September 2007
Volume 3, Number 2
In this
newsletter:
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From the Associate Director
Faith, Learning, and Young
Scholars at Baylor
Darin H. Davis
Though this section of our newsletter is
always devoted to a column from the director, my
colleague Douglas Henry has asked me to offer a
few reflections on the work of the Institute from
my perspective as its associate director. I am
honored to do so.
I want to share with you a few words about a
remarkable event that happened recently here at
Baylor, one that no news outlet wrote about or
even knew of. Perhaps it is remarkable to only a
few of us, but of course, some of the most
significant things often are least noticed.
At the end of a hot, hectic day last week,
more than 150 academically gifted Baylor
sophomores packed the Reading Room in Alexander
Hall to think about the integration of faith,
learning, and vocation. After feasting on pizza,
cookies, and soft drinks and mingling with one
another, the crowd of students took their seats
and listened intently while Dr. Peter Candler,
assistant professor of theology in the Honors
College, offered a compelling paper titled
“‘God is Dead’ and I
Don’t Feel So Good Myself.” Drawing
on Friedrich Nietzsche’s well-known line
from The Gay Science, Candler asked his
audience to think of how an authentic Christian
community might respond to Nietzsche’s
challenge and how that community might be
powerfully expressed in the life of a university
like Baylor.
The students gathered at the invitation of the
William Carey Crane Scholars Program, an
initiative that IFL began eight years ago. The
Crane Scholars Program is named after
Baylor’s fourth president, who served the
University at Independence from 1863-85. Crane
was a remarkable man, perhaps the most widely
read Baylor educator before the twentieth
century. Classically trained, he was a
student’s student, someone who sought to
relate the best of human learning to Christian
faith. It is particularly fitting, then, that the
Crane Scholars Program takes some of
Baylor’s best undergraduates and encourages
them to explore in a substantive and rigorous
manner the connections between the life of the
mind and the life of faith, just as Crane did
many years ago.
The program does this in a variety of ways,
especially by convening dinner and discussion
gatherings at the homes of Baylor faculty members
where students engage in spirited conversations
about a reading that focuses on the relationship
between faith and reason, but also by hosting
special scholarly presentations throughout the
year and an extraordinary retreat each spring.
The program also sponsors a group of
“Cranes” on a trip each year to a
major academic conference to introduce them
firsthand to examples of Christian scholarship at
its best; last year students traveled to the
University of Notre Dame. Those gathered in the
Alexander Reading Room last week came to hear
about the program. Given the size of the crowd
and their evident interest, this year’s
selection process will be difficult. Only twenty
new sophomores enter the program each year.
"...the Crane Scholars
Program takes some of Baylor’s best
undergraduates and encourages them to
explore in a substantive and rigorous
manner the connections between the life of
the mind and the life of faith, just as
Crane did many years ago." |
The Crane Scholars Program was founded with
another aim in mind: to help enable and equip the
next generation of Christian teachers and
scholars. Christian historian Nathan Hatch has
written, “College faculty and
administrators have no greater responsibility
than to nurture a new generation of Christian
thinkers. This means going the second mile to
shepherd the young people who have the potential
to be the next generation of Christian
scholars.” The Crane Scholars Program
ventures to go this extra mile and thereby hopes
to lead some of the best and brightest students
at Baylor to begin thinking of an academic career
as a form of Christian service.
As good as the pizza was, I am convinced that
the crowd we attracted sought more than a free
supper. The students gathered represent a broad
range of majors and academic interests; while
most of them are from Texas, many come from other
states. What they share—and what says much
about Baylor’s present—is a
dedication to their faith and a desire to
understand more deeply how it informs (or perhaps
should inform) their whole
lives—intellectually, morally, and
spiritually. In a word, these students are
seeking to live authentically, from
where they stand. They are rightly suspicious of
attempts, sometimes present in the culture around
us, to belittle, sequester, or altogether
dispense with matters of faith. And Baylor is
uniquely gifted to offer both challenge and
encouragement to such students.
Imagine the contribution that some of these
young people might make to church-related higher
education in the next ten, twenty, or thirty
years. Think of their service to their
disciplines—physics, literature, economics,
chemistry, music, philosophy—but consider
also their effect on generations of students to
come.
