The Emerging Scholars Blog

Tom connects with Prof Mike, an ESN Mentor, at Urbana

In my longer conversations with students and faculty at Urbana 09*, I’ve asked

How can the ESN blog best serve you in 2010?  What are some topics you’d like to see receive attention, or more attention?

Below you’ll find some of the responses I’ve received.  What are your thoughts?  Feel free to list several topics and give them an order of priority.  Note:  The big picture of what guides our posts can be found here.

• How does one transition from undergrad to grad?  What should I be sure to read/know to prepare?  What unique roles do race, ethnicity, gender, faith, relationships (e.g., married, parent) play?
• How does one apply/adjust/enter graduate school after being out of higher education for awhile?
• How does manage time in higher education?  E.g., Can one be married, let alone have children in graduate school (or beyond as a researcher/professor), who is invested in one’s faith and family?  Testimonials/interviews would be of great encouragement.
• How do race, ethnicity, gender, faith, relationships (e.g., married, parent) factor into acceptance by, one’s sense of acceptance by, or one’s ability to feel accepted/respected by the academic community along the path of higher education?
• More book reviews and/or discussions on must reads, e.g., Best Books for Undergrads: Your Picks
• More on the sciences
• Testimonials/interviews of followers of Christ who have made it and are unashamed of who they have been created to be by God (Note: includes race, ethnicity, gender, faith, married, parent).
• What are the +/-’s of taking some (or even all of) your graduate classes on-line?

*Note:  If you’d like to keep up with ESN at Urbana follow Mike’s tweets.  If you’re at Urbana 09, don’t miss this afternoon’s ESN reception.

Tom and I are both at Urbana 09 all week, serving as staff at InterVarsity’s 22_nd student missions conference. If you’re here in St. Louis, join us at the seminar and receptions hosted by ESN. If you’re not, you can follow along with Urbana webcasts (the first general session talk by Urbana Director Jim Tebbe is already available) and with a special Urbana 09 Twitter-stream. You might even see some of my tweets.

While you’re thinking about Urbana, please pray for safe travel for the staff and delegates still on their way. Bad weather and increased airlne security has created many delays.

No Week-in-Review this week. May this quotation from Living the Christian Year help put your Christmas in proper perspective.

So in this season we come once more to Bethlehem in the poverty of the shepherds and humility of the Magi.  We bow before the feedbox which holds the Bread of Life, the gift by which we’re enriched.  We find our words, even our poetry, failing us, as Dietrich Bonheoffer so eloquently discerned:

“Our words rush out at the sight of the divine child; we try to put into language what is implied in the name:  Jesus.  But at the bottom these words are nothing except a worldless silence of adoration before the ineffable, before the presence of God in the shape of a human child.” — Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, InterVarsity Press, 2009, p.74.

Amen!

A sincere and heartfelt thank-you to our sister in Christ Christine Sine for this Advent meditation. Inspired/thirsting to take more time away from the busy-ness of the holiday season and focus upon the Christ of Christmas?  I’d encourage you to take a few minutes to visit these three sites:

1. Christine Sine’s Godspace
2. Following the Star (HT Arlene).
3. Susan Boyle, Handel’s Messiah, Silent Monks & God’s Good Intentions for Our Redemption (By Lael Arrington, bible.org, December 4th, 2009)

If you have particular Advent meditations/reflections which you’d desire to bless others with (books, weblinks, one’s you’ve written), please share them with us as together we celebrate The Coming of the Lord.

Updated 12/23/2009, 6:30 am.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my request for the best books for undergrads! Here are the recommendations that we received on the blog, from Facebook, and via email. Tom and I received an amazing variety of responses. Here were some interesting trends:

• C. S. Lewis was recommended more than any other author, but not a single book of his was mentioned more than once!
• Only three books were recommended more than once: Augustine’s Confessions, J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, and Tim Keller’s The Reason for God
• Other highly recommended authors included Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, and Os Guinness.

Photo credit: net_efekt via Flickr

I have tried to group the recommendations to make it easier to read and compare, but all such classifications fall short of the ideal. I have also given C. S. Lewis a category all to himself. Most of the links below are affiliate links to Amazon.com, but I’ve tried to note when the book is available for free online.

A final note: I have not edited the recommendations in any way! If we received a recommendation, I’ve included it below. Disagree with a choice? Think we left out something obvious? Let us know in the comments.

The full list appears after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?

As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them.  In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1.  What did the Oxford University Press select as its 2009 “word of the year”? — Part of the The Higher-Ed News Quiz (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2009).  What’s your best guess?  We’ll confirm the answer when it’s posted and have some thoughts on the “word of the year.” …  Please, no cheating ;-)

2.  Pittsburgh Sets Vote on Adding Tax on Tuition (Ian Urbina, NY Times, December 15, 2009):  “The tax would be the first of its kind in the nation, and other cities are watching closely as they try to find ways to close their own budget gaps.” — Exemplifies the changing relationship and rhetoric between town & gown during an economically difficult time.  Note: Council puts tuition tax proposal on hold (Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 17, 2009).

3. Need another reason to pursue an academic vocation? If you’re a linguist, you might just be called upon to invent a new language. Paul Frommer of USC did just that for James Cameron’s new movie Avatar, joining J. R. R. Tolkien and Marc Orkand (inventor of Klingon) as an inspiration to budding linguists everywhere.

4. From ProfHacker.com: an End of the Semester Checklist, a very practical list to keep your courses, files, and CV in shape.

