The Emerging Scholars Blog

Last week, the New York Times reported that women are making gains at Harvard, five years after former Harvard President Lawrence Summers made some ill-advised remarks about women that eventually led to his resignation. NYTimes reporter Tamar Lewin describes some of the changes that Harvard has made to recruit more women faculty members, such as:

• A task force on women in science
• Improved childcare facilities
• Grants to help junior faculty pay for childcare on research trips

Lewin also notes that Harvard replaced Summers with its first female president — Drew Gilpin Faust — but that it’s not clear what effect, if any, Faust’s presidency, has had on the gender balance at Harvard. The percentage of women on the Harvard faculty is up past 25% now, an all-time high, though it varies dramatically across disciplines. In addition, Harvard’s academic culture is running into conflicts with a generational culture of younger faculty who want to spend more time with their families.

“Our biggest challenge is this misperception that Harvard doesn’t tenure its own junior faculty,” Dr. [Elena A.] Kramer [biology professor] said. “And because many of our wonderful senior faculty women came up in the ’70s and ’80s and don’t have families, some young women who know they want families might look at them and say, ‘I don’t want that kind of life’ and take themselves out of the pipeline.”

While I’m not sure about her “misperception” point (see this Crimson article), I agree that there is a change of faculty assumptions about career choices taking place.

My question: What can universities — as well as groups like ESN — do to encourage women who pursuing academic vocations?

Before leaving the comments to you, let me recommend our partner ministry, The Well, published by InterVarsity’s Women in the Academy and Professions. They consistently great articles about women, vocation, family, and related topics (which I often borrow for publication in the Emerging Scholars Review).

While I was the Coalition for Christian Outreach’s Jubilee conference a couple of weekends ago, I had the chance to sit down with a few very interesting people and interview them for the blog. One of these was Derek Melleby, the Director of the College Transition Initiative for the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding. With Donald Opitz, Derek wrote The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. Derek and I discussed the impact that his book has had, his work in helping students transition to college, and the important roles of parents and faculty play in the lives of students.

In the coming days, I’ll be posting interviews with Dallas Baptist professor David Naugle, ESN member and Johns Hopkins MD/PhD student Jimmy Lin, and editor/writer/teacher Alissa Wilkinson.

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Mike Hickerson: First of all, I want to just thank you for the book that you and Donald Opitz wrote, The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. We recommend it a lot to the students in ESN. What results have you seen coming out of that book? How have you seen students being affected by it, or other ideas being spun off out of the book?

Derek Melleby: That’s a good question. On one level, there were other books like it that say similar things, and we didn’t think that we were writing a new kind of book. I think of Engaging God’s World [by Cornelius Plantinga], or The Fabric of Faithfulness [by Steven Garber]. There are really helpful books that say very similar things, but we thought what was needed was a book for what I call the 85 percent. Some of those books about being faithful in academics, or world view, or integration of faith and learning seem to be written on a level for people who are already in that game, or already engaged in that way. What we hoped to do with the Outrageous Idea was to reach the average reader, the students who maybe hadn’t even thought about it before, to share that God does care about academics, that your learning matters to God.

Being faithful to Christ means little things, like paying attention in class, doing your work with integrity, and caring about the things you’re learning. I had a student who didn’t realize that I was the co-author of the book, but just saw the book on the book table. She picked it up, showed it to a friend of hers, and said, “This book saved my life!” Now, I know that’s a little exaggerated, and she was that kind of person, it seemed. But she said, “You know, I take so many classes, and they just seem boring to me, or I just do the least amount of work to get the best grade that I can get. This book reminded me to take it more seriously. Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in a class, and I’ll think, ‘Why do we have to learn this? How will I ever use this in the real world?’ And the Outrageous Idea made me stop and say, ‘No, I’m here for a reason; God has me here to learn these things for a reason.’” So, it helped her to take learning more seriously.

Mike: In ESN, we’re trying to get students to think about becoming a professor. That’s a great point about the 85 percent. There’s sometimes an assumption that students are going to try their hardest “just because.” I’ve even known a professor who said he was a C student as an undergrad, and then something clicked for him after he graduated. He went back and got a Masters, then got a PhD. Now he’s a professor, and even started a whole department at his new university. Whereas when he was an undergrad, no one would have ever thought he could do that, or even finish college.