To be sure, the Crane Scholars Program is but
one way that Baylor is seeking to fulfill its own
institutional vocation; indeed, it is but one of
the things that IFL does. But it is particularly
significant work because it represents what is
for many of us at the heart of the
matter—being devoted to students as whole
persons and committed to helping them discern and
then live out their divine calling. Christ called
us to love the Lord completely, with all our
hearts, souls, and minds. We can do no less for
the students we have been called to teach.
Baylor’s present is bright: incredibly
gifted students interested in matters of faith
and reason are coming here in large numbers. And
there are countless reasons to be hopeful about
Baylor’s future: if we carefully nurture
our students, they may contribute mightily to
Christian higher education at Baylor and
elsewhere in years to come. But as I watched the
crowd of students a few nights ago, I also was
thankful for Baylor’s past as I reflected
about how Baylor changed my own life when I was a
graduate student here thirteen years ago.
And as I slipped into the night and headed
homeward in the company of two colleagues and
friends—all three of us talking about the
paper we had heard and that large group of bright
students who gathered with us—I
couldn’t help but think that William Carey
Crane, whose name and inspiration had been
invoked earlier that evening—would have
been very pleased.
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Recent Events
Retreat for New Faculty and
Student Life Staff Held in May
On May 14-18, the Institute collaborated with
the Division of Student Life to sponsor a retreat
at Laity Lodge in the Hill Country west of San
Antonio for new Baylor faculty and staff in
Student Life. Vocation: Integrating Faith,
Learning, and Living gathered these two
groups for an unprecedented opportunity to
reflect upon their roles as professionals,
scholars, and teachers and the Christian ideas
and practices that animate their shared aims.
The retreat was led by four invited guests:
Anton Armstrong, the Harry R.
and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St.
Olaf College, conductor of the St. Olaf Choir,
and recipient of Baylor’s 2006 Robert
Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching;
Paul J.
Contino, Professor of Literature and
Associate Director of the Center for Faith and
Learning at Pepperdine University; John
O’Callaghan, Associate Professor
of Philosophy and Director of the Jacques
Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame;
and Rev. Julie
Pennington-Russell, former pastor of
Calvary Baptist Church of Waco, now serving as
pastor of First Baptist Church, Decatur,
Georgia.
The week-long program included formal
presentations titled “Called to
What?”, “Education as a Christian
Vocation”, “Putting the Academic
Vocation in Christian Perspective: Faith and
Hope”, and a panel discussion with
Armstrong, Contino, and O’Callaghan titled
“The Theological Exploration of Vocation:
Implications for the Curriculum and
Co-Curriculum.” Pennington-Russell led
morning and evening worship services each day of
the retreat.
Retreat participants offered highly positive
evaluations. One participant remarked, “The
retreat provided a time to re-center on my own
core convictions, and also the core convictions
of Baylor University. The fellowship was life
changing. I feel that I have been transformed by
this experience.” Another participant said,
“This experience exemplified what I’d
hoped joining Baylor would mean.”
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Baylor University Medical Ethics
Conference Held during Summer
The second Baylor University Medical Ethics
Conference under the shared leadership of
Baylor's Center for Christian Ethics and the
Institute for Faith and Learning was held June
8-9.
Featured speakers included: Mary
Louise Bringle, Ph.D., Professor of
Philosophy and Religion, Brevard College;
Therese Lysaught, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor of Theology, Marquette
University; Gilbert C. Meilaender,
Ph.D., Richard and Phyllis Duesenberg
Professor of Christian Ethics, Valparaiso
University; David Solomon,
Ph.D., W. P. and H. B. White Director,
Center for Ethics and Culture and Associate
Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre
Dame; Allen Verhey, Ph.D.,
Professor of Christian Ethics, Duke University
Divinity School; and Brian Volck,
M.D., Pediatrician and Volunteer
Instructor, Medicine and Pediatric Residency
Program, University of Cincinnati. The conference
series is funded in part through the Baylor
Horizons program, an initiative for the
exploration of vocation, funded by the Lilly
Endowment Inc.
Attendees included medical doctors, hospital
chaplains, nurses, and other medical
professionals. Conference organizers also were
pleased to have participation by students,
including representatives of Baylor's Medical
Humanities program, BU MEDS (Baylor University
Medical Ethics Discussion Society), and even a
pre-med student who accompanied her father,
himself a practicing physician, to the
conference.
