John Walkup,

Emeritus, Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Texas Tech University
[October 16, 2011] —

In my 27 years as a professor, I took great satisfaction from working on research projects with several Christian colleagues.  I strongly believed then, and still do, that when followers of Christ collaborate with an attitude of mutual respect, the opportunities  are numerous for God to both bless our joint activities and provide a corporate witness.

“Cooperation vs Competition”
Part of this story is that as believers in Jesus Christ we’re exhorted to demonstrate love toward each other, even (or maybe especially) in a workplace environment where personal ambition and competition often take precedence over collaboration.  Thus I felt that my Christian colleagues and I had the potential for a positive witness even as our colleagues observed our daily interactions.

I specifically valued the teaming aspects minus ego clashes and major concerns over how credit would be apportioned.  Almost every academic department is plagued at times by whining and gossiping over “who’s up and who’s down,” so to speak, within the departmental pecking order.  If we as colleagues who were known to follow Christ could  eschew such behavior, perhaps our colleagues would believe that maybe it had something to do with our faith.

“Synergy”
The way these collaborations worked out over the years varied, but I believe my research colleagues and I valued the “team” aspect of our collaborations, where each of us leaned on and appreciated the particular professional strengths of the others.  Our weekly meetings with individual students were often attended by two or three of us, even when only one of us was listed as the director of a particular student’s thesis or dissertation.

My colleagues knew that working in the laboratory was not my personal strength and it probably explains why our students tried to make sure I wasn’t fiddling with their experiments when visiting the lab.  On the other hand, some of the others weren’t particularly fond of spending countless hours on the telephone or making frequent trips to funding agencies to market the proposals we co-authored.  Thus I was freed up to be the “big picture” person while my colleagues’ provided most of the specialized laboratory techniques necessary to execute our joint research programs.  Note the parallels, as did my friend Phil Bishop, to the way the body of Christ is designed to function in the world.

“Powerful Example”
The fact that our department chairs generally took into account that we functioned together in a complementary way was in itself a great blessing.  By contrast many departments today appear to want each professor to “do it all” and even appear to discourage such collaborations.

As I look back on the years of active research collaboration I enjoyed with believing colleagues, I realize it was a huge blessing, and I believe they agree.  I know our desire was not to be exclusive by only working with believing colleagues. But we wanted those who were not-yet-Christians to see an example of followers of Jesus working and relating together in ways that bring glory to God and also provide a positive witness.

(c) 2011 John Walkup