The Emerging Scholars Blog

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. Peace is Patriotic: Anabaptists and the National Anthem (By Duane Shank, Sojourners, 3/3/2010): Did you attend a college sporting event where the national anthem of the host country was not played? Goshen College, a residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, has just started to play an instrumental version and it’s caused quite a stir. For Goshen’s perspective visit National anthem dialogue and implementation to continue at Goshen College (Press Release by President Jim Brenneman, 2/17/2010). Are they becoming conservative Christian or enculturated/liberal as they seek to be hospitable to guest teams?  HT:  Fred.

2.  Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature & Culture by ESN member Madelaine Hron (assistant professor in the Department of English and Film at Wilfrid Lauriern University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) has just been has been shortlisted for the prestigious The Raymond Klibansky Prize, for Best Book in the Humanities published in Canada. For more on the nomination click here.  For ESN’s 1/22/2009 pre-release author interview visit here.

3. What do younger faculty want? According to Harvard’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), they don’t want long hours, constant mobility, or career success at the expense of a good family and personal life (Chronicle, March 4). This is based on interviews with 16 “Generation X” faculty members at a variety of schools.  The full report can be downloaded from COACHE’s website as a PDF.

4. The State of the Humanities: Inside Higher Ed reports the latest results of the Humanities Departmental Survey.  The full report warrants closer reading, but IHE’s summary echoes earlier articles from ESN about the state of the humanities:

At a time when many humanities professors are worried about the future of the tenure track, the data in the report will only add to those concerns — especially because it predates the freezes on tenure-track hiring that have been instituted at so many colleges. Generally, the fields that have the highest percentages of tenured faculty members are among the smallest disciplines. And while the percentages vary, use of non-tenure-track faculty members is significant throughout. Further, the data back up a point made increasingly by activists for adjuncts: that significant numbers of academics are working full time, off the tenure track.

5. Alan Jacobs Makes Mike Jealous: Maybe it’s a bad idea to get a PhD in the humanities, but Alan Jacobs (English, Wheaton) recently reminded me [Mike] why I have always loved the scholarly study of literature.  On his New Atlantis blog Text Patterns, Jacobs recently reported the completion of his latest book project, a new critical edition of W. H. Auden’s important long poem The Age of Anxiety. Jacobs writes:

I have worked as hard on this project as I have ever worked on anything, and at the moment I am pleased and proud. There’s something especially rewarding about doing all this work — visiting libraries and archives, working through vast tracts of mostly useless materials, trying to decipher Auden’s terrible handwriting, comparing multiple editions of the poem, reading much of what Auden read as he wrote the poem, carefully marking up the typescript in order to preserve the poem’s intricate formatting — not for the sake of my own critical reputation, but in order to make the work of a poet I love more useful and accessible and comprehensible. I can truly call this a labor of love. But boy, am I tired.

If my GRE were up-to-date, I would have sent off three applications by the end of that paragraph. The book will be published later this year by Princeton UP, I assume as part of their Auden critical editions series.

Bonus:

Donald Kraybill, PhD, (highlighted in Amish Grace & Pop Culture) teaches on The Upside Down Kingdom.

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. Alan Jacobs’ Grad School Thoughts: Should you go to grad school? “Probably not,” writes Alan Jacobs, Wheaton English professor and author of Original Sin, The Narnian, A Theology of Reading, and many other excellent things.  But if you insist, he’s got some good advice. (Also check out Alan’s contribution to our ESN article, “Why Get a PhD in the Humanities?”)

2.  James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom ties for OUR MOST AUDACIOUS CLAIM: THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF THE YEAR with Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft:  An Inquiry Into the Value of Work in Best Books of 2009 Part I by Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Bookstore.  Take a few minutes to review the list, keep an eye out for two more parts going up next week, and let us know what books you’re interested in discussing this year.

3.  In The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (W.W. Norton, 2010), Louis “Menand asks four questions: Why is it so hard to create a general-education curriculum? Why have the humanities undergone a crisis of legitimacy? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ been seen—and ultimately failed—as a magic wand? Why do professors share the same politics?” — Oxygenating Academe: The Unpublic Intellectual (By Karen J. Winkler, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 10, 2010)

4.  ‘Baby Einstein’ Founder Goes to Court (By Tamar Lewin, NY Times, January 12, 2010):  Raises the question of access to and reproducibility of research in relationship to marketing and consumer concerns.  Do you know anyone who watched or advocated Baby Einstein?

5. Proof (or at least Evidence) That Mentoring Matters (by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed): A study presented the American Economic Association’s annual meeting found that mentoring had a significant impact on the number of grants and publications for female economists.

Before we get too far into 2010, let’s take a look back at our top posts for 2009, in terms of total hits. Posts from early in the year dominate because they’ve had more time to accumulate visits, but it might be good to revisit some posts you might have missed the first time around.

