The Emerging Scholars Blog

What? Your freshman move-in day didn't include a visit from a friar? I guess you didn't go to Siena College.

It’s that time of year again – the NFL Preseason! Just kidding. I’m actually thinking about the beginning of school, especially all of the undergraduates who are either beginning their college experience or starting to think of life after their bachelor’s degree. For undergrad members of ESN, this likely includes thoughts about graduate school.

I’ve asked about advice for undergraduates before, receiving some great comments in the process. Since the responses were so good the last time, I’ll just repeat the same questions:

• If you were once an undergrad, what do you wish someone had said or asked you at that stage of your academic career?
• If you are an undergrad, what kinds of questions do you have about grad school and the life of an academic?
• What kinds of resources would be most helpful for ESN to produce or distribute?

Leave your advice in the comments, or send it directly to me, if you wish.

Photo credit: sienacommunications via Flickr

If you’re not receiving the quarterly Emerging Scholars Review, you should be — join ESN as a member or update your membership to receive quarterly emails with the newest articles from ESN’s main website. Here’s what you might have missed:

• Reflecting on Psalm 90:Two of my favorite colleages — Graduate & Faculty Ministries National Director Bobby Gross and my partner in online materials Tom Trevethan — joined forces to offer a couple of great resources on Psalm 90. Bobby has written a personal liturgy for Psalm 90 to help you begin your day, while Tom has written a Bible study on Psalm 90 to help you go deeper.
• Treating grad students humanely:University of Minnesota professor emeritus Steve Simmons shared his philosophy for treating graduate students with grace in his essay, Students Are a Lot Like People.
• Call for Papers on African American Evangelicalism:InterVarsity’s Black Scholars and Professionals has announced a call for papers for its upcoming Consultation on African American Evangelicalism, co-sponsored by the National Black Evangelical Association and hosted by Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. (We’ve also recently posted calls for papers on the King James Bible and race, religion, and American society.

Speaking of calls for papers, if you have one to share with ESN members, let me know.

The 65^th Annual Meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation:  Science, Faith, & Public Policy is just over a month away (July 30 – August 2, Washington D.C.) and I hope that Emerging Scholars in the sciences will give participation serious consideration.*  I’ll be there to

• connect with ESN members (such as seminar leader Jimmy Lin, see Interview: Jimmy Lin, Medical and Scientific Doxologist)
• enjoy amazing opportunities, such as touring the NASA: Goddard Space Flight Center with Jennifer Wiseman, Chief of the Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics
• interview plenary speakers (hope Francis Collins, Geneticist and Author of Language of God: : A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and others have a few minutes to spare in a packed schedule)
• invite participants to become involved with InterVarsity’s various ministries through a display table and a Graduate & Faculty Ministry Reception (Sunday, August 1, 8:30 PM, Atrium) with my colleagues Terry Morrison and Dwight Schwartz
• wrestle with how ESN might host/contribute to discussions on Science, Faith, & Public Policy.

Ted Davis

Here’s what my friend Edward B. (“Ted”) Davis, Distinguished Professor of the History of Science at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and president of the ASA has to say with regard to the benefits members of ESN will receive not only from participation in the 65^th Annual Meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, but more broadly by becoming a member of ASA.**  Note:  If you’ve never explored History of Science, I’d highly recommend you check out his webpage and take in some of his sessions at the ASA Mtgs.

The American Scientific Affiliation (www.asa3.org) is the premier science/faith organization in the Western Hemisphere.  We publish a refereed quarterly journal, “Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,” a bi-monthly newsletter, and host a blog only for members.  I joined the ASA more than 30 years ago, and it has proved to be the most important professional decision I ever made.  Through the ASA (including the years when I was a student) I have met dozens of world-class scientists and scholars who share my Christian faith; through the ASA I learned about most of the best books and article on science & Christianity; and in the ASA I have found wonderful fellowship with believers who understand and appreciate all of the main fields of pure and applied science.  The annual meeting is always stimulating, well organized, and just plain fun to attend.  Students are especially urged to come, at least to visit for a day, to get a sense of who we are and what we do.  If you are a Christian in one of the sciences, this is an organization you want to be part of.

*Registration:  $75 student rate, $30 for 1 day student rate; plus room & board.  Be sure to visit the on-line registration page before June 30.

**Student member and student associate dues are $20/year. Full membership for others is half-off until June 30, i.e., only $35. Wow! To learn more about joining ASA registration click here.

Read and discussed On The Pursuit Of Excellence: Pitfalls in the Effort to Become No. 1 (Richard H. Bube, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith: Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Vol 39, 1987, pp. 67-76) as part of an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Faculty Ministry Catalyst Workshop.  Below is the conclusion of the article.

Profound issues are raised in dealing with the pursuit of excellence. A person’s entire world view is involved in responding to these issues, and Christian perspectives may frequently be quite different from those of the secular world. First, there is the question of what constitutes excellence. A common secular response is to regard excellence as the state of being better than anyone else. Competition between people is the framework in which excellence is defined, and the achievement of excellence requires, in the last analysis, being recognized as No. 1. The Christian perspective sees excellence rather as the state of being of the highest quality as measured by the standards of God. There is no necessity for superiority of one person over others, and no particular virtue in being labeled No. 1.

