The Emerging Scholars Blog

What tips/ideas do you have for InterVarsity’s National Graduate & Faculty Ministry Staff Team Members in Using Social Media Appropriately and Effectively to Grow Communities?  Now’s your opportunity to give input.  I’m leading a seminar on the topic at our April Team Meetings.  Here’s some material I’m seeking to address:

1. How do we use social media appropriately to
   1. build community?  Note:  How does social media influence our/your definition of community or the various forms of community in which we find ourselves?  The seminar will take the direction of building local, face-to-face campus communities, but I’m also interested in the other forms of community, such one finds in the Emerging Scholars Network.
   2. invite others to engage with our community?
   3. engage others with ideas we are discussing in our communities?
2. What are some do’s and don’ts for healthy, appropriate and effective use of technology?
3. What’s available? What’s changing? How do we make decisions?
4. How do we make decisions about the use of technology when engaging with audiences of different generations in our ministry?  Note:  Please don’t skip.  Due to the overall conference theme, it has particular relevance.  :-)  Feel free to also share How you make decisions about the use of technology when engaging with audiences of different generations in higher education?

Calling out to the community/network for input. …

Some of the Sesame Street cast members

In How We Got to Sesame Street; Art on Screen (The Chronicle of Higher Education. January 16, 2009), Evan R. Goldstein treats us to some of the history of Sesame Street, which celebrated 40 years on November 10.

In 1966 a group of friends gathered for a dinner party in Manhattan. As the evening was winding down, one of the guests, Lloyd N. Morrisett, a vice president at the Carnegie Corporation, turned to his host, a television executive named Joan Ganz Cooney, and asked a seemingly innocuous question: Can television educate young children? …

Almost four years after the Cooney dinner party, on November 10, 1969, Sesame Street showed up on public television across the country. The series was greeted with a torrent of gushing reviews. “The show moves, seduces, diverts, dazzles, amuses, and infects,” raved a writer at Variety. “Learning seems almost a byproduct of fun,” noted another critic. Children’s television would never be the same.”

It’s hard not to concede that education begins in the context of where one grows up and TV viewing is almost universal among the kids in our culture.  As such, would you credit Sesame Street or similar TV shows for your early childhood education (or at least some of it)?  Does Sesame Street Turns 40, But It Doesn’t Look a Day Over 25 resonate with you?

In the last 40 years, Sesame Street taught us to celebrate our differences, to bask in our own individuality and has continuously redefined “normal” to fit us all. Sesame Street taught us to read, to write, and yes, to count. It opened our eyes to cultures beyond our cul-de-sac and taught us global thinking. Sesame Street made us believe that we could be anything and that anything was possible. Sesame Street taught us to love music and laughter and learning.

A couple more questions to ponder/discuss:

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street

1. How much emphasis should parents or the educational system as a whole place on educational TV for kids, youth, young adults, adults?
2. What has the educational experiment shown us about what kids can/do learn from TV?  Do they learn/absorb more than the basics, e.g., values, perspective on the real world?
3. Would you agree with the Robert Smith’s 40 Years Of Lessons On ‘Sesame Street’, which ran on NPR yesterday (11/10/2009)?  E.g., Children Are Adaptable. Keep It Simple.  The Children are always right (Note: Bonus on audio).
4. As one involved in higher education, do you have any recommendations for the next decade of Sesame Street as it seeks to educate kids across the spectrum or for parents as they seek to evaluate it’s role in the overall educational toolkit?  Note:  Sesame Street provides a peek of it’s future direction at It’s all new and better than ever as Sesame Street turns 40!

P.S.  Street Gang:  The Complete History of Sesame Street (Michael Davis. Viking. 2008) looks like a good read.  I found an excerpt posted here.

As you begin a new term, what do you think about abstaining from social media? I had some friends who fasted from Facebook through Lent and according to Inside Higher Ed a professor offered a class extra credit if they stopped using social media during his course (see Extra Credit: Abstain from Facebook).

How many took him up on the offer? 12 out of 35. How many succeeded? 6 out of 12. I wonder how he tracked and/or verified what I assume to be self-reporting.

In what manner does social media help you get to know your colleagues? Is it awkward to use with those above or below you in the campus structure? Do all faculty need to have a Facebook page to relate to students or would students prefer not to have faculty know what they’re chatting about?

Note: HT to Ivy Jungle’s July Update for information regarding this article.

I loved the recent Chronicle of Higher Education article The World Beyond MapQuest in which Regina Robbins Flynn, assistant professor of English at Salem State College, begins with this illustration.

My older daughter was traveling back to grad school with her car last January, and we had MapQuested her trip from our home in Massachusetts to Pittsburgh, a journey of more than 600 miles, or 10 hours and 20 minutes without stops.

And you’ve probably already guessed that Flynn’s daughter gets lost.  Turns out that she goes astray not far from where I live in South Central PA.  Would you believe that Flynn teaches a spring semester travel writing course — nice transition ;-)

Each of the students has to take a trip during spring break and write a long travel essay as his or her final assignment. Some of the kids take the college-sponsored trips, others concoct their own.

The stories from her class abound.  How about you?  Do you have memorable travel stories of first finding your way to a new campus or conference?  On what do you depend for directions?  Is it only the older generation which use paper road maps?

As one who visits a number of campuses for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, I have quite a few wrong turns to report.  But for me two items particularly come to mind regarding my campus travels through the years:

1. How much stuff I packed into the car as a first year student. … AND my collection of books has only continued to go with each subsequent move!
2. The challenge of campus parking.   A few weeks ago, I visited a campus where my typical visitor parking location was under construction.  I circled the block and parked in an unmarked lot which appeared to be open to visitors.  No ticket, good news ;-)  Not sure if I’ll use that lot again.  I’ll have to ask again.

