Servant Professorship: Why Caritas Is Not Coddling

Arvid C. Johnson and K.R. Vishwanath

Brennan School of Business, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois

ABSTRACT
This paper applies the concepts and framework of “servant leadership”
to teaching – labeling it “servant professorship.” The authors discuss a
theoretical framework by expanding the Patterson model of servant
leadership and address one of the most complex challenges faced by
professors in the classroom: increasing student learning. Using data on
student learning and engagement from over 200 undergraduate and
graduate business classes, the authors argue that, in keeping with
servant leadership’s concept of “love” as a verb versus a noun, what
students need (challenge) may not be what they want – with the
difference being especially significant at the undergraduate level.

INTRODUCTION
The challenges that professors face in today’s classrooms are many – and include engaging students in
the learning process, covering the content required, assessing student learning, and, keeping the
students (at least, relatively) happy (or, at least, positively disposed toward the professor). These
potentially conflicting priorities can be further complicated by the tenure-track faculty member’s desire
to achieve tenure.

To assist professors in addressing these challenges, the authors review, apply and expand the theory of
servant leadership to teaching – labeling it “servant professorship.”

Next, the authors examine data on student learning and engagement from over 200 undergraduate and
graduate business courses offered between September 2008 and December 2009 – which show that
students’ self-reported level of learning is directly related to the level of challenge in the courses even
though their overall evaluation of the quality of the teaching may be inversely related (at the
undergraduate level) or unrelated (at the graduate level) to the level of challenge. In other words, while
undergraduate students appear to prefer less challenging classes, they readily admit that their learning
is increased in more challenging classes.

The authors argue that, in light of such results, the role of the professor is akin to that of a leader under
the “servant leadership” model described by Hunter (1998, 2004) and others – namely, that “loving”

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students means giving them what they need even if it is not what they want. Additional support for this
is provided in the literature on excellent teaching.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP…AND SERVANT PROFESSORSHIP

Origin of and Background on Servant Leadership

While the term “servant leadership” was initially identified by Robert Greenleaf in a 1970 essay entitled
“The Servant as Leader,” perhaps it has been mostly widely popularized by authors such as Hunter
(1998, 2004). The inspiration for this concept has its roots in Jesus’ admonition to his disciples:

“Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;

whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”
Matthew 21: 26-27

Of course, the historical origins of this concept can be found in earlier texts, as well:
 600 BCE, Lao Tzu: “The greatest leader forgets himself and attends to the development of
others.”
 375 BCE, Chanakya’s Arthashastra: “The [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases
himself but what pleases his subjects.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa are all often acclaimed as servant leaders.

Within this context, Greenleaf (1970) was the first to conceptualize servant leadership in a business
setting.
The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to
serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different
from one who is leader first; perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or
to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types.
Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human
nature.

The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other
people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do
those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer,
more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the
least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?

Hunter (1998) argues that successful leadership – or “the skill of influencing people to work
enthusiastically toward goals identified as being for the common good” – is, at its heart, Christian love
(agape) as described in 1 Corinthians 13, as shown in Table 1.

Patterson (2003) also proposes “agape love” as one of the seven virtuous constructs of servant
leadership and suggests that, under servant leadership, the leader “actively considers the needs of
followers.” Agape – pure, moralistic – love is holistic, looks at the whole person and what the person
can ultimately be. This kind of love is not “coddling”; rather, it is one that stretches the possibilities of
the recipient of agape love.

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 Love Leadership
Patience Showing Self-control
Giving Attention, Appreciation, and
Kindness
Encouragement
Being Authentic and Without Pretense or
Humility
Arrogance
Respectfulness Treating Others as Important People
Selflessness Meeting the Needs of Others
Forgiveness Giving Up Resentment When Wronged
Honesty Being Free from Deception
Commitment Sticking to Your Choices
Setting Aside Your Own Wants and Needs; Seeking
Results: Service and Sacrifice
the Greatest Good for Others

Table 1 – “Love and Leadership” from Hunter (1998, p. 124)

The implication of this for leaders is that they must “love” those they aspire to lead – where “love” is the
verb (as opposed to the noun) and meaning “the act of extending yourself for others by identifying and
meeting their legitimate needs and seeking their greatest good.” (Hunter, 2004) Said another way,
“Servant leadership does not imply being a slave to other people’s wants but rather requires identifying
and meeting the legitimate needs of others and seeking their greatest good.” [Emphasis in original text.]

