Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman, president of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, will consider the future of Christian liberal arts education during a Bluffton University forum on Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Her presentation, “Planting Seeds of Faithfulness: Why Christian Liberal Arts Education (Still) Matters,’’ is free and open to the public beginning at 11 a.m. in Bluffton’s Founders Hall.

“At a time when small, faith-based liberal arts colleges are stressed on many fronts, it can be challenging for them to buck the headwinds that howl ‘endangered species’ status,” she notes. “Yet, distinctive mission-centered liberal arts institutions are bucking these trends with innovative countercurrent breezes of their own.”

Some of their stories will be shared in the presentation, which will also assess “risks and rewards” of such institutions flourishing in the future, she adds.

Conrad Grebel is such a college, founded by Ontario Mennonites in 1963. Before becoming its president in 2011, Schultz Huxman was dean of the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University for eight years.

Also a professor of communication, she holds master’s and doctoral degrees in communication studies from the University of Kansas. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with Mennonite rhetoric in World War I. She is a former member of the Mennonite Education Agency board of directors, and her husband, Jesse Huxman, is the current communication director for Mennonite Foundation of Canada. They have three children, including Emily, a sophomore at Bluffton.