The Emerging Scholars Blog

Today is John Milton’s 400th birthday - or, rather, would have been. If you choose to celebrate this occasion, you can visit the John Milton Reading Room at Dartmouth, which contains ALL of Milton’s poetry (in English, Italian, Latin, and Greek) and selections from his prose, along with annotations.

(HT: The Wired Campus)

Insider Higher Ed reports on a meeting of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, in which assessing student outcomes was discussed. I’ll let you read the article yourself, but one of their conclusions was:

It might be possible, and could be valuable, for humanists to reach broad agreement on the skills, abilities, and knowledge they might seek to instill in their students, and that agreement on those goals might be a starting point for identifying effective ways to measure how well students have mastered those outcomes.

Notice the words “might” and “possible,” which express considerable reservations.

So, how should student outcomes in the humanities be assessed? Or can they be assessed? And what sorts of outcomes should be sought in the first place?

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. Mine was a bit abbreviated, as our two-year-old came down with a stomach virus and I had to stay home with her instead of joining the rest of the family. The worst part: not getting to debate the merits of the movie Once with my wife’s cousin’s husband. (For my take on the movie, see here.)

But today is going better. I just received via UPS the camcorders
that Tom Trevethan and I will be using at Following Christ 2008. We’ll be interviewing faculty and students about following Christ in the academy, for use next year on the ESN and Faculty Ministry websites.

Any suggestions about questions, topics, or interview subjects? If you had five minutes with an accomplished Christian faculty member, what would you ask them?

Nearly everyone cares — or says he cares — about art. After all, art ennobles the spirit, ­elevates the mind, and educates the emotions. Or does it?  — The End of Art by Roger Kimball, Copyright (c) 2008 First Things (June/July 2008).

How about The End of Art?  Take some time to reflect upon and discuss this article with friends, family, and the blog over Thanksgiving break.  To tease you a little, here’s the conclusion after ruminations on Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Jones, Murray, modern/postmodern art (to drop a few of, but not all of the names): 

Man is the sort of creature whose nature is to delight in art and aesthetic experience; I believe that he is also, by nature, a religious animal — a creature who becomes who he really is only by acknowledging something that transcends him. These different aspects of humanity will often conspire, but we do both a disservice if we blur or elide their essential difference.

This spring’s Chronicle of Higher Education piece The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment has more to consider (Note: link to earlier post here). Of particular interest are the practical steps which Tim takes to address quintessential Americans in the classroom. Any students or faculty have reactions to the proposed shift in learning objectives and new classroom style?  Read the rest of this entry »

As the fall term winds down, have any students enabled you to cling to The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment? Here’s what Tim Clydesdale, an associate professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey and author of The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School (University of Chicago Press, 2007), writes on the topic:

“Most of the mainstream American teens I spoke with neither liberated themselves intellectually nor broadened themselves socially during their first year out.” … “What teens actually focus on during the first year out is this: daily life management.” . . . “Only a handful of students on each campus find a liberal-arts education to be deeply meaningful and important and most of those end up becoming college professors themselves. . . . And so the liberal-arts paradigm perpetuates itself, while remaining out of sync with the vast majority of college students.” Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone have observations, experience, or additional research to address the question raised by the Does Academe Hinder Parenthood?  The Inside Higher Ed piece begins:

Numerous reports and accounts suggest that balancing parenthood and academic careers can be difficult, particularly for women. Two new studies suggest that, possibly as a result, many female academics may be opting not to have kids. Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Sire’s pointers on being a book editor can now be found on-line!  A special thank-you to InterVarsity Press‘ Andrew T. Le Peau.

As Emerging Scholars, you’re probably not surprised that Jim starts with education:

The bad news is that there is no particular education that prepares you to be an editor. The good news is that there is no particular education that prepares you to be an editor. Almost any education — and the more the better — will function quite well. …

Finally, an encouragement for more education in general to share with those in your circle. If you desire to explore book editing, take a few minutes to read the post for insights on the various skills involved.

As you may remember, the Chronicle Careers piece What am I doing? Shouldn’t seven years of graduate school have helped me avoid taking a job just to have a job? raised the question How do you explain the academic culture to ‘outsiders?’ In addition to the several comments on the post, I’ve received direct feedback which expresses even stronger frustration with the task. My prayers are with those such as the 5th year post-doc, who have found their academic context peopled with many small people:

Small in that underneath their facades of arrogance, superior intellect, etc., they are actually very insecure and fearful. Thus, they hide behind masks in order to hide their perceived inadequacies. They then act ’small, which I see as trying to get power and popularity through movement up in faculty position, through advancing their agendas, by dominating their students, and by criticizing everyone and everything. It’s pretty sad, really. I’m not sure this is what you were asking, but it was my immediate reaction to the question. – anonymous Read the rest of this entry »

Messiah College Historian of Science Ted Davis just passed along the below announcement. As one who has had the opportunity to read some of Robin Collins’ work and to hear some of his thoughts in the context of the Central Pennsylvania Forum for Religion and Science, I commend his work for your consideration.

I apologize for the late notice, but I only just learned about this.

Messiah College philosopher Robin Collins will appear in an interview on the PBS program “Closer to the Truth,” hosted by Robert Kuhn. This program will play throughout the United States and in some places oversees. It plays locally at 1:00 pm this Thursday, October 23, on WITF-HD, PBS channel 33.3. The program’s title and description are “Why a Fine-Tuned Universe? (HD, TVG) The many seemingly random occurrences that led to human existence are discussed.”

The “Closer to the Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future” website is at:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/

A blogspot for “Closer to the Truth” is at:
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.blogspot.com/