Derek: That’s the kind of thing I mean. It’s part of my own story. I was a part of a good college ministry, but I was living this compartmentalized life, and not realizing it. I had a really good campus ministry, where we were asking really good questions about the Bible, about theology, even about the integration of faith and culture to some degree, and then I had my classroom experience, where I was asking separate kinds of questions in there. I studied political science, so I was thinking about politics and government, and the nature of man, and what it all meant for how we go about doing politics. For whatever reason, unless you’re intentional about it, you never bring those two worlds together. I’m doing discipleship and evangelism on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and then I’m going to class. One person said, “Worship and scholarship are like two ships passing in the night.” What we hoped is this little book can just invite students to bring those two worlds together.

Mike: Is there anything that you would add to the book if you were rewriting it today, or if you had a second edition coming out? Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve previously asked for your recommendations for the best books for undergraduates (which had a tremendous response) and best books for graduate students (who must be harder to shop for). Thus, it only makes sense for me to ask:

What are the best books for new faculty?

If you need help getting started, here are a few categories:

• Practical advice books
• Books to take your theology and spiritual life to the next level
• Books on “culture making” (there’s a leading category!), education, or other aspects of faculty life
• Comfort or counsel for those who are facing disappointment with their career
• Books about building relationships

Any suggestions?

Photo: Parnassus Book Services, Cape Cod, MA, by Lochaven via Flickr. Click for a larger image.

I spent the weekend at Jubilee, the annual student conference of the Coalition for Christian Outreach. Jubilee has a great reputation for emphasizing the theology of vocation – a reputation which was confirmed, by the way – but I didn’t expect the high level of fun generated by the conference. Saturday evening featured a hilarious (and moving) monologue from actress and writing Susan Isaacs (author of Angry Conversations with God) and a can’t-possibly-be-true-except-he-brought-pictures talk from Bob Goff, president of Restore International and good friend of Don Miller.

Photo: Byron Borger at last year’s Jubilee, but he looked basically the same this year. From livingjubilee via Flickr. Click for a larger image.

Occasionally, these streams of fun and vocation combined, such as the first night. In quick succession, seven speakers presented pecha kucha, a speed-presentation format of 20 slides, changing automatically every 20 seconds, whether the speaker is ready or not. The pecha kucha presenters included:

• David Greusel, an architect speaking on the connection between architecture and faith, especially what he called “the lie” that “secular work” doesn’t matter in God’s kingdom on earth (Greusel was the lead designer of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park).
• Gideon Strauss, President of the Center for Public Justice, who testified to the application of Isaiah 58 in our current society.
• Leroy Barber, president of Mission Year, speaking about Green My Hood, a program which identifies the abuse of the environment in poor urban neighborhoods and looks for ways to bring good creation stewardship into the inner city.
• Good friend of ESN Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books, who said that “part of this conference is learning to read deeply,” and reminded us that the word “disciple” means “student.”

As Benson Hines (who was also there) said on Twitter,

Lord, let me be as passionate about my calling as Byron Borger is about his.

More about Jubilee and some upcoming articles after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. 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. Why Harvard Students Should Study More Religion (Lisa Miller, Newsweek): A look at Harvard’s (lack of) religion in its undergraduate curriculum, with special attention to Louis Menand’s attempt to include a course called “Reason and Faith” in Harvard’s revised education requirements. The article quotes a couple of very interesting, and very different, points of view;

“My colleagues fear that taking religion seriously would undermine everything a great university stands for,” the Rev. Peter Gomes, Harvard’s chaplain and a professor of Christian history, told me. “I think that’s ungrounded, but there it is.”Steven Pinker says his main objection to the 2006 proposal that students be required to take a course in a Reason and Faith category was that it seemed to make reason and faith equal paths to truth. “I very, very, very much do not want to go on the record as suggesting that people should not know about religion,” he told me. “But reason and faith are not yin and yang. Faith is a phenomenon. Reason is what the university should be in the business of fostering.”

2. More religion in higher education: Inside Higher Ed featured two opinion articles about the role of religion and theology in academic disciplines – “On Teaching Christianity” by Adam Kosko, who argues that religion classes need to spend more time studying the actual theology of religious figures and movements; and “Everywhere and Nowhere” by Kevin Schultz and Paul Harvey, which takes another look at the place of religion within historical studies.

More links after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

In InterVarsity and many other Christian organizations, we’re used to thinking of Christians as a minority – even a persecuted minority – within the academy, particularly at the more prestigious universities. For example, responding to a common question asked by many faculty and graduate students, we recently published an essay by Ken Elzinga of the University of Virginia titled “Being Open About My Faith Without Turning People Off.” There is another way of looking at Christianity in the university, however.