Teaching and Servant Leadership

Teaching is an activist role in which professors see their students not for who they are today but for who
they can become tomorrow. (Patterson, 2003) Thus, teaching necessarily begins with a teacher’s
understanding of what is to be learned and how it can be taught. It proceeds through a series of
activities through which the students are provided specific instruction and opportunities for learning –
though the learning itself ultimately remains the responsibility of the students. Teaching must properly
be understood to be more than enhancement of understanding because it must emphasize reasoning,
transformation, and reflection. (Shulman, 1987) This description implies an underlying leadership role
for the teacher in the classroom and clearly emphasizes a more holistic view of teaching. Again, the role
of the professor is akin to that of a leader under the “servant leadership” model described by Hunter
(1998, 2004) and others – namely, that “loving” students means giving them what they need even if it is
not what they want. We attempt here to apply the principles of servant leadership to teaching and term
it “servant professorship.”

We believe Patterson’s (2003) model, as shown in Figure 1, can be expanded further in its application to
servant professorship. In particular, it is helpful to apply two constructs from Patterson’s model: Vision
and Empowerment. Patterson describes vision as “most often regarded as organizational vision;
however, with servant leadership the vision component is seeing followers not for who they are today—
but for who they can become tomorrow.” Under the servant professorship model, we propose that
professors have to look at what the students’ potential is and not what their current limitations are. We
ought to give them the facts, help them with the tools to analyze facts and challenge them to push the
boundaries of their limitations so they achieve their fullest potential and become self-reliant.

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 Figure 1 – Patterson’s (2003) Servant Leadership Model

In looking at the students’ potential, a servant professor, therefore, caters to the needs of what the
students can be. This calls for foresight and the application of Patterson’s empowerment construct.
Page and Czuba (1999) assert that “empowerment is a multidimensional social process that helps
people gain control of their lives. It is a process that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in
people for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they
define as important.” The professor’s job in the classroom and beyond is quintessentially to bring out
the best in his/her students by enhancing their “capacity” to think, to formulate issues independently,
and to implement theories they learn in the classroom. In applying Robert Greenleaf’s (1970) test (“Do
those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more
autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”), professors have to envision and help bring
to fruition students’ full potential. Autonomous in Greenleaf’s text mirrors Gandhi’s concept of swaraj,
or self-rule, which is synonymous with self-reliance. Thus, empowerment should lead students to
intellectual self-reliance and health. How does a professor empower students? By expanding their
horizons, raising the bar, and setting high expectations. The learning environment we create “should be
an exhilarating, marvelous, and life changing experience. If we teachers do our jobs right, our students
will master wondrous information they had never dreamed of.” (Schulze, 2000)

Servant professorship can be viewed from another angle – i.e., the leadership dimension. There is a
substantial body of research both on servant leadership and its application to teaching that deals
exclusively on the service dimension. It could be argued that, to the extent teaching is a holistic process
involving more than understanding and including reasoning, transformation and reflection (Shulman,
1987), strong leadership needs to be exercised by professors in drawing the students out of their shells
towards a compelling vision of what they can be. It involves powers of persuasion and an ability to help
students conceptualize a big, hairy and audacious goal (BHAG). Through dialogue, people (students)
come to form their own opinions, crystallize their beliefs and values, and develop priorities around
things that matter to them. (Hays, 2008) It requires foresight through which the professor can gauge
how far students can be taken on an intellectual journey – in short, how far students can be challenged.
It depends at once on learning from experience and being able to step outside the limitations of
experience. (Hays 2008)

Bass (2000) describes servant leadership as a viable option in a learning environment; Whetstone (2002)
views it as an ethical approach that comes closest to personalism and morality; and Patterson (2003)
proposes servant leadership as a virtuous theory. Arguably all of these definitions of servant leadership
can be applied to servant professorship. It follows, then, that the professor’s role in the classroom is

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akin to that of a leader. The leadership model described by Hunter (1998 and 2004) and others suggests
that “loving” students means giving them what they need even if it is not what they want.

ASSESSING TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS…AND STUDENT LEARNING

While many direct methods can be used to assess a professor’s effectiveness in the classroom, one
commonly used – if indirect – method is a standardized, student-completed instrument, such as the
Student Instructional Report (SIR) II employed at Dominican University and other schools, which
provides data on eight dimensions of instruction (Centra, 2006):
 Course organization and planning
 Faculty communication
 Faculty/student interaction
 Assignments, exams and grading
 Instructional methods and materials
 Course outcomes
 Student effort and involvement
 Course difficulty, workload and pace

While the SIR II instrument includes 45 questions in these eight areas, this paper focuses on four of
these questions:
Question #29: My learning has increased in this course…
Question #33: This course actively involved me in what I was learning…
Question #36: I was challenged by this course…
Question #40: Overall quality of instruction as it contributed to learning…
The students’ responses for each of these questions are summarized at the class level in five response
categories and in an overall “mean” response along the five-point scale.

Question 40 is often used as an integrating measure of student-assessed teaching effectiveness –

whereas Question 29 provides the most direct measure of student-assessed learning.