How well does film convey material from classic literature? Can film be used to introduce a book and draw people into reading or does it stall the imagination, even inoculate against digging into the original text?  Any classroom or personal experience(s) to share?

What brings the question to mind? The recent release of the trailer for Tim Burton giving a stab at Alice in Wonderland (2010) with Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice). With my 9 year old twins, I’d be Mad as a Hatter to introduce Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland w/this rendering of the classic tale,* but if I was a college professor hoping to stir interest in literature?  Hmm. …

*I’m not text only, I confess to enjoying a conversation regarding the value of John Tenniel’s illustrations ;-)

Some final thoughts on The Faculty of the Future:  Leaner, Meaner, More Innovative, Less Secure (Forum, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/10/2009) from a friend who offers his gifts to Christ by serving as a business professor.  Do any readers have comments on technological determinism and/or the striving for organizational efficiency in higher education?

There are a few elements of the second commentary (TIMOTHY CARMODY) which make sense – but it reads to much like standard technological determinism predictions of “changes in technology change everything”. The model of a knowledgeable teach leading inquiry into a topic by providing information/explanation, prompting questions, and recognitions/correction of participant contribution is very old and has endured through many technology shifts (the distribution of print bibles does not eliminate the value of inductive bible studies with a leader who is at least minimally trained :-)).    So while some changes will happen are not likely to be the ones this author is predicting. …

The changes described by the 4th author (JOSEPH C. HERMANOWICZ) are already happening. There is a marked difference between how my senior colleagues and my junior colleagues see their career prospects and their role in the university.   One point I would make here:  I doubt the claim that this is an less expensive way to run a university.   Read the rest of this entry »

Would you agree with my idealistic enthusiasm for My Freshman Year:  What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, the story of a professor of anthropology at a large state university who realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students and returned to the classroom?  And my uneasiness when reading that some Online Professors Pose as Students to Encourage Real Learning (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/29/09), in the class which they’re teaching?  Can you offer testimonies, tips, or sources regarding what it takes to stimulate an on-line learning community?  We would love to have specific suggestions regarding how to direct the conversation of the ESN Book Club: Your Mind Matters.

Note:  If you don’t have a copy of John Stott’s Your Mind Matters, I’d encourage you to borrow/purchase so you’re ready to go on Tuesday.  If you’d like a head start on reading but don’t have a copy of the book, visit InterVarsity Press’ website for PDFs of the Foreward and Chapter 1.

Note:  Contains spoilers and has become more of a reflection than a review* …

Star Trek Movie Poster

Faith & Geekery claims Star Trek Will Rock the Summer.  Yes, Star Trek features superb action, casting, soundtrack, and special effects.  As a fan who only reached the theater on Monday (to distinguish myself from Trekkies who went to the early screening in uniform/costume on Thursday night), Star Trek not only fit in the 43 year history well enough, but also created the foundation for a future series which will boldly go where it hasn’t quite gone before.

With that on the table, I must confess that I spent much of the film reflecting upon how followers of Christ in the academic community should respond to Star Trek’s portrayal of reality, courage, emotion, integrity, intellect, love, mentoring, and what is right. Why?  Because J.J. Abrams set the destiny shaping, coming of age story of the crew of the Starship Enterprise (largely focused upon Spock and James T. Kirk) in the context of Kirk’s rise to Captain before early graduation from Starfleet Academy.  Kirk was so much the right stuff that he received special recognition for his heroic emergency field service and completely avoided the traditional fast track to Captain as described by Captain Christopher Pike earlier in the film, i.e., four years at Starfleet Academy followed by four years in the field.

Read the rest of this entry »

Are to-do lists a helpful tool to getting things done? Or do you find them frustratingly long and seemingly insurmountable? Or do you find them buried under papers or in old documents/post-it notes on your screen, wall, door?  Or do you somehow ignore to-do lists entirely?

Thanks to Andy Crouch’s 5 Questions post on to-do lists, I’ve had quite a few good conversations with friends and family on this topic. Two pastors of my local congregation have given some interesting feedback on the topic.  One quipped that he finds to-do lists helpful in his search for significance, i.e., when he crosses items off his list he feels like he’s accomplished something. He confesses to sometimes adding items to be crossed off … I’ve heard this from some other people ;-)  Another pastor noted the cultural rootedness of to-do lists:  

In our culture, almost everyone has multiple things to manage, most not by choice but by necessity in our complex, multi-faceted world – more than can conveniently be remembered.  Thus the need for external support mechanisms.

What are you thoughts? In what manner are to-do lists vital to the scholar. Does this vary from field to field and the level of one’s responsibility? What tools do you use to manage and prioritize items on to-do lists? Is this cultural artifact unique and/or over-used in the United States (or Western Civilization)?

Maybe this should be the topic for Chapter 2 of Up to the Minute Publishing ;-)

Questions inspired by and related to You’ve Read the Headlines. Now, Quick, Read the Book (by Motoko Rich, NY Times, 3/29/2009, posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/books/30quic.html)

Questions: 

1. How does this necessity/predisposition for more, deeper material ASAP affect popular writing by academics and academic publishing in cutting edge fields of technology?  
2. Are there particular topics, themes, fields which deserve (possibly even demand) a longer time frame for consideration during the writing process, the community of scholars, and the wider public? 

Quote from the article:

“People can’t wait a year to get timely information on critical subjects,” said Amy Neidlinger, associate publisher of FT Press. “Especially today it’s dated 10 minutes after you’ve just received the first installation.”

Of course many publishers and authors suggest that taking time to produce a reflective work is what books are about, and that they should not succumb to the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle.

Read the rest of this entry »