A Christian college campus has a culture of its own. Breaking Away takes us to a small Pennsylvania town onto the campus of New Lebanon College, where the culture is beginning to change drastically. Dr. Lola McIntyre, a brilliant young professor, committed to her faith, arrives back on campus for the opening convocation to begin the new school year only to find that the college president, Harold Drinkwater, and his academic dean, Spencer Burns, have stepped up their drive toward making the college prominent in the academic world at the expense of its spiritual life. Sensing that the erosion of religion on the campus has started in earnest, Lola joins some of her colleagues in an effort to keep spirituality at the center of campus life. The struggle creates upheavals that threaten the life of the institution. The crises mount, but the president ignores them in his single-minded push toward academic prominence. Change becomes his operative word. In the midst of resisting the unwanted change and trying to set the spiritual life of the college back on course, Lola McIntyre experiences an unexpected, life-changing encounter. Change comes to New Lebanon College, and irresistible change comes to Dr. Lola McIntyre.