DATA AND ANALYSIS

The authors analyzed course-level SIR II summaries for 204 undergraduate and graduate level business
courses offered over 4 semesters from September 2008 through December 2009:
 Fall 2008 term: 41 undergraduate and 20 graduate classes
 Spring 2009 term: 38 undergraduate and 23 graduate classes
 Summer 2009 term: 2 undergraduate and 13 graduate classes
 Fall 2009 term: 47 undergraduate and 20 graduate classes

The data were analyzed in three groups: (1) all courses, (2) only undergraduate courses, (3) only
graduate courses. (There were no significant variations observed across terms/time in any of the three
groups.)

After some exploratory data analysis – including correlation analysis – the authors formulated two
hypotheses to be tested with these data:

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  Hypothesis #1: “Student Learning” is directly and positively related to “Active Involvement” and
“Level of Challenge”
 Hypothesis #2: “Overall Evaluation” is directly and positively related to “Active Involvement,”
“Level of Challenge,” and “Student Learning,”

The authors utilized Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression to test these hypotheses using the
following formulations:

(Learning) = 0 + 1 * (Involvement) + 2 * (Challenge) +  (Eqn. 1)

(Overall Evaluation) = 0 + 1 * (Involvement) + 2 * (Challenge) + 3 * (Learning) +  (Eqn. 2)

The results of the regression models of Equation 1 are shown in the table below: (Note: Coefficients
with p-values of 0.20 or less are highlighted.)

Active Involvement Level of Challenge

n R2adj b0 p-value b1 p-value b2 p-value
All Courses 204 0.7629 0.2099 0.184 0.7729 0.000 0.1727 0.000
Undegraduate Only 128 0.7813 -0.0275 0.889 0.8533 0.000 0.1646 0.000
Graduate Only 76 0.7582 0.0930 0.740 0.7094 0.000 0.2499 0.001

Table 2 – Results of OLS Regression Model for “Student Learning”

The results in Table 2 confirm the first hypothesis and point to both active involvement and level of
challenge positively affecting student learning in all three class groups – with over 75% of the variation
in student learning being explained by the model.

The results of the regression models of Equation 2 are shown in the table below: (Note: Coefficients
with p-values of 0.20 or less are highlighted.)

Active Involvement Level of Challenge Student Learning

n R2adj b0 p-value b1 p-value b2 p-value b3 p-value
All Courses 204 0.7071 1.2423 0.000 0.1176 0.080 -0.0627 0.118 0.6949 0.000
Undegraduate Only 128 0.6891 1.5953 0.000 0.0451 0.634 -0.1107 0.022 0.7480 0.000
Graduate Only 76 0.7361 0.7285 0.011 0.2161 0.039 0.0573 0.453 0.5981 0.000

Table 3 – Results of OLS Regression Model for “Overall Evaluation”

The results in Table 3 indicate that the second hypothesis is not confirmed – despite approximately 70%
of the variation in overall evaluations being explained by the model. While active involvement and
student learning positively affect the students’ overall evaluation of the course, the level of challenge in
the course negatively impacts student evaluations across all courses and, in particular, undergraduate
courses. (Indeed, the “all courses” result is most certainly due to the clear, significant effect present in
“undergraduate only” courses.)

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These results, then, show that students’ self-reported level of learning is directly related to the level of
challenge in the courses even though their overall evaluation of the quality of the teaching may be
inversely related (at the undergraduate level) or unrelated (at the graduate level) to the level of
challenge. In other words, while undergraduate students appear to prefer less challenging classes, they
readily admit that their learning is increased in more challenging classes.
Between them, the authors have many decades of business experience in a variety of industries and
have significant personal experience with the power of the servant leadership model both in theory and
in practice. As educators, both believe that these concepts and practices are readily transferrable to the
practice of “servant professorship.”

Consider several of the characteristics of the “best teachers” identified in (Bain, 2004):
 “…the best teachers we studied displayed not power [over] but an investment in the students”;
 there exists “…a strong bond of trust…” between teacher and students; or
 “…humility marked others [best teachers] in the study. They saw themselves as students of life,
fellow travelers in search of some small glimpse of ‘the truth’.”
The authors believe that this model of “fellow travelers” is particularly apt within the context of servant
professorship. Or, as (Handy, 1998) puts it: “The real job of the teacher is to set the task which requires
the search for knowledge, to help the individual or the group seek it out, and to demonstrate how the
knowledge can be used.”

(Rotenberg, 2005) more directly addresses the potential conflict between students’ needs and wants.
He says: “The classroom is about their [students’] needs, not yours. Put their needs first. Then figure
out what you need to do to help them meet those needs.” At the same time, he recognizes that
“Students love to hate the tasks we create for them.” This was also noted by Marklein (2009), who
reported: “Researchers studying how to improve graduation rates in public colleges and universities
have come up with a surprising and counter intuitive finding. Many students fail to complete a
bachelor’s degree not because the work is too hard, but because they are not challenged enough.”