Planning for the next conference already has
begun. The dates have been set for June 13-14,
2008. Details about the next conference will be
added to the Center for Christian Ethics'
website, www.ChristianEthics.ws,
as they become available. To be added to the
mailing list for this event, contact the Center
for Christian Ethics at (254) 710-3774.
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Crane Scholars News
The Crane Scholars Program, an initiative
directed by IFL for academically excellent Baylor
undergraduates interested in the connections
between faith, learning, and vocation, enjoyed an
eventful spring and now looks forward to a
promising academic year.
On March 23-25, the Crane Scholars Program
held its annual retreat at Moon River Ranch
outside Waco. Its theme was What is a
Christian University? The Reverend
Dr. Simon Oliver, a clergyman in the
Church of England and a professor of theology at
the University of Wales at Lampeter, led a group
of thirty-three Crane Scholars on a three-day
exploration of the distinctive intellectual,
moral, and spiritual dimensions of the Christian
university. The annual retreat provides Crane
Scholars the opportunity for sustained reflection
on the intellectual life as a form of Christian
vocation.
In early May, the Crane Scholars Program bid
farewell to Michael Hanby, who
served as the program’s director and
co-leader of the sophomore class cohort for three
years. At an end-of-year luncheon, Dr. Hanby
characterized his experience with the Crane
Scholars Program as the most rewarding part of
his experience at Baylor. The Crane Scholars
Program is enormously grateful to him for his
devoted service. Dr. Hanby has joined the faculty
of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on
Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of
America. Darin Davis, IFL
associate director, has assumed leadership of the
program.
On August 28, Dr. Davis and other program
leaders hosted a recruitment event that drew an
unprecedented crowd of over 150 students. For
addition details, see Dr. Davis’s column
above.
As the program begins to a new academic year,
it also welcomes new cohort leadership. This
year’s senior cohort will be led by:
Michael Beaty, professor and
chair of philosophy; Douglas
Henry, associate professor of philosophy
in the Honors College, faculty master of Brooks
Residential College, and IFL director; and
David Jeffrey, Distinguished
Professor of Literature and Humanities.
Davis joins Todd Buras,
assistant professor of philosophy, as a leader of
the sophomore cohort. The junior cohort
will continue to be led by Peter
Candler, assistant professor of theology
in the Honors College, and Michael
Foley, assistant professor of patristics
in the Honors College.
Finally, the Crane Scholars Program expresses
its deep gratitude to Virginia and Chris
Kearney, adjunct instructor of English
and associate professor of biology, respectively,
who last spring completed long-time service as
faculty leaders of the senior cohort. The
Kearneys were among the first faculty cohort
leaders of the program and served generously and
graciously for several years.
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Lilly Fellows Program Regional
Undergraduate Conference Convenes at Baylor
Under the direction of IFL, twenty-five
undergraduate students gathered at Baylor
February 22-24 for a Lilly Fellows Program
regional undergraduate conference titled
“What Real Friends Are For: Goodness,
Vocation, and the Quest for Goodness”.
Intended for outstanding undergraduates who
have academic promise and are open to considering
a vocation of service to church-related higher
education, the conference was led by
Charles Pinches (University of
Scranton), Jeanne Heffernan
Schindler (Villanova University), and
Paul Wadell (St. Norbert
College). Student participants represented
Abilene Christian University, Baylor,
Bethune-Cookman University, Concordia University
of Austin, the University of Dallas, the
University of the Incarnate Word, Mercer
University, Samford University, and Xavier of
Louisiana. Philosophy faculty
Robert
Kruschwitz and Margaret
Watkins Tate joined Darin
Davis, IFL associate director, as
discussion leaders.
Financial support was provided by the Lilly
Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts at
Valparaiso University.
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Roberts and Woods Publish
Intellectual Virtues with Oxford
University Press
The Institute for Faith and Learning offers
warm congratulations to Robert C.
Roberts, Distinguished Professor of
Ethics at Baylor, and W. Jay
Wood, Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton
College, who recently have published
Intellectual Virtues: An Essay on Regulative
Epistemology with Oxford University Press.
Professor Roberts and Wood’s research for
the book was supported in part by a fellowship
granted to Professor Wood as a visiting fellow of
the Institute in 2002-03.
