Center for Faith & Inquiry Honors Faculty Scholarship: Part I

Posted by  on Wednesday, February 13th 2013     

In an effort to promote outstanding scholarship that can reach both professional and public/church audiences, the Center for Faith and Inquiry recently announced its inaugural Fellows for the 2013-14 academic year. Congratulations to the follow faculty!

Ruth Melkonian-Hoover

Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, associate professor/chair of political science and international affairs, will continue her scholarship focus through a project entitled, “Evangelical Attitudes toward Immigrants and Immigration Reform”: 

“Designed to assess the impacts of Christian organizational advocacy within churches aimed at changing attitudes on immigration, and based on my prior research on evangelicals and immigration, World Relief asked me to assess the impact of their advocacy on the attitudes of evangelicals re: immigration and comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). I’ll pursue this by focused surveys and interviews of parishioners of churches in two key sites in which WR has concentrated its efforts , Denver and Chicago. I will also provide an analysis of recent public opinion data evaluating non-religious factors (economic, partisan, etc) as well as religious factors shaping evangelical attitudes on immigration and CIR. Over the summer I plan to combine my qualitative research into a research article and a WR report based on my overall research by early next fall.”

Karl-Dieter Crisman

Karl-Dieter Crisman, associate professor of mathematics, will continue his research on, “The Moral Case for Open-Source Software”: “Most of us in the academy are now familiar with the distinction between programs ‘on the desktop’ and ‘in the cloud.’ Similarly, one would have to withdraw from society not to understand the distinction between software you pay for and software you don’t have to pay for. But there is a third, crucial, distinction. It is the one between proprietary software and open source software, and it is only vaguely understood by most of us. Over my time at Gordon, I have become convinced that this distinction is of great significance, one with deep resonance with Christian thinking.  Through my ongoing research and this Fellowship, I hope to better  reach academic and lay audiences with this message.”

category: Academics, Center for Faith and Inquiry, Mathematics, Political Science

Art at the Intersection of Culture and Consumption

Posted by  on Tuesday, February 5th 2013     

This spring, the Spanish theatre journal Estreno (Estreno 39.1, pp 14-25) will publish an article from Pilar Pérez Serrano, associate professor of Spanish, her first in this respected journal. Here’s how Pérez Serrano described it:

Pérez Serrano

“The article entitled, “The Song of the Sirens: Awareness and Survival in the Era of Capitalism,” is about a new play written by Raúl Hernández Garrido, who I focused on in my dissertation. The name of the play is El canto de las sirenas.

Currently staged in Madrid together with eight others in a show called ‘Mein Kapital,’ the play is a collaborative effort among eight different playwrights from three different theatre companies and regions of Spain (Madrid, Cataluna, and Aragón). Their challenge for the stage is to think about and reflect upon the social consequences of Karl Marx’s critique of political economy in Das Kapital. (‘Mein’ actually comes from Hitler’s Mein Kampf! which is an interesting twist.) The eight plays criticize in one way or another, the extreme consumption that capitalism has created in our societies and the detrimental results that this consumption has in individuals and in collective groups alike.”

Learning to Sing by the Book

Posted by  on Friday, February 1st 2013     

Susan Brooks

After twenty three years of teaching voice at Gordon, Susan Brooks, professor of music, knows a thing or two about singing. That’s why she and her husband, Thomas Brooks, also a professor of music as well as a renowned choral director, have written How To Teach Teens to Sing: Voice Lessons and More, a new book for young singers and music educators alike. To be published this year, How to Teach Teens to Sing includes interactive components, CDs, photos and exercises. With another book underway for choral conductors, here’s how the Brooks describe How To Teach Teens to Sing:

“Practically all students enrolled in their high school choirs do not know how to sing. Unlike instrumentalists who by high school age have taken many  lessons on their instruments, most high school singers have had no instruction on how to properly use and improve their voices. Most of them have no skills for or experience with healthy singing. In fact nearly all teens have only been exposed to ‘pop’ singing, which in general does not foster good singing and in fact often leads to vocal problems and the deterioration of voices. It is our view that teenagers have difficulty learning to sing well, developing musical and artistic skills, and therefore contributing positively to their choruses without some solid vocal instruction. This book—a sequential set of 14 guided lessons—is designed to introduce and reinforce  the basic fundamentals of proper vocal technique to high school singers and those who teach them.

