Several weeks ago a physician encouraged members of the Christian Medical Society (CMS)/CMDA at Penn State Hershey College of Medicine to develop personal mission statements. Yesterday morning I engaged in an on-line discussion regarding ministry mission/vision statements. In the afternoon, I came across an "amusing" but "hard" video regarding the realities/challenges an Emerging Scholar in the Humanities faces (and/or perceives), So you Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities (see below)?* All this leads me to … [Read more...] about Do You Have a Mission Statement?
Archives for October 2010
How Do We Value Faculty?
How should the value of faculty be measured? How do we weigh the interests of academics, students, taxpayers, the community, and others in public education? Should "profit-and-loss" statements for individual faculty and departments be a factor? On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported on efforts by Texas and other states to measure the value of faculty and academic departments at public universities. The Texas A&M system has gone so far as to create a massive spreadsheet detailing faculty members' … [Read more...] about How Do We Value Faculty?
Rebirth of Peacemaking in a Much Different Context
As a descendant of Moravian settlers in Lititz, PA, I made sure not to miss the presentation of the 2010 The Dale W. Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies to Katherine Carté Engel (Assistant Professor of History, Texas A&M) for Religion and Profit: Moravians in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). I greatly appreciated her challenging lecture and the opportunity afterward to chat with her on “God in America”, the general inability of radical Christian … [Read more...] about Rebirth of Peacemaking in a Much Different Context
Disruptions to Campus Ministry – Past, Present, Future
At the Faith on Campus blog, campus minister Steve Lutz outlines Four Disruptions That Could Shake Up Campus Ministry. It's a good list that matches research I did earlier this year on trends in higher education. Steve's list, however, led me to thinking about disruptions that have already taken place in higher education and how they have affected campus ministry. My father and I graduated college about 40 years apart - he with a Bachelors in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa, I with a BA in English … [Read more...] about Disruptions to Campus Ministry – Past, Present, Future
Don’t miss “God in America”
First impressions of PBS' God in America, with some filling out by dialog with the series executive producer Mike Sullivan in today's open chat on Patheos. Maybe I should have divided the material into more than one post, but some friends have been dropping emails to post it all ASAP ;-) So here you are ... What is PBS' God in America? Positives points What didn't sit well, including some recommendations ... Don't worry more is coming, including a tie back into the Elizabethtown College and Peacemaking … [Read more...] about Don’t miss “God in America”