The Story of the Impact 360 Institute: An Interview with Phil Alsup and John Basie
The Story of the Impact 360 Institute: An Interview with Phil Alsup and John Basie
The International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE) is a global education network encompassing a variety of educational institutions and organizations in the evangelical tradition. The emergence and vital kingdom importance of Christian education as a global phenomenon calls for Christian educators in every global region and at all educational levels to affirm and unite around their mutual commitments to Christ-centeredness and confessional solidarity.[1]
The statement above identifies the International Alliance for Christian Education and why it is needed. The IACE includes three membership categories:[2]
● Educational Associations/Academic Organizations – all institutions related to those organizations will thus have a membership relationship with IACE
● Institutions – defined by those who offer degrees or official academic credit
● Partners - organizations and networks committed to intellectual discipleship and the work of Christian education
These membership categories encompass the entire ecosystem of Christian education. Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning serves Christian educators across this ecosystem. As David Dockery wrote in our inaugural issue,
Our hope for this journal is that it will help faculty members, staff members, administrators, board members, and students, as well as friends and supporters of the work of Christian education to think differently about the way we live and love, the way we worship and serve, the way we work to earn our livelihood and the way we learn and teach. Such thinking means seeing all of life and learning from a Christian vantage point, shaped by the historic Christian faith, once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).[3]
One way Integration serves Christian educators is by exposing them to thinkers, leaders, institutions, and initiatives that might be outside their respective orbits. To that end, this issue includes our first interview. Interviews will remain an ongoing feature of the journal, one that will help all of our readers—regardless of their institutional context—better understand the ways that a variety of Christian educators are engaging in the work of intellectual discipleship.
The Impact 360 Institute is a charter member of IACE.[4] Impact 360 is a “partner” member because the institute is neither a degree-granting institution nor a network or association of such institutions. Impact 360’s signature program, which is also its oldest and largest, is a credit-bearing, academic gap-year program aimed at young people who have finished high school but have not yet enrolled full-time in college. As such, Impact 360 has a more targeted mission thanthat most IACE members.
For our inaugural interview, Integration senior editor Nathan Finn corresponded with two key leaders at Impact 360. Phil Alsup serves as the Executive Director of the Impact 360 Institute. John Baise is the Director of Graduate Programs and Advancement. The interview has been edited lightly for publication.
Finn: What are the origins of the Impact 360 Institute? What issue or issues drove its creation?
Alsup: Much of our beginnings had to do with the stage of life at the time of our founders, John and Trudy Cathy White. Parents their age were sending their children to college. Some were going off to college and doing well with their faith while others were struggling during these years. John and Trudy began wrestling with the question of how they could best position students to be able to hold on to their faith during all the changes and challenges the college years bring.
It is interesting to me that much of the advice they were getting at the time was to start something for students either entering high school or just coming out of college if they wanted the best window of opportunity to influence them. However, John and Trudy felt strongly about the post-high school/pre-college window, and it has proven to be a highlybe highly effective period for influencing the lives of students. Keep in mind that they launched this program at a time when academic gap year programs did not have as much traction as they do today.
Basie: What Phil shared above were the driving principles that God used to move John and Trudy to found the Institute. We began with Fellows, a 9-month gap-year program that launched in the fall of 2006 with 18 students. However, John and Trudy, as well as the Impact 360 board, understood that if the program was to have credibility, they were going to need a trustworthy academic partner to offer academic credit. This is where founding IACE president, David Dockery, comes into the picture.
At that time, Dockery was the president of Union University. President Dockery and the Union University administration and faculty took a chance on us by assessing our curriculum and saying, “Yes, we think you have something here. We will partner with you in this Kingdom endeavor.” Gene Fant, currently the president at North Greenville University (another one of our academic partners), was also at Union University at that time and was a key architect of the early partnership. So, from the beginning, all our Fellows have been able to earn 18 credit hours through Union—a partnership that continues to bear fruit to this day.
Finn: Schools like Patrick Henry College, Ave Maria University, and Wyoming Catholic College were founded around the same time as Impact 360 was being established. Why not just start a new Christian college?
