I’m happy to announce that five weeks from today I’ll be in Winona Lake, Indiana to speak to the faculty of Grace College about our book on Pietism and Christian higher education. Readers of this blog may know Grace best as the academic home of our regular guest-blogger Jared Burkholder, who played a key role … More Taking Our Book on the Road: Grace College
2/25/15 – I think that the fourth episode of Past & Presence, our department’s new webisode series, is our best yet. Not only do we interview an alum who parlayed his History degree into a corporate VP position, visit the oldest Swedish Baptist church in Minnesota, preview our Modern Middle East course, and hear from a student who spent the fall … More Past and Presence: Primary Sources
2/23/15 – I’m quite sure I have no business being admitted to any intellectual club whose membership includes Stanley Hauerwas, Merold Westphal, and John Milbank. So it was beyond kind of Nathan Gilmour to interview me for the newest episode of Christian Humanist Profiles, one of several terrific podcasts produced by the prolific team of Christian Humanists. We touched on several chapters … More Listen to My Interview on Christian Humanist Profiles
I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be at Messiah College on April 30th to give a variety of presentations related to our book, The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons! We’ll kick off at 9:45am with a chapel talk on “New Persons, New Church, New World: Pietism and Today’s Christian College.” After lunch … More Taking Our Book on the Road: Messiah College
Like many American colleges and universities founded in the nineteenth century, the place I work came into being thanks largely to the efforts of a pioneering figure who is as venerated within the school as he is unknown outside of it. For Bethel, that figure is John Alexis Edgren, whose 176th birthday our campus celebrates today. Born in Sweden … More Happy Birthday, John Alexis Edgren!
It’s library week on Past & Presence, our department’s new webisode series: Not only do I host episode 3 from locations in the Bethel University Library, but we talk to two of our librarians. One of them is a former student in our department, as is our interview subject of the week: Kevin McGrew, director of … More Past and Presence: Secondary and Tertiary Sources
Last week at AC 2nd, our department blog, I posted a four-part photo essay about our January travel course on the history of World War I. For those who may not want to see quite that many photos but are interested in our trip… My attempt to sum up our twenty-one days in only eleven photos: Our course began … More Our WWI Travel Course in Eleven Photos
On this week’s episode of Past & Presence, my colleagues Diana Magnuson (social history, women’s history) and Amy Poppinga (religious and environmental history) join me for a conversation about fields in history. Plus… we spotlight the Oregon Extension and AnneMarie Kooistra’s course on History of Sexuality in the United States, we find History alumni doing everything from web services … More Past and Presence: Fields within History
Last Thursday the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California Los Angeles released “The American Freshman,” a report based on a fall 2014 survey of over 150,000 first-time, full-time students at 227 four-year colleges and universities (out of 1.6 million nationwide). What did HERI learn? Its executive summary highlighted a few findings: More students opt … More The American Freshman: A Survey of New College Students
After several months of work, I’m proud to announce the debut of our department’s new webisode series: Past & Presence! My friend Sam Mulberry and I have been filming material for Past & Presence since last summer — and will continue to do so even this afternoon. (Episodes will keep coming all the way through the end of our semester.) In … More The Debut of Our Department’s New Webisode Series!
The Pietist Schoolman 