The Emerging Scholars Blog

Questions inspired by and related to You’ve Read the Headlines. Now, Quick, Read the Book (by Motoko Rich, NY Times, 3/29/2009, posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/books/30quic.html)

Questions: 

1. How does this necessity/predisposition for more, deeper material ASAP affect popular writing by academics and academic publishing in cutting edge fields of technology?  
2. Are there particular topics, themes, fields which deserve (possibly even demand) a longer time frame for consideration during the writing process, the community of scholars, and the wider public? 

Quote from the article:

“People can’t wait a year to get timely information on critical subjects,” said Amy Neidlinger, associate publisher of FT Press. “Especially today it’s dated 10 minutes after you’ve just received the first installation.”

Of course many publishers and authors suggest that taking time to produce a reflective work is what books are about, and that they should not succumb to the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle.

Read the rest of this entry »

The deadline is April 1 to apply for an incredible short-term missions trip with The Well and InterVarsity Global Projects. A group of women faculty has been invited to the University of Bangui in the Central African Republic to facilitate workshops and research on how to increase the number of women accessing higher learning (currently only 10%), hold English conversation classes, and encourage Christian students on campus. This is an excellent way to use your academic expertise to serve women and Christians in Africa. Full details are below.

Link: CAR Global Project

The deadline for preliminary proposals for the Christian Scholars Foundation’s Grant to Advance Christian Scholarship is almost here. This grant seeks to encourage and support Christian junior faculty in their efforts to integrate their faith with their academic endeavor. Past grants have supported research, writing, and teaching projects in a wide range of disciplines. Submit your C.V. and Executive Summary to the CSF by March 31 – next Tuesday. For full details, see the grant information on the ESN website below.

Link: http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/esn/news/2009-csf-esn-grant

Way back in January (ancient history for most blogs, but we at ESN are committed to learning from the past), the Chronicle of Higher Education published the column “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go” by Thomas H. Benton (the pen name of William Pannapacker, an English professor at Hope College). After reviewing the dismal (and diminishing) prospects for tenure-track jobs in the humanities, Benton recommends pursuing a Ph.D. in the humanities only if you fall into one of the four following categories: Read the rest of this entry »

As you have a passion for higher education, you no doubt follow March Madness with great interest and/or concern.  So join me in swinging by Culture Making to wrestle with the 5 Culture Making Questions applied to March Madness:

1. What does March Madness assume about the way the world is?
2. What does March Madness assume about the way the world should be?
3. What does March Madness make possible?
4. What does March Madness make impossible (or at least a lot more difficult)?
5. What new culture is created in response?

But before you go, what do you think about the promise by Courtney Paris, an all-American center at the University of Oklahoma, to repay the cost of her scholarship if she does not bring the national championship back to her campus? –  Putting a Price on a Title Run Stirs a Debate, by Jere’ Longman, NY Times, 3/23/09.

Is that what investment in athletic scholarships are understood to mean?  Is it too romantic to consider college athletic scholarships as an opportunity to enter and receive the long term value of higher education?  

With regard to financial investment and visibility, star athletes seem to be in a unique situation.  I don’t think a similar promise to produce results or repay (publish or perish, win the Nobel Prize, etc) could be given by those who receive a full ride academic scholarship, grant money, or a named academic chair.

Take a moment sometime today to consider The Real St. Patrick and invite others to do likewise.  Looking for some resources?  I’d encourage you to start with The Real St. Patrick and St. Patrick’s Day.  If you have additional suggestions, including books to recommend, please share below.

St. Patrick

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

– A Poem by St. Patrick, ca 377 AD

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I was in Mundelein, IL for InterVarsity staff meetings. The theme of the meetings was spiritual formation, and Gordon Smith was our main speaker. (ESN members may recognize his name because we recommend his book Courage & Calling
as part of our core bibliography.)

He was speaking of spiritual disciplines, and described Sabbath rest as one of the most important, not only for its benefit, but also because, well, observing the Sabbath is a command from God (Exodus 20:8). I asked him about students and faculty who are involved with InterVarsity and ESN: their lives are consumed with busy-ness, the universities and colleagues urge them to do more and more, and the cultures of their institutions and disciplines ignore the idea of Sabbath: how should we counsel them about the Sabbath? Read the rest of this entry »

Since the beginning of Lent, our family’s reflected upon the tension between sin and a pure heart as found in Psalm 51.  One morning, we walked through the Gospel message and explored the question of whether sin makes sense to our friends at school.  In Lancaster County, PA, there remains a significant cultural memory of sin.  But most campuses lack the memory/framework to discuss sin.

On Wednesday, I heard concerns regarding spiritual dullness shared by representatives from three campuses in the Mid-Atlantic. Part of this dullness comes from the lack of acknowledgment of sin, even among followers of Christ.  Rod Dreher shares in a USA Today Opinion piece:

It is what the late Philip Rieff, a non-believer, called “the triumph of the therapeutic” in his famous 1966 book of the same name. Rieff said our civilization has done away with its “thou shalt nots,” which were intended to tell us how to be good, and instead substituted a psychological pseudo-religion meant to help us feel better about the way we live. Read the rest of this entry »

Some news related to Mike’s earlier post Hard Times, Come Again No More. … According to the Chronicle of Higher Education article For Some, Hard Times Make Hiring Easier:

some institutions are going against the grain of the poor economy and appointing new professors. This decision has given those campuses an edge, yielding top-quality candidates who might not have been within reach in a more-competitive job market. — by Robin Wilson, from the issue dated March 13, 2009.

Of course, the competition is high at these colleges and universities.  As such,

“This is an opportunity to find the very best people,” says Michael J. Chajes, dean of the University of Delaware’s College of Engineering — which had more than 500 applications each for two of its eight faculty job openings. — by Robin Wilson, For Some, Hard Times Make Hiring Easier, Chronicle of Higher Education, from the issue dated March 13, 2009.

Want to know the campus hiring the most?  Take a moment to guess before you look. Read the rest of this entry »

What does Nicholas Wolterstorff make of Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman (Yale University Press, 2008)?

About half-way through the review, Wolterstorff critiques Sennett’s advocacy of animal laborans’ (i.e., the laboring human being, who asks How?) ability to function separate from homo faber (i.e., the human being who asks Why? and assumes the role of guide/critic to animal laborans) or at least a conversation in community regarding the ethics of particular crafts.   In particular, Wolterstorff uses Sennett’s treatment of Robert Oppenheimer’s craftsmanship of the atomic bomb  to question whether the worker focused on producing excellent goods for their own sake will ask the question whether the good/product should be created/manufactured at all.  Wolterstorff wraps up by asserting that Sennett’s pragmatism lacks the strength to properly support his incomplete definition of craftsmanship, which finds difficulty in extending into more expansive areas such as proper/good goverance (a significant concern of Hannah Arendt, whose put down of  animal laborans served as a motivation for book): Read the rest of this entry »