Professors Who Believe

Professors Who Believe
Author: Paul M. Anderson
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1998-12-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780830815999

Here are the stories of twenty-two Christian faculty who tell in their own words the difference that Christ has made in their lives and work, offering thoughtful models of how faith can not only survive but thrive in the university.

How Professors Think

How Professors Think
Author: Michèle Lamont
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2009-07-31
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674054156

Excellence. Originality. Intelligence. Everyone in academia stresses quality. But what exactly is it, and how do professors identify it? In the academic evaluation system known as “peer review,” highly respected professors pass judgment, usually confidentially, on the work of others. But only those present in the deliberative chambers know exactly what is said. Michèle Lamont observed deliberations for fellowships and research grants, and interviewed panel members at length. In How Professors Think, she reveals what she discovered about this secretive, powerful, peculiar world. Anthropologists, political scientists, literary scholars, economists, historians, and philosophers don’t share the same standards. Economists prefer mathematical models, historians favor different kinds of evidence, and philosophers don’t care much if only other philosophers understand them. But when they come together for peer assessment, academics are expected to explain their criteria, respect each other’s expertise, and guard against admiring only work that resembles their own. They must decide: Is the research original and important? Brave, or glib? Timely, or merely trendy? Pro-diversity or interdisciplinary enough? Judging quality isn’t robotically rational; it’s emotional, cognitive, and social, too. Yet most academics’ self-respect is rooted in their ability to analyze complexity and recognize quality, in order to come to the fairest decisions about that elusive god, “excellence.” In How Professors Think, Lamont aims to illuminate the confidential process of evaluation and to push the gatekeepers to both better understand and perform their role.

What the Best College Teachers Do

What the Best College Teachers Do
Author: Ken Bain
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2011-09-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674065549

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators. The short answer is—it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn. In stories both humorous and touching, Ken Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students’ discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
Author: Randy Pausch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Cancer
ISBN: 9780340978504

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Did America Have a Christian Founding?

Did America Have a Christian Founding?
Author: Mark David Hall
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400211115

A distinguished professor debunks the assertion that America's Founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state and instead shows that their political ideas were profoundly influenced by their Christian convictions. In 2010, David Mark Hall gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation entitled "Did America Have a Christian Founding?" His balanced and thoughtful approach to this controversial question caused a sensation. C-SPAN televised his talk, and an essay based on it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. In this book, Hall expands upon this essay, making the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists. He explains why and how the Founders' views are absolutely relevant today, showing that they did not create a "godless" Constitution; that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state; that most Founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons. This compelling and utterly persuasive book will convince skeptics and equip believers and conservatives to defend the idea that Christian thought was crucial to the nation's founding--and that this benefits all of us, whatever our faith (or lack of faith).

Give Me an Answer

Give Me an Answer
Author: Cliffe Knechtle
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1986-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780877845690

Cliffe Knechtle offers clear, reasoned and compassionate responses to the tough questions skeptics ask.

Philosophers Who Believe

Philosophers Who Believe
Author: Kelly James Clark
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1997-10-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780830815432

Eleven leading philosophers, including Basil Mitchell, Mortimer Adler, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Richard Swinburne, describe why they have embraced Christian belief and offer fascinating insights into their individual spiritual journeys. Edited by Kelly James Clark.

Not God's Type

Not God's Type
Author: Holly Ordway
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2014-07-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1681493578

This is the story of a glorious defeat. Ordway, an atheist academic, was convinced that faith was superstitious nonsense. As a well-educated college English professor, she saw no need for just-so stories about God. Secure in her fortress of atheism, she was safe (or so she thought) from any assault by irrational faith. So what happened? How did she come to “lay down her arms” in surrender to Christ and then, a few years later, enter the Catholic Church? This is the moving account of her unusual journey. It is the story of an academic becoming convinced of the truth of Christianity on rational grounds — but also the account of God’s grace acting in and through her imagination. It is the tale of an unfolding, developing relationship with God — told with directness and honesty — and of a painful surrender at the foot of the Cross. It is the account of a lifelong, transformative love of reading and the story of how a competitive fencer put down her sabre to pick up the sword of the Spirit. Above all, this book is a tale of grace, acting in and through human beings but always issuing from God and leading back to Him. And it is the story of a woman being brought home.

The Professor Is In

The Professor Is In
Author: Karen Kelsky
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2015-08-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0553419420

The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.

The Last Professors

The Last Professors
Author: Frank Donoghue
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2008
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0823228592

Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces--social, political, and institutional--dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. --from publisher description.