The Emerging Scholars Blog

In the midst of conversations regarding the recession and the bailout, I find myself talking with colleagues, friends and family about the complex price tag of higher education.  If you’re like me or have a curiosity regarding the topic, take a moment to bone up by reading this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education’s piece STICKER SHOCK: The $375-Billion Question: Why Does College Cost So Much?  Here’s a few paragraphs which I’ll refer in the coming days (Note:  read the article for the data/examples): 

A poll of likely voters commissioned by the National Education Association and released two weeks ago showed that 70 percent of parents and 65 percent of students said making college affordable was an important issue for them in the fall election.  … Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a one-time change in the intent to submit deadline for the Bosscher-Hammond Prizes, a juried competition being held in conjunction with Following Christ 2008. The deadline to submit the executive summary of your project is now October 15. As a reminder, here’s a quick summary of the Prizes:

The purpose of the Bosscher-Hammond Prize Competition is to encourage the integration of faith, learning, and practice — one of InterVarsity’s core values — and to demonstrate how the academic disciplines and professions can contribute to human flourishing.

There will 26 finalists awarded full registration to Following Christ 2008, and 3 winners will receive $2,000 each. For more information, visit the Bosscher-Hammond Prizes web page.

On Friday, I led an International Discussion Forum on Randy’s Last Lecture at U. of Pennsylvania, sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the Penn Graduate Christian Fellowship, and Intercultural Friends.  Note:  Discussion questions posted here in PDF.

Afterward, there was an opportunity for participants to offer suggestions for future topics.  The international students in my discussion group desired an introduction to the practical elements of navigating American culture, one significant area being the management of money while studying in the U.S.

If you have suggestions of web resources/links on this topic or some helpful tips, please post them here.  To get us started below are some pieces from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s International Student Ministry Website:

Read the rest of this entry »

No, this isn’t a post about the cost of discipleship. It’s about finding ways to pay for your registration and travel to Following Christ 2008, InterVarsity’s conference for graduate students, faculty, professionals, and even ESN members.

Jon Boyd, FC08 conference director, has put together a helpful video describing the many ways you can reduce your out-of-pocket costs for FC08, including a way to win one of three $50 registration discounts, just for watching the video.

FC08: The Director’s Videos #6 from Graduate & Faculty Ministries on Vimeo.

BTW, you can see all of Jon’s FC08 videos (there are six and counting) here.

I had the good fortune to hear Wendell Berry read at Northern Kentucky University Sunday afternoon. Apparently, he does not accept many speaking engagements these days, but accepted NKU’s invitation because he and the university are neighbors (Berry lives in Henry County, Kentucky, about a hour south of NKU). The reading was terrific, and, as usual, Berry’s words provided much to ponder.

At the end of a reading from his essay, “Is Life a Miracle?” Berry noted that, formerly, the university was unified under religion, but that time has gone and is not coming back. Instead, he proposed unifying the university under a commitment to the local community, as was the original mission of land grant universities.

The idea has some appeal to me, since I am a proponent of local communities and think Berry has some very worthwhile ideas on the subject. I plan on researching his views on the university in more depth. However, setting aside the questions of feasibility (e.g. how can mathematics be committed to the local community? why should someone who earned their BA in Michigan, their PhD in California, and tenure in Kentucky be committed to one community over another?), I wonder about the nature of this commitment. I think I have a fairly good idea of what Berry means by this commitment to the local community. However, it doesn’t take long to see that not many people share Berry’s perspective, and that local visions for the local community differ wildly.

What do you think? How important is a university’s commitment to its local community? Is this is a good way to organize a university’s mission?

Speaking of all of this technical stuff, there is a very cool post about academic citations at The Immanent Frame. They have added a new feature to their blog that provides a drop-down list of standard ways of citing that particular blog entry – MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. It’s a very convenient way of getting the correct citation information for a blog post (if, that is, a blog post is something that you should or could cite – I have a feeling the answer to that depends on your discipline).

A side question: has anyone cited a blog in an academic paper? What was the context and the reaction?

Tom’s recent post about online materials got me to think about tools to organize that research.

With the glut of information now available, what do you use to keep it all organized?

