In the everyday work of relationships and tasks, we can still fulfill our purpose as we focus on our Father who walks with us.Read more…
Master Yourself by Choosing Your Master (Masterclass in Writing, Part 5)
To manage your time well, make sure you know your Master’s voice. Otherwise, you may end up choosing the wrong master.Read more…
The Christian Academic Vocation in “Restoring the Soul of the University”
A taste of the Christian academic vocation and the greenhouse community as described in “Restoring the Soul of the University.”Read more…
Collegial Connections, Week Three: Maintaining Connections
Relational Maintenance Theory (Canary & Stafford, 1992; Stafford, 2011; Stafford & Canary, 1991; Stafford, Dainton, & Haas, 2000) explains that there are seven maintenance behaviors (positivity, understanding, assurances, network, sharing tasks/activities, relationship talks, and self-disclosure) that are used to sustain various types of relationships. For friendships, though, start by focusing on these two maintenance behaviors: sharing tasks/activities and self-disclosure.Read more…
Collegial Connections, Week Two: Meeting Connections
Meetings can be a chance to forge real connections with your colleagues. Renee Bourdeaux explains how. Read more…
Collegial Connections, Week One: Hallway Connections
Want to deepen your conversations with academic colleagues? Check out this new series by a communications professor on connecting with colleagues. Read more…
Leaving Academia, Part 3
When I started applying for non-academic jobs, I felt directionless and did not know how to start. Providentially, I stumbled upon the simple realization that I can leverage skills and expertise gained in graduate experience to navigate these new unknowns. By adopting familiar practices of research, replication, and resilience, I became more organized, confident, and ultimately successful in the job application process.Read more…
Leaving Academia, Part 2
Now what? As it became clear that I would not have an academic job, I felt lost and overwhelmed. Having given no serious thought to a non-academic career, I wondered if my academic apprenticeship had any value in preparing me for life outside the academy.Read more…
Leaving Academia, Part 1
For the better part of a decade, my life ambition was to become a professor. I was confident that hard work and a few providential breaks would land me a tenure-track political science professor position. I believed that God had called me to a life in the academy, to be a witness pointing peers and students to Christ.Read more…
Pray for Tom’s Sabbatical
As of yesterday, Tom Grosh is officially on a well-earned sabbatical to finish his own dissertation; he’s excited to return to the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) in June.Read more…
Help Tom Finish His Dissertation and You Could Win a Free Book
Take a short survey on how/what you’ve learned about “calling” by December 22, and be entered to win a free book.Read more…
Fall Snapshot: Depending on Christ
As an aspiring psychologist, I was recently in a training session that taught us how to validate clients’ feelings—to show respect for their feelings, display empathy, and exhibit active listening so that they feel heard. While learning how to empathize with the feelings of others, however, I’ve also been reflecting on my own feelings, especially transitioning into my first year in a Master’s program in New York City.Read more…
Another School Year: Finding Progress in the Repetition
A few years ago, when I first moved to the University of Michigan as a campus ministry worker with Cru, I was fascinated by the return of the school year. I came from a small college, and the large university setting was mesmerizing. This year, I am not so chipper. Read more…
Inhabiting Transitional Time Well
My transition from being an undergraduate to entering graduate school was ambiguous. I simply did not know when or where I was going. Discerning my vocation was a long, but important process that took about three years that started in my junior year of undergrad.Read more…
Summer Snapshot: The Secret of Solitude
Same setting yet different pace of life. A transition from being an undergraduate student to graduate student at the same university is a place of mixed feelings. As I’m utilizing my summer by starting a research project, the reality of large time commitment is becoming very tangible for me as I realize how quickly time escapes from me.Read more…
Processing your PhD: on next-ness
As a young faculty person, with all the anxieties that are part of that identity, that quiet does tend to bring in some of its own challenges, however. It might even go to waste, slipping away into the voracious demands of the calendar. There’s a refrain of next-ness, for lack of a better phrase. What’s next, indeed?Read more…
Summer Snapshot: Taste, See, and Obey
This summer, everything is new. My plans have been pushed aside in favor of God’s, and He is constantly telling me that I know what’s best, and I will provide. I’ve just finished my undergrad degree in molecular biology and Asian American studies. I’m still torn between what to pursue for graduate school. Read more…
Processing your PhD: a further meditation on done-ness
My friend Nate recently asked me what I’d do next. “What do you mean, ‘next’?” I replied.Read more…
Processing your PhD: on teaching
Almost by their nature, large research universities don’t necessarily prime their PhD students and candidates for a teaching-oriented academic career. Read more…
Book Review: Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by Johan Huizinga
Summary: An elegantly written biography of Desiderius Erasmus describing his life, thought and character as a scholar who hoped to awaken “good learning” and to bring about a purified Catholic church, and the tensions resulting from being caught between Reformers and Catholic hierarchy.Read more…
Processing your PhD: the first of a short series on life after graduate school
You stand in the Quad, surrounded by empty chairs and the sound guys talking down the stage. It’s an early June day in Seattle at the University of Washington. A cool wind is blowing paper programs lazily through the air.Read more…
Discerning My Vocation: A Surprise in the Graduate School Search
How do you know where to go to graduate school? How do you choose your field? Kateri Collins shares her experience. Read more…
If I Had to Do It Again: the Graduate School and Early Professor Years Edition (Scholar’s Compass)
What if I had it to do again? Would I change anything or not?
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Summer Snapshot: A Historian in Graduate School
Going into the Summer of 2016, I expected to be working my regular low-pressure desk job back home. Instead, God had other plans.Read more…