Photo credit: Interfaith chaplaincy banner at Nichols College, by Svadilfari via Flickr. Click for larger image.

Last week, my friend Julie forwarded me a link to Tricia Seifert’s article, “Understanding Christian Privilege: Managing the Tensions of Spiritual Plurality” (PDF). Comparing “Christian privilege” to the more commonly used terms male privilege and white privilege, Seifert identifies several areas of university life in which structure or assumptions favor Christianity over other religions, such as:

• the academic calendar, which includes breaks for Christmas and sometimes Easter, but not High Holy Days, Ramadan, or other religious festivals

Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. 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.

Photo Credit: Philadelphia’s Swann Memorial Fountain, blizzard-style, from Walking Philly via Flickr. Click for a larger image.

1. Is there a place in the academy for the Christian worldview? (Jesus Creed) RJS, a regular guest blogger at Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog and a science professor at a major research university, shares a recent conversation with a friend about the role of the Christian worldview in the university. A brief except:

If one accepts methodological naturalism consistently as the basis for academic inquiry and rational thought,  it follows that Christianity and religious belief have no place in the university, or in rational discussions, except to do autopsy on them.   We must concede that a scientific-historical understanding of Christianity must be built with no reference to the possibility that He rose from the dead.  We must accept that our own beliefs must be explained in evolutionary and neurological terms, without reference to the possibility that they are true.

The whole thing (and the ensuing conversation) is worth reading. Read the rest of this entry »

And if so, with whom did you watch it?

My family and I joined the rest of our Adult Bible Fellowship for our annual Souper Bowl Party. This has become a central tradition among our group of church friends: a Super Bowl watching party combined with a soup & chili cook-off. We have a few families in our group with houses large enough to host everyone comfortably, along with finished basements where the many, many kids can gather. We’re still waiting for Cincinnati’s turn, but our group includes a couple of Purdue grads who were very happy with this year’s outcome. At least it wasn’t the Steelers. :)

The Super Bowl is a powerful cultural liturgy in the United States, part of the “military-entertainment complex” that James K. A. Smith describes in Desiring the Kingdom. Here, he explicates the National Anthem ritual: Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. 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. New online journal for student research: The Chronicle reports on Student Pulse, a new online journal for student research. Some good points from the Chronicle’s commenters about copyright and usage issues, but still an interesting and inspiring idea for sharing early academic work.

2.  Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally (Natalie Angier, NY Times, February 1, 2010).  Leaning forward with anticipation regarding what we might learn from the immensely popular field called embodied cognition or reclining (even if only a little bit) and giving it a quizzical look?

3.   Educators Mull How to Motivate Professors to Improve Teaching (David Glenn, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 24, 2010). Any suggestions or encouraging case studies to share?

4.  Teaching Matters: Rethinking the Hybrid Course (Steve Fox, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 31, 2010).  What do you think of Fox’s suggestions regarding Hybrid courses?  Have you taken or taught any Hybrid courses?  What recommendations would you add, in particular with regard to the management of a classroom blog?  Any encouraging case studies to share?

Books

5. “The most important person in the world”: I (Mike) was not familiar with the HeLa cell line until I read Dwight Garner’s NYTimes review of the new book by Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Ms. Lacks, an uneducated, African American Virginia tobacco farmer who died of cervical cancer at the age of 31, contributed the famously immortal cells that have

helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization,” Ms. Skloot writes. HeLa cells were used to learn how nuclear bombs affect humans, and to study herpes, leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and AIDS. They were sent up in the first space missions, to see what becomes of human cells in zero gravity.

The problem? Ms. Lacks never gave permission for her cells to be used for scientific experiments, and researchers continued to draw samples from her descendants without explaining why, one part of the tragic legacy of American medical treatment of African Americans. From Garner’s review:

As one of Mrs. Lacks’s sons says: “She’s the most important person in the world, and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”

This looks like an important – and discussion-provoking – book.

A while back, I asked for your recommendations for the best books for undergrads, and you came through with a pretty impressive list. Let’s advance a few years.

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

There will probably be some overlap, but here are some common graduate school situations that might affect the list:

• Deeper exploration of a specific discipline or profession
• New life experiences (e.g. marriage, children, death of family and friends)
• Coping with failure and success
• The “quarterlife crisis“
• Growth and change in one’s spiritual life

What are your suggestions?