The Emerging Scholars Blog

On InterVarsity’s main website, one can find two articles

1. Honoring God at Work
2. Human Flourishing

AND two audio files

1. Why Aren’t We Flourishing? — Opening Plenary by MaryKate Morse, Professor of Leadership and Spiritual Formation at George Fox University. Time: 35:00
2. Powerful Faith — Seminar presentation by Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and the author of Faith in the Halls of Power. The seminar in which Michael Lindsay spoke was entitled Exploring Privilege and Redeeming Power. Time: 1:15:09

After you’ve reflected upon the presentations, take a moment to share some thoughts on fear, power, and faith in higher education.

Today is John Milton’s 400th birthday - or, rather, would have been. If you choose to celebrate this occasion, you can visit the John Milton Reading Room at Dartmouth, which contains ALL of Milton’s poetry (in English, Italian, Latin, and Greek) and selections from his prose, along with annotations.

(HT: The Wired Campus)

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library is an incredible resource for theological and devotional classics. It specializes in free or low-cost public domain books. For example, don’t have $300 to plunk down for an entire edition of the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers? Download them from CCEL.

Today, I received notice that CCEL has obtained permission to publish Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford, 2000). Here’s CCEL’s description of this highly regarded book:

Warranted Christian Belief is a philosophical defense of the reasonableness of belief in God and the great matters of the faith. It answers all the common objections how could a good God allow so much evil in the world? Isn’t belief in God is irrational because there isn’t enough evidence, or because it is only wish fulfillment? Doesn’t modern theology show that the traditional beliefs are false? How about postmodernism? You get the idea. These objections are answered in a way that is philosophically rigorous. The treatment is perhaps at a level appropriate for a college philosophy student rather than other professional philosophers.

Here is the full announcement. You can read the book online or download a plain text version for free, or download a PDF for $2.95.

A few links to pass along, regarding connections between new technology and academic research.

• The Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog last week reported on academic uses for Google Earth, such as a map of county-by-county election results, dating back to 1840.
• Alice Marwick has posted an annotated bibliography of academic research on LiveJournal. (HT: danah boyd, who has also compiled a bibliography on social network research)

Online social networks are one of my (many) casual interests. Any other links on this topic that I should know about?

Christianity Today has launched a new podcasting series featuring “editorials, news and books commentaries” (iTunes link). I just subscribed, and noticed that it looks like ESN partner Books & Culture will be featured regularly. There are already two podcasts with B&C editor John Wilson, discussing recent books by Rodney Stark and Christopher Buckley.

Personally, I enjoy listening to John Piper’s sermon podcasts and Mars Hill Audio’s Audition, as well as my guilty pleasure, ESPN’s BS Report with Bill Simmons. What are some of your favorite podcasts?

Here’s a good opportunity to help you finish your Ph.D.: The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. From their website:

The Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships are designed to encourage original and significant study of ethical or religious values in all fields of the humanities and social sciences, and particularly to help Ph.D. candidates in these fields complete their dissertation work in a timely manner. In addition to topics in religious studies or in ethics (philosophical or religious), dissertations appropriate to the Newcombe Fellowship competition might explore the ethical implications of foreign policy, the values influencing political decisions, the moral codes of other cultures, and religious or ethical issues reflected in history or literature.

Each one-year fellowship is worth $24,000, and you must be planning to submit your Ph.D. or Th.D. by summer 2010. The deadline is November 14, so you need to apply soon.

Link: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (HT: Gail Neal at Biola, via Stan Wallace)

Is there an election this year or something?

Obviously, politics is on everyone’s minds, but I don’t want to get into a debate about politics, but rather a debate about, er, politics. Specifically, political expression on campus by faculty.

Recently, the University of Illinois issued a memo directing its professors (as employees of the state) not to wear political buttons, put political bumper stickers on their cars, or attend political rallies on campus. The memo has since been modified, but is still an issue of contention. The AAUP (whose president, Cary Nelson, teaches at UofI), FIRE, the ACLU [this is a letter on FIRE's website - I could not find it on the ACLU's website], the NAS, and even Stanley Fish have all weighed in. Wouldn’t you like to be in that strategy meeting?