Basie: This is an interesting question. That idea was briefly vetted in the beginning stages of the Institute. Through doing our homework, however, we knew there were already enough—probably too many—degree-granting institutions dotting the North American higher education landscape. We did not want to compete with them. Even back in 2006 when we launched, warnings were coming from the Chronicle of Higher Education and other sources signaling the enrollment cliff with which all institutions are now having to contend. Furthermore, we knew that if we were to become a four-year undergraduate institution, we would become something else entirely and would likely lose much of our unique way of educating and discipling students holistically.
Alsup: This was another unique perspective on the part of John and Trudy. Most of their children had attended Christian universities, and they were all believers. So, John and Trudy knew that there were many good options out there for students looking for a Christian college or university experience. They came at the question of developing students' faith from a different angle, asking how they might best position students to go and be leaders not only on their future Christian university campuses, but any type of college campus. The language from the founding was that they wanted to create something that would be a partner to higher education, not a competitor. That is how we continue to look at ourselves almost 20 years later. We constantly ask ourselves, “How might Impact 360 best develop students who will be leaders in their areas of influence on their future college campuses?”
Finn: What core values help define your mission? Are there other distinctives that have become part of the DNA of Impact 360?
Alsup: Our founding purpose is to cultivate followers of Jesus who fear God and give him glory. Our particular mission within that is to inspire and equip the next generation of disciples. We also have what we call our “Core 4” behaviors which we define as the characteristics for our team members to exemplify. As we pursue our mission, we seek to be unashamedly committed to God’s revealed truth, intentionally developing apprentices of Jesus, genuinely seeking each other’s highest good, and creatively expressing faith for each new generation.
Basie: In addition to the founding purpose Phil mentioned, our Know.Be.Live model of holistic discipleship is certainly deeply embedded in the Institute’s DNA. The board launched the Institute with these three pillars that would provide a foundation for everything we would do in our various programs:
“Know Jesus More Deeply: Grow in your understanding of what God has revealed about reality and why Christianity is true.” This is what we, in IACE circles, would refer to as intellectual discipleship.
“Be Transformed in Your Character: Discover your identity in Christ and your God-given calling in authentic community.” This is the intentional spiritual formation embedded in everything we do.
“Live a Life of Kingdom Influence: A life of Spirit-empowered Kingdom influence as you cultivate a servant’s heart.” This is what Tim Keller, David Kinnaman, and others have called “vocational discipleship.”
These three pillars are explored more deeply in our 2021 edited volume Know.Be.Live. A 360° Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era.[5] Several faculty members and leaders from IACE member institutions served as contributors to this book.
Finn: Phil, what do you think makes the Fellows program distinctive from other Christian gap-year programs?
Alsup: We certainly are not the only Christian gap-year opportunity for students to consider. There are many who do great work and whom we would not hesitate to recommend. By and large, what sets Impact apart is its emphasis on robust academics, what we call in the language of Dallas Willard “the life of the mind.” Students who complete the Impact 360 Fellows gap-year experience receive 18 hours of academic credits which they can transfer to the college of their choice. A key part of their assessment for acceptance into the limited spaces we have in the program is both a demonstration of their academic abilities in high school and a characteristic we call “a curious mind.” We have multiple academically credentialed teaching staff members who will engage them and challenge them in areas such as philosophy, theology, worldview, and apologetics. Our students average reading a book a week as part of their academic curriculum. We want to create lifelong learners as we feel that is a key aspect of developing disciples.
Finn: Many readers of Integration are either faculty or administrators at Christian colleges and universities. What do you want them to know about the students who complete the Fellows program and enroll in their institutions?
Alsup: Almost every one of our students who finish the Fellows program go on to complete a degree. We have students spread across the spectrum: Ivy League schools, public universities, Christian universities, and even community college. Our students are prepared and equipped to exercise leadership and influence on their college campuses. That is the message and the challenge they have heard over their months with us. We know through our alumni surveys that most of them are practicing some form of leadership. Many will do this through campus clubs, student life, residential life, and a local church. If I were a university administrator, Impact 360 alums are exactly the type of students I would be wanting to get onto my campus.
Basie: From 2009 to 2015 I had the honor and privilege of serving as the Fellows program director, and the team I lead now continues to have considerable involvement in the lives of Gen Z Fellows. As Phil has shared already, our alums launch from the program ready to engage and contribute to these various spheres of their lives as they continue to cultivate a learning posture on their campuses. If I had to sum up their outlook in one word, it would be “intentional.”
Finn: Who are some of the outside scholars and leaders who have taught in the Fellows program over the years?
