Category: General

Americans’ faith in higher education is dwindling. In fact, Marvin Olasky of Christianity Today highlighted the “Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education” which found that “70 percent of people in 2025 said higher ed is heading in the wrong direction.”

This distrust is for many reasons–political, financial, educational, religious, and more. The question is: what are we to do about it?

Olasky, an Ivy League grad himself, encouraged hesitancy when it came to donating directly to major universities. What he promoted instead? Gifts to Christian study centers.

Centers like The Rivendell Institute at Yale or Chesterton House at Cornell “take up the historic mission of the college as an educational institution pursuing the moral and intellectual formation of persons.” He notes that while Christian colleges are important, that these growing study centers and the Consortium of Christian Study Centers are providing “a Christian presence at influential secular universities.” 

Click here to read the full article and learn more about the growing impact of Christian study centers nationwide and why many are seeing them as one of the most promising models for renewing faith, formation, and intellectual life on today’s campuses.

Chesterton House at Cornell University was recently featured in the Philanthropy Roundtable article “Next-Gen Renewal: Philanthropic Opportunities for Awakening Spiritual Renewal of the Rising Generation,” highlighting its growing influence in shaping the spiritual lives of college students. 

The piece highlights Chesterton House as a leading example of how faith-based study centers are meeting Gen Z’s increasing desire for meaning, community, and intellectual depth. In particular, it spotlights the success of the Public Reading of Scripture (PRS), now held three times weekly, where students gather for shared meals and extended, attentive listening to Scripture. The consistent turnout and enthusiasm point to a deeper reality: students are hungry for grounding, screen-free, communal experiences of faith.

Chesterton House’s broader model of impact is highlighted for combining rigorous academic inquiry, residential community, and more than 300 annual events to create a vibrant ecosystem for Christian formation. Its influence is extending beyond Cornell, with other study centers and ministries looking to replicate its approach. 

Click here to read the full article and learn more about Chesterton House’s growing impact from Executive Director Vivek Mathew.

Earlier this month, the beloved Dr. Richard Baer saw his Savior face-to-face. While the Chesterton House community grieves alongside his other family and friends, we also rejoice in both his eternal life and the incredible legacy he left behind. 

A legend in the Cornell Christian community, Dick Baer taught a beloved course on “Religion, Ethics, and the Environment” that Andy Crouch once called a “rite of passage for Christian undergraduate students.” He was a tireless advocate for a thoughtful but bold Christian witness on campus, with dozens of students baptized and joining the church as a byproduct of taking his course. 

Beyond his direct impact at Cornell, Dick was pivotal in laying the foundation for Chesterton House. He served as founder Karl Johnson’s PhD advisor and later as a Board member. His influence in shaping students’ lives and the Christian intellectual community in Ithaca is truly legendary.

Chesterton House has been honored to recognize Dick, along with his wife of 48 years Carol, as one of our four Founding Couples. As with any ripple effect, it’s impossible to know the true extent of his impact and influence, but it’s certain that hundreds–if not thousands–of students have been both directly and indirectly transformed through his legacy of faith, love, and leadership.

Our prayers and hearts are with his family during their time of mourning. We will continue to steward the ministry Dick was so passionate about and continue his legacy of being a faithful Christian presence at Cornell.

We invite you to read Dick’s touching obituary, listen to some of his lectures, and to learn more about how he helped shape the foundation of Chesterton House. 

There’s no shortage of gloom and doom when people talk about the state of Christian education. But Karl Johnson, founder of Chesterton House and Executive Director of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, is decidedly optimistic. 

In fact, he believes that things are better for Christians on secular campuses now than they were a generation ago. 

How could that be?

On March 10th, 2026, Karl was featured on The Stone Chapel Podcast with host David Capes to share about the rapidly growing study center movement and its massive influence on campus culture.

Karl told David that he “caught a vision” for Christian scholarship in the late 90s and early 2000s. At that time, there was really only one established study center and a handful of fledgling centers. Today, that number has grown to three dozen member centers in the Consortium, with another dozen in the planning stage. Karl also says there are new inquiries coming in from the website “almost faster than [he] can respond to them.”

Because of this movement, students can have a “Christian liberal arts education layered on top of their major.” These centers have become a core hub of Christian intellectual thought in higher education. Karl says that a generation ago it was common to think all the smartest people at universities were atheists, but now with places like Chesterton House, that’s no longer the case.

These hubs don’t exist in isolation. “We are seeking a collaborative relationship with the campus ministry ecosystem. Collaboration is part of the DNA.” This collaboration includes everything from allowing other groups to utilize study center buildings, to co-sponsoring events, to facilitating prayer groups for local ministries.

At these centers, Karl has seen hundreds—sometimes thousands—of students walk through the doors and discover a vibrant, faith-filled intellectual community to call home. They come from all over the country, all walks of life, and all different denominations to join together in one unifying purpose—to pursue Christ together in the midst of university life. 

And it’s the kind of movement that gives good reason for optimism about the future of faith on the university campus.

Click HERE to listen to the full podcast and join us as we continue to pioneer a new model for faith at the university. 

When The Cornell Daily Sun recently featured Sage Chapel, we were especially excited to see Public Reading of Scripture highlighted through the story of Joaquin Rivera ’25.

In the article, Joaquin shares how gathering in Sage Chapel to hear God’s Word read aloud has been one of the most meaningful parts of his time at Cornell. He describes PRS as “transformative” and “restorative” — a space where students pause, listen, and encounter Scripture together in the beauty of the chapel.

Click here to read the full article and learn more about how Public Reading of Scripture is shaping lives at Cornell.

While many look to top-level leadership down for long-hoped for changes at elite universities, the reality is that regime changes don’t speak into the daily cultural struggles that college students face.

Independent Christian institutions like Chesterton House are taking a different approach and cultivating culture change on-the-ground.

Click here to read Life at Chesterton House by Executive Director Vivek Mathew and learn more about how Chesterton House is participating in God’s transforming work in the lives of Cornell college students.

On April 10th, 2025 author, scholar, and Cornell alum Mary Eberstadt ’83 joined Chesterton House and COLLIS Institute for Thought and Culture for an interview style event on campus about the difficulty of engaging in faith conversations on college campuses.

This week the online publication, First Things, published an essay by Mary that was adapted from a transcript of that lecture: “God and Woman at Cornell.”

See the full article HERE and get an inside glimpse of a Chesterton House guest speaker event!