This is my final post on the Emerging Scholars Blog. Well, my final planned post, anyway. Tom insisted that I leave the door open for guest posts in the future, but I won't be writing here every Tuesday as I have for the past few years. For my final post, Tom asked me to offer some thoughts about how far ESN has come and where it might be going in the future. I became involved with the Emerging Scholars Network because I wished it had existed when I was an undergraduate. I've told this story many times, but I … [Read more...] about The Future of ESN
What Is Ministry?
About 18 months ago, I stepped down from my position as Associate Director of the Emerging Scholars Network and handed the reins over to my faithful coworker Tom Grosh. I kept my toe in the world of campus ministry by continuing to write for InterVarsity and leading a seminar at Urbana, but at the end of this month, I'm going to be stepping down (again) from my role as a blog contributor to focus on my new full-time job as web manager for a Cincinnati-based manufacturing company. It's an unusual career move, but most of … [Read more...] about What Is Ministry?
What Do You Need to Get Ready for Graduate School?
In the Spring a student's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of graduate school. – Alfred Lord Tennyson, more or less In recent weeks, I've addressed whether graduate school was a path a certain doom (no) and whether getting a tenure-track job was a futile dream (probably). Most students thinking about graduate school, however, aren't planning on a PhD. They're thinking of a professional degree with a specific career path in mind, a master's to explore their discipline further, or (in many cases) simply continued … [Read more...] about What Do You Need to Get Ready for Graduate School?
Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?
Probably. Last week, I addressed the question of whether graduate school was a path to certain doom. In the comments of that post, John questioned my use of statistics to show that people with Ph.D.s had relatively good job prospects in this economy. He shared a personal experience with trying to find a tenure-track faculty position in the humanities. Now that is a completely different matter than simply getting a job, and the outlook isn't nearly as bright. James K.A. Smith has written a series of posts offering … [Read more...] about Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?
Is Graduate School a Path to Certain Doom?
Every few years, another publication discovers that becoming a tenured professor at a research university is hard work. Most recently, it was Slate, which ran an essay by Rebecca Shuman which, fittingly for an essay about literary study, had two different titles depending on whether you looked at the text on the page or the title in your browser: Thesis Hatement: Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor. There are no academic jobs and getting a Ph.D. will make you into … [Read more...] about Is Graduate School a Path to Certain Doom?