The Emerging Scholars Blog

Tom and I have been busy recuperating from our week at Urbana 09, so there won’t be any Week in Review this week. Instead, we’re each going to share some highlights of our experience. If you were there, we hope that we were able to make contact. If you weren’t there, you can watch videos of many of the speakers and other main session performers at the Urbana website.

So, what did the Emerging Scholars Network do at Urbana?

Serving Christ as a Professor: More than 250 students — mostly undergraduates — attended my seminar, “Serving Christ as a Professor: Ten Things You Need to Know.” Many students stayed around afterwards with questions, and I was able to meet many others throughout the rest of the week. We’ll be posting some version of my seminar, as well as my two handouts, “Suggested Readings and Next Steps for Emerging Scholars” and “The Road to the Professorate.” Read the rest of this entry »

It's the Top 5!

Our Week-in-Review feature has returned, with 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.

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis – Kevin Offner, who works with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries in Washington, DC, tipped us off to this article from Toronto’s eyeweekly.com.  Are you in your mid- to late-20′s, feeling unfulfilled and insecure in your career or graduate education, wondering what you’re supposed to be “when you grow up”? You might be experiencing a “quarterlife crisis.”

God and Math – At Books & Culture, Timothy Larsen reviews two recent books that explore the long history of connections between theology and mathematics.

Theologians & Economists: The Economic World of the Bible Versus Now – I (Mike) was just recently introduced to Michael Kruse’s series Why Don’t Economists and Theologians Get Along? by Jeff Gissing, InterVarsity GFM staff at Wake Forest. This is, I think, a good example of how other academic disciplines can contribute to theology and Biblical studies.  Understanding the cultural context of Biblical texts goes far beyond knowing your Greek. (Kruse has also just started a series on basic economics at Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog. If you’re like me – mostly ignorant of economics that don’t begin with the word “Freak” – I hope you’ll learn something. If you’re an economist yourself, I hope you’ll keep Kruse honest!)

Academic families – A tribute from an Inside Higher Ed blogger to her husband’s recently deceased PhD advisor. A great example of the role that a good advisor can play in a person’s life, far beyond the professional aspects.

Doubly Marginalized, Part 1 – Blog reader and Assistant Professor of Physics W. Brian Lane has started a series on his blog, Corner Interactions, about the “double marginalization” of Christians in the university. Part 2 is here.

Bonus: Don’t forget to order your copy of George Marsden’s Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Amazon, Abebooks, B&N, WorldCat).  We’ll be discussing it in October for our 2nd ESN Book Club.

Photo: number five by Hilarywho, via Flickr

Statement:  (Y)ou are great.  You are amazing!

Response:  No one has ever said that about me before.

Some lines from the short film Validation (16:23).  Have you watched it?  Some reflections below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, I’m heading to the University of New Mexico’s inagural Mentoring Conference, entitled “Fostering a Mentoring Culture in the 21st Century: Bringing Best Practices and Research to Higher Education.” I hoping to come back with some ideas and resources for the ESN Mentoring Program.

So, I’m going to be surrounded by researchers who specialize in academic mentoring. What questions would you have for them? What would you like to know about best practices in mentoring? What issues have you encountered (either as a mentor or as a mentee) that you’d like discussed?

Two of our mentors, Joel Carpenter and Brian Howell, are contributors on The Immanent Frame, a blog about secularism, religion, and the public square published by the Social Science Research Council.  Here are a couple of their recent posts:

Joel Carpenter on “The evangelical complexion”

Brian Howell on “The global evangelical”