My job is -unusual- to say the least. It has a definite ebb and flow and
there are various seasons, but generally speaking no two are alike. The busiest
part of my year is August. Hands down, I will work 80 to a 100 hours most every
week and only see my apartment long enough to shower and sleep.
Then there is January. Before student hiring begins in February and before
conference season, I am in a quiet place of not having a pressing task or
appointment I have to keep each day, and my inbox stays at zero for an entire
week. It's at times like these that my imagination gets to roam and I get to
work on one of the favorite parts of my job: research and development.
Now, I don't have Ideation as one of my top five Strengths or even
Futuristic, so sometimes my love for research and development is strange to me
(if you don't know what Strengths are, check out this website:
www.strengthsfinder.com). But I do
have Developer, though it generally refers to developing people and not
programs, which gives me the strength of wanting to see things grow and become
better (deeper, bigger, more refined) than they are now. I also have
Analytical, which generally is my least favorite Strength because it means that
I can't turn my brain off, but for the purpose of research and development is
fantastic as my little problem solver upstairs can just go to town.
This semester, I am trying my hand for the first time at curriculum
development. I teach and am the administrator for the Learning and Transitions
Course that all new freshmen take at the institution I work for. Currently it
covers aspects of leadership (mostly self-leadership, character development and
personal mission statement creation), while providing a place for students to
be with a group of peers while they go through the often tumultuous transition
from high school to college.
However, looking to the future I would like to include broader philosophical
questions in the class about why they are even in college and what the purpose
of college, specifically a Christian Liberal Arts college, is for. So I am
beginning this research and development process by reading-a lot. Two days ago
I finished:
Make College Count: A Faithful Guide to Life and Learning
by Derek Melleby
. A small, thoughtful, engaging introduction to the
seemingly simple yet very deep questions a student should ask themselves before
they begin college.
Today, I finished
Why College Matters to God: An Introduction to the
Christian College by Rick Ostrander. For me the first reaction (besides
that it was a summary of my entire graduate degree) is that it felt very
devotional for me. As a book about the purpose of Christian liberal arts
education, it really gave me a renewed sense of purpose for my own vocation,
which is working in Christian higher education. I am often torn after seeing
images of fellow believers evangelizing or making an impact on critical social
and injustice issues around the world. I can see how desperately important
their work is, which causes me to question the importance of my own work.
But Ostrander's book has reminded me of just how critically important the
work I do is. In his book he challenges his readers (his audience being new
students to college) to realize that as Christians we have a responsibility to
glorify the Lord with our minds, not just to see schooling as the world so
often does-as a way to get a job to get a paycheck and pay for the things that
we want. But that by educating ourselves in how the world works (socially, biologically,
politically, artistically, etc.) we are then able to play a deeper role in
transforming the world to the way it should be through the redeeming power of
Christ. And by my raising student's awareness to this need, I am doing the
critical work of opening their eyes to see how important this call is. My call
and the call of our students is critically important.
Ostrander begins his book with an introduction to the concept of
worldview,
stating that it is a set of beliefs that dictate how we effect how we view the
world and then how we choose to take action in that world (Ostrander, pg. 19).
He tells the reader that a worldview is an important concept to begin with as every
education comes from a specific world view perspective which then affects and
shapes our worldviews. Christian education is no different and he lets us know
that for most of Christian Higher Education there is a unified worldview that
drives the function of those institutions.
He articulates this Biblical worldview being that of the meta-narrative of
Scripture set in three parts: 1. Creation 2. Fall 3. Redemption and
Consummation. He unpacks these in 3 subsequent chapters (after a chapter
summarizing a brief history of Christian higher education) discussing how each
of these parts has (deeply) impacted every aspect of higher education.
Creation-every aspect of this world has been created by our Lord God for
good things. And He set Adam and Eve into the garden to cultivate the earth
that He had created. As Christians, studying and interacting in this world is a
part of understanding the Creator God and His heart for us and in that world.
Fall-the fall tainted and covered every part of this creation. There is
no
part of this creation that is clean from the effects of sin. Therefore higher
education has been affected as well. We need to keep this in mind as we engage
higher education in order to recognize the systemic evils that are in place,
how the fall has impacted individual disciplines and determine what the
gestures and postures are that we take in response to these things (he borrowed
from Andy Crouch's
Culture Making for the gestures and postures
conversation-a book that I am currently reading at home!).
Redemption-the world as we know it will one day be redeemed and parts of our
cultural heritage will be a part of that: the best parts of cultural that are
worthy of being in a heavenly palace. So in education we should be working
toward creating cultural goods that are worthy to be a part of that palace. We
should be a part of redeeming creation to the way that God intended when it was
created; from politics, to the environment, to sex to food and nutrition to our
health, our science, our literature. It all needs to be redeemed. And as we
study in higher education from this Christian perspective, we are learning the
deep roots of our majors and disciplines which allows us to see the systematic
evils, learn how to ask the good questions (such as what would my discipline
look like if it were totally redeemed) and then have the skills and tools to go
into the world making change.
The second to last chapter of the books talks about what it means to have an
integration of faith and learning. That it is not just praying before class,
and it is not just relegated to the disciplines of theology and religion. Every
discipline needs to take heed to the Christian worldview and see how this
worldview explicitly and implicitly effects how we see and understand truth in
our majors.
Finally Ostrander discusses the importance of a Christian liberal-arts
education. He explains that if we believe the Christian worldview to be
correct, then a liberal arts education helps us to the end of redeeming
creation by giving us the tools to think deeply and critically about the whole
world, not just our disciplines. Creative, deep and critical thinkers are also
the type of individuals that employers are looking to hire now, more than
people with a specific skill set.
Ostrander’s purpose in writing his
book was to help Christian students to understand how important a Christian
liberal-arts higher education experience is to the Lord and His calling for us
in this world.
But, whether intentioned
or not, it is also a book for the professional in Christian Higher Education,
urging us to continue in our calling to help transform our students so that
they can then transform the world (transform language stolen and slightly
edited from my friends at the Coalition for Christian Outreach).
I recommend this book to any student wondering
why they should attend Christian higher education, but more so to any
professional needing help renewing their passion for work in Christian
liberal-arts education.
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