The Emerging Scholars Blog

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to hear a professor/practitioner of family medicine share how to address errors in the medical profession.  Yes, the university hospital provides a unique environment for research, student-faculty-staff relationships, and connection with the world beyond the campus which it serves, but all members of the university community make mistakes (even sin).  Gasp!

As you journey through Lent, join me in meditating upon living out the Greatest Commandment by taking some time to

• consider how loving your neighbor fits in relationship to being/following Jesus the Christ in one’s vocation/discipline.
• acknowledge, confess, and release when/where/how you have fallen short … Note: we are not perfect.   We will err at times in our inter-personal interactions, spelling, presentations, research, articles, web posts/comments, patient care, advice, etc.  But when we purposefully hide mistakes to our own benefit, point fingers at others to avoid the consequences, or turn frustration with our self into agitation with others, we encounter sin and the evil one coming forth to destroy all it can.
• seek reconciliation in broken relationships.
• be intentional about blessing those whom you’ve been called to serve through the resurrection power of Jesus the Christ.

Would enjoy reading some comments from those outside of the Medical profession as to how you might translate these thoughts from a Medical professor to your place in higher education (Note: the below section is just an excerpt from a larger presentation which included much more material).  Also would you have any resources to recommend in addressing mistakes and/or offering apologies?  From those within the Medical profession, any points to add?

When we are at risk of committing errors

• Tired:  know your limits
• Under the influence (eg., alcohol, drugs, over the counter drugs)
• Competing demands
  • Work stresses
  • Family stresses (Note to those married:  open communication between family members is very important)
• Practicing outside the usual scope of practice/expertise or attempting a procedure after it’s been awhile since one’s regular practice of it 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. The research says Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left (Patricia Cohen, NY Times, January 17, 2010). What do you think? HT: Miller. Note:  The article references Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University, mentioned in Week in Review: The Valiant Return Edition and the subject of an upcoming ESN quote series.
2. Annual Poll of Freshmen Shows Effect of Recession (By Kate Zernike, NY Times, January 21, 2010):  “The recession hit this year’s college freshmen hard, affecting how they chose a school as well as their ability to pay for it, according to an annual nationwide survey released Thursday. …”  Related:  The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2009 (pdf)
3. Can Religion Coexist with…Medicine? Faculty at the (independent) Baylor College of Medicine protest a planned merger with (Baptist-affiliated)

Baylor University (Chronicle, Katherine Mangan). Their petition states, in part,

The religious ideologies that permeate throughout BU’s academic policies may adversely affect both scientific progress and the culture at BCM, particularly in relation to issues such as evolution, embryonic stem cells, and sexual orientation.

This week, the Chronicle also reported that the Baylor College of Medicine faces NIH sanctions over conflicts of interest (Chronicle, Paul Basken).

4. Twitter at the MLA: ProfHacker.com offers a variety of perspectives on the use of Twitter at the recent MLA convention. They range from the scary (a job-seeker whose interview was derailed after a member of the interview committee found a tweet of his to be “spurious”) to the very cool (several twitterers who made important face-to-face connections after “meeting” fellow MLA members on Twitter).
5. The Book of the Decade: Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Books named Steven Garber’s Fabric of Faithfulness (affiliate link) as its “Book of the Decade”. We’ve had it on our ESN Core Bibliography for several years, so we think Byron has great taste!

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?

Since 2003, I’ve volunteered as a teacher at my church. I’m currently teaching two series for adults – an introduction to the Bible (its nature, history, and content, the process of canonization and translation, basics of inductive Bible study) and a course on Christian “rituals and traditions” (the Lord’s Supper, baptism, Easter, Christmas, and Advent practices). My experience with teaching has always been positive, and my students (usually adults age 30 to 70) are genuinely curious about the Bible, Christianity, and the Gospel, but often don’t know where to start or how to find reliable sources of information. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of shady information about religion on the Internet.

On the other hand, if your full-time job involves classroom teaching and research, you might like something different on the weekend – something like, I don’t know, seeing your family or doing something more active. I’ve noticed very few elementary school teachers volunteering in our children’s wing.

Do you teach at your church? If yes, what has been your experience? If not, can you share your reasons and how they’ve been received? Do you feel free to make that choice at your church, or do you feel pressured one way or the other (either to teach or not to teach)?

