The Emerging Scholars Blog

After a bit of a delay, we are continuing our series of interviews from Jubilee with a conversation with Jimmy Lin, an MD/PhD student at Johns Hopkins. Jimmy describes himself as “medical and scientific doxologist” — in fact, even his Twitter handle is @doxologist. At Jubilee, Jimmy presented several seminars about being a Christian in the sciences and medicine. I had met Jimmy online through ESN, so I was very happy to have the chance to meet him and his wife in person. Be sure to check out our previous interviews with Derek Melleby and David Naugle.

Jimmy Lin, medical and scientific doxologist

Micheal Hickerson: You are doing a lot of different degrees. You are in an MD program, a PhD program, and you mentioned you are in seminary…

Jimmy Lin: I am doing four degrees concurrently, the MD/PhD [at Johns Hopkins], the masters in arts religion at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a masters in health sciences at the School of Public Health.

MH:Why did you decide to do so many different degrees at the same time, and how are you doing so many different degrees at the same time?

JL: It all started because I am very interested in bringing the discoveries of science and seeing it applied to the cure of human diseases or the welfare of humans in general. The MD/PhD is a very established program that I applied to and was accepted. It’s a great program. That’s where I started.

My research interest is computational biology specifically using the computer to do genomics work in cancer. That requires a lot of specific information which is in the field called bioinformatics. It’s not offered as part of the PhD program. My PhD is in pure biology, so that’s why I did the additional masters, to acquire those skills in bioinformatics.

In addition, the theology degree — I felt that I was very lacking in the field. I was reading so much about it anyway, but I was lacking formalized, systematic learning about these topics. That’s why I started in a seminary classes — and then got addicted. It was so much fun to have these top scholars come tell you what to read, teach you what they have learned. That’s why I pursued it, and my church was very supportive of it, so that’s why I do all that.

I think I do it out of love. I love learning and I love all the aspects of it.

How do I do it? That’s a good question. The medical degree is a very time intensive degree. Usually medical students spend 60 to 100 hours a week of studying and learning, whereas in graduate school [for the PhD], you are a lot more flexible. In terms of time, it’s less. The minimum is 40 hours, though people do spend a little bit more.

For example, during my PhD years, I could take [the theology courses]. Most of my weekends are free and I have a lab on weekends, and that’s when I take my seminary classes. During the PhD years, it was easier to take the additional classes then. Now I am going back to medical school, and I won’t be able to do that because the time commitments are so large for medical school.

MH: One of the things I was also very interested in, is you call yourself a doxologist. What’s the full term you used in your Jubilee bio?

JL: Medical and scientific doxologist.

MH: How did you decide on that term and what does it mean to you? 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. In the last Week in Review we kicked off with highlighting Seth Godin’s take on the coming melt-down in higher education. Since then, the Chronicle of Higher Education thought Godin’s piece was worth posting. That action, along with the material from the article, has created conversation worth consideration, visit here. I [Tom] think it is helpful to note that the meltdown is “as seen by a marketer” and the “facts” are told the way a marketer tells the “facts.” Bigger questions: What is the End of Education? How are followers of Christ salt and light in higher education, even advocating, developing, and maintaining structures (not just in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities) which truly educate to the glory of God, making the small list of redemptive outliers instead of the mass of marketers selling their wares?

2. A School Pushing Back Against Facebook (Mark Bauerlein, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/2010) brings to mind the question of How should educators interact with Social Media and teach students to handle Social Media? I [Tom] think that phenomena such as Soical Media, e.g., Facebook and Twitter, are too much of a larger cultural issue for educators to address alone. Educators should be finding ways to dialogue with children, parents, community leaders, and Social Media advocates/leaders to wisely discern it’s proper place, use, parameters. Those in the nonprofit and ministry sector have much to offer. Note: Jon Boyd has an excellent handout on Mistakes You Can Avoid on Facebook and Twitter for people in the nonprofit and ministry sector. Read the rest of this entry »

Where did you find your megaphone? Who gave it to you?

This is the first of four guest posts from Janine Giordano, a graduate student and ESN member from the University of Illinois, on the topic of cultivating your voice and finding your audience while in graduate school. When she is not teaching, she spends most of her time working on her dissertation, Between Religion and Politics: The Working Class Religious Left, 1886-1936.

