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The first day of the semester went wonderfully. I really find “syllabus day” rather enjoyable, because it is an opportunity to start weaving in the basic framework of the course and start the process of getting to know the students. I'm looking forward to day two, come Wednesday.
At 1:00 p.m. today, I finally get to resume teaching. While I've been keeping plenty busy with the winter quarter of Ph.D. studies and work around church — so the last six weeks haven't been exactly “downtime” — I have been looking forward to another semester of college teaching. As I told my students last semester, what can be better than getting to spend a semester discussing “great ideas”?
Without further ado, in about twelve hours, it all starts again…
Everyone who has followed asisaid for sometime knows that I make a habit of blogging the 12 days of Christmas each year. That's one of my peculiar holiday traditions, perhaps. But why should I have all the fun? What's one of your more off the wall traditions for the season?
While the decorations come down all around, I was relieved today to find that the seminary still had its decorations — including a very impressive tree made of books in the library — up. I do wonder why people are often in such a rush. Wouldn't it be nice to have the beauty of twinkling lights for more of January?
Remember: we are still three days away from Epiphany (January 6), so the season isn't over yet!
Well, here we are in 2012. 2011 was an interesting year for me with lots of interesting twists and turns. Have a happy start to the new year!
Quoth T.S. Eliot:
And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.
Laura Pappano writes for the New York Times:
He calls the proliferation of master's degrees evidence of “credentialing gone amok.” He says, “In 20 years, you'll need a Ph.D. to be a janitor.”
Among the new breed of master's, there are indeed ample fields, including construction management and fire science and administration, where job experience used to count more than book learning. Internships built into many of these degrees look suspiciously like old-fashioned on-the-job training.
Indeed; this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does risk blurring the goals of graduate degrees further than they already are:
There may be logic in trying to better match higher education to labor needs, but Dr. Vedder is concerned by the shift of graduate work from intellectual pursuit to a skill-based “ticket to a vocation.” What's happening to academic reflection? Must knowledge be demonstrable to be valuable?
That's a very Newman-esque question and one very much worth asking.
HT: Travis McMaken.
Well, I think I may have been away from my blog longer just now than at any other time in its almost nine year history. With all the projects swirling around finishing at seminary and trying to line up my next steps, I found I just did not have the inspiration to write anything here. Now, with my time at seminary wrapped up (assuming all the exams went OK, of course), I hope to return to regular blogging.
I have missed posting on here. The interesting thing about blogging is that it provides a creative outlet that is neither as long or involved as writing a column nor as short and quickly forgotten as a Facebook status update. I have a number of ideas of things I want to get to posting here again, so watch out… I am back.
Over the years, I've had the pleasure of helping one of my professors back at Lindenwood, Dr. David Brown, with his various web site endeavors. I am especially excited about his new site, which went live a couple of weeks ago. Dr. Brown has repurposed a design I created for him back in 2005 and used it to finally enter the blogosphere.
Dr. Brown is surely nothing short of a genius. I was able to take four of his philosophy classes during my time at LU and they were amongst the most thought provoking classes I've ever had. (He is also the one responsible for talking me into picking up a philosophy minor.) Much of what I learned from him has been helpful in seminary. Part of what made the classes, and talking to Dr. Brown in general, so interesting is his awareness of current trends not only in philosophy, but also various related fields.
What's all of that got to do with his new blog? For as long as I have known him, Dr. Brown has scoured the web for helpful articles related to philosophy, religion, science and other fascinating topics, which he would then e-mail to some of his colleagues and students. Now, he is posting links to those articles on his blog instead of mailing them, which means anyone can benefit from his eclectic, interesting recommended reading.
I think you'll find his news gathering addictive enough that you'll want to keep following his blog.
From Logos Bible Software on their $1,000 seminary scholarship:
If you refer someone to our scholarship and they indicate that you referred them, and they win the scholarship, then we'll give you a scholarship too! You could both get a $1,000.00 tuition scholarship and a copy of the Logos Scholar's Library (www.logos.com/scholars).
Interested? You can apply here. If you apply, please consider mentioning that I “sent” you.
