Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

Global Scholars

The Missional Professor in Universities Outside North America

How can Christian academics carry out mission while working at universities outside their home countries?

From Dec 27 – Jan 1, volunteers with our network of early career Christian academics are liveblogging seminars at the Urbana conference, a mission-focused student gathering of 16,000 Christians from across North America and the world. This post was co-written by Rebecca Carlson and Vivian Chen.

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Dr. Keith Campbell, today’s speaker, is vice president of Global Partnerships for Global Scholars and has spent four years teaching New Testament at Shanghai University in China. He’s also the author of Researching Abroad: Tips and Tools for the Trade. Dr. Liam Atchison, who helped answer questions from the audience, is vice president of US relations for Global Scholars. He has been a church-planting pastor, a university professor, and an academic dean at Western Seminary. [Read more…] about The Missional Professor in Universities Outside North America

ESN, Global Scholars, Urbana: A Doorway to the World’s Universities

university desk asia photo
Photo by ydhsu

Trajectories in Global Missions

I returned to America in July from China after teaching in a Shanghai university for four years, including serving occasionally more broadly in Asia; and I just stepped off of the plane recently from a one-month, five-country trip to numerous universities in Sub-Saharan Africa. I happily discovered from these travels that what missiologists like Timothy Tennent have been saying for years is, indeed, so right:

The ‘west reaches-the-rest’ missional paradigm must change; it should be replaced with the paradigm of ‘missions-from-everywhere-to-everywhere!’ [Read more…] about ESN, Global Scholars, Urbana: A Doorway to the World’s Universities

A missionary calling to Africa for Christian academics: Part 2

Bujumbura, Burundi. Photo from What might missionary-educator life look like in Bujumbura, Burundi at HAU? (World Harvest Mission at Hope Africa University. Accessed 10/2/2013. 8:26 AM).

Models

There are perhaps as many models for helping as there are universities in Africa. I hope through this forum to learn more from other readers of the variety of options and discuss what may or may not be effective.

Much of the pioneer work in post-secondary education in Africa was done by starting bible colleges. Faculty were most often not traditional US academics with advanced degrees (apart from seminary degrees). Many of these schools have become universities, but in doing so struggle to attract sufficient master’s and doctoral staff to meet true university accreditation requirements.

At the other extreme, I think that history shows that support of US based graduate training for African academics often ends in brain drain.

Christian (and secular) volunteerism has proved helpful, but some options for Americans with private African universities can waste and abuse short-term and long-term donations of money, talent and time. Short-term and mid-term experiences of inadequately prepared individuals, often facing language barriers and finding students at a level below what they expected does not use resources wisely. Frustration leads to broken relationships, inadequately educated students and damage to the careers of volunteer faculty.  [Read more…] about A missionary calling to Africa for Christian academics: Part 2