SURVEY RESULTS OF THE ATTITUDES OF ACADEMIC STAFF AT MMUBS, CONCERNING THE IMPACTS OF THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEF OR UNBELIEF Do we really know what our colleagues in HE believe?

Belief or unbelief Academic staff of MMU business school were surveyed using a simple anonymous multi-choice questionnaire; they were asked 7 questions about their belief and how it impacted on aspects of their activity there. 56 out of 143 completed it, a 39% response rate which gave confidence in the robustness of the results.

Faith allegiances? 40% declared themselves Christians – it seems good until you realise that the atheists and agnostics put together also came to 40%! When asked if they were supportive, or hostile to an explicit faith being expressed by an institution, 53% were neutral, 27% supportive and 21% were actively hostile to it.

Making your position clear? Asked about making their faith position clear to students, only 7% agreed they should, 58% a large majority, disagreed and 33% were neutral. Asked the same question about their political beliefs, the position was broadly similar with 9%, 53% and 36% respectively. Clearly colleagues feel unhappy about making their own views explicit to students! (I can’t understand why!)

Are explicitly faith-based institutions attractive to work for? This got a resounding thumbs down with 76% feeling that any HE institution that made its faith base clear would be less attractive to work for. Only 7% thought it more attractive and 14% were neutral. This result was so definitive, that the attitudes of my colleagues are very clear, albeit disappointing from a Christian perspective. However, the drivers of such hostility are not currently clear to me.

Faith-based frameworks and the HEI’s ethical stances Asked if a religious or faith based framework could help frame the ethical stance of the HEI, a clear 51% said no! Only 20% said yes and the same were neutral. This has to be one of the most dispiriting of all the results of this survey and begins to explain why we, as Christians may have such an uphill struggle. (do we still live in a Judeo-Christian society I wonder?).

Recognition of all festivals inc ethnic minority ones? Asking whether religious festivals for other faiths should permit student absence, or whether a secular stance of only ‘traditional’ UK holidays should be permitted (like Christmas and Easter), 31% wanted to recognise all major festivals, 13% said yes if ‘significant’ numbers of a given faith were present, but 42% took a purely ‘secular’ stance for traditional breaks only. The secular nearly wins even here it seems.

Christianity; a positive or negative influence on staff-student relations? A fine consolation here was that 25% felt it was a positive influence and only 5% saw it as a negative influence. However a whopping 60% saw it as neither positive nor negative. This was the final question and the only one that referred specifically to Christianity. It seems a clear majority of colleagues see our faith in God through Jesus as largely irrelevant.

Next; much thought and more research In one sense the results don’t surprise me, but such a powerful rejection of what we see as central to our lives, i.e. God’s redeeming power and love through Jesus' sacrifice, is fairly upsetting and salutary. The scale of the task we face in offering this revelation to our colleagues is now clear to me. It could be the Business School is more God-less than other faculties. I intend to find out more about the reasons behind these attitudes as a next step, with more depth research.