Readers of  How to Teach Teens to Sing learn the basics of vocal production and how to set up a sensible system of  learning to sing based on a sequential weekly lesson format. They’ll see real progress take place as the student (and teacher) work to improve and strengthen the voice, and improve their understanding of vocal problems and have some diagnostic tools in place to begin to correct them. Finally, they’ll experience a higher degree of expertise and feel more confident as individual voices and skills improve.

The book also includes access to a website for students and teachers containing more in-depth voice information with links to even more sources including video clips and interactive models, pictures, and graphics; an anthology of songs (hard copy); a CD of recorded piano song accompaniments, and a teacher’s DVD presenting fourteen 10-minute sample lessons which correspond to the fourteen lessons found in the text book. Teachers can watch a lesson being taught to a high school student using the actual concepts from the textbook. In other words, we wanted this to be a practical and easy-to-use resource, one we know is really needed out there, and we think it accomplishes that!”

The Superbowl of Birding, Really

Posted by  on Friday, January 25th 2013     

Greg Keller

Instead of a helmet, Greg Keller, associate professor of conservation biology, grabbed his binoculars to compete in the tenth annual “Superbowl of Birding” on January 26, 2013, at the Joppa Flats Education Center in Newburyport, MA. Held in Pennsylvania and Delaware in years past, this year’s birdwatching competition took place during New England’s arctic season and invited participates to spot as many species as possible in the course of a 12-hour (frigid!) day. Keller—who is also the curator of Gordon’s bird and mammal exhibit—took along four students to compete in the day’s various categories: from greatest number of species tallied from a fixed point to the highest number counted of new life birds. Keller expected to see a variety of warblers, sparrows and finches. In all over 300 species have been spotted on the North Shore. 

After the competition, Keller offered these highlights:

“The final tally for the total number of species was 121 for all teams combined. We found over half, and finished tied for 7th, with 62 species (20 species behind the winners). As a group, we had the most life birds (birds not ever seen by our participants), with a total of 106 new species.  Sam Mason (biology major) won the Lifer Award with 38 new species that he had never seen before.

The species that were really great finds for us included Razorbills at Plum Island (flying penguin-like birds of the north), two Peregrine Falcons in Gloucester, Pine Grosbeaks in Newbury (really rare finch that shows up from the north only about every 7 to 8 years), six different gull species, and a Merlin zipping around Appleton Farms (a small falcon). We had two 5-point species (the rare ones that we have to call in if we see them), including the Pine Grosbeaks and a Western Grebe at Plum Island (a very rare western bird that showed up a few weeks ago and stayed around for the competition).

But we also had some significant misses.  We couldn’t find a Wild Turkey to save our lives, even though I had seen two flocks the day before.  And over the course of 12 hours, we didn’t see a single White-throated Sparrow, one of the most common birds in the winter here!  Embarrassing! Considering the temperatures never went above 20 degrees, and the wind was a steady 15 mph, with gusts up to 35 mph, it was brutal. 

Our first bird, which took us 1.5 hours of darkness to find, was an American Crow.  The last bird, after 11 hours in the field, was a Mourning Dove. What a day!”

The Benefits of E. coli, and Other Collaborative Efforts

Posted by  on Wednesday, January 23rd 2013     

No one does science alone. In fact, Justin Topp, associate professor of biology, is proof, having watched many opportunities present themselves as a result of his involvement in the formation of the North Shore Biotechnology Consortium. Topp believes the Consortium will benefit both faculty and staff in the sciences across the North Shore.  Here’s a glimpse of the partnerships and projects Topp is involved in:

Justin Topp

“One Consortium project in particular that I am involved in is to create a ‘Google Map’ of protein expression in one of the most well studied organisms on this planet, E. coli.  Although most of the general public thinks E. coli is something to be scared of, there is actually  ’good’ (beneficial) and ‘bad’ (pathogenic, i.e. cause disease) strains.  And unfortunately, as is common with humans, the ‘bad’ strains are the ones that get all the attention!  In reality, you are quite happy to have one of the ‘good’ strains in your gut making vitamin K for you as we speak. 