Have you seen and/or experienced  The Rural Brain Drain (Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/19/2009)?  After a number of suggestions regarding how to address The Rural Brain Drain, Carr and Kefalas conclude:

Ultimately, with a plan and a vision the undoing of Middle America is not preordained. The rural crisis has been ignored for far too long, but, we believe, it isn’t too late to start paying attention. The residents of rural America must embrace the fact that to survive, the world they knew and cherished must change. And, on a national level, rural development must be more closely linked to national economic growth priorities, and policies must be created to help these communities prepare for a future that is already here.

The article is drawn from material in their soon to be published Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America.  As a resident of the rapidly developing (or should I say over-developed) Lancaster County, PA, I intend to place Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America on my to read list and see what insights might be transferrable to my context. 

Rural Road in Lancaster County, PA

Below are a few brief thoughts which I would be interested in discussing further.  Any takers? 

1. Although rural and small town America overlap, they are not the same.  
2. Pennsylvania, in contrast to some large stretches of Middle America, has a high number of regional state universities and liberal arts colleges which bring the educated back into small towns.  Pennsylvania even boasts a large state university intentionally built in a rural location several hours away from the distractions of urban life, i.e., Penn State University.  Note:  Some faculty on small town campuses commute from metro-areas, so that their families can take advantage of more opportunities.  In addition, many campuses find it difficult to serve/partner with their local communities even though quite a few started with that intention. 
3. I wonder how much the larger brain drain is a societal lack of interest in the value of education itself. I find the idealized desire for learning in films such as Music Man, referenced by the article, a rare commodity.  That’s why inspirational producations such as Music Man return year after year in small town/rural communities, but seldom become part of the lived fabric of the community. 
4. Simplicity.  Any interest in returning to living off the land as part of extended families or tightknit communities?  I hear and read about this as an ideal desired by many, but are the authors saying this is impossible?  Note:  Our family continues to seek to move more and more in this direction.
5. Local congregations have much to contribute in the discernment of vocation/calling, intentional commitment to one’s community, and the life of the mind.  Do you have positive illustrations and/or visions of possibilities to be offered in rural/small town settings?

Norman Borlaug’s Nobel Prize Lecture – The death of Borlaug, one of the founders of the Green Revolution, sparked numerous tributes (NY Times, WSJ, Guardian). Gregg Easterbrook in the WSJ estimates that Borlaug’s agricultural work has saved more than 1 billion lives and counting. Leave it to GetReligion, however, to highlight the link between his Lutheran roots and his agricultural work. In his 1970 Nobel Prize lecture, Borlaug cites Genesis 41, Isaiah 8 and Isa. 35, Joel 1, and Amos 4 as justification for both his work and his hope in its success. [It reminds me of Walter Bradley's work that won the Bosscher-Hammond Prize at Following Christ. ~ Mike]

The Game of Ghost Writing – Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed reviews a couple of new studies that examine the practice of scientific “ghost writing”: journal articles written by pharmaceutical companies or other corporate interests but published under the names of academics who had little to nothing to do with the research. (Mike’s note: I agree with the commenter who observes that “ghost writing” is hardly the term for this practice.)

Maimonides on Trustworthy Sources (Harper’s) – Reader David O’Hara sent us this great quote from Jewish medieval philosopher Maimonides.

More on the challenge of humility.  What does it mean “to serve” and “put the interest of others” ahead of one’s own in the context of higher education?  Bearing the Burden reviews some recent posts on how

the service burdens are unfairly distributed, falling mainly on academic do-gooders, “who work hardest for the institution” yet “reap the fewest material benefits because they publish at a slower pace.” … academic do-gooders need to learn to just say no. … “those of us who overwork are covering up for and enabling those who under perform. Most universities have no mechanism for forcing tenured people teach better, teach more, show up at office hours, give students responsible advice about their program of study, or do the committee work they have been assigned” – Gabriela Montell, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/18/2009.

Lots of provoking material in Academic Bait-and-Switch, Part 2 (Henry Adams, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/15/2009).

1. Freshman disinterested in reading, mastering the basics of writing sentences, and earning their grades as the “interesting distinctions between the worldviews of freshmen and graduate students at Elite National U.”
2. A summary of the graduate student’s encounter with a parent over the “F” he had awarded their son.
3. The final sentence of the essay reads, “If the Blunts didn’t want their son taught by a TA, I wondered why they sent him to Elite National U, but I thought it wise to keep that to myself.”

Rob Jenkins, an associate professor of English and director of the Writers Institute at Georgia Perimeter College,* proposes The Five Characteristics of Successful New Faculty Members.  The first one on his list is humility, which includes the importance of seeking out an experienced faculty mentor.

You might be surprised at how many new hires show up believing they’re smarter than their colleagues, or thinking they already know more about how the institution ought to function than do people who have been there 20 years.