A UNIQUELY DOMINICAN TAXONOMY FOR SERVANT PROFESSORSHIP

The “Four Pillars of Dominican Life” offer us a taxonomy that is uniquely Dominican. They give us the
foundation to express ourselves as servant professors. They give meaning to the principles of servant
leadership and help us exhibit behaviors consistent with the Dominican spirit. As importantly, they
serve as important mileposts on the path to learning

Community: “While respecting the individuality of each member of the community we also must
recognize the diverse opinions of all and to accept that there are multiple ways of expressing our gifts.”
Respecting the individuality of each member of the community means we as professors create an
environment conducive to the free expression of views by our students. This is a fundamental
requirement and a necessary precursor to creating a learning environment – i.e., one that goes beyond
the learning of facts. That said, we also have the basic responsibility to provide full access to facts –
thereby leading our students from “ignorance to awareness.” (Schulze, 2000)

Prayer: “As prayerful members of the community we are able to see everything and everybody as the
gifts of God that they are.” Knowledge of and comfort with our “selves” requires the reflective practices
of a prayerful life – as we open our hearts and minds to pursue and receive the truth through

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contemplation. It is not only important to our preparation as professors; it is also the next step in
students’ own preparation for the educated, enlightened life.

Study: “Our study should not just be for the reward of admission to a great college – our reward for
faithful study is the knowledge needed to live within the truth of the person God desires us to be.” It is
incumbent on us professors to impart knowledge to the fullest and most recent extent, in order to equip
our students so they can be the person God desires them to be. It is our responsibility then not to hold
back, not to dilute through coddling, but to impart knowledge in its entirety. This requires us to raise
the standards continuously and to set high expectations and represents the next level of achievement
for our students – as they build their own knowledge and experience bases on the path to expertise.

Preaching: “We are called to preach through the witness of our lives.” Professors teach not just through
lectures in the classroom but by the way they conduct themselves in totality. We have an opportunity
to partner with students to make the learning experience multidimensional, rich wholesome, fun and
exhilarating. From the students’ perspective, their “mastery” of a subject prepares them to teach…to
bear witness…and to serve.

CONCLUSION…OR WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

The authors contend that their review of the body of research on servant leadership and its application
to teaching together with their analysis of the SIR II data make it clear that students’ wants – particularly
at the undergraduate level – may not be well-aligned with their needs when it comes to learning. The
spirit of caritas would, thus, apparently call for increasing the challenges that we set out for them as
faculty members – despite their protestations (and overall evaluations) to the contrary – rather than
succumbing to the ever-present temptation to “coddle” (or appeal to the lowest common denominator)
and avoid conflict. That would appear to be “love” in the truest sense of the term…and call for “servant
professorship”!

REFERENCES
Bain, Ken, What the Best College Teachers Do, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Bass, B.M., “The Future of Leadership in Learning Organizations,” Journal of Leadership Studies, 2000.

Centra, John A., The Student Instructional Report II: Its Development, Uses, and Supporting Research,
ETS Issue Paper, 2006.

Greenleaf, Robert K., “Servant Leadership,” essay, 1970. (See also: Greenleaf, Robert K., Servant
leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, New York: Paulist Press,
1977.)

Handy, Charles, The Hungry Spirit – Beyond Capitalism: A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World, New
York: Broadway, 1998.

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Hays, J. Martin, “Teacher as Servant – Applications of Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership in Higher
Eductaion,” Journal of Global Business Issues 2(1), 2008.

Hunter, James C., The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership, New York: Crown
Business, 1998.

Hunter, James C., The World’s Most Powerful leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader,
New York: Crown Business, 2004.

Marklein, Mary Beth, “Graduation rates: Challenge, expectations may play a role,” USA Today,
September 9, 2009.

Page, Nanette and Czuba, Cheryl, “Empowerment: What Is It?,” Journal of Extension 37(4),1999.

Patterson K.A., “Servant leadership: A Theoretical Model,” Doctoral Dissertation, UMI No. 3082719,
Regent University, 2003.

Rotenberg, Robert, The Art & Craft of College Teaching: A Guide for New Professors & Graduate
Students, Chicago: Active Learning, 2005.

Schulze Leonard G., “Teaching as a Form of Servant Leadership,” Life Long Learning essay, Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, 2000.

Shulman Lee S., “Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform,” Harvard
Educational Review 57(1), 1987.

Whetstone Thomas J., “Personalism and Moral Leadership: The Servant Leader With A Transforming
Vision,” Business Ethics A European Review, 2002.