I’ll start. First, a disclaimer: I use a Mac, and I think all of the tools I use are Mac-specific. Here are the tools that I use:

• For news and RSS feeds, I use NetNewsWire.
• For research material (quotes, docs, notes, etc.), DEVONthink Pro.
• For larger writing projects, Scrivener.
• To keep track of my library, Books.
• To keep track of people, organizations, to-do items, projects, etc., Daylite.

So, what tools do you use?

Over at Books & Culture, Karl W. Giberson reviews The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by (in Gilberson’s phrase) “that arch-villain Richard Dawkins.” Gilberson is being cheeky, and he notes that, in this volume, Dawkins’ love for science and skill as a writer and editor shines through. Gilberson notes that Dawkins “is exceptional in being a member of Britain’s most élite scientific and literary societies, the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature.”

The review is worth reading. I, for one, love a good piece of science writing. But Gilberson raises a good question:

Literature—plays, essays, screenplays for movies, novels, nonfiction—has to be about something. “Literature” has no natural content any more than sentences have natural meaning. So why isn’t there more “science” in literature? Science transforms both our world and our worldview, and yet a solid work of literature is more likely to be about an alcoholic than a scientist.

‘Twas not always so. I still remember vividly being introduced – really introduced – to John Donne and his great poem, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” which was written to his pregnant wife as he was about to leave for an overseas journey. The time being 1611, and both travel and childbirth being much more dangerous then than now, Donne and his wife had little assurance of seeing each other again. (Indeed, their child was born stillborn while Donne was gone.) Donne’s imagery to comfort his wife was taken directly from science and engineering: metallurgy, draftsmanship, geometry.

Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
    Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
    Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
    As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the center sit,
    Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
    And grows erect, as that comes home.

How do we find, evaluate, share, and use on-line resources/data?  In this morning’s Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education, I came across the post Thinking About Truth, Lies, and the Power of Google.  The flow of comments focused upon librarians, the vetting of information, and the current election (what article doesn’t relate to McCain/Palin and now I’m even doing it!).

Out of curiosity, I followed the link to the original post on the ACRLog (i.e., Association of College and Research Libraries: Blogging by and for academic and research librarians):  Information is Power – Even When it’s Wrong.  Then I took some time to ruminate over the piece, particularly the concern Sometimes aggregators are misleading. … Anyone have thoughts and/or tips on how to find, evaluate, share, and use on-line resources?

By-the-way, the last time I followed the Daily Report to the ACRLog, I read about the rise of the blog among academic and research librarians in What Happened To The Personal Web Site.  Next time I visit the ACRLog, I’m going to look to see whether someone wrote about the question of accessing material received from a blog (or how about a Facebook post) versus a personal web site, an organizational web site, or an on-line journal article.  Fascinating questions, maybe I should consider a degree in information science.

Hope I didn’t catch you (and me) at an awkward time, but are you already thirsting for encouragement in Sabbath-keeping this fall term?  As I reflected upon the topic and prayed for the graduate students and faculty with whom I minister, I returned to Calvin College’s helpful Sabbath-keeping resource page for faculty.  Below’s just a taste:

In an academic setting like Calvin where Monday signifies not only the beginning of a new week but the onslaught of classes to teach, tests to take (or give) and general all-around busyness, is it really realistic to rest from your work on Sunday? Is it even biblically mandated for the New Testament church?

In his book, Catch Your Breath: God’s Invitation to Sabbath Rest, Don Postema points out that that “the hectic pace of contemporary life makes the idea and practice of sabbath rest enormously attractive.” Yet this same hectic pace also, on the other hand, makes it incredibly difficult to slow down, let alone cease from the normal concerns of everyday life. In light of these considerations, two key questions must be answered: Why should Christians observe the Sabbath and how?

Two other links which come to mind when I consider the topic are given below.  What resources, practices, and communities have you found helpful in Sabbath-keeping, particularly as a new term begins?

1. A Guided Sabbath, a resource written by Sarah MacDonald & Jay Sivits for Following Christ in 2002
2. Critical Junctures: The Spiritual Formation of Graduate Students and Young Faculty by Bob Trube.