Photo credit: Optical illusion via Flickr

1. What’s the purpose of the university? — Wendell Berry on the university.
2. Why get a PhD in the Humanities? — Why, indeed?
3. Linguistics and Faith — Reflections on the work of a former Christian linguist.
4. Your Mind Matters 1: Mindless Christianity — The first post of our summer book club on John Stott’s classic.
5. Wendell Berry on the University — Yep, more Wendell Berry.
6. Well-Known Atheist Converts to Christianity — My April Fool’s Day post. Sincere apologies to all who were rickrolled.
7. End the University as We Know It — Conversation about a NY Times’ editorial on the future (or lack thereof) of the university.
8. Reading Lists and Primary Literature — What are the fundamental texts of your discipline?
9. Preparing for the Lenten Journey — Tom provides some resources for observing Lent.
10. Keys of Thriving (Not Just Surviving!) — Like the title says.

And two bonus posts that might be in our top 10 next year: your picks for best books for undergrads and my interview with Bobby Gross about his book, Living the Christian Year.

Two recent articles on the profession of education worth consideration:

1. In Search of Education Leaders, by Bob Herbert, NY Times Op-Ed, December 4, 2009
2. The Ph.D. Problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal, by Louis Menand, Harvard Magazine, November-December 2009.  HT: Miller.

Anyone willing to take a stab at why the educational system is so leaky and how we find/develop educational leaders which serve their department, discipline, campus, education in the United States/beyond?

Questions which come to mind with the Harvard degree program, topic of In Search of Education Leaders, “Will this program include the philosophy, purpose, and joy of education? Or are these unable to be expressed in the pragmatic, secular context of trying to keep up because we need to?”  With regard to ‘residency’ models, these already exist in education, e.g., the undergraduate student teacher model. Stronger cross-grade & inter-generational mentoring with the potential for long term relationships would profit the whole educational system.

HT:  Nick who responded to my Facebook musings by referring to Diane Rehm’s discussion of Women in Science with

1. Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, Morris Hertzein Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Blackburn was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Carol Greider and Jack W. Szostak.
2. Dr. Carol Greider, Daniel Nathans Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics at The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Greider was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak.
3. Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and special assistant to President Obama

Yes, higher education is leaky pipeline for women in the sciences.  Any responses by those part of the system?

According to Louis Menand in The Ph.D. Problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal, the educational system is leaky in quite another way for the Humanities, but with a particular internal end in mind. Can/should higher education in the Humanities add practical skills and develop a specific graduation time line?  What about those who went through the system? Will they allow such changes (Note: Reminds me of the reduction of hours in medical training)?  Will the motivation for students in the Humanities become the pursuit and exploration of knowledge for the rich or those seeking direction later in life?  Even though the article seems focused upon the Humanities, especially English, does the article apply to all (or let’s say most) of higher education?

Campus Map

Does your choice of undergraduate major affect your religious faith? Inside Higher Ed recently reported on a study by Miles S. Kimball, Colter M. Mitchell, Arland D. Thornton and Linda C. Young-Demarco, all of U. Michigan, that asked that very question. Using data from the long-running Monitoring the Future study, Kimball et al. tracked the religiosity of college students (based on how frequently they attended religious services and how important they viewed religion in their lives, along with some secondary indicators) to see how their choice of college major affected them.

Photo: Campus map of Minnesota St.-Moorhead by xavierla, via Flickr. Did you ever choose a class based on how close it was to your dorm or parking lot? I never did, I swear.

What did they find? In (very) brief,

• Education or Business major increased religiosity.
• Humanities or Social Sciences major decreased religiosity.
• Biological or Physical* Sciences major had no effect on religiosity.

*Physical science majors showed a decrease in how important they viewed religion, but no change in how often they attended services. Biological sciences had no effect on religiosity. Read the rest of this entry »

This is our weekly post of links, resources, and articles that would be helpful to ESN members. If you’d like to contribute something, please suggest it in the comments, or send it directly to either Tom or Mike.

Update on the ESN Book Club: We’ve moved the dates back for our discussions to give you more time to order and start reading John Stott’s Your Mind Matters. The discussions will now start June 9. Read all the details here.

From Tom

Psychology Grad Students Get Counseled on How to Teach:  Below are a few suggestions, do they apply to all fields?  Are there key truths missing? 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 »

W.H. Auden has long been one of my favorite poets, and, over at Books & Culture, Alan Jacobs has reviewed volume 3 of the complete prose of Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson. It’s an excellent appreciation of Auden’s view of the role of the poet in a community and the intellectual legwork that Auden put into understanding the role of a Christian poet after he returned to the church in 1940. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of my work at Following Christ 2008, I had the privilege of assisting the Humanities track, chaired by Michael Murray and Dora Rice Hawthorne, and joined by Mark Noll of Notre Dame, Hal Bush of St. Louis U., and Paul Moser of Loyola U. Chicago. The final session of the track addressed the question “How Can We Be Agents of Human Flourishing in the Church and the World?” Michael Murray identified three threats to Christian scholars that hinder their role to the church and the world: specialization, fear of “popularizing,” and fear of being “outed.” He also offered thoughts about how to counter these. Read the rest of this entry »

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?