You should assume that, as a rookie, you know nothing about the culture of the institution or the way it runs, much less the way it ought to run. Spend the first few months watching and listening to the people around you, observing how they conduct themselves and how others respond to them. From that you will learn much about how to behave—and how not to.

Seek out an experienced faculty mentor, someone who’s been at the college at least three or four years. Avoid members of the “old guard” who appear jaded, disillusioned, and burned out; you don’t want their attitudes to rub off on you. Look for someone who knows the ropes but hasn’t yet considered using them to hang himself/herself.

(Note: Your department chair may assign you a mentor, but if that relationship is unsatisfactory, feel free to seek out another one on your own. You may very well start with a mentor and end up with a friend.)

What do you think?  Is humility the most essential feature of becoming successful as a new faculty member?  How have you seen humility taught/understood, learned, and/or lived out in higher education?  Note:  For the rest of Jenkins’ list visit The Five Characteristics of Successful New Faculty Members.

*Another one of his articles is highlighted in the ESN post Dumbledore as a model admin?

Last week when Dr. Joe Kearns, MD, Emergency Medicine, presented on Keys of Thriving (Not Just Surviving!) in Medical School and Beyond at PSU-Hershey’s Christian Medical Society lunch lecture, I couldn’t help but think this has ESN written all over it. Below are a few main points which I culled/distilled from his presentation.  Let me know what you think of their relevance to your graduate school/professional experience.  Feel free to highlight, expand upon, or share a story in relationship to one or several points.

1. “Life is going to get better after…”  This is just not true.  Life doesn’t get any better after you finish your degree, it only changes.  Note:  it is particularly important to keep in mind the growing complexity of commitments/responsibilities with family, friends, community, church, workplace, professional societies. …
2. We must feed upon the Word of God.  We need to learn how to live between Genesis and Revelation.  As Jesus answered the tempter, by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, “It is written, ‘Man doesn’t live only on bread. He also lives on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ “ (Matthew 4:4, NIV).  Do not forget as you treat your patients [translate to your vocation/profession] that although the creation is broken, God created it all good.  Furthermore, part of our mission as members of the Kingdom of God is to restore the creation.  And one day God will bring full restoration in a new heaven and new earth.
3. Dwell in the wisdom literature, i.e., Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.  Why?  Because in school you’ll get a lot of knowledge, but you’ll not engage with wisdom directly.  Soak up the poetry, songs.  A lot of life is vanity.  Don’t take yourself so seriously.  It’s important to keep yourself in perspective.
4. Be troubled by the account of the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30).  Why?  Because being rich is a mixed blessing.  The more you have, the more trouble you have.  And having everything doesn’t make you happy.
5. In summary, the two things necessary to thrive in school and after graduation:  read/query the Word of God AND have fellowship with the people of God no matter the work load.  If you can’t do the two above, then quit school.  Don’t become narrow and seek accolades.  Before moving for your job, make sure there is a good match with a local congregation.  Don’t focus on making money, limit your hours to be involved with community, church, family.  Take time to interact with your patients (translate to your vocation/profession).
6. Jesus came to give life and give it abundantly, not just to survive in school.  Without a relationship with the Creator, you don’t know who you are.

Even though A Neuroscience Professor Makes Her Move to the Racetrack (Bill Finley, NY Times, 7/29/2009) is in a worldly setting, her story reminded me of the importance of embracing and stepping into our calling (as individuals and the people of God). This might mean moving in the direction of research as a junior faculty at Johns Hopkins, or away from it. This might involve living out the dreams of your earthly family, or it might not. According to Os Guinness:

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.” — The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. Nashville, TN:  Thomas Nelson, 2003, p.4.

As we enter the fall term, how would you describe your call to yourself, family, friends, colleagues?  To help flesh out calling a little further, here’s an excerpt from R. Paul Stevens’ Calling/Vocation: Read the rest of this entry »

In A Great Man, Dumbledore,  Rob Jenkins, an associate professor of English and director of the Writers Institute at Georgia Perimeter College, proposes

Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, might just be the greatest academic administrator of all time. … Of course, not everybody can be a Dumbledore, but two-year college administrators can certainly benefit from his example. At the very least, they can learn to resist their more Umbridge-like urges, and thus save a herd of angry Centaurs (which I take to be something like the members of a faculty senate) the trouble of carrying them off into the Forbidden Forest.

What a vibrant mental picture as we prepare for the fall term on any campus.  According to Jenkins, what does Dumbledore bring to the administrator’s desk or his buzzing about through the halls of power?

Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

Read the rest of this entry »