be made more flexible. Although the process of earning the doctorate is designed to foster and develop one's critical faculties, if we are honest, we must admit that the doctorate alone does not even guarantee adequate scholarly competence. The tendency in far too many institutions with which I am familiar, including unfortunately many Christian ones, is to view the doctorate as the first and last step in the process of gaining admission to the guild of university professors. The kind of attitude I infer from Dunn and Berg's article might be seen to contribute to this. Rather than viewing the doctorate as the final accolade or crowning glory of one's academic career, I believe that it should serve instead as one's opening invitation to scholarship, a serious piece of work but nevertheless only one's first. An example from another university I am familiar with might help to make my point more clearly. The head of a department there has an earned Ph.D., but had done no scholarship in his area of expertise for the fifteen years he had held the degree. When the university put pressure on him for publication to advance from associate to full professor, he got very interested in pursuing research. However, after a few trips to the library and perusal of the secondary literature, it became obvious to him that he had been away from the subject for so long that he was long past being able to enter the lists of serious scholarship. On the other hand, there was a recent graduate of the university who as an undergraduate had published his first article in one of the top journals in his field and who had pursued scholarship while completing his M.A. Now, as he enters a Ph.D. program, he already has five published articles, most in major journals, as well as having delivered papers at several national conferences. From the standpoint of both teaching and scholarship, I would rather have that recent graduate in my faculty, even without a Ph.D., than the colleague who, tragically, has managed to squander most of whatever scholarly abilities, aspirations and advantages he once had. To rigidly assume that the most qualified university teacher and scholar will have a Ph.D. is to be too constrictive and to neglect individual factors that should be taken into consideration. Secondly, I question whether it is wise simply to assert that faculty in religious studies should "teach primarily in the area of their doctorates." It is not that I dispute that faculty members should have the opportunity to continue their research and to teach its results. To the contrary, I think that this is necessary. Unfortunately, many institutions do not realize the importance of this, constantly forcing their faculty members to teach in areas far away from their primary areas of expertise or interest. But again, flexibility is needed in how this situation is assessed and handled. Whereas a faculty member should have the opportunity to teach in his or her area of expertise, to impose this limitation is unwise. This seems to me to be unwise for three reasons. The first is that it puts undue weight upon the research one does for the doctorate, perpetuating the idea mentioned above that the earning of the doctorate is the first, last, greatest and possibly only contribution that a scholar will make to the discipline. Secondly, it potentially has a stifling effect upon the faculty member, not encouraging him or her to undertake exploration of new areas of research and teaching. To cite a personal example, my own doctoral research (Ph.D., University of Sheffield, 1988), in biblical studies and linguistics, in case there was some doubt after my first point above) was in the area of verbal aspect in the Greek of the New Testament. Whereas the teaching of elementary- and intermediate-level Greek classes can and does benefit from my doctoral research, the only way that full use can be made of this work is in advanced Greek courses, the kinds of courses rarely available at many Christian universities. To be limited to this area of teaching, therefore, would not only probably make me unemployable, but would be personally unsatisfying due to my own love of and personal and spiritual commitments to the discipline of biblical studies. Consequently, besides continuing to write widely in Greek grammar and linguistics, I have done research in other areas, such as Pauline studies, where I have published at least ten articles and have a book in press. "The Life and Letters of Paul" is one of my favorite courses to teach. I would hate to think that my work in Paul will not be as highly valued as my work in Greek, simply because it has taken me outside my doctoral research. Instead, I think that faculty members should be encouraged to pursue this kind of approach. Thirdly, the concentration upon teaching the area of one's doctorate may work against the integrative and interdisciplinary character wisely sought by many Christian universities. The mission of my university is to create graduates who are able to integrate their Christian convictions with whatever discipline they are involved in. Developing this kind of thinking requires serious discussion of how various disciplines relate to each other, demonstration of integrative thinking by faculty members, and a good healthy dose of lateral thinking in areas not well explored by scholars who have tended to become over-specialized. As a result, my university has instituted interdisciplinary studies courses in which faculty members contribute their considered thoughts on the Christian implications of their respective fields. Besides recent involvement in this interdisciplinary studies program, I do occasional research into the relationship between literary criticism and biblical studies, forcing me in an age in which the glut of secondary literature is immense to keep up with several disciplines. It is not easy, but I believe that it contributes to the integrative nature of contemporary higher education, which recognizes that the way forward is not by perpetuating increased specialization but by creating well educated and flexible individuals who can make useful contributions in a number of disciplines. This is brought together in the minds of students by seeing it demonstrated by their teachers. My response to Dunn and Berg's article is not meant simply to argue against their implied assertions that the doctorate is to be held by all Christian university faculty in religious studies and that these faculty members should teach primarily in their areas of doctoral research. In an ideal world, all faculty would exceed all of these requirements and more. What I am advocating is more flexibility regarding how we view the doctorate, to make sure that we do not allow this single criterion to exclude some very worthy people from holding university positions, and to make sure that what it implies regarding limitations on teaching and research does not become counterproductive to the development of faculty members and programs in Christian universities.