6/12/13 – I’ll be away from the blog today and tomorrow while I lead a workshop: “The Pietist Idea of a Christian College: Bethel University” (made possible by a grant from the Lilly Fellows Program National Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities). We’ll spend Wednesday exploring the history of Pietism and its influence on Bethel … More Workshopping Pietism and Higher Education
This isn’t really how I’d like to come back to blogging after some time off, but… I’m sad to pass on the news that Virgil Olson, an important figure in the history of Bethel University (seminary professor, 1951-1968; college dean, 1968-1974) and the leading historian of its sponsoring denomination, Converge Worldwide (Baptist General Conference), died … More RIP Virgil Olson
I originally composed a draft of this devotion for the final meeting of Bethel’s Christianity and Western Culture course last Friday, but what I shared as a benediction to a group of first-year students — from a text I first prayed over students ten years ago, at the end of my first semester at Bethel, … More A Benediction for the Class of 2013
There are several reasons that my employer is currently going through something of a budget crisis; one that’s hard to complain about is that our president and board adopted a new faculty compensation plan that would raise salaries, particularly at the level of full professor. (Some years ago the problem was that we weren’t competitive … More How Well Paid Are Christian College Faculty?
I don’t often do posts like this, but it’s Friday afternoon and I’m out of steam… Let me just frame and pose a question, show some data, invite comments, and then come back to the subject next week. If you haven’t heard, my place of employment is going through a fairly significant financial crisis. Still, … More How Many Colleges and Universities Have Closed, Decade by Decade, Since 1900?
I’ll be honest: the primary point of this post is to cover one English major at Bethel with so much praise that she’ll feel compelled to take at least one History course from me before she graduates. But in the process, readers not named Abby Stocker might also find themselves reappraising their assumptions about what … More Students as Scholars
Back in January, Pres. Obama used part of his State of the Union address to generate enormous traffic for a page at the Department of Education (DOE) website: a “College Scorecard” that provided easy-to-understand data on the net cost, graduation rate, debt burden, and loan default rate for institutions of higher learning in this country, … More The Affordability of Evangelical Colleges and Universities
2/19/13 – If you’re part of the Bethel University community or live in the Twin Cities area… I have a pair of presentations coming up (both at the Bethel Library on Thursday mornings). First, my colleague Sam Mulberry and I will be joined by two of our students to share photos, videos, and reflections on … More Bethel Library Presentations
Having been out of the country and out of my routine for almost all of January, I find myself with more flagged, starred, bookmarked, and otherwise highlighted links than I could possibly list in one Saturday links post. So instead I’ll be putting out three best-of-January posts, each clustered around one of the three stated … More That Was The Month That Was: Education
Reading this morning that American colleges and universities have accumulated over $200 billion in outstanding debt thanks to a “decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students” reminded me of this post from last November… I’ve mentioned once or twice before that my … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: College Architecture and Christian Simplicity
The Pietist Schoolman 