InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network
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…
Summary: Traces the career trajectory of a college professor, identifying the factors that mark the successful passage from one “cohort” to the next, the risks to be negotiated in each season of work, and key resources for career development.Read more…
My friend Nate recently asked me what I’d do next. “What do you mean, ‘next’?” I replied.Read more…
While many picture summer as a time of beaches, pools and binge watching the latest drama, God’s plans for me this summer involve a juggle of research, teaching, and coordinating mission teams coming to New Orleans.Read more…
Almost by their nature, large research universities don’t necessarily prime their PhD students and candidates for a teaching-oriented academic career. Read more…
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…
It is my expert opinion as a Christian who has lived through three mostly disastrous decades of Christian engagement with politics that we do not best convert people through political issues when we seek to pronounce the Christian position on it, when we use politics as medium for the gospel. Second, it is my opinion as an emerging scholar in rhetoric that my field speaks to all people and also has deep ties to Christianity. And as a “public scholar” I note those two facts while urging a collective, democratic approach to issues at hand.Read more…
I do not claim to be a great teacher today, though I’d like to think I am getting better. When I first started teaching I was woefully inadequate to the task. Research and writing came naturally to me. Standing in front of a room full of people and commanding respect did not.Read more…
Many of us academics invest an inordinate amount of time organizing and goal-setting in order to achieve certain objectives and earn favorable evaluations from students and supervisors. We want to earn positive labels and avoid negative descriptions like “flaky.”Read more…
Keith challenges us, saying that evangelicals should be commended for ministering well at the periphery of the University; however, now is the time to move to the heart of the university – the podium. There has been a clarion cry to do this in the United States and now there should be a cry to do this globally.Read more…
It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known andRead more…
World Changers New Orleans, 2014. Lower Ninth Ward Crew of Students working on a house. Summer Staffers Sarah Horton and Megan Tilman (Navy WC Tees on left). And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the nameRead more…
I remember well that fall when I started graduate school–the excitement, the anticipation of starting something new. Orientation activities and faculty seminars inviting students to something big, something interesting, something important. Read more…
Physics Professor W. Brian Lane on how he came to see teaching physics as a way of seeking God’s glory. Read more…
The Marks of a Christian Scholar: A Vocational Description (Part Four)[1] Mark Eckel, ThM PhD, Professor of Leadership, Education & Discipleship Capital Seminary & Graduate School, Washington, D.C. By what means will I be evaluated? What will someone identify toRead more…
“My son, do not lose sight of these—keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely, and your foot will not stumble.” (ProverbsRead more…
The updated InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministry website is “live”. As a teaser, below is the InterVarsity twentyonehundred productions video of Dr. Terry Gustafson, Professor of Chemistry, Ohio State University. In this piece, we hear a story about how the real integrationRead more…
Introduction Thank-you to Dwight Schwartz, Ph.D., for sharing a glimpse of his academic/vocational journey through Candidate for What? A few questions for the reader as we wrap up the series with Part 5 (Click here for Part 1 on Pre-collegiate chemistry, here forRead more…
Editor’s note: I had the privilege of meeting G. Randall Bond, M.D. at Urbana12. Randy was one of a number of people who visited the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) booth to share not only a vision for, but also a commitment to next stepsRead more…
One month ago yesterday I walked the stage to pick up a diploma in Religious Studies at a secular institution. And I’m a stronger Christian than ever. In the Religious Studies department at the University of Montana I learned howRead more…
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 haveRead more…
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 prospectsRead more…
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 twoRead more…
I went through a painful process last year. Necessary, but painful. But it was a good thing. At my institution, we undergo a pre-tenure evaluation before we go up for tenure — a practice run, so to speak — andRead more…