Basie: Some notable instructors include J.P. Moreland, Francis Beckwith, Nancy Pearcey, Scott Rae, Os Guinness, David Dockery, Gene Fant, and John Stonestreet. When these guest professors come to our campus in Pine Mountain, Georgia campus, they are typically with us for two or three days, not just for a one-hour lecture. They have time to interact with our students on a personal level outside of the classroom, over lunch, and in other low-key settings because of the amount of time they are investing. I would add that, as the Fellows program has grown and matured in its curriculum, we have added our own stellar “home team” of teaching faculty whose calling is to walk alongside these young Christ-followers day-in and day-out during their 9 months in the program.
Finn: Does the Impact 360 Institute do anything to remain connected to Fellows alumni after they enroll in a college or university?
Alsup: We offer a three-year coaching follow-up opportunity for those who complete our Fellows gap-year program. We call it the 3-Initiative. We began this program a few years ago under the leadership of Jonathan Morrow. We noticed that, although our students were equipped, they sometimes struggled to apply what they had learned once they got to their college campuses. In this program they are placed in a triad with other members of their cohort and work with a coach who meets virtually with them every two weeks. They work through a three-year curriculum aimed at leveraging what the students learned and applying it towards utilizing and growing their influence on their campuses. We have been extremely pleased with the results. We have learned that our students really do want to utilize what they learned in Fellows. All they needed was some real time strategy and accountability.
Finn: John, you lead the Impact 360 Residency. What is that program, and how does it connect to Fellows?
Basie: Impact 360 Residency is our two-year graduate program. The purpose is to inspire and equip young professionals to be culture shaping, Christ-centered servant leaders in their various vocations. Although this program for college graduates has existed for over a decade, in 2020, we entered into a partnership with North Greenville University to offer a fully accredited Master of Arts in Leadership. As implied in the program nomenclature, this program isa fully residential, offering two tracks from which graduate students choose a specialization: Spiritual Formation or Servant Leadership. The learning experience is holistic in nature and combines our Know.Be.Live. elements in a meaningful way for graduate students both inside and outside the classroom. It is quite rigorous, and all Residents commit to living on our campus for two academic years as they study, work, and participate in the co-curricular and experiential learning elements of the program.
Our graduate program has connected with the Fellows program in two ways. The first is that several Fellows alumni who have gone on to complete a bachelor’s degree are admitted to the Residency each admissions cycle. The second, and more important connection, is that the Residents all have responsibilities in discipling and leading the younger Fellows in a curriculum built by the team.
Finn: You have carved out a unique space within Christian higher education. What do you think the future holds for Impact 360 Institute?
Basie: The Lord has blessed our efforts since 2006, despite our own frailty and many mistakes along the way, and I believe he will bless us as we head into the future. The residential campus is now at capacity—a minimum of 100 undergraduate fellows and around 30 Residents (graduate students)—which was a long-term goal we hit in 2024. Our board has now asked us to consider how we might take what we have learned cultivating the Know.Be.Live. holistic discipleship model on the Pine Mountain campus and get it “out there” beyond the campus in compelling and creative ways.
Alsup: Right. As John indicated above, the current question we are asking ourselves is really an extension of that original founding desire on the part of John, Trudy and the board to be a partner to higher education, not a competitor. We are extending that question now beyond higher education, asking with whom else might we seek to partner? Could we be an effective partner to local church student ministries? Could we be an effective partner with parents of teenagers and college students? We are doing student discipleship every day of the year on the campus. What can we learn that can benefit others who also want to disciple students? Those are the types of questions we are now asking. Our ministries here have been richly blessed; how might we share the things we are learning with those who want to know more about it? Strategies around that question are part of the road map to the Impact 360 Institute’s future.
Notes
[1] https://iace.education/about.
[2] https://iace.education/membership-overview.
[3] David S. Dockery, “Integration: An Introduction to the New Journal of the IACE,” Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning Issue 1 (Summer 2023), available online at https://iace.education/journal-blog/integration-an-introduction-to-the-new-journal-of-the-iace.
[4] For more on the Impact 360 Institute, see the organization’s website, available online at https://www.impact360institute.org/.
[5] John D. Basie, ed., Know. Be. Live. A 360° Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era (Nashville: Forefront, 2021).
nathan finn
Executive Director, Institute for Faith and Culture | Professor, Faith and Culture
North Greenville University | Tigerville, South Carolina