So look what the U.S. Postal Service left on my doorstep yesterday! It’s still a couple weeks till our book on Pietism and Christian higher education is more widely available, but it was hugely gratifying to see and hold actual copies of something that I’ve envisioned for several years. But getting my author’s copies also made me … More Acknowledgments from Our Pietism Book
12/8/14 – According to the countdown widget I’ve added to the blog, we’re now twenty-eight days away from the publication of The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons. But according to Amazon, our book is already the #1 new release in the higher education administration category! So don’t wait too long to preorder: copies … More Early Success for Our Pietism Book
Earlier this fall I shared the text of a brief speech I made to a Christian College Consortium symposium at Wheaton College: a Pietist perspective on what it means for schools like the CCC’s thirteen members to “stay Christ-centered.” I suggested that “staying” cannot be static and that “Christ-centered” must be understood in terms of … More Practice and Affection, Not Just Belief: Further Thoughts on How Colleges and Universities Remain “Christ-Centered”
The prize goes to G.W. Carlson for being the first reader to spot an advertisement for our forthcoming book, The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education, on p. 40 of the fall issue of CCCU Advance. Leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you see it advertised elsewhere! And remember that you can preorder the book from … More Puff Pietism! Let the Promotional Campaign Begin…
11/11/14 – I was happy to be interviewed for today’s Star Tribune article about the 70th anniversary of the G.I. Bill and its impact on Minnesotan colleges and universities. You can learn more about that landmark legislation and what it meant for schools like Bethel at our Bethel at War blog.
Last week my review of Department of Education data (via a Chronicle of Higher Education tool) found that Christian colleges were considerably less diverse than the national average, though perhaps a bit better in that respect than religious colleges as a whole. Picking up on my observation that West Coast members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities … More Do Christian Colleges Mirror the Diversity of Their Locales?
In the 3+ years of this blog, I’ve written often about the value of the liberal arts — particularly as an integral component of Christian higher education. While I’ve occasionally pointed to the instrumental benefits of such an education (provides a marketable skill set, prepares learners who can pick up new skills and thrive in grad/professional schools), I’ve … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Metaphors for Christian Liberal Arts
The current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education focuses on the challenges facing African American college students, faculty, and administrators. Among the many pieces — one available to non-subscribers considers why so few black men go into STEM fields — one of the most useful is a tool compiling 2012 numbers from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to show the … More How Diverse Are Christian Colleges and Universities?
It’s one of my favorite teaching weeks of the year at Bethel University: Renaissance week in GES130 Christianity and Western Culture, the multidisciplinary course that’s at the foundation of most Bethel students’ general education experience. It’s not so much that I enjoy the Renaissance itself (I think we once devoted a whole segment of our CWC podcast … More What If Education Serves Primarily to Teach Us How to Pray?
As a professor-blogger whose single most popular post was an open letter, written about one year ago, warning of a “crisis” in one particular sector of higher education, I appreciate being indirectly chastened by two college presidents, Barry Glassner (Lewis & Clark) and Morton Schapiro (Northwestern Univ.), in their Oct. 6 op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education: We … More On Fearmongering in Higher Ed
The Pietist Schoolman 