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Different Kinds of Colleges and Universities

So I started this short thread on teaching by saying that I wanted to reflect on the different kinds of institutions of higher learning there are in this country.  What prompted the thread (I thought it would take all of one post, but this is #4 and some more may be coming) was my experience at two very fine liberal arts colleges over the past ten days, Colorado College in Colorado Springs and Centre College in Danville KY.  These two schools are very different from one another in fundamental ways, but they are both small colleges (I forget the numbers; I think Colorado College is maybe around 2000 students and Centre around 1200) that focus on the liberal arts. I teach at a state research university with about 29,000 students.  It’s a big difference.  And I’m struck by it whenever I give a lecture at a small liberal arts college.  Let me say yet again, I absolutely love teaching at UNC and don’t want to trade it for anything else.   But there are pluses and [...]

2020-04-03T18:34:46-04:00April 22nd, 2013|Reflections and Ruminations, Teaching Christianity|

Being on Leave

As I may have mentioned on the blog already, I am on academic leave this entire year. Most places call that a sabbatical, but in North Carolina sabbatical is a four-letter word. The idea here is that since we are state-employees and, well, other state-employees don’t get time off from their day job to do their research – so why should professors? Interesting point. But of course for professors at research universities, it is all about the research. When I was in my PhD program, my plan was to teach in a Christian seminary or divinity school, hopefully one like Princeton Theological Seminary, where in addition to training future ministers, faculty have a chance to train PhD students – who will themselves go out to teach and train future ministers. I got into the Bible business as a seventeen-year old eager to learn all I could about the Bible since I believed it was the word of God (more about that, possibly, in a future post); I eventually changed my views about the Bible (as, [...]

2020-04-03T19:01:24-04:00January 29th, 2013|Bart’s Biography, Reflections and Ruminations|
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