Second, there is the question of how excellence is judged. In a secular framework, excellence is judged by the opinions of other people. In particular areas some direct quantitative measure of excellence may be agreed upon, but this also represents the opinions of those constructing the quantitative measure. The Christian perspective measures excellence against the standards of God. In fact, it begins with the recognition that no one is by nature excellent before God, but that by His grace in Jesus Christ and by the power of His Holy Spirit, we may serve Him to His glory in all that we do. The opinions of other people may indeed be helpful in guiding a person in the pursuit of excellence, but they do not constitute the final decision.

Third, in a secular perspective excellence can be viewed by considering one part of life at a time. A person may be judged to be an excellent physicist at the same time that he is judged to be a complete failure as a husband and father. People are rewarded for maximizing areas of excellence in life without taking any special care for other areas in which failure results. Excellence is task-related, and there is little vision of excellence in all of life as a major goal. For the Christian, excellence in all of life is the goal. Excellence in specific aspects of life is to be maximized only insofar as such maximization is consistent with the minimization of unfaithfulness to responsibilities, broken relationships, failed commitments, and insensitivity to others’ needs.

If an academic institution chooses to follow directions laid down by the secular perspective, it becomes quite a different place than if it had followed the Christian perspective. The deliberate choice to become No. 1 enters a university on a treacherous path scattered with many pitfalls. Individuals concerned for the quality and effects of education should carefully consider the implications of this choice.

Questions/Recommendations:

1. How do you pursue excellence?
2. Do you pursue excellence in all or only part of your life?
3. Is excellence a too culturally laden term for a follower of Christ to use?  If so, what term would you propose?
4. Note: As time permits, please take the opportunity to read the whole article, available here, and pass it along to some friends/colleagues.  Then find the time to chat about it via email, on-line, or over coffee/lunch sometime over the course of the next several months.

I included a bit about this in Friday’s Week in Review, but I wanted to give the topic its own post. Last week, I attended the 2010 Stone-Campbell Conference, an annual academic conference for colleges affiliated with the Stone-Campbell/Restoration Movement – Churches of Christ, Christian Churches, Disciples of Christ. It’s organized by William Baker at Cincinnati Christian University, and several people had recommended that I make a connection with the event. I’m glad I did.

I was struck by a few things:

• There was some very good content being presented.
• There were lots of Christian scholars, at every career stage: tenured faculty, tenure-track, adjunct, graduate student, even a sizable contingent of undergraduates.
• Out of a few hundred attendees, I met only one person from a secular university.

Part of it, I’m sure, was the marketing and the subject matter. Most of the papers presented dealt with some aspect of theology, Biblical studies, church history, etc., and many of them were quite specific to the Stone-Campbell Movement. Still, there were enough interdisciplinary or generalist papers that I think most academics would have been able to find something of interest – if, that is, you weren’t interested enough in building relationships with Christian academics committed to their faith and scholarship. I’m not sure that I would recommend traveling across the country to attend if it didn’t fit your subject matter, but for someone local, it would be well worth the price (I think I only paid $30 to register). I’d be willing to bet that there are lots of denominational conferences like this around the country.

So, my questions:

• Have you attended a Christian academic conference like this one?
• Did you find it to be a worthwhile experience, assuming that you weren’t attending for professional reasons?
• Would you recommend it to other “secular” scholars?

What do you think about generational research and it’s application in higher education?  Does the Quiz: How Millennial Are You? make you feel left out/misunderstood or provide helpful insights/affirmation?  According to Richard Pells, The Peculiar Generation (Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/21/2010) gets lost in the generational conversations.  I think that it’s an example of how broad categorizations break down as one becomes more specific.  Understanding people, their context, and their culture (especially our own?) is much more complex/nuanced than many of us desire to confess.  But maybe it’s a first step to have the broad categories to provide perspective before wrestling with specifics.  What do you think?

We’ve all heard about the “greatest generation,” which lived through the Depression of the 1930s and won World War II (with a little help from our Russian friends). We’ve also been subjected to innumerable analyses about the “baby boomers,” born in the late 1940s and 1950s, who instigated the social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and have shaped American society ever since.

But what about the people born between the beginning of World War II, in 1939, and its end, in 1945? Those members of a transitionally awkward generation who were too young to have personally experienced the Depression or the war, but too old to have been embroiled in the turmoil on college campuses in the late 1960s. Who were presumably too blasé or sedate to have participated in the battles against the Vietnam War or for the equality of women, much less in the revels at Woodstock. Who came of age in an America that was obsessed with the cold war and was not yet bombarded daily by technological innovations, new waves of immigrants, or cataclysms in the stock market. What contributions, if any, has this generation made to American political and cultural life?

Quite a lot, as it happens. In fact, many in this cohort were responsible for some of the principal transformations—especially in movies, music, and journalism—that have occurred in America over the past 60 years. … — Richard Pells, The Peculiar Generation (Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/21/2010).

Last night I took the Pew Research Center’s Quiz: See How You Compare to the Millennial Generation (HT:  How Millennial Are You? Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/17/2010).  I scored a “22″ with the below markers on a scale up to “100.”

• “4″ for Silent Generation
• “11″ for Baby Boomer
• “33″ for Gen X-er
• “73″ for Millenial

What’s your score? 

Anyone have comments on the quiz (and where you fall), the data found at Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next, and/or how this material should be used by those in higher education?

PS.   For more check out Week in Review: Milliennials in Transition Edition.

Heaven - I mean, a used book shop

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.

Byron Borger at Jubilee 2009

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 »

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?