I exchanged Facebook posts recently with a Christian friend who is an excellent scholar and an excellent union organizer. Her father is a prominent pastor, and she obviously has very similar gifts in shepherding and public speaking. She can move a crowd to cheer at a rally for higher education in a way that seasoned pastors usually only dream for, and she is always, quite naturally, bringing new leaders into the fold. It has always bemused me that her church, like mine, would never permit her a place in the pulpit. Kerry and I have had many discussions of gender and the Church; they usually climax in a fiery exchange of affirmations for the other’s frustration with American churches’ unwillingness to recognize women as fully gifted people.

We usually remind each other that we are not alone and we ought to keep up the fight, but it had been a long time since we spoke, and this time it was different. I began my jeremiad as usual, but she sighed—with understanding but an air of more hope than I expected, even craved—that she had pretty much found other megaphones these days. In the past several months, Kerry has successfully worked with our city government to make some changes in criminal justice protocols; she has led our graduate student union to a better contract—both as our rallying speechmaker and as our lead negotiator with the University of Illinois. She is even working now on getting the police in town to get a better work contract of their own. This time, her affirmation to me was not to keep on fighting my church but to find another. She even pointed out a suggestion.

I looked at this last message in disbelief. “Join another church?” I wondered as I brushed my teeth. Last year I finally left my church of four years after fighting a long, losing battle for the opportunity to teach adult Sunday School. I wanted to engage the adults in my church with the history of the Christianity in the United States so very badly, and kept thinking that if I exposed more and more of the hypocrisy of their rules (for example, that I could teach Religious History at the local seminary, or the local university, that I could sing my message at church, that I could teach the same content to ANY of them if they were under thirteen, by their own rules!) then they would change their convictions about me, even if not about all womankind. Read the rest of this entry »

In May, I’m going to help lead a track at InterVarsity’s Southeast Chapter Camp called “Getting Ready for Grad School.” (If you’re not familiar with the undergrad InterVarsity world, this is a week-long camp for students involved in IV chapters, and it typically includes tracks for new Christians, students headed into chapter leadership roles, training in inductive Bible study, and a few other topics.)

Video: What? Don’t you think The Paper Chase (1973) is still relevant to graduate school? Don’t you carry massive suitcases to your study sessions, or is that just me?

The track is co-sponsored by the Emerging Scholars Network and our new partner ministry, Black Scholars and Professionals. While ESN’s focus is on academic careers, the Grad School track will include as many grad school options as we’re able: master’s programs, law school, medical school, professional degrees, MBAs, PhDs — really, whatever grad school path our students are considering.

What do you think we should be sure to cover? Here are the topics we’re planning to touch on:

• A study of Daniel as a Biblical example of a scholar/professional
• The theology of vocation and calling
• Postmodernism and naturalism (which we think are the dominant worldviews in the academy), contrasted with a Biblical worldview
• Multiethnicity and gender in graduate school
• Practical next steps and spiritual disciplines for graduate school

We’re also planning to have a faculty roundtable on the final day, so that students can ask faculty whatever questions are on their minds.

What are your suggestions, either within those topics or in other areas?

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?

In our next Emerging Scholars Review, we’re planning on highlighting accomplishments of ESN members, as a way of recognizing your personal achievements and encouraging other ESN members who are still in the middle of their degree, research project, or tenure process. Read the rest of this entry »

Way back in January (ancient history for most blogs, but we at ESN are committed to learning from the past), the Chronicle of Higher Education published the column “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go” by Thomas H. Benton (the pen name of William Pannapacker, an English professor at Hope College). After reviewing the dismal (and diminishing) prospects for tenure-track jobs in the humanities, Benton recommends pursuing a Ph.D. in the humanities only if you fall into one of the four following categories: Read the rest of this entry »

This is a great opportunity for Christians pursuing graduate education. The Harvey Fellows, an initiative of the Mustard Seed Foundation, provides annual stipends of $16,000 (renewable for up to 3 years!) for Christians pursuing graduate education in fields in which Christians are underrepresented. (Note: they include “research, teaching, and administration at premier colleges and universities” as one of these fields, so most ESN members will qualify.) The Harvey Fellows also target students in programs that are recognized as among the “top five” in their discipline, and you can either be in or applying to a graduate program.

The deadline for this year’s application is November 1. Also, if you have an old application sitting in your file cabinet, the Harvey Fellows now require you to submit an on-line application, so visit their website to start the process.

In Books & Culture, Robert Whaples, professor of economics at Wake Forest, reviews the updated The Making of an Economist (Redux), an examination of the country’s best graduate programs in economics and the process by which they “turn a select group of bright students into the analytical economists that society has come to hate, yet revere.” Whaples notes that the first edition of this book “became must reading for those considering taking the plunge” into an economics graduate program.