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Touryan, Kenell J.,
"ASA in the 21st Century: Expanding Our Vision for Serving
God, the Church, and Society through Science and Technology,"
PSCF 56.2:82-88
(6/2004)
.
Alister McGrath, "The
Christian Scholar in the 21st Century,"
Real Issue, January/February 2000.
Bill Hamilton's review of:
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,
by Mark A. Noll, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans 1994. 255 pages, index, $19.99
Hamilton deftly
outlines this landmark work which challenged conventional thinking.
The Discussion
Continued: 2011
A Christian interested in teaching and doing research
in a college/university setting will face some challenges which are
common to all academic institutions and others that depend on the type of
institution. Whether one contemplates a secular or Christian
job it is important to assess how you would fit into
institutional culture.
Christian institutions appear more safe and offer
fellowship with those of like faith and ethics. Yet schools and financial
supporters have influenced religious standards that may pose problems for
the unwary scholarly investigator. The fall-out over the 2011
Christianity Today
article and editorial on Adam and Eve is the latest example of
conflict and job loss involving academic freedom in Christian
institutions.
Secular colleges and Universities offer different
challenges to the Christian. There one is judged by peers and a
culture which picks up on ones Christians convictions and associations
especially those that challenge a secular culture. Tenure and promotion
are the places where subtle distinctions are made - guilt by association
or tent maker approaches however subtle - may lead to eventual dismissal.
One may win a civil law suit but it is a hollow victory.
When
considering a teaching job seek
advice from faculty members at your undergraduate and graduate
school and ask Christians associated with the school you are
considering about departmental culture before taking a leap.
Consider your personality - being a Christian radical is especially
hazardous to academic health!
The writer was fortunate to enjoy a career in a
Christian institution which supported academic freedom.--JWH
Christians in Academe: a Reply
Recently, Timothy Larsen of Wheaton College published an essay entitled "No
Christianity Please, We’re Academics,” in
which he presented anecdotal evidence of discrimination against
Christians and called for more thorough study to determine whether
they represented isolated incidents or were part of a broader trend.
Larsen concluded on a note of despair, believing that his call would
fall on deaf ears — and the comments he has received so far mostly
confirm his prediction.
I am among those who would view
such research as questionable — not because I think Christians have it
coming or because there are "bigger problems" (there always are), but
because I believe the question is ill-posed. First of all, by using
the term "Christian," Larsen casts much too broad a net. I find it
difficult to believe, for instance, that average Roman Catholics or
mainline Protestants face any significant opposition in the classroom.
It is clear from both his institutional affiliation and his article
that he is using the term “Christian” to refer essentially to
conservative evangelical Christians (which is in itself a very
evangelical thing to do). Second, I believe the use of the term
"discrimination" is overblown and misleading, inviting inappropriate
comparisons to sexism and racism — including rhetorical appeals to
discrimination against (conservative evangelical) Christians as "the
last acceptable prejudice," falsely implying that the others have been
eradicated. ...
Inside Higher Education
Full Story
BY THOMAS BURNETT, ON FEBRUARY 22ND, 2011 God and Nature
Series
 Married
couples pursuing two careers face many obstacles. When both
partners work in academia, the situation can look downright bleak.
Due to their limited geographical mobility, some academic couples
endure “commuter marriages,” living apart for years in different
cities. Results are varied: some have a stroke of luck and land
appointments near each other, sometimes even in the same department.
For other couples, one person leaves academia to take a more flexible
job and live with their spouse. In some cases, the couple
eventually breaks up under the strain of work and isolation. ....Full
Story
I
In Person: Falling off the Latter: How Not
to Succeed in Academia
Kathy Weston, February 04, 2011
Every scientist needs someone in a position of power who has
faith in his or her abilities, to provide advice and do a bit
of trumpet-blowing on his or her behalf.
One Friday evening in the winter of 2009, I ended a 20-year
affiliation with a college of the University of London, lugging
three boxes of personal possessions and a bucket containing 12
tropical fish from my emptied office. In the face of looming
redundancy, brought on by my failure to contribute adequately to
my department's last Research Assessment Exercise submission, I
jumped before I was pushed. I left with a compromise agreement and
a lot of thoughts about how my career, initially as a reasonably
successful scientist, had come to such a sticky end. My story has
useful lessons in it, some of which are exclusive to scientific
research but some of which reflect, I think, the experience of
women in academia.