Books

Tom’s started digging into Education for Human Flourishing:  A Christian Perspective (Paul D. Spears
and Steven R. Loomis, InterVarsity Press, 2009).  If the title catches your interest, then check out the Preface, Precis of Book and Chapters, and keep your eye out for quotes from the book in the coming year.

Are you a life sciences student or professional that loves the science, but doesn’t want to follow a traditional career? If so, this is the place for you. This site will cover alternative science career options for those obtaining or that already acquired a science degree, but first let me describe a bit about why this site is being started. … — Kristy Houck, About, Alternative Careers Resource:  Best Career Resource for Scientists Looking for Alternative Careers, December 16, 2009.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to connect with Kristy Houck.   She not only has a great basis for and inspiration behind the site (visit About), but also has lots of practical material/suggestions to share.  These broader themed posts particularly caught my attention:

1. Life Science Executives- New Trend?
2. Benefits of interning- particularly when pursuing alternative careers.
3. Top Ten Tips For Resume Writing
4. Breaking Into Freelance Medical Writing
5. “Alternative Careers in Science” Book

So if alternative science careers are of interest to you (or you’re engaged in one), I’d encourage you to take a few minutes to swing by the site.  In addition, if you know of other sites with similar resources (for those in the sciences and/or those in other disciplines), let us know by commenting or emailing.

In a mere 12 days(!), Tom and I will arrive in St. Louis for Urbana 09, InterVarsity’s triennial student missions conference. Most of the 20,000+ conference delegates are undergraduate students, and we’ll be talking to them about ESN, vocation, and loving God with your mind.

It’s impossible for me to talk to students about ESN without recommending at least half a dozen books. I have my favorites, but enough about me — what are your favorites?

What books do you recommend to undergraduates, on God, on academia, or just about life in general?

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?

As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them.  In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1. In Star-Studded Wise Men: Rethinking the Christmas Story (December 7, 2009), Ben Witherington delivers a strong corrective regarding some popular renderings of Christmas.  Ben has a similar post focused upon Luke 2:1-7, No Inn in the Room (December 09, 2007).  (HT:  Arlene)

2.  More stocking stuffers?  Stan Guthrie and John Wilson, Christmas Books, Part 3 (Podcast, posted 12/08/09).  Forward the link to Buster Keaton’s College (1927) and have a laugh. Any additional suggestions you have for our Christmas Wish List?

3. Even more stocking stuffers! Don’t forget about the discounts you receive with your ESN membership from IVP, Eerdmans, Zondervan, and great periodicals. Books and subscriptions make great gifts (hint, hint).

4. This is a time of year when many interviews and job searches are conducted, so take a few minutes to read this good advice from David Perlmutter about “Avoiding a ‘Nuclear Veto’ in Hiring” from the Chronicle. Perhaps it will make next Christmas a bit merrier! (HT: Kim)

Books

5. From Mike: Laura Vanderkam in the WSJ recently wrote “Seen and Not Heard in Church,” about the tension between the ideals of intergenerational worship and the messy realities of crying babies, restless toddlers, and bored children of all ages. May I recommend a couple of that my wife (who teaches music to very young children) has found helpful?

Parenting in the Pew (IVP) by long time IV staff, current John Brown U. faculty member, and Dead Theologian’s Society founder Robbie Castleman – a very practical, and compact, book on training your children to worship

Teaching Kids Authentic Worship (Baker) by Kathleen Chapman – a guide with 52 ideas for “worship moments,” in and out of church

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin) by Richard Louv – not about worship per se, but about children encounter reality around them – which, in a way, is what worship does, too

And there’s one more that I can’t find right now. You’ll just have to check back later today when I add it to the comments!

Two recent articles on the profession of education worth consideration:

1. In Search of Education Leaders, by Bob Herbert, NY Times Op-Ed, December 4, 2009
2. The Ph.D. Problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal, by Louis Menand, Harvard Magazine, November-December 2009.  HT: Miller.

Anyone willing to take a stab at why the educational system is so leaky and how we find/develop educational leaders which serve their department, discipline, campus, education in the United States/beyond?

Questions which come to mind with the Harvard degree program, topic of In Search of Education Leaders, “Will this program include the philosophy, purpose, and joy of education? Or are these unable to be expressed in the pragmatic, secular context of trying to keep up because we need to?”  With regard to ‘residency’ models, these already exist in education, e.g., the undergraduate student teacher model. Stronger cross-grade & inter-generational mentoring with the potential for long term relationships would profit the whole educational system.

HT:  Nick who responded to my Facebook musings by referring to Diane Rehm’s discussion of Women in Science with

1. Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, Morris Hertzein Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Blackburn was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Carol Greider and Jack W. Szostak.
2. Dr. Carol Greider, Daniel Nathans Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics at The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Greider was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak.
3. Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and special assistant to President Obama

Yes, higher education is leaky pipeline for women in the sciences.  Any responses by those part of the system?

According to Louis Menand in The Ph.D. Problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal, the educational system is leaky in quite another way for the Humanities, but with a particular internal end in mind. Can/should higher education in the Humanities add practical skills and develop a specific graduation time line?  What about those who went through the system? Will they allow such changes (Note: Reminds me of the reduction of hours in medical training)?  Will the motivation for students in the Humanities become the pursuit and exploration of knowledge for the rich or those seeking direction later in life?  Even though the article seems focused upon the Humanities, especially English, does the article apply to all (or let’s say most) of higher education?