In this present blog post series, I have been writing about the central executive leadership responsibility of alignment: ensuring that the institution and its resources are aligned with its mission and vision. Specifically, I have been writing about the critical need to ensure that your faculty is selected, retained, developed, and rewarded in full alignment with your institution’s biblical higher education mission and values. I believe an educational institution’s missional success ultimately depends, not on its executive leadership, but on its faculty.

Thus far in considering the mission-critical matter of faculty selection, I have proposed two important criteria: credentials (first in sequence but least in importance), and contagious character. A third criterion is competence. You may be thinking that a faculty member’s competence is validated by strong credentials. And you could well be tragically wrong. Just as credentials and qualifications are not synonymous, neither are credentials and competence synonymous. As much as this is true for faculty selection, this may especially be the case when it comes to faculty retention and promotion.

In launching this blog post series, I boldly asserted that an educational institution’s missional success ultimately depends, not on its executive leadership, but on its faculty. I also cautioned that academic credentials alone should never be regarded as sufficient faculty qualifications, particularly in institutions of biblical higher education. So, what criteria do I commend for mission-aligned faculty selection, retention, development and reward? You may be surprised to learn I start with credentials.

I have been insisting in recent posts that faculty are among your most mission-critical institutional assets. Well-funded and well-led colleges will be diminished and degraded in mission effectiveness when they permit erosion in faculty selection, retention, and reward. Short term compromise for reasons of expediency or exigency is not worth the long-term price.

To my list of critical faculty selection criteria that has thus far included credentials, contagious character, competence, and communication, I add one more: compatibility. From clearance rack to closet I am an inveterate bargain hunter. I sometimes troll clearance racks looking for a gem of a pair of slacks at a price that is too hard to resist. On occasion the price tag seems so scandalously irresistible I compromise on the comfort. But it never lasts. I’m embarrassed to admit how many items of clothing have gone from my closet to charity over the years because I finally faced up to the fact that discomfort precluded me from wearing them much. Dust and recrimination accumulate in equal quantities.

Playing the part of the Captain, a cruel and sinister prison warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke, Strother Martin uttered one of classic cinema’s most memorable lines: what we have here is a failure to communicate. An amusing characterization that makes for a good movie script will never do when it comes to your faculty. Thus far, my list of critical faculty selection criteria has included credentials (first but, in many ways, least important), contagious character, and competence in terms of a comprehensive and current grasp of their teaching discipline(s). Permit me now to propose a fourth criterion. Communication.