Full Story
Asking the right questions
Asking the Right Questions: Christian Faith and the Choice
of Research Topic in the Natural and Applied Sciences
Sponsored by InterVarsity and Graduate
and Faculty Christian Fellowship and Funded by The John Templeton Foundation
October 13-15, 2000, Mundelein, IL. From PSCF
Volume 53 Number 4 December 2001
Terry Morrison, What Are the Major Themes of This Conference? [PDF]
Paul Anderson, Loren Haarsma, William Dembski, and
Susan Drake Emmerich, What Are Important Future Directions? Where Do We
Go from Here? [PDF]
A 'classic' from Stanford University Scientist Dick Bube
Bube, Richard H.,
'So, You Want to Be a Science Professor!' The Education
Business: Things My Mother Never Told Me
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
41.3:143-151 (9/1989)
Princeton University researcher Bob Kaita looks at another dimension
Kaita, Robert,
Obstacles and Opportunities In Science for Christian
Witness Perspectives on
Science and Christian Faith 45.2:112-115
(3/1993)
Is research a Christian calling?
Moberg,
David O.,
The Great Commission and Research
Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith 51.1:8-17 (3/1999)
A career in flux
Russell, Robert John ,
Christian Discipleship & the Challenge of Physics:
Formation, Flux, and Focus
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
42.3:139-154 (9/1990).
From
our younger scientists
Keith B. and Ruth Douglas Miller, "Taking
the Road Less Traveled: Reflections on Entering Careers in Science,"
Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith 49.4:
212-214 (12/1997)
Grace C. Ju, "Caution:
Roadblocks Ahead,"
Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith 50.2 80 -83
(6/1998)
Steven G. Hall,
"In
Transition,"
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
50.3 158 - 159 (9/1998)
William M.
Struthers, "A
Guide to Graduate School for Christians in Science: Growing and Staying Sane,"
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
51.2 72 - 75 (2/1999)
Jennifer J.
Wiseman, "How
You can Help Young Christians in Science,"
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith
51.1 2 - 5 (3/1999)
Advice for those along
the path
Tamara J. Garca-Barbosa & John R. Mascazine,
"Guidelines for College Science
Teaching Assistants,"
Gregory Schraw and David W. Brooks,
"Helping Students Self-Regulate in Math and Sciences
Courses: Improving the Will and the Skill,"
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE
Web Sites
Rachael Carson
Washington DC 1963
Journal of College Science Teaching
ASA
Education
page
For a wandering would-be scholar in the humanities....
Why Get a PhD in the Humanities?
In two recent columns
in the Chronicle of Higher
Education, Thomas H. Benton (the pen name of William Pannapacker,
associate professor of English at Hope College) warned students against
getting a PhD in the humanities. Just in case anyone missed his point,
Benton’s first column was entitled “Graduate
School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go" and
his follow-up column, “Just
Don't Go, Part 2”. We recommend reading both articles, but here was
a key passage from the first:
As things stand, I can only identify a few circumstances under which
one might reasonably consider going to graduate school in the
humanities:
- You are independently wealthy, and you have no need to earn
a living for yourself or provide for anyone else.
- You come from that small class of well-connected people in
academe who will be able to find a place for you somewhere.
- You can rely on a partner to provide all of the income and
benefits needed by your household.
- You are earning a credential for a position that you already
hold — such as a high-school teacher — and your employer is
paying for it.
Those are the only people who can safely undertake doctoral
education in the humanities. Everyone else who does so is taking an
enormous personal risk, the full consequences of which they cannot
assess because they do not understand how the academic-labor system
works and will not listen to people who try to tell them.
We weren’t satisfied with Benton’s advice, because we felt he left out
important reasons why one should attempt
a PhD in the Humanities. Rather than write a response ourselves, we
contacted several Christian faculty in the humanities and asked them how
they would respond to the question: ...more |
Highly Recommended:
the official blog of the
Emerging Scholars
Network, a program of
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Published on Tuesdays and
Thursdays on topics like academic vocation and calling, spiritual
formation in the academy, and the integration of theology with academic
disciplines.
http://blog.emergingscholars.org/
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Most recent entry:
07/19/2012
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