“The ‘Google Map’ project is a collaborative proteomics effort with scientists at Cell Signaling, Sage Science, and Waters (all companies on the North Shore) to make a visual and interactive database of all of the proteins expressed by a common laboratory (non-pathogenic strain) of E. coli.  This tool will be of great use for other scientists as it could serve as a living reference for many other studies, including making it easier to compare, characterize, and even better treat novel pathogenic strains that cause severe disease in humans.

“The Consortium has also helped create additional opportunities for our students.

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Oscar Season: Talking About the Movies Everyone’s Talking About

Posted by  on Tuesday, January 15th 2013     

Rini Cobbey, one of Gordon’s resident film critics

By Rini Cobbey, associate professor of communication arts

With the Golden Globes over, 2013’s “award show season” is official, culminating in the Oscars on February 24. Entertainment awards matter. The Academy Awards matter in particular, despite the often awkward show itself, because they reflect what our mass entertainers present as “excellent entertainment,” in all the complexities of both those terms. The nominated movies don’t always make the most money, so they don’t reflect the “people’s choice” —although social media certainly brings us critics populous out in force; indeed, here I go.

This year the Academy nominated nine films in the Best Picture category. As of this writing, I’ve seen seven. One of the remaining two (Amour) hasn’t yet been screened near me, and the other I’ll see later this week, but am not afraid to offer my opinion on it pre-viewing! As a film professor, I try to see every nominated film in the top categories by Oscar night. But, should you? With just a few weeks remaining, you may need to make some choices.

After all, movies offer us many different experiences: we’re entertained, persuaded, challenged, and connected. Do you want to see the movie everyone’s going to be talking about? Or a movie that will amuse you, make you—for a while at least—feel more happy or excited than usual? Do you want to see a movie that will teach you something new, or provoke you to think or act in more enlightened ways? Or perhaps you’re looking for something well-crafted, in sound, story, composition, and movement, aesthetically excellent as a whole?

The most flat-out entertaining film of the lot is . . .

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The Case for Economic Growth and Winter Discussions

Posted by  on Wednesday, January 9th 2013     

Even during the winter break, professors were interacting with colleagues in their field. Many from the English and Language and Linguistics departments attended the Modern Language Association conference in Boston.

Stephen Smith

But some, like Stephen Smith, professor of economics and business, flew across country to San Diego, CA.  Smith, along with Bruce Webb, retired professor of economics and business and Edd Noell of Westmont College, organized a session entitled, “The Case for Economic Growth: Where Does the Modern Debate Stand?” for the Association of Christian Economists during the American Economics Association conference, January 4-6. Here’s what Smith said about the session, which he chaired:

“We were pleased that the room was packed with more than 65 attendees.  Each of the participants spoke on a particular dimension of the current debate about economic growth.  Ben Friedman of Harvard University—who literally wrote the book on morality and growth, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth— argued from a secular point of view that the conventional wisdom that growth poses a choice ‘between material positives and moral negatives’ is fundamentally mistaken.

“Rather, he maintained, growth makes tolerance, democracy and other civic virtues more likely to emerge where they have been absent, and more likely to strengthen where they already exist. Bob Nelson of the University of Maryland expounded on the tensions between (some) environmentalists and economists on growth, which he argues are rooted in contending worldviews about the status of the environment.

“These worldviews, though secular, are fundamentally religious in nature.  Paul Glewwe of Oxford University assessed the empirical record of how and to what extent growth improves welfare in poor countries; interestingly, some kinds of social indicators, such as infant mortality, seem much more positively related to growth than do others, and while there is a consensus amongst economists that growth helps the poor achieve higher welfare the specific mechanisms by which this occurs are hard to estimate precisely.  Finally, Edd Noell assessed the moral arguments for and against growth in rich countries, paying particular attention to recent Christian critiques of growth.  He argued that growth is on balance desirable and can be defended in Christian ethical terms.  His comments drew heavily from our new book, with Bruce Webb, Human Flourishing: The Case for Economic Growth, which is forthcoming this February from AEI Press.  Before the end of the session some lively Q&A ensued and we were glad to have been able to address this important topic in this way.”

The Massacre of Innocents: A History Professor Reflects on the Newtown Tragedy

Posted by  on Thursday, January 3rd 2013     

Tal Howard, director of the Center for Faith and Inquiry

(Editor’s note: This essay also appeared January 7, 2013, on the Patheos web site, as well as January 5, 2013, in the print and online editions of the Salem News.) 

