The Emerging Scholars Blog

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.

In addition to the seminar mentioned in Query: Social Media, Community Development, Campus Ministry, I’m preparing a Bibliography for the upcoming Graduate & Faculty Ministry National Team Meetings.  What do our friends in the Emerging Scholars Network have to share as resources (articles, blogs, books, webpages, etc) on

1. Ages and life stages.
2. The question of generational distinctives.
3. Using the World Cafe to encourage good teamwork.

Note:  It’s not necessary for the recommendations to focus on campus ministry.  We’re looking for the best resources available. We’ll use discernment in application to our context.  In addition, please pass along

1. Stories about/models of campus ministry which have intergenerational elements that you have found a blessing during  Critical Junctures in your journey through higher education.
2. Recommendations regarding how to include more intergenerational elements into campus ministry.

Update (3/10/2010, 8:15 am EST).

Our Week-in-Review feature has a new format. We know there’s way too much to read out there already, so we’re going to be highlighting the top five articles, books, websites, etc., that we’ve been reading or thinking about the past week. 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.

The Millennial Muddle (Eric Hoover, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 2009) takes awhile to wade through but is worth it. Tom’s placing this topic on his to post about list ;-)  Anyone with research, reflections, or personal testimonies regarding how to understand/categorize/define/relate to (?) the Millennials?

Speaking of Speaking (Chronicle of Higher Education, October 15, 2009) by a Female Science Professor gives tips on public speaking, in particular how the type of introduction can have a significant effect, at least at the beginning of my talk, on my mood and presentation strategy. She gives several illustrations which you might find of benefit. Any illustrations of best/worst speaker introductions you’ve heard?

Tweed: Oh, You Lucky College Professors! Adjuncts, Too (Chronicle of Higher Education, October 14, 2009).  Do you agree with …

Memo to America’s college professors: You have the third best job in the country.

This is according to a list of “the top 50 careers with great pay and growth prospects” that will appear in the November issue of Money magazine. OK, so you’re behind systems engineers and physician’s assistants, but No. 3 wins you a red ribbon, right?

What Has Theology Ever Done for Science? – Quite a lot actually, writes Denis Alexander, Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, in reply to a question that Daniel Dennett has been fond of asking lately. (HT: Bede Journal and Faith-Science News)

More on Souls in Transition – Christianity Today has published an interview with Christian Smith about his new book, Souls in Transition.  Smith and his fellow researchers followed up with the teens from Soul Searching to learn how their religious lives changed as they entered their early to mid-20s.  Overall, says Smith,

Most of what happens in emerging adulthood works against serious faith commitments and putting down roots in congregations. Most emerging adults are disconnected from religious institutions and practices. Geographic mobility, social mobility, wanting to have options, thinking this is the time to be crazy and free in ways most religious traditions would frown upon, wanting an identity different from the family of origin—all of these factors reduce serious faith commitments.

But – good news! – attending college is no longer the “faith killer” that it was in years past. Smith:

If anything, college is no different in terms of the faith corrosion outcomes on youth. It may even strengthen the faith of some. We think this is partly about a growing number of evangelical faculty at secular colleges. Another factor is the increasing presence and legitimacy of campus religious groups and ministries [InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade] that provide support systems—not just fellowship, but also intellectual engagement that may have been lacking in past decades.

The culture has also changed: “spirituality” is more acceptable now than in past decades. Most faculty know you cannot say stupidly anti-religious things in the classroom and get away with it.

Can we imagine a day when the college experience becomes known for introducing students to the spiritual and historical depths of the Christian faith?