Yesterday afternoon I was thrilled to hear from several of my colleagues at Bethel University as they shared some innovations in teaching at our annual “West by Midwest” festival. You can see all of my tweets from that two-hour event at the bottom of this post — they include links to some of the innovations mentioned. … More Introducing Our New Introduction to History Course
5/20/14 – For the second year in a row, tomorrow afternoon I’ll take part in West by Midwest, a gathering of Bethel University folks who want to share innovative ideas for teaching and course design. I’ll be introducing our department’s new Introduction to History course, which will blend an evening seminar with blogging and webisodes. Sam Mulberry and I will also … More West by Midwest 2014
Congratulations to The History Center: Archives of the Baptist General Conference and Bethel University — named the 2014 recipient of the Davis C. Woolley Award for Outstanding Achievement in Assessing and Preserving Baptist History. This puts our archives in very good company, as last year’s winner was the special collections and archives department of the Z. … More Congratulations to the Archives of the BGC and Bethel University!
Before the final bell rings on National Teacher Appreciation Week, let me rerun the part of a May 2013 post in which I talked about the one teacher who had the greatest impact on my life: Maureen Conway of Mounds Park Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. Not surprisingly, I’m far from the only person who feels … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Ms. Conway
Among other projects, I’m currently helping spearhead a discussion of digital humanities at Bethel. Initially, I was most interested by the notion of helping history, philosophy, literature, and theology majors become proficient enough with computer programming that they could use digital tools to enhance the skills traditionally associated with the humanities: reading, research, critical thinking, writing, etc. That’s still a … More Why Do I Blog with a Sans Serif Font?
I’m as convinced a theist as you’re going to find. I’m a Christian who teaches at a Christian college and serves as chairperson of his church. I have a book coming out later this year on Christian higher education. This is the 434th post at this blog in the category “Christianity.” And yet I increasingly … More When I’m a “Functional Atheist”
To this point in my career as a history professor, at least a couple of goals have eluded me: first, to engage in collaborative research and writing with a gifted undergraduate; second, to get some firsthand experience learning how digital tools (beyond WordPress, that is) can enrich the practice of history. I’m happy to announce that, thanks … More My Summer Plans? A Digital History of a Christian College in Wartime
Yesterday our department met with some of our web services and marketing folks to talk about planned updates to our website and the materials we give to prospective students. I was glad to hear that a key theme of the update will be sharing stories of what our alumni have done with their history degrees. While … More Majoring in History, Thriving in Business
It’ll no doubt go through some more editing before coming out later this year, but if you want a kind of sneak peek at The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons (forthcoming from InterVarsity Press)… Check out the word cloud that the current manuscript forms: For more about the book: check out … More Our Pietism and Higher Ed Book as Word Cloud
4/12/14 – Please do yourself a favor and visit Autobiography, the new podcast/blog from my good friend and frequent collaborator Sam Mulberry. I was honored to be Sam’s first interview, but he’s now on to episode four and going strong. The idea here is straightforward, and powerful: inspired by something Frederick Buechner once wrote, Sam chats … More New from Sam Mulberry: The Autobiography Podcast!
The Pietist Schoolman 