In addition to expressing gratitude to the IFL
and its founding director, Michael
Beaty, Roberts and Wood write in their
acknowledgements that the fellowship that
supported their work “would not have
existed apart from a program of improvement in
the university more generally, a program called
‘Baylor 2012’, whose chief architects
were Robert Sloan and Don Schmeltekopf, with
high-energy implementation a little later by
David Jeffrey. These men also deserve our special
thanks for the wonders they worked at Baylor
during the first five years of the new
millennium.”
Click here for more information about Roberts
and Wood’s book.
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Take Note
Inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith
and Culture to Focus on Friendship
The inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith and
Culture will convene October 25-27. The IFL's
newest conference series aims to encourage
reflective engagement with the world of public
ideas and issues, especially in a way that
acknowledges the relevance of Christian
questions, convictions, and contributions. The
inaugural installment, Friendship: Quests for
Character, Community, and Truth, seeks to
gather a diverse group of scholars from across
the disciplines and from a variety of
institutions to engage the topic of friendship
and its transformative
possibilities—personal, civic, and
spiritual.
The conference will feature an opening address
by Robert D. Putnam, the Peter
and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at
Harvard University and author of the widely
acclaimed Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
Revival of American Community. In addition
to Putnam, plenary presentations will be offered
by C. Stephen Evans,
Paul J.
Griffiths, Thomas
Hibbs, Alan Jacobs,
Dominic Manganiello,
Mary Nichols, Charles
Pinches, Robert C.
Roberts, Nancy Sherman,
Paul Wadell, and
Carolinne
White. Over 100 contributed
papers also will be presented.
Additional conference details, a complete
schedule and registration information, are
available at www.baylor.edu/ifl/friendship.
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Recent Books on Faith and
Learning
Christianity and the Soul of the
University: Faith as a Foundation for
Intellectual Community. By Douglas V. Henry
and Michael D. Beaty, eds. Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2006. Pp. 192. $24.99 paper.
The Decline of the Secular
University. By C. John Somerville. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 158. $22.00
cloth.
Doing More With Life: Connecting Christian
Higher Education to a Call to Service. By
Michael R. Miller. Waco, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2007. Pp. 242. $29.95 paper.
Education, Religion, and Society: Essays
in Honor of John M. Hull. By Dennis Bates,
Gloria Durka, and Frierich Schweitzer. Oxford:
Routledge, 2006. Pp. 276. $135.00 cloth.
The Future of Baptist Higher
Education. By Donald D. Schmeltekopf and
Dianna M. Vitanza. Waco, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2006. Pp. 274. $34.95 paper.
The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational
Humanism and the Future of University
Education. By Norman Klassen and Jens
Zimmermann. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2006. Pp. 208. $16.99 paper.
Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society
through Christian Higher Education. By David
S. Dockery. Nashville, TN: Holman Academic, 2007.
Pp. 288. $19.99 paper.
The State of the University: Academic
Knowledges and the Knowledge of God. By
Stanley Hauerwas. Blackwell Publishing Limited,
2007. Pp. 232. $34.95 paper.
The Vocation of the Christian Scholar: How
Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the
Mind. By Richard T. Hughes. Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2005. Pp. 145. $15.00 paper.
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Calendar of Events
Upcoming at Baylor
- September 4, 2007
The Political Captivity of the Church?
John Wilson, Editor, Books &
Culture
Brown Bag Luncheon, Morrison 100, 12:30-1:30
p.m
Institute for Faith and Learning
- October 25-27, 2007
Friendship:
Quests for Character, Community, and
Truth
Inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith and
Culture
Institute for Faith and Learning
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Upcoming beyond Baylor
- September 13-15, 2007
Pluralism, Politics, and God? Considering
Rational Theism in the Public Sphere
Newman Centre
McGill University, Montréal, Canada
- October 11-13, 2007
Reimagining Educational Excellence
Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and
Learning
Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan
- October 12-13, 2007
The
Philosophical Legacy of Dietrich von
Hildebrand
The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project and
the M.A. Philosophy Program at Franciscan
University
Franciscan University of Steubenville,
Steubenville, Ohio
- October 19-21, 2007
Three Mirrors: Reflections on Faithful Living;
The Legacy of Robert Shaw, Flannery O'Connor,
and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The 2007 Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities
and the Arts
17th Annual National Conference
Mercer University, Macon, Georgia
- November 9-11, 2007
The Christian Worldview and the Academy
The Witherspoon Institute
Princeton, New Jersey
- November 29-December 1, 2007
The Dialogue of Cultures
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
Indiana
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