Four Things I Learned about Students and Faculty from Academically Adrift
Earlier this year, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa created quite a stir with their book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Their central claim: if the goal of college is to teach students how to think critically, then colleges are failing at their primary purpose.
My latest Emerging Scholars Blog post. The whole thing is here.
I have torn feelings about Columbus Day. The “Columbian exchange” (Europe’s encounter with the New World) was a humanitarian catastrophe greater than any other in history. Charles C. Mann’s 1491 woke me up to this several years ago. As many as 90% – 90%! – of North and South Americans died from smallpox and other infectious diseases. Whole civilizations collapsed. This vacuum set the state for the tragic sins of slavery and anti-Indian oppression.
However, how much of this can be personally blamed on Columbus? He had no idea that Native Americans had no immunity to smallpox – no one even knew what caused smallpox. War was perhaps inevitable when the empires of Europe encountered the empires of America, but Americans did pretty well defending their territory until disease overcame them. Haven’t you ever wondered why it took 130 years for Europeans to begin settling North America after Columbus’ initial encounter? World history would have been very different if the New World had not been ravaged by epidemics.
Is there a way to mourn the tragic loss of pre-Columbian America without assigning personal blame to Columbus?
Andy Crouch on Steve Jobs, The Secular Prophet
Mr. Jobs’s final leave of absence was announced this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, as it happened, Mr. Jobs died on the same day as one of Dr. King’s companions, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, one of the last living co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Dr. King, too, had had a close encounter with his own mortality when he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a book signing in 1958. He told that story a decade later to a rally on the night of April 3, 1968, and then turned, with unsettling foresight, to the possibility of his own early death. His words, at the beginning, could easily have been a part of Steve Jobs’s commencement address:
“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.”
But here Dr. King, the civic and religious leader, turned a corner that Mr. Jobs never did. “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
This shelf tells you much about me: the Complete Library of Christian Worship beside my comic strip collection.
The Lamp Post: A Resource for Christian Faculty
Last Friday, Faculty Ministry sent out the September issue of the Lamp Post.
The Lamp Post is an email publication specifically for Christian faculty, with articles and resources intended to help Christian faculty in their spiritual, academic, and community life on campus. A typical issue might feature a Bible study written specifically for faculty, announcements about upcoming faculty events, an article from a faculty member reflecting on some aspect of faculty life, or a review of a new book with particular relevance for Christian faculty.
You can see a summary of the contents here, and subscribe for free on the Faculty Ministry website.
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