This article was written prior to the financial global downturn of late 2008 and early 2009. Why do poverty, inequality, stagnation, oppression, conflict and environmental calamity plague some nations while other nations do so much better? Economist Roland Hoksbergen, geographer Janel Curry and political scientist Tracy Kuperus review and assess some of the main contemporary…
In the thirty-ninth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Mardell A. Wilson, Provost at Creighton University. Wilson begins by detailing the charisms that define the Jesuit order and how those charisms informed the long-standing investment the Jesuits made in higher education in the United States. Wilson then explores how those charisms translate into a full understanding of truth as expressed in the curriculum as well as a full understanding of what it means to be human as expressed in whole person education. Ream and Wilson discuss Wilson’s upbringing on a farm in central Illinois and how the approach to work exemplified by her parents impacted her approach to work as a college administrator. They then discuss how Wilson’s own search for meaning in education led her to embrace service as a dean at St. Louis University and then as the provost at Creighton University. Ream and Wilson then close out their conversation by discussing the importance of healthy communication and the impact such communication has on the ability of students and faculty to thrive. While faculty, in particular, often come to campus with a firm foundation for success in their respective fields, what they also need—especially in those early years—are clear, consistent visions of the academic vocation that weave together teaching, service, and research in light of an institution’s mission.
In the twenty-fourth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Stacy Jackson, the Kenneth J. Weller ’48 Professor of Management and Chair of the Department of Economics and Business at Hope College. Jackson begins by recounting the lessons he learned while working for organizations such as NASA and Ernst & Young and then what lessons eventually drew him to teaching and research. Jackson then offers some observations concerning where organizational psychology fits within the larger fields of business and psychology and the opportunities that exist for the integration of faith and learning. Ream and Jackson shift their focus to the myriad of ways liberal arts disciplines are critical to the study and eventual practice of business. They then close their conversation by talking about the ways that laypersons who study business can be of service to the Church.
Colleges and universities often expect their curriculum to engage with the moral formation of their students. In this essay Richard T. McClelland notes that four scientific arguments converge to suggest that this project is unlikely to succeed: the evolutionary origins of human moral systems, the ontogeny of the average human brain, closing the gap between…
Ever since Max Weber first named the iron cage over a century ago, people have been interested in unchaining it. Christians may have a particular interest in Weber’s analysis because it points to the influence of religious values both in supporting initially, and then potentially liberating humankind from, the iron cage. Bruno Dyck, Mitchell J….
Two weeks ago, a meme circulated with two pictures, labeled “My Fall Plans” and “The Delta Variant.” Usually the former image was cheerful and the latter considerably more dark. I saw most of these posted by my professor friends, asking a very good question: How can professors be expected to write a syllabus in this…
The survivors of the first atomic bomb used in war, which was dropped in Hiroshima, have been telling their survival stories for many decades. Many of them have found that telling their experiences is empowering, as it gives them a purpose to live and allows them to share their knowledge worldwide with people of all…
Integrity in biology research is essential to positive, forward progress in our understanding of the created world. In this essay, Baker shares her perspective as a biology educator and researcher on the influence that Christian calling can have on the conscious decision to pursue and conduct research with integrity. She provides personal and practical suggestions…
Many liberal arts colleges express a commitment to educate the whole person; yet, educating for emotional formation rarely receives explicit attention. In The Abolition of Man C.S. Lewis argues that proper moral education essentially involves emotional formation informed by an understanding of emotions as recognitions of objective values that function together with reason to yield…
“When a person’s virtue is not equal to his position, all will suffer.” When education fails to foster virtue in professional and especially business schools the world is in peril. This essay addresses some of the significant challenges in educating practically wise business professionals. Universities need to recover a Thomistic view of practical wisdom that…
In the thirty-fourth episode of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Anne Snyder, Editor-In-Chief of Comment. Snyder begins by talking about the role she plays as someone residing at borders in a society seemingly engaged in perpetual fragmentation. She notes people such as Dorothy Day who inspired her and how she strives to impart the wisdom afforded by such examples through the leadership she offers Comment. Ream and Snyder then talk about what biographical details may have led to Snyder’s ability to reside at borders including growing up abroad, traveling extensively in Southeast Asia, dinner conversations she shared with her family of origin, and the example her grandfather set as a Bible translator who lived in the Peruvian Amazon. They talk in greater detail about Comment, how topics are selected and framed, and how Snyder hopes such efforts nurture the audience they serve. Ream and Snyder then close their conversation by exploring a recent issue od Comment focused on the Church and Snyder’s impressions of the relationship the Church and the university presently share.
Much of Christian scholarship has defended the Conception View of personhood, the idea that human beings have intrinsic value that begins at conception. However, modern reproductive technologies have led to new scientific insights into human embryology, without a matching increase in our metaphysical and moral understandings. A rigorous formulation of human nature and personhood is…
R. Scott Smith is Professor of Ethics and Christian Apologetics at Biola University. In 2013, Amos Yong surveyed the status of evangelical higher education, in part with a focus on integration. As he observed, the dominant model amongst many, if not most, faculty in evangelical institutions “fuses scholarship and teaching under the label of faith-learning…
Every business is a social structure. Critical realist sociology tells us that social structures influence the decisions that persons within them make by presenting restrictions (penalties for violating norms) and opportunities (rewards for taking up advantages offered), that frequently alter those nonetheless free decisions. Thus, a business can encourage or discourage virtuous decisions, and over…
Rick Kennedy is the secretary of the Conference on Faith and History and Professor of History at Point Loma Nazarene University. His The First American Evangelical: A Short Life of Cotton Mather is to be published by Eerdmans in the spring of 2015. “Hagiography” is a term that college professors transformed into a pejorative. No…
We are pleased to publish the text of the 24th Paul B. Henry Lecture, delivered at Calvin University on April 4, 2023. The annual lecture is sponsored by the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, located at Calvin University. The lecture and the institute are named in honor of Paul…
A wide range of contemporary Christian scholarship claims that a history of Enlightenment ethical thought, social science and epistemology is the first step to exposing the inadequacies of modern accounts of the good life. Michael Kugler argues instead that their attempts at critical historical analysis and explanation are unconvincing. Their narrative arguments are built on…
In a global digital culture of influencers, followers, and attention-deficit disorders, mimetic theory helps show that imitation shapes much more of human behavior than once thought and that even desire is mimetic. People want what they see others wanting, which often means conflict. It is an idea with complex implications, but its kernel is simple…
Despite historical and recent scholarship that demonstrates the need to appeal to the affective dimension of students to enable appropriate behavior, Christian business education is dominated by cognitively focused “worldview integration.” In this essay Kenman Wong, Bruce Baker, and Randal Franz argue for reimagining business education as a formational enterprise in order to facilitate a…
Modern discussion of the liberal arts has emphasized the development of the individual critical thinker and not the art of thinking socially. Rick Kennedy summarizes the four-step craft of social thinking that was long taught in the pre-modern tradition of liberal arts. This intellectual craft was not specifically named by the ancients but is evident…