By Tal Howard, professor of history

The senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, prior to Christmas continues to haunt me. We have had school shootings in this country before, to be sure, but the age of the victims puts this case, in my mind at least, in a category by itself.

Too bad for public discourse that the “lesson” of this tragedy quickly became a bone of contention between those who want to limit gun rights and those who think “mental health issues” and our culture of violence bear the blame. Am I wrong when I say that most sensible people believe that this is an all-of-the-above no-brainer: some restrictions on military-grade weapons and attention to mental health questions and criticism of our violent popular culture should be part of any solution?

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Faculty Kudos: Essays, Books and Professional Contributions

Posted by  on Thursday, December 20th 2012     

As the fall 2012 semester came to a close, there was much to celebrate with our faculty’s many recent contributions in their respective fields. Here’s a very brief overview:

Provost Curry

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an essay by Provost Janel Curry this week in its careers section. The essay entitled, “The Education of a Provost” chronicles Dr. Curry‘s path to her position at Gordon and reminds readers that no part of their journey is wasted. 

Craig Story

Craig Story, associate professor of biology and advisor for Gordon’s health professions, and Justin Topp, associate professor of biology, recently received news of a generous grant from the BioLogos Foundation to “build an international network of pastors committed to increasing their scientific literacy.” (A formal announcement will be forthcoming.)

Assistant professor of English Chad Stutz just signed a contract for a book published by British house Paternoster Press as part of their Studies in Evangelical History and Thought series. With a tentative title, Evangelicals and Aesthetics from the 1750s to the 1930s, the book provides an intellectual history of a largely forgotten tradition of aesthetic discourse among British and American evangelicals between the time of the first awakenings of a modern aesthetic consciousness in the eighteenth century to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century.

Gordon education students with students from Lynn Classical High

Gordon education students in the course, Understanding the Context of the Urban School and ESL students from Lynn Classical High collaborated on an interactive field trip exploring the benefits of higher education, thanks to adjunct professor of education and alumna Melissa Winchell who organized the event.

Judith Oleson, professor of social work, supervised nine social work students in field placements in Romania, San Francisco, and throughout Boston’s North and South Shores. Students served in various councils on aging, youth and family services agencies, Catholic Charities, and specific intervention programs.

In an essay entitled, “More Powerful Than Words” and published in the Huffington Post, Brian Glenney, assistant professor of philosophy, explored the impact of symbols through his Accessibility Icon Project. 

Professor of history Jennifer Hevelone-Harper wrote an editorial entitled, “How St. Francis Made Christmas New and Smelly” that appeared on the opinion page of the Salem News, a regional newspaper that reaches several thousand in circulation across the North Shore of Boston.

Missions and the Christian Church in a Changing World

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 18th 2012     

Paul Borthwick

Between his many global travels, conferences, speaking engagements and teaching, Paul Borthwick, adjunct professor of Christian ministries, somehow found the time to write another book. Just released by InterVarsity Press, Borthwick‘s book, Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of North American Church? provides a current analysis on how the Western church is viewed through the eyes of Majority World leaders.  His book offers an appraisal of the North American church as well as the Majority World Church while also providing specific and theologically-based ideas for moving forward, calling for a return to our passions to serve and follow the Christ of history. 

Because of his book’s recent publication, Borthwick was a podcast guest on the blog, God and Culture, which you can listen to here. He will also be a featured speaker at this year’s Urbana Missions Conference. Here’s how his publisher described his newest book: 

“The world has changed. A century ago, Christianity was still primarily centered in North America and Europe. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Christianity had become a truly global faith, with Christians in Asia, Africa and Latin America outpacing those in the rest of the world. There are now more Christians in China than in all of Europe, more Pentecostals in Brazil than in the United States, and more Anglicans in Kenya than in Great Britain, Canada and the United States combined. Countries that were once destinations for western missionaries are now sending their own missionaries to North America.

“Given these changes, some think the day of the Western missionary is over. Some are wary that American mission efforts may perpetuate an imperialistic colonialism. Some say that global outreach is best left to indigenous leaders. Others simply feel that resources should be focused on the home front. Is there an ongoing role for the North American church in global mission? Missions specialist Paul Borthwick brings an urgent report on how the Western church can best continue in global mission.”

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