It can be hard to imagine what a great relationship with a faculty adviser could be like for an I-V chapter if you’ve never seen faculty hanging around your group. (When I was the large-group coordinator for our InterVarsity chapter in the mid-1980s, I ­didn’t know our chapter even had a faculty adviser!) But just because you may not have seen one doesn’t mean you can’t develop a stronger relationship with your adviser.

I met my first evangelical professor near the end of my senior year in college when he spoke at a campus-wide concert of prayer. I was blown away to hear that there was a group of Christian professors who met regularly and prayed for their students. Some of our own chapter members had been struggling with attacks on their faith in the classroom, and these professors could have been an incredible encouragement to them. Why didn’t I know about them sooner? I thought. Unfortunately, they had been invisible to me, as was our faculty adviser. It struck me that I had missed out for a long time on an incredible resource.

At a minimum, a faculty adviser is a liaison between the chapter and the administration of a college or university. At some institutions, student organizations need the signature of an adviser in order to reserve rooms or to register with the college. At its best, though, the chapter/adviser relationship is much more than just paper pushing. The faculty adviser can be part of the I-V ministry team on campus: a source of spiritual encouragement to students, a prayer partner for the staff worker and a source of institutional memory as students and staff members come and go.

A faculty adviser’s role depends upon his or her spiritual gifts, personal relationships with chapter officers and the staff worker, as well as the state of the adviser’s professional calendar and family life. In some cases, God calls professors into academia as a special form of ministry to students. Advisers with this calling might be open to praying with students on a regular basis or even doing one-on-one discipling. But not every Christian professor has been called to that kind of ministry.

Those who aren’t able to make a weekly or biweekly time commitment might do well serving as large-group speakers. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. For example, as a faculty adviser I have led Bible studies for chapter leadership teams, co-led small groups with students, attended weekly prayer meetings, spoken at large-group meetings, discipled individual students, gone with students to chapter camp, hosted planning meetings in our home, grilled meals for chapter leaders and hung out with students way past prime time. But I haven’t done all of those things during the same semester—that would have been a full time job! My level of involvement has generally been worked out each year in a conversation with the staff worker and the student leadership team.

Can’t faculty advisers be more involved?

To understand why some faculty advisers aren’t more involved, you have to ask where they spend their time. The answer is often not intuitive, because much of a faculty member’s job is invisible to most students. The most visible activity is the time professors spend teaching in the classroom and holding office hours. Teaching requires a substantial amount of out-of-class time, preparing lectures and assignments, grading papers and exams, and reading potential texts for future semesters. That takes up a lot of time, but teaching and its related activities represent only one of at least three parts of a professor’s job.

At most colleges and universities, there are also substantial requirements for professors to conduct research in their field and publish their results. Professors write grant proposals to fund their research, and conduct lab experiments, surveys, archival research, textual analysis and a wide range of other activities that lead to conference papers, journal articles and books. In many cases, institutions actually put more emphasis on faculty productivity in publishing than their performance in the classroom.

The third faculty responsibility is service to their department and the campus. Within a department, professors are usually assigned a list of students to advise. Faculty members are also expected to serve on campus-wide committees that deal with issues ranging from library acquisitions to academic dismissal policies. Committees might meet weekly, biweekly or monthly. Most faculty members I know put in a lot more than the average 40-hour work week; 60 to 70-hour work weeks are certainly not unheard of. Add to that the desire professors have for quality time with their families and the time Christian faculty members commit each week to worshiping and participating in the spiritual life of their congregations. A week gets filled pretty quickly.

Like everyone else, professors must make choices about where they can have the biggest impact. Most Christian professors want to grow in their faith. They want to see the gospel proclaimed and have some kind of ministry, including seeing other Christians mature in their faith. InterVarsity is one place where some if not all of those goals can be met, but it’s not the only place. If faculty members sense that they can have an impact through I-V and they aren’t already heavily committed to ministry elsewhere, there’s potential for a good match as a faculty adviser. But if they don’t sense opportunities to have an impact on the students in an I-V chapter, they are less likely to commit themselves to the role of a faculty adviser. A key to building a healthy, symbiotic relationship with a faculty adviser is developing a clear understanding of what you would like and a realistic view of what he or she has to offer. On one level, you’re offering them an opportunity to participate in an exciting ministry to students. On another level, you’re asking them to add something to their service menu.

Making connections

If your chapter is looking for a faculty adviser, start praying regularly for God to provide one. This might happen in one of several ways. As the number of graduate student fellowships proliferate, more Ph.D.s with I-V experience will be taking faculty positions. When these new profs move to their first academic job, staffers who worked with them in grad school could alert the undergraduate chapter at their new institution that a new Christian faculty member is coming to campus. Similarly, there may be a Christian fellowship of faculty members on your campus that your staff worker knows about. A member of that group might either feel called to help your chapter or have suggestions about potential advisers for you to pursue. It’s also possible that chapter members know about Christian professors through a local church they attend or from comments professors have made about their faith in class. Less often, a faculty member might simply seek you out and offer to help. Student organizations often get discounted advertising rates in college newspapers, so you could also consider placing an ad in the school paper saying that the chapter is looking for an evangelical Christian to serve as an adviser. If you have a table at a campus activity fair, take note of any faculty members who stop by and express an interest in hearing what your group does. Remember that God often empowers us to be part of the answer to our own prayers; you will probably need to knock on some doors.

Honor those office hours

Unfortunately, simply showing up in a faculty member’s office unannounced and expecting a hearty reception can sometimes be a recipe for disappointment. If you just barge in at your convenience, they might be feverishly grabbing lecture notes on their way to class (or heading out to a committee meeting, trying to finish a grant proposal that needs to be in the overnight mail in half an hour, or going to pick up their kids from school).

Those situations can be awkward for both of you. You might misinterpret their rush as a lack of interest, and they might perceive your poor timing as presumption. Rather, look for a sign on their office door indicating when they hold office hours. If there are none posted, you can often get this information from a departmental secretary. Jot down the times in your calendar and plan to come back. You can always call ahead to see if it’s a convenient day and whether an appointment is preferable. Try to arrive early in their office hours so there’s less time pressure, but be sensitive if there’s a line of students behind you waiting to get in. You might just find an eager professor waiting to hear how to plug into your chapter!

—Dr. Kevin Hula is Associate Professor of Political Science at Loyola College in Maryland, where he has served as the InterVarsity chapter adviser since 1995.