Political expression can be a sticky situation for evangelical Christians, IMHO. First, evangelicals tend to lean toward political conservatism, and second, faculty in general lean strongly toward political liberalism (see this monograph by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research for some details on these differences). I think that it can be all too easy for one’s evangelical beliefs to be confused by others in the academy as political beliefs, which then becomes a major obstacle for being salt and light among your peers. I know that I have had some difficult conversations along those lines.

But those are just my thoughts. What have others experienced? What do you think about political expression by professors on campus? Do you think this interferes with - or supports - your identity as a Christian and your representation of the gospel on campus?

(Note: I’ll delete any comments that are just pro or con comments about political parties or candidates.)

(Two other quick links, both from the Chronicle, which means you have to pay for them: Robert M. O’Neil’s What Not to Say in Class During an Election Season, and How Good Scholarship Makes Good Citizens, by Joseph J. Gonzalez.)

How do we find, evaluate, share, and use on-line resources/data?  In this morning’s Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education, I came across the post Thinking About Truth, Lies, and the Power of Google.  The flow of comments focused upon librarians, the vetting of information, and the current election (what article doesn’t relate to McCain/Palin and now I’m even doing it!).

Out of curiosity, I followed the link to the original post on the ACRLog (i.e., Association of College and Research Libraries: Blogging by and for academic and research librarians):  Information is Power - Even When it’s Wrong.  Then I took some time to ruminate over the piece, particularly the concern Sometimes aggregators are misleading. … Anyone have thoughts and/or tips on how to find, evaluate, share, and use on-line resources?

By-the-way, the last time I followed the Daily Report to the ACRLog, I read about the rise of the blog among academic and research librarians in What Happened To The Personal Web Site.  Next time I visit the ACRLog, I’m going to look to see whether someone wrote about the question of accessing material received from a blog (or how about a Facebook post) versus a personal web site, an organizational web site, or an on-line journal article.  Fascinating questions, maybe I should consider a degree in information science.

Science Out in the Open

Young scientists making their research results open to the public, challenging the standard means of publishing results, and opening themselves up to criticism.

Out in the Open (Boston Globe) (HT: Culture Making)

Historically Black Colleges Producing More PhDs

After falling for several years, the number of PhD recipients produced by historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) is on the rise.

Who Produces Black Ph.D.’s? (Inside Higher Ed)

Teach Them to Challenge Authority

Inside Higher Ed speaks with Gregory S. Prince Jr., former president of Hampshire College and author of Teach Them to Challenge Authority: Educating for Healthy Societies. Prince argues that taking a “neutral stance” in the classroom is the wrong approach:

Faculty need to take positions so that students can learn how to challenge those in authority. How a faculty member takes a positions is what is critical. It is an art both to take positions and to create an atmosphere in which students will learn how to challenge those positions

Teach Them to Challenge Authority (Inside Higher Ed)

Get Reporters to Call You

If you are an expert on something (and if you have a PhD, then you most definitely are!), check out the website HelpAReporter.com. It is a free subscription service that connects journalists with expert sources. According to the home page, after you sign up, you will receive up to 3 emails a day, with 15 to 30 queries each, listing reporters who are looking for expert sources. Just don’t let all the publicity go to your head!

HelpAReport.com (HT: Seth Godin)

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s On Hiring blog posted last week about finding a fit at small colleges. Some faculty relish their work at small liberal arts colleges, while others find the atmosphere burdensome. The post and the comments that follow it offer some excellent advice, both to job seekers and to those seeking to hire at small colleges.

At The Well, the excellent website of our fellow InterVarsity ministry Women in the Academy and the Professions, Dorothy Boorse, associate professor of biology at Gordon College, recently wrote about her experiences working at a small college, particularly in making the transition from the large research university where she earned her PhD, and the importance of “Asking the Right Question” in assessing your success in higher education.